Blocking Self Proclaimed Bad Eggs?

Off Topic
#1

So, speaking only in hypothetical, should a member ever warn the DMS not to allow membership to a person before they join the group? Taking this further, what should DMS do, if a non-member of DMS tells the DMS in general that they do not intend to follow the DMS rules before they even join our group?

@Scott_Blevins asked in another thread are we required to let everyone in to DMS that isn’t banned? As more of a hypothetical argument rather than applied to the particular topic he was posting on.

Personally, I find myself feeling that the vast majority of the DMS members are good up standing people and I wouldn’t push to block people that are not banned. I would also hope that I’m not in the minority in this opinion. But, in the hypothetical scenario of a person coming to our group telling us they they won’t follow our rules, should we take them at their word and block their membership to our group?

Again this is only hypothetical and not related to any topics. Just wondering where we sit on the spectrum of preemptively stopping a possible issue before it happen, or do we wait till an issue actually happens. I’m only talking in the scenario of the member stating this directly, not in a scenario where we are inferring this possibility. Kind of like DMS Minority Report.

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#3

We don’t have a ready method - technical nor administrative - to block membership. One signs up for membership by establishing payment rather than completing an application that is then reviewed.

We have blocked non-members for deeds - search the wiki for “86” (not going to link since we prefer to limit that page’s visibility to the Google-Bing panopticon).

To the root of your topic, shall we say preemptive shunning, it would depend on the context and intent of the statement. Is it flippant / joking, in reference to some activity the person doesn’t engage in, or is it actually serious? In the case of the latter, if it were brought to the attention of the D&O group it might warrant scrutiny of the individual but I would not expect preemptive action without additional facts or circumstances.

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#4

:smile: This made me giggle.

Thanks for the “86” page reminder, find it funny how we use the term non-member on that page. As some where definitely members while others seemed to be visitors that stole from us. Maybe the use is that they were expelled while not having an active membership rather than never having a membership.

That all said, would any of us support expelling a non-member in the instance that they state before joining that they intend to break our rules?

Morally, I feel the answer is to block them, but at the same time we are so large that one bad egg is unlikely to hurt us all that bad before we can expel them from the group. Just wondering if there is a sound logical argument to state that we do not block any people from joining as long as they don’t already have a prior record with our group? I kind of feels like we may be in a much stronger liability state than I have felt in the past with DMS now that we have dealt with some very large issues in our time.

#5

This is why business reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. This seems a reasonable stance.

#6

You’re either a member or not. If you’re not a member when the action was taken you’re a non-member regardless of whether past records linger or not.

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#7

Bad eggs cause a lot of lost volunteer time - reviewing camera footage, disciplinary emails, investigation, gathering statements, scheduling interviews, hearings, discussion, documentation and board action which are all time consuming. A lot of work goes into every disciplinary action. For example, if a non-member posts on Talk that they intend to break our rules after joining and they cannot be reasoned with then I think it is reasonable to vote as a board to refuse their membership.

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#8

Huh.
I was thinking “Morally, innocent until proven guilty” is kind of the foundation of American justice systems, and seems to me applicable here.
I suppose it would help if we could hypothesize whether this “mention” was simply in the course of conversation, or a legitimate threat (which completely changes the moral ground upon which we stand).

For some reason, Milton from Office Space is popping into my head. Morally, I think his mentions of building on fire were to be ignored as idle grumbling. Hindsight would show them as legitimate threats, which should have been taken seriously…
I remain “not a fan” of Minority Reporting membership allowance…

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#9

It would also depend on which rule they plan to break after joining. If someone brags about how they are going to join and start stealing from us then allowing them to join and have 24/7 access to the building seems irresponsible.

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#10

We attract a very diverse group of individuals. Some personality types are more abrasive to other personality types. We are stronger as a community due to this diversity. I’ll never forget sitting in the galley and someone walking up to me and saying, “Hi, I’m _______. I’m the professional sh1t stirrer around here.” If someone walks in saying I will break x rules. Should they be banned? I don’t believe so, but I would keep a closer eye on them to limit exposure of the Space. Perhaps it’s just their humor, or personality type.

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#11

The only way I know of to keep an eye on someone would be to prevent them from joining so they would have to be a guest of another member who would be responsible for them. That could be an option depending on what they are threatening to do.

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#12

It takes a lot of manpower and resources to monitor this type of situation. Would we log in every time that person gets to the space? Rely on others to report? Would people then blame leadership for allowing the person in if things were stolen, broken or someone else got hurt based on this person’s behavior? Lots to think about with this.

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#13

Real potential for legal hassles. I can picture trial lawyer types just foaming at the gills sending “test subjects” our way just to see if there’s “discrimination, bias, etc.” Given our litigious society and the “come sue with us redistribute someone’s wealth” industry, probably a bad idea. Safer to catch on the video and go from there.

While you’re at it - how about a way to ferret out the weasels? You know the type. “I’m going to creatively interpret the rules so that I can fulfill my self entitlement needs”.

It just never ends…

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#14

You and I are in similar positions on this, I too would like to give the benefit of the doubt for the rarest of rare scenarios where this member could bring growth to our community. I also feel that we work at such a scale that our scale protects us in many ways from the major losses that could happen from a bad egg. @Edenblue points out the effort need to officially monitor an individual would be too much. But, we don’t have to officially monitor many of our trouble makers as they often make themselves know to the membership by violating more minor rules first. By the time they become larger issues, they are often already on the radar of the BOD.

The later and later I get in my life the less and less I fear legal action by an individual. As I seen them happen and the majority just failed. Legal action is not only costly and time consuming for both parties, but it also often opens the individual up to just as much risk as they intend to impose on some other entity or person. Scenarios often end in how much am I willing to cut myself in order to hopefully cut you.

Your point does hold more merit when it comes to protected classes like Race, Sex, Age, or Disability. With disability being the scariest category in my book as they have legal funds to help and many laws that are either vague or not well known that they can use. When you can play with the house money and write your own rules, people are much more likely to take advantage.

Had to stare down a possible access to work case about 12 years. Lucked out in not hiring anyone before I heard the case was a possibility. Had I filled the position, I would of been hosed in trial. Instead, never officially posted or filled the position and as such lawyers talking is all that came of it.

#15

TSA has signs at airports that all threats will be taken seriously. If someone says they’ll break the rules, it might be prudent to believe him or her the first time.

We have 24 hour access and potentially dangerous equipment here, not to mention expensive equipment.

If a person says they’re going to steal something or hurt someone, and notifies the organization ahead of doing so, wouldn’t that be damaging to DMS as a plaintiff in a victim’s lawsuit if that person was injured or robbed by the potential member with DMS having prior knowledge of the threat, and choosing not to act on it?

This might be a better question for DMS’ lawyer than the general membership.

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#16

If someone was killed at dms, would bet we have way more issue than the person saying they would break a rule.

#17

There’s a few people I’ve known that I would not want at DMS or near anything more dangerous than a screwdriver. :rofl:

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#18

I would argue that monitoring the dms or the members specifically would not be nearly as expensive or require as much manpower as you might think. Actually i think this would be better said, it’s all relevant to what you consider expensive. It also depends on what you consider the spaces tolerance is for specific types of non welcone behavior. I think we can all agree that the behavior comes in different tiers, that theft sexual harrasment, violence, destructive behavior… all of these are actions that should be heavily discouraged through punishment, that includes expulsion… but what about rascism? Poor hygiene? Over cussing? Are these bad enough to be kicked out? What about napping? What if your best welder and nicest guy in the world just can’t stop cussing? Is that an offense that warrants explusion? … Btw if noone else notices the irony in what in am saying Ill acknowledge it… you also have to have the ability to acknowlwdge and counts you own biases. Are you seeing a person’s actions through your own lense and making their standards different than someone else’s?

As far as a monitoring system goes it is incredibly within financial reach if there is an available technically able group to support it. It would be a fair amount of work but not hard to setup recognition. And monitoring softwareat dms provided that there is already an IP camera system installed that can be either piggy backed or replaced. And I an talking about facial recognition that triggers the system to monitor and log all activity of a specific user including audio, Geo fencing, even to some degree intent and interest interpretation without the need for a human taking part in the monitoring process. With use of RFID it would also not be very difficult to set up real time asset tracking usage and geofencing. Even so far as to not alert others to tool misuse, deny operation to a person not qualified by community standard, proximity power control that allows certain tools to even function if a certain trainingevel of person. Is within range. A mixture of RFID and recognition could accomplish this. If you wanted to get very very creepy the system could even make its own notes of infractions and even actively warn a member via any number of means including rreal time audio, text, alarms etc. All of this is a accesible and the most expensive parts are goinf to be all of the needed rfid tags assuming that you have theanpower to design setup and maintain such a project.

#20

It’s surprising to me that we don’t do an automatic background check on prospective members. Even a simple check for felonies or crimes involving theft would be advisable – possibly – maybe.

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#21

Do other makerspaces do background checks?
And if so what’s the result?

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#22

Personally I feel a vast number of people are honest, & do the right thing. Blocking people is very contentious based off things that were said. Ever play the game of telephone? He said this, next thing we know, things are misconstrued & way off base. I would rather deal with the individual, yes its work & a pain in the ass, but I think in the long run it’s worth it.

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