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

[justin corwin]

Look, Peter, this is a great example of the larger issue I feel is at play
here. I'm gonna belabor the point a little, and I apologize for that, but
it seems necessary for clarity.

The initial "it" thing is fairly innocuous. In fact, it's not entirely
clear you even were referring to a person as an "it" or to the cleaning
service, independent of any person. I'll admit the initial objection seemed
nitpicky to me, an unproductive jab. Who cares about you maybe using an
impersonal reference for a person? But then you dig your heels in and spend
ages arguing with anyone who posts in that thread in an escalating attempt
to be "right".

Someone later makes the fairly bland assertion that you should use the
pronouns that people prefer, out of basic respect for others. Fine, not
even applicable, since you haven't talked to the cleaner personally(I
assume)! But you feel compelled to object even to that, claiming you don't
have time to keep track of people's pronouns or ask for them.

And then this quote. In which you say you're going to ignore the request
not to use "it" for people, because you think it's funny(presumably it's
funny because it upsets people?). Anyone who doesn't or is personally
offended is required to come to you and be shown just how superior your
sense of humor is to theirs. And if they can somehow prove to you it isn't
funny to them, regardless of your no doubt amazing explanation, you'll
stop. you promise.

First of all, this is all amazingly disingenuous. I in now And even if it
were all sincere, you're essentially saying that things that are funny to
you are more important than respecting others requests.

But more importantly, it's all so unnecessary. Why were you still arguing
about this in the first place, three emails later? It's such a pointless
argument about a tiny objection that can't possibly have been something you
cared that much about. If you had just said "sure fine whatever", the whole
issue goes away. And I see that pattern happening over and over again, both
in the LHS threads, and even here now. There are people in the LHS thread
complaining that when they ask you to stop contacting them, they get more
messages instead.

So I don't think it's anything in particular. It's not the actions, or a
specific email. It's that you have a pattern, and so they've become
unwilling to extend you the benefit of the doubt. Everything is interpreted
as negatively as possible, because you never ever back off or compromise.
I'm willing to bet that's what they're talking about IRL as well. You
probably got some people who felt trapped in a conversation because you
refused to shut up, and ignored every obvious sign they wanted the
interaction to be over.

On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 6:06 PM, peter <phm at riseup.net> wrote:

>
> On 21/02/15 01:22, Brendan Halliday wrote:
>
>  Peter,
>
>  The tone you took combined with your cherrypicked examples of your
> interpretation of 'good' behaviour set several red flags.
>
>  I've been helping out and organising at many community organisations
> over the years and it's been a constant that the members that are the most
> toxic and most dangerous to the community are the ones who:
> 1. Must always have the last word. Always.
> 2. Disagree with the stated (or sometimes poorly communicated) expected
> conduct of the group
> 3. Generally agitate for their own goals (which usually do not match up
> with the organisations') while attempting to remain buddies with the rest
> of the membership.
>
>  So I spent less than a minute reading your links and came across this:
> > /On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at 10:23:53 AM UTC, Peter Meadows wrote:/
> >
> >     /I don't have time to go around asking everyone which pronouns they
> >     prefer!
> >
> >     I think it's funny to call people 'it'. If it upsets them, it can
> come
> >     and talk to me and I'll try to help it develop a sense of humour.
> (and
>  >     if it really can't do this, I'll stop calling it 'it' in public).
> /
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>  To me, the links you have provided have indicated that the LHS executive
> have acted very clearly and with considerable cohesion on this matter. It's
> also clear that they are familiar with the Geek Social Fallacies and do not
> wish them to rule their space.
>
>  From all indications you have provided, I can't see any actions as
> bullying or seeming to be motivated by hidden reasons.
>
>  If anything, you should move on and perhaps re-evaluate how you handle
> social interactions - because if you're not the unconstructive member that
> you're portraying, then you need to work on communicating it clearer.
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>


-- 
Justin Corwin
outlawpoet at gmail.com
http://programmaticconquest.tumblr.com
http://outlawpoet.tumblr.com
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