[hackerspaces] Leadership abusing powers. Bullying. Extraordinary General Meetings.

peter phm at riseup.net
Sun Feb 22 02:58:01 CET 2015 

I still don't know what they think I've done wrong.

Which part of the Code of Conduct am I supposed to have violated? How 
did I harass people IRL? (What does the CCTV show?). As has been pointed 
out by others, the ban post is very low on details.

I feel very confident that I can defend all of my posts. I was not rude 
or abusive. I was not trolling. They were my genuine thoughts. They were 
all relevant to the hackspace.

It may be the case that they annoyed some people, but that's because 
some people find some ideas/people annoying.

Why couldn't they just ignore threads that they didn't like?

<rophl> and let's just say the person doing the escalating was usually 
not pete42




On 21/02/15 00:27, Edward L Platt wrote:
> From the outside, this looks like a pretty good example of how leaders 
> *should* respond to a complaint. Members complained, and they 
> responded by:
>
> - taking the member complaint seriously
> - issuing clear warnings
> - giving specifics about what the problem was
> - following agreed-upon procedures
>
> Some questions to ask in cases like this:
> - Why are people complaining about your behavior?
> - Do you disagree with the code of conduct, or do you disagree with 
> how it's being applied?
> - Is the leadership applying policies unevenly? If so, how?
>
> It sounds like you have a disagreement with a majority of the 
> leadership, and at least some of the members about what types of 
> behavior are acceptable. If this is really an abuse of power, there 
> are probably a lot of bystanders who are just going along with things 
> because they don't want to make a fuss. I second the suggestion of 
> finding them privately. Otherwise, you have to decide what's more 
> important to you: being a part of that community, or not having to 
> follow their norms.
>
> -Ed
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 3:56 PM, peter <phm at riseup.net 
> <mailto:phm at riseup.net>> wrote:
>
>
>     Does anyone have advice/experience with the leadership abusing
>     their powers, doing unconstitutional/unethical things?
>     (specifically: bullying members with mental 'abnormalities').
>
>     What happened? Did anyone try to stop it? Has anyone ever called
>     an EGM
>     (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_general_meeting) about it?
>
>     I'm attempting to do this at London Hackspace.
>
>
>     Grievance Procedure Update - Peter Meadows banned for one year:
>     https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/Io8vDQvaT84
>     <https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/Io8vDQvaT84>
>
>     Notification of a second formal warning for Peter Meadows:
>     https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/7WE1zuRWKbk
>     <https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/7WE1zuRWKbk>
>
>     Fwd: Re: Your first formal warning:
>     https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/bDlpFC6Lg2o
>     <https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/bDlpFC6Lg2o>
>
>     Fwd: Re: Your behaviour in IRC:
>     https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/uNFjdFI7tmY
>     <https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/uNFjdFI7tmY>
>
>
>     Thread about my food getting chucked in the bin:
>     https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/E4Gom_ave4c
>     <https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/E4Gom_ave4c>
>
>     (I suspect this was done by a 'trustee' as revenge for me
>     suggesting 'doorbot' should
>     not be blaring out loud music into the space every 5 minutes.
>     (although nobody has owned up to doing it, (despite other members
>     insisting that it was not a mistake, and it was done with the best
>     interests of the space at heart)):
>
>
>     Thread in which I'm accused of 'de-humanising' the cleaner by
>     calling it 'it':
>     https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/gFJpT3zPj3c
>     <https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/london-hack-space/gFJpT3zPj3c>
>
>
>
>     I think they invented the stuff about IRL harassment because they
>     would look silly banning me just for supposed 'trolling'. (I was
>     NOT 'trolling').
>
>     There is CCTV in the space, so we can determine very easily if I
>     was 'following' people around. They refuse to give any details
>     about what the CCTV shows.
>     They refuse to give any details about the nature of the real life
>     harassment. I can provide many witnesses that spent time with me
>     day to day in the space, and that will testify that I have not
>     harassed anyone.
>
>     David Potocnik writes:
>
>     " Anyway, I've been linked to this discussion and I can't see a
>     very descriptive account of what actually happened. "Harassment"
>     can be a number of things and it is also perceived/felt (right?),
>     so I suggest being more expressive."
>
>     And:
>
>     " This is the second example of somebody being banned for other people
>     finding them "annoying". With anonymity, the trustees become an
>     arbiter of good taste (TM) at their own discretion, possibly backed up
>     by howling wolves. Fine. I'm sure the Trustees are aware of the
>     problems in both historic examples of various annoyances to
>     "civility", and on the other side a modern trend in false harassment
>     accusations. (Even if this is not the case here).
>
>     This was actually apparent in the linked "it" email oncleaning. Peter
>     was accused of "dehumanizing" (morally bad!) acleaner. But when I
>     read into it, what I saw was him/it playing an (annoying) semantic
>     game: idea of doing away with normal conception of "human person". As
>     I read it, this is only "insulting" if you read it through your own
>     moral lens, the proper one. He/it wasn't being selectively
>     "dehumanizing" either.
>     For me it was an example of this person's somewhat annoying and
>     non-constructive behaviour, as much as general cultural hegemony."
>
>     And:
>
>     "Guys, restating, I am not - or was not - agitating on anyone's
>     behalf.
>     Related, nothing is being put "up for debate", though things are
>     freely debated. (Etc. A careful reader might have found more worrying
>     cues in follow up responses to my last one.)"
>
>
>     Then they accuse him of 'agitating' on my behalf.
>
>     So clearly anyone that speaks up in my favour is going to get
>     bullied like this.
>
>
>
>     They are now censoring my list posts, so I have no way to respond
>     to the false allegations.
>
>
>
>     London Hackspace Ltd Articles of Association:
>     https://london.hackspace.org.uk/organisation/docs/articles.pdf
>
>
>     https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Organisation
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Discuss mailing list
>     Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org <mailto:Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org>
>     http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Edward L. Platt
> http://elplatt.com
> http://civic.mit.edu/users/elplatt
> http://i3detroit.com
> @elplatt <http://twitter.com/elplatt>
>
> This electronic mail message was sent from my desktop personal 
> computer.  Please forgive any long-winded, overly-prosaic ramblings.
>
>
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> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
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