[Noisebridge-discuss] microscope has been found

[Jake]

I am being entirely honest with myself by posting what I did and nothing 
more.  I stand by my previous statement that jay did several things that 
by themselves would warrant a ban.  It did not seem that anyone disagreed 
with me, although people had differing  methods of keeping him away.

You say you think we screwed up, by what?  Asking someone if they had 
stolen something that we suspected they took and sold?  We didn't call the 
police and have him arrested, we didn't confiscate his laptop in payment, 
we didn't etc etc him.  I glared at him, but he deserved it.

you say:
> We should also talk about this at the meeting. Some of our systems for 
> preventing this kind of mistake worked, and some of them didn't, and we 
> can always improve them.

I disagree.  What mistake did we make?  If accusing someone of something 
they didn't do is a mistake, you better start working for the Innocence 
Project because there are people in jail for decades for things they 
didn't do.  THAT is a mistake.

I have said that apparently Jay didn't take our microscope, but I also 
think that any microscope being sold on a blanket on the sidewalk of the 
castro probably didn't wind up there voluntarily.

You say you're getting ready to send an apology to Jay through email.  I 
was specifically told (by you) not to email Jay unless I wanted him to 
come back to the space.  Unless you think the things he DID do were fine, 
and you've got a cure for whatever is ailing him and Jorgen,  I ask that 
you let things be and keep the number of dangerous wingnuts down for now.

There was a wiki page for things that have gone missing, maybe you 
created it, and the microscope was on there.  That page is totally 
missing, i can't find it with a search.

-jake

Danny O'Brien wrote:

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:56 AM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:

> a while ago it seemed that a certain person had stolen it, because 
> someone thought they had seen that person selling a microscope on the 
> street and we noticed it was missing.  It seems that person must have 
> been selling a different stolen microscope, because it apparently wasn't 
> this one.

I appreciate you posting this, when you could have also just not said 
anything publicly on the list. But I don't think you're being entirely 
honest with yourself or others when you give that as the most likely 
conclusion.

I think being suddenly vague about who it was that was accused and who did 
the accusing, and then concluding that, well, heck, the only explanation 
must be that the possibly-imaginary microscope must have been stolen from 
someone *else*, is just compounding the earlier error. We have to be as 
honest as we can with ourselves.

Here's how I would describe what happened:

"a while ago a lot of us believed that Jay had stolen it, because Duncan 
thought they had seen that person selling something from Noisebridge on 
the street and we noticed the microscope was missing.  We screwed up, 
probably because lots of us were mad at Jay for another reason entirely."

If we're not honest about the mistakes we made, we're going to risk 
repeating them. People find themselves mobbing someone they don't like or 
who did something wrong with lots of extra accusations, and talking 
themselves into believing the worst of them.

I'm personally trying to work myself up to apologizing to Jay -- we all 
have his email address.

We should also talk about this at the meeting. Some of our systems for 
preventing this kind of mistake worked, and some of them didn't, and we 
can always improve them.

d.