🔧 Boiler inspection 🔦

DISCLAIMER:

Within a context of generalized precarity and massive rise of the costs of life, maintenance has become an extremely delicate and contradicting practice for self-organized cultural initiatives which run and maintain independent digital infrastructures.
The present form is a tool to inspect the current status of maintenance within such initiatives, attempting to zoom-in into their everydays struggles and contradictions in the self-administered survival of digital solidarity networks. The hope is that of triggering discussion and elaborate on questions like WHAT NEEDS TO BE MAINTAINED AND HOW? WHAT IS DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN? WHAT NEEDS TO NOT BE MAINTAINED? WHICH COLLECTIVITY IS ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN THE MAINTENANCE?

WARNING:The boiler inspection will take around 60min, but obstacles and difficult conversation might stretch the inspection time up to 3 hours. The questions present in the inspection might not encompass all the issues and might generate even more questions; yet they might be used to address internal and/or external unspoken conflicts in a formalized way. Answers to the questions do not pretend to be exhaustive, and solutions MIGHT NOT BE GRANTED.

Please, be wary that some of the questions might trigger anxiety, dizziness, headache, tension and/or confusion. If you experience any of these symptoms feel free to verbalize and discuss them, or to take a break, or to have a walk, or to leave blank spaces, or to leave thick black marks, or to fold the corners of the form, ot to rip them off, or to crumple up the whole form. In case none of the previous mentioned options is softening your symptoms, an appendix of relaxing strategies and tecniques will be provided, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.

PLEASE MARK WITH THE SYMBOLS ⚠️ or 🔥 or 😡 ANY SENSITIVE INFORMATION YOU WISH NOT TO BE PUBLIC. Such information will be held as professional secret.

GETTING READY: Find the appropriate time and space for the boiler inspection. Ask not to be disturbed.
Find a comfortable position, and take a deep breath.
Now you can turn the page and start inspecting the boiler of your organization.

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Inspection form

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name of the organization
inspected on by
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1. description of the boiler

Age of the organization:

short description of the organization's activity

The following infrastructural elements are collectively used by the organization for its activities (select multiple):

Map of the boiler:
schematic drawing of the overall infrastructure, including the elements above mentioned

All the people inside the organization have "equal" access and/or basic knowledge of the infrastructural elements marked above and drawed on the map.
Write T (true) or F (false) next to their checkboxes and mark them with a cross on the map.

Is the organization ONLY using FLOSS (Free Open Source) software for their activities?
yes yes, but... no

If no, which proprietary softare are present?

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Governance

Formal number of people inside the organization
Actual number of people involved in activities of governance and maintenance of the organization

What organizational model is used?
collective
member based
informal group
other:

Are tasks clearly and fairly distributed (for example, not only based on the skills and knowledge of each individual)?
yes yes, but...no

Who can make decisions?
everyone in the organization
some in the organization
a representative
people outside of the organization
Others

How are decision making processes moderated?

Is the organization taking all the necessary caring procedures for eventual turnover (for example with exhaustive documentation)? How?

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Administration

What are the sources of income? (select multiple)
Contributions from private individuals incl. companies, or associations of friends
Contributions from private funds
Contributions from charity lotteries
Other contributions from private resources
Contributions from public funds
Subsidy government (culture funds)
Municipality subsidy
European Union subsidy
Other subsidies from public organizations
Beers
Meals
"In kind" facilities
"In kind" material
Coverage of travel costs
Coverage of accomodation costs
Other

Average number of other jobs that the organization's members have:

Dependency of the members on the organization's income stream. Score from 1 (not at all) to 10 (a lot.)

Is the current funding model/schema sustainable and wage fairly distributed? (Please elaborate)

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working conditions

Do people work:
on a contract basis
on a freelance basis
on a voluntary basis
other

score the following from 1 to 10 ( 1 = not at all, 10 = a lot.)

Space and resources for failure

Autonomy from bigger cultural institutions and their agenda

Space and resource for learning administration work

Space and resources for learning technical things

Space and resources for research and experimentation

Frustration due to technical issues

Time dedicated to connect with the components(members) of the organization

Time dedicated to repair broken things?

Time dedicated to the organization outside of designated moments

Mental load*: check as many as you feel metally loaded.
* It indicates the feeling of saturation and overload due to extra time dedicated to think and worry about the organization outside of designated working hours.

Anxiety experienced

How many nervous breakdown in the past year?

Frustration due to inter-personal misunderstandings

Is time dedicated to address unsolved conflicts among the members of the organization?
yes yes, but... no

Are there space and resources for emotional support?
score from 1 to 10 (1 = there's none, 10 = there's a loooot)

other

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TBC Q&A

Space for more questions: