*sigh* Walter has been muted on Talk

Does someone have a conspiracy like this every time we are about to have a board meeting?

Donā€™t know. Never paid attention before. Correlation does not imply causation, but it is rather convenient.

Just to be clear, the timing of this happening is a result of the timing of the official complaint filed against him by a member who he had sent a PM to. At the time of meeting, as far as anyone knew, he was still planning on moving soon. There was absolutely no discussion about him running for the board. In fact, I do not recall any discussion about the election in regards to the complaint or actions taken against him at all.

And then again - nothing involving politics should ever be considered a coincident.

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I guess I will be the first board member to chime in. We did not place this an many other member complaints on the agenda. The board does not like handling member discipline issues at all but you are asking us to way the issues and make the best determination we can.

Personally I like Walter and have taken his classes which are excellent. He can be abrasive but talk does exaggerate many peopleā€™s communication styles. I normally leave the negative hashing back and forth alone, the forum is called discourse for a reason. In this instance I could not look past the 80+ flags. If he would have attended the meeting, we would be able to ask him more about this exchange.

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Iā€™ll have questions for you later, I have to do real world work and then drudge up some info.

Of those 80+ flags, how many are unique versus maybe just a few thin skinned repeat complainers.
Can we get a statistical break down of those flags?

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And an anonymized breakdown of everyone else who has say 20+ flags for context.

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Perhaps a change of order is necessary for future BoD meetings. Given that they seem to last a long, indeterminate time, disciplinary items like this one need to be handled first, before any other business. That gives the accused a good shot of having their case heard in the first 15 minutes of the meeting. Waiting an hour or two until it comes up in order on ā€œNew Businessā€ is a waste of the memberā€™s time.

(edit: postscript) Additionally, complaints like this one are interrupts to oneā€™s normal schedule. Walter may have had a prior commitment which he could not break. It is unfair to expect him to do so on short notice.

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And also distinguish between which flags were for being off-topic (a most trivial-of-trivial misdemeanor), which were for being ā€œinappropriateā€, and which were for ā€œotherā€ reasons.

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The way I see it, Walter took the higher road by preparing a statement. Things could get out of hand & emotions high. I personally would not want to see yelling & screaming at a meeting.

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So, reading the minutes.

Walter was accused of threatening Mr. Knapp in a private message on Talk. After review, no one found the private message threatening. Mr. Knapp, on the other hand, was admonished, for threatening Walter, by the Talk administrator, for the public message that motivated Walters private response. However, the Board took no notice of the actual violation, and instead elected to censor Walter, and deny him the right to speak to the membership on Talk.

Recent Board meetings show a pattern leading up to the meeting. Walter angered the Board, for repeatedly requesting documents the Board either didnā€™t have, or didnā€™t want to provide him, despite the rules requiring them to do so. Walter further irritated them, by posting on the subject on talk, and exaggerating one Board members connection to a vendor.

The Board action removing his right to communicate with the membership on the official forum, was justified by calling Walter a ā€œtrollā€. Not a scintilla of evidence was provided, showing that Walter violated any rule, or policy of the Dallas Makerspace.

Therefore, this action was an impermissible and illegal exercise of the authority granted to the Board by our Bylaws. Their action was arbitrary and capricious, and actionable.

You, as a member, should decide whether this is behavior you will tolerate. Are your friendships more important than simple right and wrong? Will you, by virtue of silence, allow ā€œannoying a Board memberā€, to permit them to take your membership rights away from you? Will you accept censorship of ideas to be a defining characteristic of this organization? Will you grant the Board the right to censor members because they donā€™t like too much truth told on the forums? Because you ask difficult questions? Or demand the rights you have as a member, to see the books and records of the Space? That is what is happening here, and no question about it. The record is clear.

Getting posts flagged, is no violation of our rules.

But Governance by ego, is a really bad thing.

"Censorship is the height of vanity. "

ā€“> Martha Graham

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Off the top of my head, I donā€™t know a way to separate the types of flags. Iā€™m not saying that it isnā€™t possible, I have never looked into it.

I have a few more options on my screen as Admin, so I really donā€™t know what all anyone else can see from a non-Admin account; but, I believe there is quite a bit of interesting information available to just about anyone logged into TALK (based off the fact that thereā€™s quite a bit available to view by someone not logged in at allā€¦).

When you go to a user profile on TALK, if you are logged in, you should see some info about the flags near the top left corner (based off what Iā€™ve heard others say, so very likely the same info that I can seeā€¦). If you scroll down past the main part of their profile (where their name, avatar, etcā€¦ are), then there should be a drop-down menu that defaults to ā€œActivityā€. If you select ā€œSummaryā€, there is a lot more information available. The ā€œActivityā€ and ā€œSummaryā€ options are definitely available to anyone - logged in or notā€¦

The Board took the action because we do not have a written set of rules that spell out which actions for moderators to take for repeat ā€œoffensesā€. The moderation team has been tasked with coming up with a fair way to handle recurring issues. We will be trying to come up with something that will allow TALK to generally continue to be self moderated (encourage members to flag posts that need moderator attention, etcā€¦), while having a process in place that will allow us to take action in a consistent manner when needed.

Itā€™s no secret that we have a wide range of views on what is ā€œacceptableā€ - from some board members who feel that TALK is a completely undermoderated ā€œwild westā€ train wreck - to members who feel that I am way too heavy handed with how I moderate here. Fortunately, most members see that I am doing my best to keep a middle ground so to speak. Itā€™s definitely not an easy task - considering the strong views of those who are at the farthest ends of the spectrum. The fact is: There is simply no way to make everyone happy. I will continue to do my best to stay moderate with my moderation style. ā€œHappy Mediumā€ is what I will continue to strive for. :grinning:

I hope that helps clear some of the confusion up. :slight_smile:

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Lisa, I think you do a very admirable job considering the circumstances you deal with. Some people will never be happy and some will want to permit anything on Talk. I think youā€™ve found a very nice middle ground to keep things civil but lively and interesting.

People are emotional beings and sometimes ā€œhow they feelā€ becomes more important than rational facts. I know Iā€™ve said things in a blog and in person I wish I could take back, Iā€™m sure most of us have. The proper behavior is to apologize to the offended person [edit: apologize for offending them and possibly upsetting them. This does not imply that you were necessarily persuaded to change your position but that you just did not intend to offend the person and are sorry that you did] and move on vowing not to repeat the mistake [of deliberately offending them. Ideally, both parties would try to understand the point of view of the other and resolve any conflict even it is to just agree to disagree.]

I also try to think through what Iā€™m writing and just delete it if after a re-read I think it is not really fitting or appropriate.

I think your reminders and admonitions are gentle and constructive. Keep up the good work!

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I understood that Walter was not banned from DMS altogether. I should have said that I objected to Walter being banned from posting to talk.

In my intended context of being allowed to post to talk, blocking and banning are equivalent. Iā€™ll endeavor to be unambiguous in future posts.

Related question: Is Walter blocked from reading Members-only threads?

I donā€™t think I see what you seeā€¦
I hope you donā€™t mind if I use you as an example. Anything I can see, anyone can see, I believe.


This is one of the types of things that could be handled differently - if we had rules/precedence in placeā€¦ An example of what we may do in the future - once the rules are set, would be to restrict a memberā€™s access from sending PMs if they are found to be in the habit of sending unwanted (ā€œrudeā€, etcā€¦) PMsā€¦ We could ask the recipients of the unwanted PMs for screenshots, and if there is a pattern, then the member could be restricted to only being able to post on the forum without access to initiating PMs.
The challenge is deciding what is considered a ā€œpatternā€. Obviously, if there is any direct threat of bodily harm, etcā€¦ the receiving member would be encouraged to get The Law involved.

The above is only an example of something that may be addressed in the rules. We obviously have a lot to consider in order to continue to aim for a ā€œHappy Mediumā€ while still having documented tools available to handle recurring issues without requiring Board involvement every time someone gets upset with someone elseā€¦

The solution is clear - Vote for Walter for BOD - problem solved.

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88 Anonymous flags from an unknown number of people. And more then 5200
likes from a hundred or moreā€¦

You can read the original posts and PMs on Walterā€™s membership page on the wiki.

https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/User:Wandrson

Regardless of your take on all this
Activate your voting rights
And vote.

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Thatā€™s an inaccurate restatement of what was presented.

I filed a harassment complaint for a violation of excellence. Mr. Andersonā€™s messages to me were, and are, the very definition of unexcellent. I was asked to be sure that nothing I post in the future could be construed as threatening, which I am happy to do.

The discussion of previous behavior was limited to Mr. Andersonā€™s previous complaints for his behavior on Talk. He has been brought to the board at least twice for his unexcellence regarding his behavior on Talk, and a member present conveyed a third time where his unexcellence in talk was on display.

The board decided to suspend his access to Talk due to repeated complaints from multiple members about his ongoing unexcellent behavior.

Not a scintilla of evidence was provided, showing that Walter violated any rule, or policy of the Dallas Makerspace.

This is not true in the least. Itā€™s either a misunderstanding of the events that transpired and the evidence presented, or an outright lie. I donā€™t believe that youā€™d engage in falsehoods, so Iā€™m going to encourage you to speak to someone who was present before making statements like this.

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