Dangerosity
Gangplank changed my life. Literally. On June 18th 2008, after hearing about something called hacknight from someone named @dneighbors on twitter, I attended my first hacknight. At the time, I assumed that it was a regular occurrence, and that most of the people there were regulars. Apparently remi Taylor made that same assumption. We both met that night, and just believed the other to be some long standing member of the community.
It didn’t take long to become a regular at Gangplank. I started spending my non-work hours there, learning to be a better programmer and working on side projects. I went on to work for both Forty and Integrum, two of the companies that make Gangplank what it is.
From the moment I walked in the door, I had an understanding of what Gangplank was. The point. The reason it was better. I was in love. I had finally found somewhere to be.
One of the things that I loved about Gangplank was the attitude. The “no red tape allowed” attitude. The “we’re going to get shit done, and it’s going to be awesome” attitude. In short, “be dangerous”.
Be. Dangerous.
I’ve seen this coming for a long time. Gangplank has been slowly becoming less dangerous and more tame. More rules than guidelines. More control and less freedom. Like all marches towards benevolent dictatorship, this was “for the good of the community”. We were told to tolerate it because “it is only temporary”, or because it was helping us get more attention. And, get more attention, we did. Maybe no one else was concerned about the increasing number of news crews, or the growing mainstream media attention. Maybe I’m the only one who felt that the brownbag presentations took a turn towards corporate commercials a long time ago. But, I doubt it. This is the direction WE went. That we ALLOWED ourselves to go. We wanted to be more mainstream. More official.
Unfortunately, we’re losing the very thing that attracted me to Gangplank in the first place. We’re becoming what I came to Gangplank to escape: corporate.
There’s a growing population at Gangplank that seems to have forgotten our core values, if “dangerosity” can be a value. That group is of the mindset that things like being dangerous keeps normal people out. That the word hacker encourages distaste, that reaching out to our core audience limits our effective radius.
Those things are all true. And, as far as I’m concerned, all good reasons WHY WE SHOULD KEEP THEM.
Maybe I misinterpreted the vision two years ago. Maybe I misunderstood the point. Maybe this was always the destination, and I let my enthusiasm for my interpretation make me shortsighted.
But, Gangplank isn’t my baby. It isn’t my vision. It’s ours. And, if we don’t like the direction the ship is going, it is up to us to do something about it.
I’ve made it my mission to do what I can to preserve as much of the culture as I can. I speak out about things that I’m not a fan of. I’ve made efforts to be involved in more, to create things for others to be a part of. I’ve been reaching out to new people when I’m off site.
I’ve talked with enough other people to know that I’m not the only one worried about going soft. There are enough of us to keep this from happening.
All you have to do is be dangerous.
