[Noisebridge-discuss] Rob 2.0 Update

[Kelly]

For those of you following the saga, here's an update on the Rob 2.0 situation.

As per https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Meeting_Notes_2011_10_11, the
following is agreed:
Be it the consensus of Noisbridge that the issue of banning Rob 2.0
(a.k.a. Dank) be deferred until either he or his advocate Mitch or
Kelly, gives fair notice and attends a meeting. Until that time he is
unwelcome at Noisebridge.

So he is kicked pending resolution of his conflicts, either in person
or via an advocate (who must be Mitch or myself), at which point the
question of ultimately banning him will be revisited.

Rob came to the space today. He made lunch, cleaned up after himself,
and worked on his computer for a while. Sometime in midafternoon
Duncan noticed he was there and conferred with Mike, Jurgen, and John
Ellis and agreed that since Rob is "not banned"(acc. Duncan) and was
being peaceful, that they would not attempt to remove him.

They did however contact me. I have a full-time job in the east bay
and couldn't come out to the space myself. I asked Duncan to tell Rob
2.0 that he needed to leave. Duncan was unwilling to do this, and
expressed disagreement with the consensus as it currently stands. We
have since corresponded over email somewhat about how after the fact
is not the time to bring up your issues with a consensus. In any case,
Duncan is not a member and would not have been able to block the
consensus anyway, so I decided not to involve him any further. Duncan
also conveyed the information that Rob 2.0 had contacted Mitch to
initiate some sort of discussion about the conflicts, but that he had
not heard back.

I contacted Will Sargent, a noisebridge member who was available at
the time, and whom I trusted to not escalate but be firm. Will went to
Noisebridge and talked to Rob 2.0. Will and I agreed that it was
preferable to not resort to contacting the police, that it was
important that Rob 2.0 have contact information for both of the
mediator options, and then we stand firm on him needing to leave the
space.

In keeping with my charge to be a neutral mediator, I had a few phone
conversations with Rob 2.0, who called me using Will's phone. Rob 2.0
says his phone was recently lost. He also said that he will be making
a noisebridge email address and that he will contact me using it. I
told Rob 2.0 that people were very concerned about his behavior in the
space, but that some people also felt that it was unfair to fully ban
him when he was not present. I explained the terms of the consensus,
and that he needed to work with Mitch or myself to resolve his
problems, and that we would go to a meeting on his behalf to resolve
the issue, but that until then he needed to stay out of the space.

I did not cite any of the specific claims that people made against him
at the meeting on the 11th, although Rob 2.0 brought some of them up
himself and told me they were largely slander. I told Rob 2.0 that if
he were willing to engage with me in mediating these conflicts that I
would collect first-hand accounts only from the people who had raised
claims against him. Rob 2.0 and I discussed some of his claims against
people in the space, most of which he didn't detail with names, but
included in this were his claim that Rubin stole the speakers that he
donated to Noisebridge and the fact that he witnessed people building
a bomb at Noisebridge and stopped them. At some points, Rob 2.0 said
that he "could" pursue legal action regarding the servers or call a
government security organization over the bomb incident. When I
pointed out that these were threats, Rob 2.0 denied that that was the
case and said that he wouldn't stoop to that behavior. This is the
first I've heard of any bomb making, incidentally, and I can't think
of anything that might have been mistaken for bomb making either.
Maybe someone else can add to that.

Over the course of the hour, Will and I each took turns talking to Rob
2.0, who said he would leave willingly if Mitch told him to, but
didn't think our reasons for why he should leave were valid.
Eventually we got an email from Mitch saying that he had not received
any contact from Rob 2.0 and that he should definitely respect the
consensus and leave the space. I read Mitch's email to Will, who spoke
again with Rob 2.0, who subsequently left the space.

And that's the current update. CC-ed parties are welcome to add more.
I made it clear to Rob 2.0 that he is still welcome to call me and
pursue conflict resolution, but he is not willing to come to a meeting
due to social anxiety.

-Kelly