AskToLeave
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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 and give any parties a link to this page link to read for themselves. It is also available at nb.wtf/atl.
Community Members Currently On Leave[edit | edit source]
Current long-term ask to leave requests in effect can be found at AskToLeave/Current.
Tempering Conflict[edit | edit source]
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.
An argument about exclusionary use of the space.*
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[edit | edit source]
- 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
Process[edit | edit source]
Resolve Conflicts[edit | edit source]
First attempt to resolve the situation through discussion.
Do review the discussion guidelines suggested in our excellent Conflict Resolution writeup.
Noisebridge is a community, and community can be hard.
Asking someone to leave without first trying the suggestions mentioned in the Conflict Resolution writeup is considered very unexcellent.
And weaponising "Ask to Leave" to fit your own personal priorities even more so.
Discuss with others[edit | edit source]
If someone is being unexcellent in the space, and you can't reach a resolution with them, first discuss with others in the space to double-check your feelings on the matter. If you're worried about confronting this person alone, gather others present around the space together to help assist you to make your case.
Asking someone to leave[edit | edit source]
It's important when asking someone to leave to not invite them to a Tuesday meeting. Tuesday meetings are not a place for drama to be hashed out in front of the community, they're a productive time for non-drama.
Further Mediation[edit | edit source]
If you feel like the situation can be resolved through mediation, seek a sponsor in the community willing to mediate the conflict and ask the Safe Space Working Group to schedule a meeting.
This overall process is described in our Mediation writeup. Please read it.
This page is maintained by the Documentation Working Group. If technical writing is your thing, you should consider helping out by editing this page! | Document ALL The Things! YES, ALL THE THINGS | Edit |
Guidelines[edit | edit source]
(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.