[Noisebridge-discuss] Junior was asked to leave, come back to Tuesday meeting.

[Danny O'Brien]

I got a call from the Reverend Mik asking me to come down to the space:
he'd asked said Jnr to leave, because occupying the bathrooms[1]
frequently in the last few days. He'd not left when the Reverend asked
him to. Junior's a round-faced guy, black, with a black cap and who
listens to music in the space. That does not really pin him down, I
know.

I don't have any magic powers in this capacity, but I had some time
free. I came down and introduced myself as the Arch Pope of Noisebridge.
Junior was at this point mixing some music on his netbook pretty
determinably, but he looked really ill with red eyes. We talked. He said
that he was diabetic, which is why he blacks out in the toileet. It was
pretty clear he is homeless. I explained the deal with being asked to
leave, which he knew about because he was around in the last meeting,
except he thought that it was just members who could tell people to
leave. I said that I didn't think that would work.

He left, very very slowly, picking up a looot of stuff as he went. In
the end, after we'd chatted at the bottom of the stairs for a long time,
I took a picture of him. He got very angry at this. I agreed that it was
rude, but getting him to leave had now taken over an hour, and the last
few meters had taken an additional twenty minutes, and we were now in a
public place. We cut a deal that if he left in one minute, I'd delete
the pictures, and he did. The pictures weren't very flattering anyway.

A few lessons:

1) As ever, it's worth reminding everyone that YOU CAN DO THIS TOO. If
you need practice, ask *me* to leave. We can role play it. It takes a
bunch of time, but it doesn't usually escalate. If you need somebody who
looks like they're in authority, anoint yourself or a friend an Arch
Pope of Noisebridge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism#Popes
Please don't fall into the error of thinking that someone else is in
charge of this.

2) The MAPS van, which was a resource for transporting homeless people
(if they want) to a place where they can be treated, does not exist any
more. If there's somebody who is really not on this planet, you can call
415-734-4233, which is the SF Homeless Outreach Team's number. They
didn't want to deal with Junior because he wasn't in a sufficiently bad
way. Here is a PDF that describes what they do:
http://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/hc/HCAgen/2013/jan%2015/rev%20010713%20Announce_SFHOT_EST_-_Garcia_Goy.pdf

3) I don't like taking pictures of people without their permission, but
it's legal, and it turns out I can be pushed to do it if pressed. I
always try to act in situations like this like I imagine a slap drone
would behave in the Culture. I like the idea of surveillance being an
ultimate sanction, rather than a persistent and universal state. I am
happy to take more opinions on this.

4) In the rest of the space, people were cleaning up, and organizing a
hacking session for I think a civic project. It was quiet for a
Saturday, like a library.

[1] OCCUPY THE BATHROOMS. For hours, is how it was described.