[sudo-discuss] someone at sudo was a creep and it's a problem

Wed Aug 3 18:34:27 PDT 2016

I agree, I think we should hear Jake's female friend's account before
moving forward.

When he was speaking with me, he seemed very enthusiastic and excited to
share his idea with those of us at the social. I did not mind him
dominating the conversation as it felt that he was doing so more to convey
his excitement than to try to quiet anyone else. He promptly left once he
had finished "venting" (positive connotation) and I figured he'd be busy
working on his projects again.

I had not thought much about yesterday's conversation with him until now. I
suppose after this interaction I probably would not go out of my way to
share my own projects with him, but not out of spite or malice. More, he
just seemed really into his own thing. I feel there are tons of people at
CCL who would be psyched to hear about stuff I'm working on, so I'd simply
choose to share it with them. His loss, from my point of view.

That being said, he was not hitting on me, asking me out, preventing me
from speaking, or anything that aggressive. If that had been the case I
probably would have found someone else to talk to or worked on my computer
until he left the conversation. I imagine it would have taken quite a bit
for me to directly address him about it, whether verbally or with a
hypothetical yellow card. I cannot think of anything off the top of my head
that would spurn me to do this, short of him flat out insulting me or
becoming physical in any way. At this point however I imagine many others
in the conversation would notice and also take action.

I'm not really sure what to do moving forward but wanted to share my
perspective as I interacted with him last night. I personally have not had
or witnessed any negative interactions with him and appreciate his
enthusiasm and energy.

I think one thing that always comes up at sudo/ccl is where to draw the
line between bad social skills and unintentionally harmful behavior. The
tricky thing is it depends on the person on the receiving end of it all. I
know there have been a few peeps at ccl I don't feel super comfortable
around, but if no one else seems to take offense then I'll attribute it to
personal bias on my part and try to minimize contact. That being said I am
rarely in the space alone with said people so maybe that would change my
opinion.

Wish I could attend the meeting tonight. Thanks for addressing this
everyone and keep us in the loop.

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 5:32 PM, Patrik D'haeseleer <patrikd at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Sean is a regular CCL member, and has been working on the liquid handling
> robot in the basement for almost two months now.
>
> I've interacted with him on several occasions. He is definitely
> enthusiastic and talkative, but he didn't strike me as a problem before.
> But then again, I'm not a woman either.
>
> I would really want to hear Jake's friend's reaction to this event, and
> the opinion of some of the other women in CCL he's been interacting with
> over the past several weeks.
>
> Patrik
>
> On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:49 PM, Marc Juul <juul at labitat.dk> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 2:17 AM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Sudoroom,
>>>
>>> sorry for streaming mode, i'm not sure how to talk about this.
>>>
>>> there's this guy who's been at sudo a few times during hardware hacking
>>> tuesdays.  I think his name is Sean but i can't remember for sure now.
>>>
>>> he likes talking about his workout routine, and getting rich, and says
>>> he's going to invent bio-drones and says he's working on some secret
>>> project that's going to show to elon musk and it's going to make him super
>>> rich.
>>>
>>> well tonight he crossed the line from annoying to unacceptably creepy.
>>>
>>> tonight a friend of mine came to sudoroom so we could use the robot to
>>> cut holes in these christmas ornaments.  It was a big project that took
>>> hours and a lot of focus.  Sean (is that his name?) was on her like glue
>>> the entire time, trying to be helpful, talking to her.
>>>
>>> It made me uncomfortable, but she's a grownup and can speak for herself,
>>> but at the same time the power dynamic and assertiveness imbalance was
>>> quite stark and I really wanted to say something.
>>> But i didn't know what to say.
>>>
>>> the first time he went away for a minute, which was after what seemed
>>> like a long time, i said to my friend "you know, if anyone's bothering you
>>> here you can tell them to go away" because i couldn't think of anything
>>> better to say.  maybe i should have offered to tell him to go away?  but
>>> that would have only parried the problem that one time.
>>>
>>> Of course he soon came back.  I think we were both trying to ignore him
>>> as best we could, and we did get some good work done thanks to Zack and
>>> Fenn, who are great.  But eventually they left and it was just the three of
>>> us.
>>>
>>> I don't know what other things he said to my friend when i wasn't
>>> watching, but I did see him eventually ask her on a date.  She told him no,
>>> and then he made it very clear to everyone that he was fine with that and
>>> not bothered by it at all, because he's not bothered by anything.
>>>
>>> I was super bothered by it.  I wanted to tell him to leave right then,
>>> but I really didn't want to talk to him, I just wanted him to go away on
>>> his own.  I guess eventually he did.
>>>
>>> I want two things.  I want Sudoroom to ask this person to take a break
>>> from the space so that he can study up on our anti-harrassment policy and
>>> maybe write us an essay about why it's unacceptable to mack on people in
>>> sudoroom.
>>>
>>> and I also want us to look into how we can make it clearer to people
>>> like him, and to his targets, that sudoroom is expressly a safe place from
>>> this kind of behavior.  I would like for there to be a sign that I can
>>> point to in moments like that, so that I don't have to try to say it with
>>> my own words, in front of other people.
>>>
>>> it's a complex issue, because if someone is being talkative and helpful
>>> they're not necessarily doing it as a creep move, so how do you know where
>>> to draw the line?  We can remind people to check their own intentions, but
>>> maybe we need more ways for people who feel uncomfortable to get relief
>>> from unwanted attention without having to then engage the person in Lesson
>>> 101 right then.
>>>
>>> maybe we need yellow cards?  to hand to people that say "please go to
>>> the fridge and read the entire sign reminding you about proper behavior in
>>> sudoroom.  Do not ask any more questions of the person who gave you this
>>> card, they have other things they want to do now.  thank you."
>>>
>>> Noisebridge seems to have a great vibe, at least the other night when I
>>> was there, Zach explained to one of our friends why it would be
>>> inappropriate to "ask someone out" at Noisebridge.  I'm not sure how their
>>> anti-harrassment policy differs from ours, or what we could learn from it,
>>> but I would like for us to be more out-in-front of this issue so it doesn't
>>> come up anymore without being addressed.
>>>
>>> thanks for reading this, let's figure this out.
>>>
>>
>> I also interacted with this person. Definitely some weird ego problem
>> going on there. Pointed out several times how skilled he is and all the
>> things he knows and kept repeating how he does mixed martial arts in places
>> where it made no sense to the conversation. He didn't seem threatening just
>> really intent on making me understand how amazing he is, though the
>> repeated references to his martial arts skills were definitely creepy. I
>> saw some of his interactions with the robot arm group but apparently not
>> the worst of it. This is definitely a case of someone who doesn't have a
>> clue about social interactions, which isn't new to sudo, but couple that
>> with his pushiness and I think we have a problem.
>>
>> There's asking someone on a date and then there's an evening of imposing
>> yourself and making others uncomfortable followed by asking someone on a
>> date when they're not showing any interest.
>>
>> We could talk to him about his behavior. We could couple that with a
>> short-term break from the space (e.g. 1 month). It's unlikely that he'll
>> come back to the space after a short term ban (few people do).
>>
>> Meet in sudo or on the sudo room riseup pad at 7 pm for a group decision
>> on this.
>>
>> --
>> marc/juul
>>
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>>
>>
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