How we keep Noisebridge safe

DRAFT - How we keep a healthy, safe Noisebridge community

This is a very rough draft of something I've been working on on and off for a while in an attempt to try and communicate to newer people in our community how our no-process tools and patterns work around dealing with issues in the space, without actually defining a formal process. Comments and suggestions welcome.

Noisebridge has learned a lot in the past few years about how to keep our community healthy and safe. We've tried a lot of things that didn't work, and in the process, found a few that did. This is an attempt to catalog some of the things we've learned, both to help pass on our learnings to newer community members as well as to share with other communities that may benefit from our past.

Noisebridge is a very unique community in many ways. We want to be able to have nice things, and a space that everyone feels safe and comfortable to hack, learn, and teach in. But we also want to be radically inclusive and as open as possible. This is sometimes in conflict with our surrounding neighborhood and the culture we live in. Because of this, we've had to learn new tools and approaches to problems that other communities either don't have, or solve in different ways that wouldn't work for us.

Here are some of the components of maintaining a safe, healthy space and community at Noisebridge:

• Progressive vetting: access card levels, slack access, membership
• Ongoing discussion and spreading the culture around how we maintain a safe, healthy, welcome space and community.
• Always greeting people at the door, filtering who comes in and giving newcomers tours, and training people how to do this.
• Closing the space at night when the last philanthropist or member leaves, or at 11pm if people no longer want to be responsible for keeping the space open.
• Actively talking about people that exhibit red flags, even before it reaches critical mass in person and/or on the #space-guardians slack channel.
• Empowering individuals to do-ocratically ask people to leave and/or not come back
• Reciprocal safe space bans with other bay area hackerspaces
• Maintaining the 86 page on the wiki with photos and descriptions of people that are not welcome at noisebridge
• Our Anti-Harassment Policy
• TODO: more antiharrassment stuff here

Progressive vetting

We like to gradually get to know new people to the community before we trust them with the keys to the kingdom.

Here's a couple ways we do that:

RFID access cards

We use RFID cards to open the downstairs gate/upstair door at noisebridge, both to let ourselves in from outside, and to let others in from inside the space.

These are the different access levels for door access:

• Doorbell: When you first come to Noisebridge, you can ring the doorbell, and if there's someone in the space with an RFID who has time to show you around, they'll let you in. Everyone is welcome to ring the doorbell any time!
• Temporary daylight access: Once you've been to Noisebridge a few times and get to know a few people, you can ask any member to give you temporary 30-day anonymous access during daylight hours (11am-10pm).
• Permanent daylight access: Once you've gotten to know the community a bit better, you can ask a member to have your name/email address associated with your RFID card. This makes your card no longer anonymous (so we can remove your access if you screw up), but will never expire.
• 24/7 access: Philanthropist and Member have full time access. Here's more information about how to become a member/philanthropist: (TODO).

Slack

We have public Mailing lists and an irc channel that anyone can join. However, we have a slack community we use heavily for discussion within the community. It's really high signal-to-noise, and very low on trolls and sock puppets. We try and keep it that way by only inviting people to Slack once they've been hanging out in the space for a while, and we've gotten to know them.

Philanthropists

Philanthropists have 24x7 access to the space, and as such, may potentially be by themselves either late at night or early in the morning, or may be sponsoring other non-philanthropist/non-members in the space later at night. As such, we want to make sure we trust them to treat the space excellently, and make sure they know how to greet people at the door, how to give a tour, and how to close up the space at night if they're the last person in the space. See Philanthropist for more info

Membership

Members have the ability to single-handedly block our Consensus process. Thus, we really want to get to know someone before they become a member. Generally, we suggest that people don't apply to be a member until they've been active in the community for at least 6 months. There's lots more info about the membership process on the wiki.

Ongoing discussion

Oh my god, are we having THAT discussion again? Yes, yes we are.

We mostly spread culture at Noisebridge through talking about it. This happens pretty readily with topics hackers generally love, like the one true text editor (hint: it's vim), but less readily with topics hackers like less, like how to handle interpersonal conflict. We've learned a lot about how to keep our community healthy over the lifetime of Noisebridge, and we share that knowledge by continually talking about it. This means we often have the same ongoing conversations, particularly with newer community members, about how we greet people, what we consider acceptable behavior, and how we deal with problems when they come up.

How we handle people causing problems at Noisebridge

Participation in Noisebridge is a privilege, not a right. The health of the Noisebridge community comes first and foremost. Everything else is built on that. There's a balance between being fair and attempting restorative justice, and preserving the precious energy of core community members.

Repeat after me: there is no process.

Here are a few reasons why:

• Formal process is too easily gamed.
• Formal process that requires putting the same amount of energy into all situations burns out core community members.
• Most people come to Noisebridge to hack, not to deal with curating the community. Not having a formal process limits drama to those involved and those willing and interested in dealing with it.

Channels for dealing with people that are causing problems in the community may include (but not necessarily):

• In person 1:1 discussion between community members
• Conversations with the problematic person
• Discussion on the #space-guardians
• Out of band slack discussion (often used for sensitive issues)
• In person group discussions

Remedies:

• Anyone can ask someone to leave
• Anyone can ask someone to leave and not come back
• Informal consensus amount frequent community participants can lead to:
• being asked to leave

an informal ban

• being added to the 86 page
• re-including someone back into the community who was previously asked to leave

Some things we used to do that we don't do anymore:

• Ask people that have been asked to leave to come to the next Tuesday meeting. This frequently turns the Tuesday meetings into a giant drama-fest, which drives away new community members, burns out existing community members, and makes people not to want to come to the meetings anymore.
• Have a formal banning/appeals process. Having a formal process assumes that there's a single one-size-fits all process to handle all situations, which we've learned simply doesn't exist. Each situation needs to be handled separately, in the context of both the situation itself, and the current state of the rest of the community. In addition, having a formal rigid process gives an opportunity for those not welcome in the community to game the system and/or drag out the process, exhausting any community members will to engage in the process, which eventually leads to burn out.
• Guarantee the same level of due process for everyone, regardless of the situation. As a fully volunteer run community, our time and energy is incredibly scarce and precious. Not all situations deserve the same level of investment.
• Involve people who don't want to be involved with safe space issues. If you don't want to deal with drama in the space, you don't have to. You don't have to answer the door, nor do you have to be subscribed to #space-guardians on slack. If you just want to shut up and hack, you're encouraged to do so. By keeping safe space issues and interpersonal drama out of the weekly Tuesday meeting and off the noisebridge-discuss mailing list, we allow each person in the community to make this choice for themselves.
• Mediation by default/demand - We only do it if it's likely to succeed and everyone involved wants to do it.

Red Flags

Red flags are small signs that someone might be doing or going to try and do something that hurts the Noisebridge community. Seeing one warning sign is a reason for concern, but not a problem in and of itself. We talk about red flags when we see them to figure out if there's a larger pattern of behavior that no one person is seeing. Ie, someone found someone asleep on the couch, but didn't think too much of it. They mention it, and find out that three other people have woken the same person up, and a fourth person saw them stashing clothes in the wood shop. Now there's a much different story, which makes it pretty clear that this person doesn't belong at Noisebridge.

Red flags include, but are not limited to:

• Name dropping to invoke privilege. Particularly if that person is Mitch, "the owner", or "the people in charge".
• Bolting past the person opening the door for them and heading for the back of the space
• Immediately heading to a hidey-hole - a dark, unpopulated corner of the space
• Immediately rummaging through things after coming in. Either in the hack shelves, or elsewhere in the space.
• Demanding help/attention when first coming in to the space (ie, fix my laptop/phone)
• Lying
• Giving people a hard time when someone questions their behavior or asks them to leave.
• Only taking from the space - this mean direct theft of tools/hack shelf contents/laptops/materials/etc, or simply taking energy out of the space, by ie, sleeping, constantly complaining, etc.
• Only giving to the space - this is also known as the Savior/Martyr pattern (see below).
• Only using the Noisebridge kitchen/internet/couches
• Ringing the doorbell late at night
• Storing personal items/clothing at Noisebridge, particularly in out-of-sight places
• Not making sense - racing thoughts, paranoia, etc
• Immediately asking about the 24 hour access policy
• Showing a sense of entitlement - an attitude that Noisebridge exists solely for their benefit
• Gets argumentative quickly vs discussing when things don't go their way
• Argues about how Noisebridge should be when brand new to the community
• Sleeps in the space
• Shows up drunk/high
• Immediately tells you "I've been coming here for years."
• Invokes anarchism as a reason why they can do whatever they want and don't have to listen to anyone else.
• Reacts poorly when people introduce themselves or want to chat.

The Savior/Martyr pattern:

• Shows up at Noisebridge incredibly enthusiastic to "Make Noisebridge Better!"
• Starts jumping into working on the Noisebridge infrastructure in lots of ways
• Makes lots of suggestions for what Noisebridge is doing wrong and how to improve it without getting to know the community first
• Doesn't explore or do any of their own projects
• Doesn't make use of the Noisebridge classes/workshops/other resources
• Develops a sense of propriety at Noisebridge - they are SAVING Noisebridge by making a huge personal sacrifice
• Gets frustrated when they aren't in complete control, or resents that people don't recognize them enough for their sacrifice
• Ends up rubbing people the wrong way
• Doesn't change their behavior when people give them feedback
• Eventually gets unwelcomed or banned in a spectacular explosion

Often people that exhibit this pattern start out as very good contributors to the space, and are often well liked within the community. But it has always led to badness, often extreme, when people only contribute to, and don't benefit from the community.

Shit that might feel unfair:

• Some people's opinion carries more weight than others.
• Not all conversations, particularly about safe space issues, happen in public forums. Sometimes there will be conversations you're not privvy to.
• Not everyone is guaranteed the same level of due process.
• Not everyone who fucks up in the space will get the same level of attention.

Someone asked me to leave. What should I do?

(I'm not sure we have a good answer for this one yet. But I think this is the best answer I have right now.)

Wow, sounds like you probably fucked up pretty bad. Noisebridge does not often ask someone to leave without a lot of discussion and consensus beforehand. You should leave without arguing. Now is not the time to make a stand. Refusing to leave or arguing about leaving significantly hurts your chances of ever being allowed back. Once you've left, reflect on why you were asked to leave.

The starting point for resolving problems within the Noisebridge community is having a genuine willingness and ability to:

• Hear feedback on how your behavior is affecting others
• Engage in productive/constructive dialog about the feedback
• Change your behavior based on feedback

That being said, you might not be welcome back. There are no guarantees. It depends on how badly you screwed up, and whether a core community participant that other people trust and respect is willing to vouch for you and work with you to help you understand and address other people's concerns.

• Comparing a fully grown adult, capable (and expected) of making complex decisions and learning from their own mistakes, to a dog whose owner hasn't bothered to train it, is quite frankly ridiculous, and completely demeaning. If a human is incapable of making basic decisions, they need a lot of mental health support from a trained professional.

Secondly, you would take a dog outside and teach it to go to the bathroom outdoors. You're correct in that you wouldn't hit it. But consider, perhaps, the dog starts nipping and growling any time you try to gently discipline and teach it, so you resort to non-abusive but firmer discipline. When that fails, your next step is to seek professional help. And if that doesn't work, then perhaps you'll relegate the dog to being an outdoors dog - given that you still provide adequate food, shelter, social interaction, exercise and comfort to the animal. You would still invite the dog indoors regularly, but it would for most times, remain outside to limit accidents. So if you found the dog uninvited indoors, peeing on the floors and growling, you would put the dog back outside. And that wouldn't be considered "illogical" or abusive, or a "narrow view of the world". We never hurt Ginger for what happened. From the moment we got her call, we took in her children, we showed up to doctor's appointments. We weren't the ones who denied her visitation rights - and we actually helped put all the paperwork together to grant her visiting rights. All she had to do was find the time to visit the office. My husband even offered to drive her there (for the 4 months she had the kids, she was living in the next town over, not working, and didn't have the time somehow). We offered to find and help her afford rehab programs for her alcohol and drug problems (which she claimed she was ready for, and even asked us to help her find, but ultimately never went beyond there). My brother-in-law offered to pay for the legal side of things to help her if she decided to get a restraining order against her ex. The money we loaned her to have her vehicle fixed so she could make her appointments was blown on frivolous crap. We paid a month of her rent (instead of giving her another loan), so she had time to look for a job. Instead, she spent the next month partying with all the "extra" cash. We spent the next year and a half keeping tabs on her children through the foster care system (she doesn't even know where 3/5 live anymore, and hasn't even tried to contact them. The only reason she knew where the other 2 were was because they went to live with a paternal grandparent in the area). So here's the thing: we helped with the issue. We offered solutions for the issue. Our solutions didn't help. We offered professional help. That didn't work, either. So we did the only thing we could: kept her children safe while she took the time she needed. Instead, she started using illegal means to put the children in danger. So you firmly remind her that it is an unsafe condition for her children, that she can have her children back if she stops living with said abuser and seeks assistance (which is still being offered). That doesn't work, so you go back to the last step: keeping her children out of a harmful situation. Rinse and repeat. You know nothing of what we went through, and your "serious question" is beyond insulting. To even insinuate that she couldn't know what she was doing was wrong, or that she was "beaten" instead of offered help, is quite possibly the rudest thing you could say. We went through hell and back for that woman. She took the children out of our care purely out of spite for being told to "get her damn life together" - a fact she admitted to her mother on the phone, even going so far as to say the other reasons were to make it seem more believable. Am I angry? Absolutey. And what's more, is I have every right to be, and her actions are by any measure, despicable. Was she affected by a poor upbringing? Undoubtedly, but that doesn't make the behavior excusable. So were her other siblings, which is why they all jumped in to support her and the children. It's incredibly distressing, and I would gladly put my life on hold if she was serious about putting her family back together. But tell me, is it our place to "train" her? Is it really reasonable to want her to keep her children because she "doesn't choose her actions" and that it's "not her fault, it's the way she was raised"? Is that a valid reason for allowing her children to be kept in an abusive home? Is it okay to say that she has "mental issues" and a "substance addiction", but that she loves her children and that should be enough for us to turn hell or high water to get her children home? Should we risk her children being beaten because "been trained to fear"? I am absolutely disgusted by you.