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

[Edward L Platt]

>
> What's wrong with this? I said that my first preference would be to try
> and explain the humour, and that it's not nasty. And if that could not be
> done, I would stop doing it.
>

When someone complains about something you've done and you don't see
anything wrong with it, you have two choices:
1. Figure out what you did that was upsetting to them and why.
2. Explain to them why they're wrong to be upset.

The purpose of warnings is to give someone a chance to do #1. And it's
their responsibility to figure it out, not the responsibility of the
leadership or the ones making the complaint. That said, in order for
someone to figure out what they've done wrong, the leadership does need to
communicate expectations for conduct, and as Brendan pointed out, sometimes
this isn't done well.

If someone takes choice #2, and responds by insisting they did nothing
wrong, without first attempting to understand what people are complaining
about, that person is being willfully ignorant and acting in bad faith.
Folks like this are incapable of critical self-awareness, and any attempts
to work with them are likely to be a waste of time. They may use mental
illness or neuro-atypicality as an excuse, and it's nothing more than an
excuse. Those who have mental illness, ASD, or who are otherwise
neruo-atypical are entirely capable of listening to criticism and behaving
well, if they want to.

-Ed
-- 
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.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20150221/470d352b/attachment.html>