Member conflicts and banning

[apipe]

Continuing the discussion from Committee Chair Thread - October 2015:

@Kentamanos

@Nick

That being said I believe it isn’t clear who has been banned from DMS and exactly why?

AFAIK (I could be wrong) there has been one person permanently banned from DMS, and nobody even knows his real name (guy that had the police called on him). There have been temporary suspensions etc., but I don’t know of any bans.

Member conflicts do happen from time to time as we have plenty of members now with strong personalities so there are bound to be conflicts.

IMHO when you have a beef with another member you should try to resolve it in this order:

1. Talk to the person that you have a conflict with. I understand that this may not be possible due to safety concerns in some circumstances, but you should at least give it a shot. I have had another member have a complaint with me and go over my head (not even letting me know about it first) before taking it to the next step. I am hardly a safety threat so I don’t think the safety exception really applies here.

2. If you feel it isn’t safe to do #1 first or #1 isn’t getting you anywhere then take it up with the board of directors or committee chair, whichever is more appropriate. They will take the action(s) they think are appropriate for the situation.

3. If there isn’t time (imminent threat to your life) then leave and call the police. This is extreme though and only should be done if there is a real threat here.

Again just IMHO
YMMV

I’ve been involved in the founding of a couple organizations (one being DMS) so I’ve seen these conflicts from time to time. Most of the time an arbitrator is called in to resolve the more serious conflicts.

[AndrewLeCody]

We’ve had a few member conflicts over the years, the vast majority of them are settled with simple mediation. Only a few ever rose to the level of formal complaints.

[Kentamanos]

@Nick reminded me of something he had heard, and I’ll add another “banned” member to the “list”. I’m not sure how I forgot, but even though the guy quit before he could be discovered, I think it’s fair to consider the guy who routed aluminum on the Multicam at around 3AM permanently banned.

As far as keeping an official list, we don’t want anything that someone does at DMS to haunt them via Google searches the rest of their life, and we don’t want to name names for instance. We even try to keep official complaints on the BoD meetings fairly non-specific and avoid first and last names.

[wandrson]

@Kentamanos

As far as keeping an official list, we don’t want anything that someone does at DMS to haunt them via Google searches the rest of their life, …

Aw, but public shaming has such a long an socially useful history…