[Noisebridge-discuss] [drama] I got groped at noisebridge at hackmeet

Mon Oct 22 10:55:48 UTC 2012

If I remember correctly, there were two things which we used to do for events which took place in the venue:

- making sure that there is at least one or more Noisebridge members around during the event (or preferably also before and after)

- dedicated person/s used the yellow helmet with Noisebridge logo, like the one which one of our glorious former presidents R. Miloh Alexander was wearing on his inauguration photos 

So maybe coming back to this tradition could be kind of "happy comeback"?

Sincerely,

Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck

biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker

http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

________________________________
 From: Liz Henry <liz at bookmaniac.org>
To: noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net 
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] [drama] I got groped at noisebridge at hackmeet

Hey Ronald.  I agree about being more proactive. That is what Cooper and
I talked about when I called him last night (still during Hackmeet) to
discuss what some of those things might be.

- roles for a safety crew, who would be clearly identified as people to
go to in a bad situation, who undergo some sort of training/discussion
process beforehand,
- signs with code of conduct and other useful information rather than
just one "conduct/safety" announcement at the beginning,
- More of a clear "welcoming" role at the door
- nametags (with whatever name people want to be called)

I feel sure there are other ideas that we could try out that would help
many people socially and would give a little structure for various sorts
of possible conflict or unexcellent behavior.

We could do them at 5mof and also put in some of the blue masking tape
pathways to train people to be aware that open corridors are very useful
for accessibility.

Cheers,

Liz

On 10/21/12 10:37 PM, Ronald Cotoni wrote:
> We could be more proactive.  Are you really telling me we could not have
> done a significantly better job at preventing this?  I think we can and
> should come up with a set of guidelines for events like hack meets using
> the space.  Good thing I am not a member and I have no say in the way the
> space runs.
> 
> On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Liz Henry <liz at bookmaniac.org> wrote:
> 
>>
>> Ronald, I would argue that the fact that Noisebridge deals with its
>> problems by airing them out in a transparent way, discussing the issues
>> and responding to things in a non-centralized way, is exactly why we are
>> a good and functional community.  Undesirable things happen everywhere,
>> but they are often hushed up or covered up and nothing is done about the
>> underlying problems.
>>
>> For example, kickbanning Patrick within 1 day of his harassing behavior
>> was pretty amazing.  It was not fun, and the community was damaged by
>> it, but the fact that someone behave badly wasn't something determined
>> by our structure and wasn't really controllable. It is how we dealt with
>> the problem that matters. Not everything about the process was great,
>> but we were figuring out what to do was we went, in response to how
>> events unfolded and how information spread throughout our community. I
>> thought that it was, on the whole, a good response.
>>
>> If we as an organization never, ever called anyone out or held them
>> responsible for crossing some sort of behavior line, then I would worry
>> a lot more.
>>
>> So, Ronald, here I think you are conflating *having to deal with
>> problems*, which every community has, with *how we respond to those
>> problems*.  Can you really think of an organization which doesn't have
>> conflict? We do a good portion of it in public.   While this makes some
>> people label us as the drama-y hackerspace, actually, I bet the others
>> have (and I KNOW some of them have) personal and political conflict that
>> is kept more private.  That is not necessarily an unalloyed good.
>>
>>
>> - Liz
>>
>>
>> On 10/21/12 8:12 PM, Ronald Cotoni wrote:
>>> To be honest, this incident and others that have happened in the past
>> (the
>>> patrick keys stuff, rob 2.0, theft of the donation box recently), it
>> seems
>>> that noisebridge needs a wake up call to the real world.  We have all
>> these
>>> things that happen that could have been avoided in hindsight.   I think
>>> Noisebridge and it's members (I would be a member but I was blocked 1
>> hour
>>> before the 4th meeting), need to do something before Noisebridge is at
>> risk
>>> from some stupidity that happens in the space.
>>>
>>> At this point I hope someone does something that will close the space so
>> we
>>> can pull our collective heads out of our collective asses and make
>>> Noisebridge the "excellent" space it needs to be.   This is the worst
>> thing
>>> I have ever said about noisebridge.   I feel really horrible but I would
>>> feel worse if I told a friend to go there and something unexcelent
>> happened
>>> to them.   Fix yourself (sooner than later please).
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> ------------------------
>> Liz Henry
>> liz at bookmaniac.org
>> http://bookmaniac.org
>>
>> "Without models, it's hard to work; without a context, difficult to
>> evaluate; without peers, nearly impossible to speak." -- Joanna Russ
>> _______________________________________________
>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 

------------------------
Liz Henry
liz at bookmaniac.org
http://bookmaniac.org

"Without models, it's hard to work; without a context, difficult to
evaluate; without peers, nearly impossible to speak." -- Joanna Russ
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