[foodhackingbase] asking one member to leave our group - for the second time now public

Wed Jan 13 11:09:48 CET 2016

Hi to all,
Summary - At the Christmas (24/12) I asked Joe (BaltimoreJoe) to leave our group and others (most active or people active for longer period of time at fhb) to speak out if they disagree and state the reasons, no one did so far. Joe wants this to be more public, here comes the email to mailing list, extra info is below, it would be great to have it done by this Sunday 17/1/2016. I suggest meeting where it can be one of the but not "the only" topic of discussion on Saturday 16/1/2015 around 13:00 Dutch time at our IRC + Mumble.

There were issues with Joe on our Food Hacking Base (fhb) IRC channel and with CCC orga on variety of their IRC channels (and maybe emails, I talked to them in person and they were very unhappy with his behavior) prior to 32c3 which resulted in me asking to remove his access rights to our server and not to contact CCC orga in any manner, hoping that he can still participate as member of our group during the event and we can discuss it there. 

After two days at the CCH I have decided to ask him to leave the group, main reasons being majors issues in communicating within and out of the group when he got involved in conversations - several times. It is hard to summarize and give exact examples but if I try to go to the bone I just see that Joe is somehow disconnected from reality at certain times and has extreme opinions, both of these result in major misunderstanding. Also not taking no as no and coming back several times to the same point trying to change the answer of the other person is an issue. It happened again and again and I'm by now certain it is going to continue. 

One of the examples can be his behavior when we were both volunteering at the angel kitchen where Joe managed within less than hour annoy the crew (Kamiwolf who is in charge plus Sasa - second in charge) with several mishaps the top being Joe disposing half full bottle of water to the basket because he did not like the flavour (or it was sparking against non sparkling) quite in anger, when asked to empty it (so we do not pay extra for weight + water&plastic waste) and put it to proper disposal so we can get the money back for the package he refused completely even when I insisted and explained - not valid enough for him. Sasa had to take it out, clean it and dispose it for him. They did not kicked him out because they considered him my friend, otherwise, especially if Kami was there at that moment of "disposal" it would be very quick. After than there were few more issues but that is bit different story but in a way still the same. I mentioned this one to give just one example many could be stated, also this was for me a tipping point where I realized that we can not have him in our group because not being able to reach in a relatively smooth way agreement on quite basic things.

I therefore suggest at least one year or longer for Joe to leave the group completely which includes posting to the mailing list, access to the wiki, presence at IRC, Facebook and other media which are related to our group. This basically includes any activity within the group and out of the group representing us (in our name). To my opinion if Joe wants to come for some special workshop which we give at fhb as any other person would like to come I'm OK with that, but that doesn't mean hanging around whole day or coming to every workshop which we do. As mentioned above I have asked Joe to leave the group already, this is just second run through wider public, core group already knows about the situation and no one spoke out against me asking Joe to leave the group.

That is it for me. I want to close this up as quickly as possible because it took already lots of time, energy and emotional stress. If anyone has something major to say please do so now so we can wrap it up. We did not have an issues like this before, the only person who we had to ask to leave before was not involved with us it was our guest. Also we should consider developing some policies to handle situations like this more easily in the future but that is next chapter.

On personal level at the current moment I'm OK to stay in touch with Joe as person to person but completely unrelated to the fhb activities. My opinion is that for what ever reasons Joe has periods when he is fine no issues and periods where things are escalating way more than they should. I do not think it is his purpose but it happens and would have continue to have negative impact on the group from within and also outside. 

Sincerely from Jejudo,

Frantisek 

PS There is a copy of the email which I send (in November I believe) concerning the issue.

Hi to all,
Summary - there are growing issues with one of our members
(Joe-BaltimoreJoe) which needs to be sorted one way or other promptly.
We need to discuss this, come of with solution and apply it asap because
32c3 is coming and we are already quite busy with preparations. I've
mailed to you directly, you can see each other emails I hope it is OK it
is close group call.

More detailed description of the situation, please comment or add info
if appropriate.
there are growing tensions within our community which more and more
people feels are originating from Joe's (BaltimoreJoe) actions and
behaviour in general. Joe joined us at CCC camp, at MRMCD 2015 and
helped with our wikies. There were also issues with CCC orga and him and
some frictions with Techinc in our name.

I personally like some parts of his character but I'm afraid that he
doesn't fit to our group based on how we do things both internally and
externally plus there are communication issues. Most of this being based
on online experience, when at the event he seems fine to me.

I've asked Steven to take out his access to our server temporarily which
is done now. This is a temporary decision which I believe I can do
however any further actions should or rather need to be discussed and
taken as a group.

I'm personally undecided. My feel is that Joe is too quick in taking
actions and has problems to communicate politely enough what he wants to
do to others, listen to their answers and make compromise with
reasonable ease. Our group is trying to be really "soft" or let's say to
really follow "be excellent to each other" moto and most of people
involved like it this way. It seems to me that he may do quite well in
some group like Noisysquare or other lets say "rebel style" community.
I'm worried about his integration to our group and his actions on our
behalf in wider hacker community.

Please think about this and express yourselves. My original plan was
keeping this contained and wait till 32c3 when we can all (well most of
us) come together including Joe in person and discuss this in peace. I
am starting to feel that this may be more time sensitive. Joe promised
and kept to not conctacting CCC orga in our name which I appreciate.

I'm going to talk to Joe concerning this email and revoking him the
access rights and ask him to wait for the group to discuss this in the
next few to several days, also I would like him to have a chance to
express his opinion in some form. I am not sure if I should make digests
of what we discuss or if we should copy him directly - I don’t have too
much time because of preparing for 32c3 and work here in Jejudo. I want
to keep this now within let’s say closer more active group going public
later on if we or he decides to. Is here anyone ready to mediate?

Sincerely,

FAA

PS I will send this email also to Joe without copying you so your email
addresses stays out of this.

-- 
Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck

biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker

http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

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