[sudoroom] Conflict Resolution & Rules

[Jehan Tremback]

Interesting discussion last night. I'm glad we were able to touch upon some
of the issues surrounding membership, rules, and access.

The issue of rules and dispute resolution came up. Somebody said something
along the lines of "We shouldn't try to solve problems we don't have yet,
if there is a problem in the future, we have a dispute resolution process".

What I got from that is that we should strive to avoid bureaucracy, by
using case-by-case conflict resolution instead of rules made in advance,
keeping the organization organic and flexible.


I'll make an observation, feel free to point out if I'm wrong-

If a rule is made ahead of time, it is made in a neutral context. Nobody is
being judged. Members agree on certain guidelines which they feel will be
conducive to the proper functioning of the space. If, in the future,
somebody is engaging in conduct which may be an issue, it is largely an
objective decision by the members as to whether or not the conduct violates
the rules that have been laid out.

If the decision on what is acceptable is deferred until there is an
issue,  it becomes an intensely personal issue. Somebody needs to raise the
issue as a conflict to be dealt with in the conflict resolution process.
They then need to shepherd the conflict through the conflict resolution
process so that it is dealt with. The person who is the subject of the
conflict resolution process will feel that the person who raised the issue
has a personal vendetta against them.


TL;DR: A conflict resolution process presupposes conflict. If a large
number of questions are deferred to a future conflict resolution process, a
large number of conflicts will need to occur in the future for these
questions to be answered.

-Jehan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/sudoroom/attachments/20121122/f3a0a48c/attachment.html>