Unblock Walter on Talk

DMS General
#101

On 04/10/17 12:51, Walter Anderson wrote:

Andrew,

A board member who is involved in the actions surrounding the formal
complaint is of course one with a conflict of interest. This is why I
have always posted that the board should not involve itself in
‘mediation’ for those conflicts.

As an example. The first board meeting I attended there was a formal
complaint between Stan and Ralph. During the hearing for that
complaint, Alex served a ‘defendent’ (he involved himself in the actual
conflict, a witness, and also as a judge. None of the other board
members appears to see any conflict in him serving those multiple roles.
I can assure you that a court almost certainly would have. That was my
first exposure to the boards flouting of our conflict by laws (which I
hadn’t even read at that point). Further reading of the minutes and
observation of future meetings revealed more.

Most of those conflicts were minor, but the real point is that they
weren’t even acknowledged. And in at least one case @Lampy wasn’t even
aware of the potential conflict, when it came to the FACT that Robert
used to work for the accounting firm we have used for a few years.
Until I brought that fact to the attention of the members and the board,
Robert had not recused himself from votes on the hiring of that firm.

A more recent example is that Candidate Robert was allowed to be the
primary contact with our selected company for administering the online
vote. After I raised a concern, apparently that was changed to Ken (who
is not running)… All of this is documented on Talk (Simply Voting
Thread)… But the FACT is that the board should have handled this
themselves.

Conflict is not a major problem if it is handled properly. Indeed the
Board can act to allow one of its members to vote on a potential
conflict situation IF they KNOW about it and vote (on the record) to
allow it. But ignoring it is not the proper way to deal with it.

Walter

Edit to unhide, as this is on-topic.

2 Likes
#103

Response from Walter:

Mel wrote:
And yet the witness right below it in that thread, @merissa is
dismissed?

Not in the least, hence why I requested the DATA to determine the FACTS
over a month ago… And I am still awaiting on even the most basic
response of whether the board intend to to provide that data… Barring
actual data, witness testimony does nothing more than provide a reason
to request that data…

Mel wrote:
The problem is, you state things as fact, you put all of your trust
in second hand accounts and spread gossip in a way I think is
damaging.

As you should be aware these ‘second hand accounts’ and ‘gossip’ have
been around for long before I was a member. That is damaging. Bringing
them out into the open and therefore having them determined to be
factual or not does the exact opposite of damage…

Also, unlike many of the board, I have a great awareness of my personal
liability… So I think you would find, I don’t state something as a
fact (at least I try not too) if I am not aware that I can proove it…
It is certainly possible, that in the vast number of posts I have
responded to, I failed to be clear about that; however, I believe you
would find I always corrected what was fact versus opinion versus
‘gossip’ when challenged…

2 Likes
#105

Walter since you seem to be have nothing better to do than to attack my character let’s deal in facts.

PSK was not selected by me it was selected by Paul Brown the former treasurer in 2014 and if you ask Paul he will absolutely tell you that I told him I worked there as an intern at PSK in 2009 for approx 1 year. PSK has predated @Lampy so again you are spreading misrepresentation of fact.

Walter again you have no idea what your talking about DMS does not even have a voting system all I did was create a proof of concept on a simplyvoting.com that is specifically designed around voting. If your going to make accusations at least get your facts straight.

1 Like
A letter to the membership from Walter
#106

I’m wondering just exactly what this particular action has solved if anything. As far as I can tell it has just created more divide within the membership and brought attention to situations/events that most people probably had no idea even existed.

However, I do think it definitely has created more interest in the upcoming election. So, there is at least one positive.

4 Likes
#110

@Robert_Davidson & @Julie-Harris, please have this conversation elsewhere. This thread is regarding Walter being blocked on Talk.

7 Likes
#111

This is prejudicial and obnoxious.

This isn’t a government contract. Multiple bids are not required. If you have some evidence that Robert benefited from this selection in some way, present that rather than innuendo.

9 Likes
#113

Really though, this whole thing needs to be locked down. It’s going no where and not doing anything constructive.

3 Likes
#114

https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors_Meeting_20170415#Minutes

Whenever Infra can execute, this will be over with for now. Explicit acknowledgement that this is for the next board to handle.

Edit: and I am told by one of the mods this has already happened.

2 Likes
#115

from the minutes:
"MOTION: “Instruct Infrastructure Commitee to unblock Walter Anderson on Talk
until the conclusion of the next BoD meeting (4/24/2017 22:00)”

  • 4 in favor, Alex abstains, motion passes"

By the wording “UNTIL THE next BoD meeting” - are we to assume this is only a temporary reprieve? or has it in fact been lifted? If it is the former, the matter is not in fact over.

#116

It’s temporary. The reasoning was because the mod committee would have guidelines by then and they can pass it along to them.

Walter has considerably less beef with the people moderating than the Board, so it has the added advantage of removing the appearance of retaliation.

#117

I don’t have a beef with the people moderating, nor the people on the Board. My issues have always been with actions. I am very interested in seeing what rules the moderators come up with. I am very concerned that in the last week, I have sent a flag to moderator attention about a post to a new member that I felt was both factually incorrect and quite rude (yes I know many will find that ironic coming from me). I was surprised and disappointed when the moderator who responded that it would be looked into was the same person I flagged. I hope the new rules address the obvious problems with a moderator having anything to do with flags or complaints about their own actions.

3 Likes
#118

Walter, would you mind sending me a PM with the info, I did a quick search and didn’t see anything that seemed like a match. Though I am on a mountain and connection is garbage, so I may have missed it.

1 Like
#119

Just did so. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

#120

You are enjoying a better connection than we are today…

2 Likes
#121

welcome back Walter.

1 Like
#122

Andrew, now that I have had a chance to sleep I was able to verify something. I had to send you the screen capture of the PM from the moderator instead of the direct link, because it appears that someone with elevated access removed that message at some point after I received it. This would explain why you weren’t able to find something that matched.

I will say that whomever did this, also acted with impropriety.

1 Like
#123

Thank you, though it is only temporary. The boards original ‘punishment’ will retake effect next Sunday.

1 Like
#124

Welcome back indeed.
Hopefully you will have time to do one of the things you do best.
Answer members questions and list resources.

3 Likes
#125

My intention was that the block would be removed entirely but that would not have passed, so like any political body we compromised. It allows Walter to interact with the membership via talk during the elections. The block will be reinstated at the next board meeting. At that point a moderation policy should be ready. The next board can then decide how to move forward.

My personal preference is to have as little moderation as possible but there does need to be guidelines for consistent inappropriate behavior. I don’t think what occurred would have qualified to be moderated in the first place. But here we are. Not all our decisions are perfect.

6 Likes
#126

Yes, and that’s unfortunate. All of the internet forums I’ve been on in the past would’ve dealt with two of our members… one for the antagonistic trolling and one for the threat of physical violence, quickly and decisively. One would be a recipient of multiple escalating timeouts until either lessons were learned or that person was permabanned. The other would’ve been instantly, irrevocably, permabanned for the threat of physical violence.

And of those two members, neither would’ve been Walter. Yes, he can be a pain, but, his words are the ones being twisted and misrepresented by others who are mostly responsible for the escalation of posts and words. His battles will never be settled because it would require people to admit they did something wrong or improper and that will never happen. Ever. Egos are too big.

6 Likes