<html><head></head><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>I concur with Jake's perspective on this and there is no wrong done to him that merits an apology/invitation to return to Noisebridge.</div><div><br></div><div>Unless I'm mistaken, this wasn't first "sprung on him" in a full public meeting. Did you not speak to him privately prior to the meeting and record it, as you did me?? At least 3 points-- including in the full public meeting-- you repeatedly asked me. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Specifically, I am thinking of the 1:1 conversation we had in the stairwell literally right as the meeting was starting. That was disturbing and I quote from the notes I made immediately afterwards:</div>
<div><br></div><div> "Duncan, some people, including Jay, think that you stole it and are trying to frame him. I've spoken to both of you both are really quite convincing. This could come out looking very bad for you if you can't say you saw something without any doubt. What is the problem? Did YOU steal the microscope? If you did, just return it and this will be all behind us."</div>
<div><br></div><div>I asked you what you wanted me to do, you shrugged saying everything turned on what I said, and I said well, that's easy, I tell the truth, and reminded you there were 1001 other behaviors meriting his ban. I did, though, underestimate his ability to elicit sympathy and guilt.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I don't feel like you have any need to apologize to me for asking reasonable questions based on circumstances. And I absolutely believe any apology to Jay is not only unwarranted, but-- as Jake points out correctly-- ill-advised.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The microscope was the tip of the iceberg and, IMHO, what ultimately KEPT HIM from being banned. Do people not remember Kayla's laptop, his angry paranoid arguments with non-existent people then projected onto others, or his threat to harm me?</div>
<div><br></div><div>The system worked and, if at all, erred in the direction of his favor. The man is a brilliant con artist and, thankfully, no longer at or welcome at Noisebridge.</div><div><br></div><div>I'm very unclear on why you feel guilty, particularly as this cost us huge time and energy and resulted in a sort of amenable truce. There is nothing to second guess or re-hash here, set yourself free! My 2 cents: You did the right thing; Let it be and move forward.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I hope you can find this peace, you deserve it, Danny.<br><br>On Dec 5, 2011, at 4:42 PM, Danny O'Brien <<a href="mailto:danny@spesh.com">danny@spesh.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:42 PM, Jake <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jake@spaz.org">jake@spaz.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
I am being entirely honest with myself by posting what I did and nothing<br>
more. I stand by my previous statement that jay did several things that<br>
by themselves would warrant a ban. It did not seem that anyone disagreed<br>
with me, although people had differing methods of keeping him away.<br></blockquote><div><br>Well, I thought so too. I am reconsidering this, though. I am spending some time thinking about what the other things were, and how we knew about them. No real conclusions, but I think we should think about the whole course of events. I am definitely in a post-mortem mood though.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
You say you think we screwed up, by what? Asking someone if they had<br>
stolen something that we suspected they took and sold? We didn't call the<br>
police and have him arrested, we didn't confiscate his laptop in payment,<br>
we didn't etc etc him. I glared at him, but he deserved it.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>We questioned him for a long time. We raised the accusation at a meeting. A lot of people thought he stole the microscope, on the basis of evidence that we tried to verify, but insufficiently qualify. I think we screwed up. It might be that we would have made the same mistake whatever we did, but I'd like to go back and go over it to see if we can both try not to make false accusations of theft in the future, and also limit the damage of such false accusations. I don't know whether that's possible, but I'd like to talk about it.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
you say:<br>
<div class="im">> We should also talk about this at the meeting. Some of our systems for<br>
> preventing this kind of mistake worked, and some of them didn't, and we<br>
> can always improve them.<br>
<br>
</div>I disagree. What mistake did we make? If accusing someone of something<br>
they didn't do is a mistake, you better start working for the Innocence<br>
Project because there are people in jail for decades for things they<br>
didn't do. THAT is a mistake.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>I do actually think accusing somebody of something they didn't do is a mistake. I think both of those things are mistakes, one of which is obviously much worse than the other.<br><br>Do you really think accusing people of something they didn't do *isn't* a mistake? If I accused you of stealing chickens, and it turned out that you didn't steal the chickens, wouldn't you expect me to apologise for the chicken-stealing rumor?<br>
<br>I am weirded out by your position, and assume it's some sort of misunderstanding caused by email. Let's talk about it in person some time. <br><br>(Maybe your position is more like: we didn't really *accuse* him, we just asked him about it, and asking somebody about something is never a mistake. I'd definitely agree with the second bit there. Maybe what I am looking for is a way we can ask people about such things, without it turning into something that seems like an accusation. For instance, we kind of sprung the questions on him in the full public meeting. I don't know, maybe that wasn't the right way to do it.)<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
I have said that apparently Jay didn't take our microscope, but I also<br>
think that any microscope being sold on a blanket on the sidewalk of the<br>
castro probably didn't wind up there voluntarily.<br></blockquote><div><br>I think there wasn't actually a microscope and that that was back-projected into the story. I wouldn't raise this now but it is definitely the part of your email that prompted me to respond. It read to me like we were saying "oh it turned out that you were stealing an entirely different person's microscope! sorry!" instead of "we thought you were a thief, and actually we have no evidence for that".<br>
<br><br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
You say you're getting ready to send an apology to Jay through email. I<br>
was specifically told (by you) not to email Jay unless I wanted him to<br>
come back to the space. Unless you think the things he DID do were fine,<br>
and you've got a cure for whatever is ailing him and Jorgen, I ask that<br>
you let things be and keep the number of dangerous wingnuts down for now.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>Huh, did I say that (the sutff about not mailing him)? Then I was wrong to say that -- I don't think I have the right to tell anyone to do anything. I'm really sorry if that's what I said, or even that that's what conclusion you drew from what I said.<br>
<br>I am however pretty chicken (non-stolen) about emailing him, and despite feeling bad about what we did, I am more likely to comply with your request and not mail him, because I like you a lot more.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
There was a wiki page for things that have gone missing, maybe you<br>
created it, and the microscope was on there. That page is totally<br>
missing, i can't find it with a search.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br><a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/MissingStuff">https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/MissingStuff</a><br><br>Thank you for replying. I don't really want to keep banging on about this on nb-discuss, because I feel that these things are sorted out more quickly and less acrimoniously in person, and also I still would like to talk about it all in the meeting. That's not me shutting this down, just me trying to publicly steady myself so that I won't reply to your imminent reply to my reply. Which I probably will anyway. It's the nature of noisedrama!<br>
<br>d.<br><br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
-jake<br>
<br>
Danny O'Brien wrote:<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:56 AM, Jake <jake at <a href="http://spaz.org" target="_blank">spaz.org</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> a while ago it seemed that a certain person had stolen it, because<br>
> someone thought they had seen that person selling a microscope on the<br>
> street and we noticed it was missing. It seems that person must have<br>
> been selling a different stolen microscope, because it apparently wasn't<br>
> this one.<br>
<br>
I appreciate you posting this, when you could have also just not said<br>
anything publicly on the list. But I don't think you're being entirely<br>
honest with yourself or others when you give that as the most likely<br>
conclusion.<br>
<br>
I think being suddenly vague about who it was that was accused and who did<br>
the accusing, and then concluding that, well, heck, the only explanation<br>
must be that the possibly-imaginary microscope must have been stolen from<br>
someone *else*, is just compounding the earlier error. We have to be as<br>
honest as we can with ourselves.<br>
<br>
Here's how I would describe what happened:<br>
<br>
"a while ago a lot of us believed that Jay had stolen it, because Duncan<br>
thought they had seen that person selling something from Noisebridge on<br>
the street and we noticed the microscope was missing. We screwed up,<br>
probably because lots of us were mad at Jay for another reason entirely."<br>
<br>
If we're not honest about the mistakes we made, we're going to risk<br>
repeating them. People find themselves mobbing someone they don't like or<br>
who did something wrong with lots of extra accusations, and talking<br>
themselves into believing the worst of them.<br>
<br>
I'm personally trying to work myself up to apologizing to Jay -- we all<br>
have his email address.<br>
<br>
We should also talk about this at the meeting. Some of our systems for<br>
preventing this kind of mistake worked, and some of them didn't, and we<br>
can always improve them.<br>
<br>
d.<br>
<br>
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