AskedToLeave

Ask To Leave Policy: If someone behaves in a way that makes you feel unsafe or attempts at diffusing an argument fail and it escalates, you can ask a person to leave. COOPERATING IS EXCELLENT: It is excellent of someone asked to leave to cooperate to diffuse things till it can be discussed and resolved later when people are calmer. BACKING SOMEONE UP: If someone asks for someone to leave, even if you don't understand the reasons, it is usually excellent to back the person asking up and to take the person asked aside to diffuse the face-to-face conflict between them. REASSURING THOSE ASKED: Reassure the person being asked that it is considered excellent to leave when asked. It counts in your favor. Cooperation shows consideration for keeping the space peaceful and you can request Mediation to provide neutral Conflict Resolution support to try to clear whatever happened up later. You can read out the basic AskedToLeave policy if anyone is confused about it and give them this page link to read for themselves: 1. If you're in an argument with somebody that seems irresolvable and looks like it's escalating beyond attempts at dropping it or Conflict Resolution, you or they can ask the other to leave. It's okay for both sides to do that, because that gets the confrontation out of the space, and gives time for people to calm down. 2. It's considered excellent to leave. It counts in your favor. 3. Not leaving isn't excellent, because at that point at least one person is stuck in an immediately intractable problem. 4. Neither is it excellent to leave, and coming back before resolving the conflict. More clarifying points 5-7 on this follow.

See also:

• Unexcellent - A page to link to people (noisebridge.net/unexcellent) as you're walking them to the door after asking them to leave
• Conflict Resolution
• Mediation
• Community Standards
• 86 - a list of people that are no longer welcome at Noisebridge

Guidelines

(Here's some perspective excerpted from the Noisebridge mailing list ...)

(This guidance was updated to concur with post-Noisebridge-Reboot policies. Historically, many community problems were handled at our weekly Tuesday meetings, but these discussions became too drama-filled, and we now use other methods. Please see the links, above, for our current ways of handling problems.)

https://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/2013-March/034846.html

[...] one of the reasons why the Noisebridge tradition has emerged 
over the years of asking people to leave is to defuse immediate 
situations. It doesn't mean anything more than some matter has arisen 
that the people involved feel uncomfortable handling on their own, 
and would rather discuss it with the wider community.

It's not intended as a punishment. Indeed, if one feels outraged that 
one will have to spend a maximum of seven days not at Noisebridge, I 
do rather think one is probably making Noisebridge too much of your 
life, and need a break anyway. 

I also strongly believe the following points represent a consensus 
position at this point, although it isn't the sort of thing that we 
put through official consensus, it's definitely something that fits 
with what most of us do when we're do-ocratically handling these 
situations.

1. If you're in an argument with somebody that seems irresolvable and 
looks like it's escalating, you or they should ask the other to leave. 
It's okay for both sides to do that, because that gets the 
confrontation out of the space, and gives time for people to calm down. 

2. It's considered excellent to leave. It counts in your favor.

3. Not leaving isn't excellent, because at that point at least one 
person is stuck in an immediately intractable problem. 

4. Neither is it excellent to leave, and coming back before resolving 
the conflict. Nor should thou take over an hour leaving and then hover 
around the gate, very slowly picking up your laptop pieces, as happened 
with “Junior” that last time.

5. It's almost certainly not excellent, incidentally, to try and game 
this by just repeatedly asking people to leave and seeking mediation. 
There are many other exploits like this that you can think of. Almost 
all of them fall under another widely-held hackerspace axiom, "don't 
be a dick", and won't get you any credit when you gloat with a big 
grin on your face. Indeed, you may find that the person who did the 
asking to leave will be in far bigger disgrace than the person who 
left. This has actually happened. A lot.

6. If you feel ABSOLUTELY outraged about being kicked out, it is almost 
certain that other people will feel ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGED on your behalf, 
or perhaps roll their eyes at what happened. Please seek mediation. It 
is a good way to see how the rest of the community feels. It is very 
unlikely that if you are asked to leave for a dumb reason that the rest 
of the community will sympathise with the person telling you to leave. 
If they do, perhaps your OUTRAGE was misplaced.

7. And yes you are part of a community, and your big "nobody tells *me* 
what to do" isn't actually the anarchism we practice here. Otherwise you 
could just turn the place into a satanic ice cream parlor and everyone 
would be like woooo anarchy, which they would not. Well, maybe at first, 
but then they would be like why are these arduinos vanilla flavored and 
melting, and the crying would begin.