Welcome

Welcome to the organizational undercarriage of the Ten Bolts Workshop.

What is the Ten Bolts Workshop?

Ten Bolts Workshop (XBW) is a community workshop located in rural Vershire, VT, structured as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity.

It aims to serve in three ways:

1. A fully-equipped self-service workshop for members with a tool library available for check-out at the XBW Building.
2. A unique XBW Dojo aimed at teens and adults providing a weekly mentored curriculum focused around specific tools, methods, and projects.
3. Recurring Classes and Workshops of varying skill levels, with an Instructor-in-Residence program.

The vision for Ten Bolts Workshop is not just a repository of tools and resources, but an aesthetically rich mixed-use space for collaboration, expertise, and the physical manifestation of imagination serving a community that values self-sufficiency, curiosity, and making things.

The Ten Bolts

The name "Ten Bolts Workshop" is a reference to artist Tom Sachs' "Ten Bullets" methodology. These principals were published as a zine and are used as (part of) the manual and ethos for working in his studio space in NYC.

Note from Pol on the Concept

The reason for using this "themed methodology" is twofold: 1) It just resonates with me. It feels both playful and serious, kind of like the rules of Black Rock City but more requirement than recommendation. 2) My life is full of chaos, and I want a place to practice discipline playfully.

The principals set the space apart as unique. It's something more weird and artsy. A way to use discipline as a guide for the creative spirit and signal that the space is more than just a place for tools or a business opportunity.

It isn't that I love or revere the art of Tom Sachs (and most of the principals have been renamed/reworked). It is the vibe of his studio that I have a crush on, the pervasive artistic patina on everything, the careful balance of organization and clutter. A deep reverence for the mortality of physical things. The commitment to creating a space for disciplined creation. It is not "just another makerspace". It is a wizard's tower crossed with a pagan temple crossed with a commercial kitchen crossed with a art studio.

In my vision, art drives everything about the space, it feels like it is made of an unexpected coherence of art and discipline. A sacred space dedicated to organized creation within a sea of chaos.

Finally: Bullets suck. Get the hell out of here with your bullets. You can't build anything with bullets. You build stuff with bolts.

The Ten Bolts

• Bolt I: Sacred Space
  • Working spaces are sacred spaces. Silence phones, take calls outside.
• Bolt II: Leave It Better
  • Clean up after yourself, improve as you go.
• Bolt III: Be Present
  • Take care of your health and mind. Pay attention. Bring your whole self.
• Bolt IV: Understand and Consent
  • Communicate frequently and fearlessly. Cooperation.
• Bolt V: Follow the Rules
  • Follow the rules. Work to code. Don't make us make a rule!
• Bolt VI: Learn from Failure
  • Own your mistakes, reflect. The only true failure is one you don't learn from.
• Bolt VII: Write it Down
  • Keep a record. Lists, logs, todos and dones. Musings, thoughts, and actions.
• Bolt VIII: Kind, Generous, and Ready to Help
  • Community spirit. Empathy. Compassion.
• Bolt IX: Sweat the Details
  • The little things matter, be thorough. Masterpiece is in the details.
• Bolt X: Persist
  • Nothing is more powerful than persistence. Make something that outlasts you. Persevere.

References

• Tom Sachs Zine: https://store.tomsachs.com/products/ten-bullets-zine
• Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p1JVLHUo

The Non-Profit Entity

The impetus for this whole thing is that against all rational expectations, Pol won the auction for the XBW Building. He has always wanted a workshop, but this is much more than a workshop. This is so much more. This is the realization of a dream. However, he cannot do it alone, and we require organization and coordination. That's what this is all for.

The org will also be a test-bed for theories of governance that Pol has wanted to experiment with (if possible and the rest of the board doesn't care). Otherwise it's purpose will be similar to other non-profits. It will provide the services and own the equipment and be a target for charitable giving and grants.

More information on the XBW Non-Profit Org.

The Facilities

XBW will lease the space from Pol (initially at $0) and manage it. It has full control over how it manages the space. How the building space will get divided up is still totally up in the air. There are some ideas of what should happen, but nothing is set in stone. For example, at least one other group will be leasing three rooms on the first floor and also there is a residential apartment.

Help figuring out how to deal with the space is greatly appreciated, more info on the XBW Building property page for more info.

What is this website/repository?

This website is the repository of all of the organizational files for the Ten Bolts Workshop (XBW) project. The repository has the following sections:

• Wiki: Project documentation. This is where all of the ideation goes. This includes the details about the non-profit organization (org chart, board positions, etc). Information about the services that are being provided... basically everything that would have normally gone into google docs will go here instead.
  
• Issues: Todo list items for the project.
  
• Forum: Asynchronous communications space for ideas, thoughts, experiments, brainstorming, etc.
• Chat: Synchronous chat. This is experimental and it might not work.
• File Repository: This is where files will live that we want to be tracked in version control. It will have images that are published on the internet, the website, any downloadable materials that we want to host, etc.
• Unversioned Files: Files that we don't feel confident should bloat the repo forever. For example, the poorly made blender model of the building is in there (along with the polycam RoomAPI object scans).

No, I mean what is this?

Oh, this is a Fossil repository. Fossil is the source code management system used by SQLite and the codebase that fossil itself uses. All of the features are features of the repo itself. It's like a tiny self-contained github that can be moved around as a single file. When you clone the repository, you are cloning everything - the forum, the wiki, the chat... everything.

Technically the repository itself is just an sqlite database, and you interact with it using the fossil binary, which is just a single complied executable written in C. It runs everywhere and doesn't need to be installed.

Honestly it is an amazing piece of software, and we are a lil bit smitten with it. It is a beautiful, weird piece of software that feels like a portable hole (you just keep finding more useful things in it).

Why do I need a login?

The SQLite development org went with a Cathedral philosophy instead of Bazaar, and Fossil was built around that model. This is an open source software ideology that describes two contradictory methods of organization.

The Cathedral methodology is centralized, with a default posture of trust in the members who are granted access. This requires that the organization is more careful about choosing members, and each member is given a lot of trust and capability by default (the capabilities err on the side of "restrict only when required"). All members have a lot of capability by default.

The Bazaar methodology is distributed, with a default posture of distrust of the members (who can often be anonymous). Most actions and changes require approval from someone else in the organization with more privileges. The default capabilities are zero, and members must be granted authorization to do things in a granular way.

The Cathedral philosophy is better aligned with the mission and vision of XBW. Assume the good of members by default, and only lock things down as required. Default with a posture of trust, instead of mistrust. Anonymity is incompatible with trust. The org needs users for organizational sanity, attribution and community - not for bureaucratic hierarchy and surveillance.

Why is this?

I wanted to see if it was possible to do this without using Google.... at all. This might seem crazy in this day and age, but I want to try and see how practical it is.

About this Page

This is the main page for the project organization repository (managed in the /wiki). It is configured to be the landing page for the site, so it should have all the info on it that people need to get an idea of wtf they are looking at.