[Noisebridge-discuss] Lack of due process when Cynthia forced to leave

Gavin Knight gnnrok at gmail.com
Fri May 4 00:47:44 UTC 2012


https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Meeting_Notes_2012_05_01


"what the fuck happened: by james

was in space teaching sysadmin calss. Cynthis was in the space, she spends
a lot of time in kitchen, associates with occupy movement. arrived through
elevator and two members immediately confronted her and told her that she
was not a good part of the community. this was not a space for her to be at
for any arbitrary reason. they wanted her to leave and come back during
this meeting. she did not want to leave. the situation became more tenuous.
someone decided that they needed to call the police. the police ended up
coming and removed her from the building and it was awkward. Miloh talked
her down. jesse was talking to her., members were talking to her.
eventually i went on for a really long time.

done. questions?

jesse was one of the poepleinvolved. was part of decision to call police.
it was very stressful situation. no one wanted to heighten the situation.
could have handled without calling police. now we are developing better
tools to handle this type of situation without calling the poilice.

Za came in the door. cynthis was next to door. jesse and weave wanted her
to leave right there and then. za wanted to be agnostic, but assumed that
she had something violent. but that was not the case. tried to moderate.
cynthis asked interrigators why she was being kicked out. violence was not
an issue. got whole list of issues, asked guys to back off and za will talk
with her. caution is the better part of valor . retreat, come abck
tomorrow. she did not want to be a pushover. that was a need, she did not
want to allow herself to be trampled on. Za thinks people were using force
to get her out of here because of her aesthetics.

It did not sound like there was a particular action taht resulted in people
asking her to leave. it was a do-ocratic banning. in the past, this is
tradditionally discussed in meetings. she has a role, she may be annoying
and mentially ill, but that is not a reason to kick her out.

reasons you might get kicked out: being violent, creepy, scary.

does not like that it was not discussed and that people called the cops
into the space.

when i first came up to cynthia,impression from initial discussion from
jessee that she was there was a discussion taht had taken place. she was
very aggressive and in your face.

there has been a lot of discussions on this subject. on the discuss list.
but she may not have been aware of this.

called police, told cynthia that police were called. about an our later
they arrived. there were about 7 people around her arguing. she locked
herself in the toilet. a police woman had to talk her out. cynthia asked to
talk with miloh, they didm then he walked her out.

situation did not seem safe for anybody involved. The best time to call
police is before this type of situation escalates.

there was a huge meeting before 5mof in the church classroom discussin taht
this is not a resource center to use the internet or a place to come and
find shelter. How do we get the poeple who are not using the space for what
its for, how do we get them out of the space in a comfortable, do-ocratic
way. (indirect quote from mitch?)

what i think about cynthia is irrelivant. what the main this is how do we
cultivate open space. question: to waht extent was she notified that she is
not welcome? people have talked with her, but she may have not received
that information/

would she go get coffee with miloh to talk about how she is not welcome?

she may have put noisebridge down as her space for residence.

she was never told to leave perminately. she was told to leave now and come
back to get a better understanding of the situation.

look at the mediation and conflict resolution pages on the wiki

what do we want to achieve in this discussion? this is a problem that we
run into often. people are not contributing, people do not appreciate, but
nobody acts on it until there is an incident.

people dont like situation, eventually someone do-ocratically boils over
and band someone.

used to think this was totally wrong. but this may be the only catalyst
that keeps people from being passive aggressive and inactive.

what if two people try and tell eachother to leave the space?

should we make a formal acceptance process to avoid the situation. that is
the opinion of one individual.

there could be a lower threshhold for non-members to get a lesser
membership.

What are definitions for what is a "hacker" because it basically boils down
to a popularity contest. what are signals that can show people that they
are about to get kicked out? there is a culture of fear at noisebridge.
people have fear based projects. people are really afraid of being kicked
out so they start these fear based projects. and the third thing: cynthis
was accused of being overbearing and using authority to control the kitchen.

one time race said it was members only time at 2am

Cyntia should not come back to the space because her behavious is not
excellent, does not try to be more excellent, and does not understand how
her actions are unexcellent

[redacted]

indirect response to previous statement: this place is for education and
collaboration.

1) is it appropriate for people in this space to decide taht someone else
should be here, not because they are violent, but because they are not good
for the space? if people are degrading the quality of the space,
consistently over time, that person can be asked to leave. it was
appropriate to ask her to leave. 2) was this the best way? no. it was the
bay of fucking pigs. the only positive result was that cynthia wasnt here
anymore. there were cops.

the above perception of the general concensus is not completely right. its
about 80% right. if someone is part of the community and someone decides to
do-ocratically ban an individual, then lots of poeple will be angry. the
best thing to do is to bring it up at a meeting."
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