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

Wed Feb 25 15:42:28 CET 2015

But can a banned member call an EGM?
On 25 Feb 2015 07:56, "David Cake" <dave at difference.com.au> wrote:

> If there is a documented grievance procedure that has been agreed on by
> the membership, and the leadership followed it, then they have done the
> right thing. It may well be that some people have, in the course of that,
> behaved in ways you disagree with, or made judgements you disagree with,
> but that can happen in a well run organisation for a variety of reasons.
> Not everyone has the same views, or wishes to run a shared space the same
> way. Barring higher level legislation, if a majority of people sufficiently
> disagrees with you about what is socially acceptable and the rules are
> being followed, you should abide by it or leave the joint space.
>
> The only remaining option is an EGM or a motion at an AGM.
>
> David
>
> On 21 Feb 2015, at 9:22 am, Brendan Halliday <wodann at gmail.com> 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). /
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 10:27 AM, Edward L Platt <ed at elplatt.com> 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> 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
>>>
>>> Notification of a second formal warning for Peter Meadows:
>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/7WE1zuRWKbk
>>>
>>> Fwd: Re: Your first formal warning:
>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/bDlpFC6Lg2o
>>>
>>> Fwd: Re: Your behaviour in IRC:
>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/london-hack-space/uNFjdFI7tmY
>>>
>>>
>>> Thread about my food getting chucked in the bin:
>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 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 on cleaning. Peter
>>> was accused of "dehumanizing" (morally bad!) a cleaner. 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
>>> 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.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20150225/dcf9e521/attachment-0001.html>