That’s a good point. Also, results of disciplinary actions are in the board minutes, which are public documents.
There is a current law suit from a member to some members of the previous board for defamation having to do with disciplinary actions and board minutes.
However, that’s not disciplinary action based on things like cleaning up messes that’s disciplinary action without bring able to actually cite a rule, and other contributing factors. There are way more items at play there to use that as a comparison.
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I’m of the opinion that reporting of messes or a reminder of the rules on cleaning should not be made personal, publicly.
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We then go down the hole of repetitive behaviour cases, where if there is no line we end up with a lack of effective enforcements if each time someone observes it they are unaware of the last
It’s not an easy spot to be in
If you feel that public demeaning or humiliation of individuals is the answer to repetitive behavior, we do have a problem. Speak to the people privately and remind them of the rules rather than posting publicly.
Feel free to remind everyone of the rules and polices in a non-personal manner.
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You’re missing the point
If someone observing this behaviour is not aware it’s repetitive because it’s not being shared with the community, it’s problematic for enforcement purposes.
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Do you mean if several different people observe one individual breaking a rule and that because they do not know it is a reoccurring event with this individual, it allows the individual to continue to get away with doing it for longer? I can see that but we all have the responsibility to inform the individual and/or chair of people that break rules. I see no reason to bring this out to a public forum, if it is going to be reported to a forum, it might as well be reported to the chair privately instead.
it’s problematic for enforcement purposes.
As the chair you should know who your repeat offenders are, right? Isn’t discipline up to the committee chair, or Board? Or is discipline up to whatever person wants to harangue someone over a rules infraction? If you discipline Ima Member for leaving a bucket of antifreeze in your committee area, that should be the end of it, right? What purpose does sharing “Ima Member made a mess in my area” with the membership at large accomplish? Other than exposing Ima to further ex post facto “discipline” from other members which is outside their scope of responsibility, that is.
(edit - I’m not talking about observed behavior called out at the time. “Hey, you can’t put that there” is a reasonable reaction to a mess maker at the time of the mess making)
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That is a good point. It has the effect of making someone lose the respect of the community and promotes people ganging up on someone.
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A Chair can use a PM to discreetly communicate disciplinary issues to leadership and identify spacewide issues. (at)Committee_Chairs reaches all chairs, vice-chairs, and officers.
Laser kept the names of members under enforcement off of Talk. I did write publicly on our whiteboard that “(x-number of) members have lost their laser credentials due to (insert infraction here)”, in the hopes of creating a herd immunity effect. No names. The laser community realized we were serious about safety and fraud. Behavior improved. We were thanked often by members. Turns out they don’t like freeloaders and unsafe users! One exception: I was yelled at by two commercial users who choose not to volunteer.
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What happened to them after?
Big sign…
IT HAS BEEN (insert number here) DAYS SINCE THE LAST PERSON WAS BANNED FROM THIS AREA
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We have toyed with the idea of putting up pictures of say Christopher Walken & a few other movie stars saying that they got banned for doing “insert offense”. Don’t do it or you will be banned too.
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Not a thing. They are still here.
It was one incident, two members at once. One was complaining to another Team Laser member when I walked up and asked him to sign in. He refused. And then proceeded to dress me down. Verbally abusive. Raised voice + hateful. Another commercial, non-volunteer user at the adjacent laser joined in. Their points were: they don’t have to sign in, it’s insulting to sign in, writing enforcement actions on the whiteboard is a horrible thing to do, revoking laser access for walking away is a horrible thing to do, permanently banning people for deliberately and systematically not paying is a horrible thing to do, I never say hi to the first user when I walk by (he’s there when I’m not there…that our paths crossed that night was unusual…this was probably only the third time), I’m unfriendly to the users, I’m destroying Laser, I’m the most hated person at the Space and I personally keep the machines in horrible shape. My counterpoints to their complaints about Laser policies were met with escalating personal attacks.
My fellow team member was mute. I learned later that he avoids confrontation like the plague and would have walked off. Him standing there was the most he could do. But at the time, I felt utterly abandoned. A then-board member (not this board) walks up and treats this as a “customers are always right” situation. Backs them up, not me. Then walks away. He could have and should have sent them home for the night.
I went to the parking lot and cried my eyes out. I felt humiliated and abandoned. And sitting in my car, it dawned on me that these two commercial users make money off of my unpaid labor. I’m the employee they don’t have to pay. So not only was I humiliated and abandoned, I was also used.
Carrying that thought to its logical conclusion and tying this story to the “It’s OK MOM will clean it up” topic, their businesses can’t run without me and the 20+ active, unpaid members of Team Laser keeping those machines up and running. And those machines can’t exist without the vast amounts of unpaid labor that other members give to the running of the Space. All the $50 dues in the world won’t keep the lights on.
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Without knowing the other side of the story, and taking yours at face value.
The three people in your story should go procreate with themselves.
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They should be tossed out with the garbage!!! There’s no reason for talk like that to anyone especially to someone they don’t know! If I’d been there you’d have been crawling all over me because I’d be shoving my cane so far up his a$$ that he’d have little rubber feet for eyes!!!
At no point should anyone, anywhere, feel they can dress down someone else just because they feel they’ll enjoy it. They know the rules and expectations before they join up or rent the time. If having people like this means putting up with this much crap then kick them out and retire a laser to lower costs. It’s that simple!!!
And yes, I will drive up there from Waco to express my point in person if you give me their name and address!!!
And I’m sorry someone, anyone, anybody felt they could talk to you and talk down to them like that!!!
Troy
Ps is there a particular day they come in by chance???
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