Transparent and Objective Complaints Process

[deanforbes]

This is a problem as there is no transparency on what this is .

The perception is

Trustess are royal game Allegation are treated as fact Justice is dispenced arbitarily

The impact is the fiefdoms and anarchy that is apparent in the space - in the interest of a fair and healthy club and the impact on the whole community this requires a rethink

[fridgehead]

cool story bro

[deanforbes]

@fridgehead Perhaps you could be helpful and add the labels help needed and orginisation as I either dont know how to do it or dont have the rights - appreciated

[Velyks]

I'm not 100% sure what is being suggested here. Rather than using an analogy could you state clearly what your perceptions and issues are and possibly a suggestion as to what you want to see done to resolve them?

[Jonty]

• Trustees are elected by the members, and every trustee is forced to step down every three years. There is no right to be a trustee, and anybody can be removed if the membership desires it.
• If allegations were treated as fact hundreds warnings would be listed, and many many more bans issued. This is a matter of public record for any person who has more than one warning issued.
• Justice is often not dispensed enough because the people causing the problems are so tiresome to deal with that the trustees eventually burn out - see Peter Meadows earlier this year. We have similar problems in that any trustee who volunteers to deal with a problematic person is generally subject to extended personal attacks and harassment, meaning at times nobody wants to step up. The fact is that any action taken by the trustees has to be agreed on by all of them, or taken to a vote (which has only ever happened three times in hackspace history).

The space is designed to be semi-anarchistic in nature so that anybody can do anything, removing that simply means we would need staff, or the trustees would have to do one hell of a lot more work.

Absolutely nobody is against changing the way we do things if somebody can suggest a better way, but continually saying "it's all a corrupt conspiracy" achieves nothing. Everybody wants the space to improve and develop - it was designed to be open and transparent however there are many issues that simply can't be dealt with in public due to their nature, as you well know.

Make concrete suggestions of things that can be actioned instead of being vague and perhaps things can actually be changed to solve your problems. You've been saying "things need to be more transparent" for the last two years, but I'm not actually sure how you want to achieve that.

This issue tracker is a great example of something that was suggested, immediately actioned, and helps improve transparency. What else can we do?

Good examples of things that we can do to improve transparency:

• Publish numbers of complaints received, and how they were dealt with
• Publish redacted minutes of any trustee meetings (realistically these rarely ever happen)
• Ensure that any issues arising that don't need to be private are published in this issue tracker

[sthompsonxyz]

Dean: ---Trustess are royal game Not sure what you mean by this, it seems more like an extra responsibility to me ---Allegation are treated as fact Complaints are taken seriously ---Justice is dispenced arbitarily As in a trusted group of people arbitrate?

Also re Jonty's points for improvement I'd argue that we do have trustee meetings frequently. I.e things are often discussed in a channel that only trustees can be in that relate to the hackspace such as grievance procedures/complaints and fundamental infrastructure things. It would be impractical to publish all of this but it might make sense to have a record of decisions made (well this does end up on the grievance procedure part of the wiki and mailing list, I'd also infrastructure things to action can also be (and are) openly discussed) and also things voted on. Informal and first formal warnings aren't made public I don't see a need to change that.

One place where we do differ from many organisations is that we don't necessarily hold a formal grievance procedure meeting (except in one case where a ban and removal of membership was protested) although we do talk to everyone involved including the person against whom a complaint is made before any decision is made.

[deanforbes]

@Jonty thank you for your response and suggestion I bellieve we should at least look at improvements

This is not a personnal judgement we are no longer "10 mates in a room" but a significantly sized club - these conserns are not just mine but also a number of other members who have asked me to raise it as they dont have the confidence in the system people or forum to speak out, if I am honest I believe I have benifited and suffered by this setup, at the end I will come to why this is important to me, Whilst I am responding to these post I agree that a proposal needs to put in place

re your bullet points First = there is no seperation of duty for a start
Second = My experience and that of the people who have raised it is that it is very rare that any allegation is verified deliberatley, I am not saying it has never happened Third = Very uneven and disproprtionate is what is the perception experinced by the membership

I could site examples but dont want this to be personal and would like it to be about improvements - where we are at is in my view not due to a failing of any one but due largely to the growth that the orginisation has experienced, I do have some suggestion in term of how this could be improved I am also of the mind of "minimum bureaucracy" I was hopping that onne of the trustees would volunteer to help me work through and document my suggestions as I dont regard documention as my strong point and dont have a clear understanding of what is done internally at the moment - My initial post was really a problem statement, a proposed solution will follow depending on what help is forth coming

@sthompsonxyz it is concerning that you state "we do talk to everyone involved including the person against whom a complaint is made before any decision is made."as some body involved in the process when this is factually inaccurate - this may be due to inconsistencies in the process who knows but that is my concern.

With this proocess my issue really is not the process perse but the impact on the comunity. I.E the knock on effect or down stream effect on peoples behaviour

[deanforbes]

@Velyks i hit post before I was done accidentally - indeed a solution need suggesting and will be but my prefrence is to have some one work with me on this, it needs buy in from the trustees to be implemented and be effective, my intial post was more a problem statment as this is an issue log rather than a solution

[Jonty]

@deanforbes Given you're actively asking for transparency please just post your suggestions for improvement here - if it's based on incorrect assumptions we can correct them and continue the discussion without confusion.

Doing it this way means organisational change is publicly documented, as are misconceptions. If the issue ever arises again we can simply point to this issue.

[deanforbes]

@Jonty rather than playing "chess with words" could you please share a proper process if there is one - which would have been a resonable response my problem statment, denial and resistance are classic change issues - :-)

This is a public forum and a propsal shared here would be transprent

[Jonty]

@deanforbes There is absolutely no agenda here other than trying to understand what your complaint is, and how it can be resolved. I am not playing games, just having difficulty understanding you.

I have asked:

• That you post your suggestions for how to solve your perceived problem here
• That we do it here rather than in private to ensure the process is documented

I am actually trying to work with you, exactly as you asked for. I have just re-read and attempted to grasp your messages again to try and respond effectively.

Is your suggestion: 1) Document the current complaints process more explicitly 2) Change the current complaints process in some way

If (2), what is your suggestion for how it should be changed?

[deanforbes]

Both to an extent

Is there any documentation of the proceess folowed by the trustess If there is what is experinced and percived has room for improvement

I am looking for some one or a couple of people to work with me - would you be happy to met at some point 15 to 30 minutes ? .... I dont know apart from assumption and hersay what happens, I have some ideas if they were mapped against each other and published we could all move forward

[Jonty]

@deanforbes I would rather we confined all discussion on this to a public forum so it's documented and anybody can participate rather than having closed chats. If we're going to aim for better transparency in decision making we should start here.

The current process is documented on the Grievance procedure page. I acknowledge that it doesn't contain specifics of how decisions are made, but that is partially so we have some flexibility when other trustees are unavailable or cannot take part in discussions on IRC/mailing lists.

Which parts of the procedure would you like documented better, and what sort of details should be added? I'd like to keep it fairly clear if possible rather than having the document become too large for people to digest easily.

Once we've completed clarifying the existing procedure we should move on to improvements - there's no point discussing it when there's no clear base.

[deanforbes]

there is nothing private about a chat if any of the parties prefer it not to be, and as you have stated you have dificult uderstanding my written communication I felt it was the obvious solution, being an open community I would have hoped that different communication styles could be accommodated and not just keyboard jockeys which I am not

Things to look at or include

x what is a complaint x a response saying alegations are valid as a complaint or or not i.e will be looked at x a sla for this response "acknowledgement of receipt" as it is volunteers maning this say a week

x Complaints to be dealt with via a separate email which is allocated on a rota say 3 mounths at a time the group "Panel" montoring this to be say 3 people i.e an odd number to facilitate decsion making which could include one non trustee (seperation of duties is important) x If there is a conflict of interest or the trustee is involved he is excused from the panel

x That there is a time frame for a legitimate complaint to be invistagated 2 or 3 weeks perhaps x That all parties are communicated with during the process and have the opportunity to state there case and evidence it. x decision is communicated to all partied before being published x That there is a mechanisim for appeal

I really believe this would benift the comunity [consitent expectation and experince] building confidence and make the trustees role easier - [depersonalised and standardised]

[deanforbes]

oops not sure what happened with the text size

[sthompsonxyz]

@deanforbes I think arranging small chats about this is completely counter to improving the situation. There's a meeting on the 26th for everyone interested to attend, so that approach to communication is included as well as the list here which can be raised in the agenda at that meeting.

[Jonty]

@deanforbes Many of those things are currently in place, albeit badly documented or not adhered to as strictly as they should be. At least a couple of them are good ideas we should implement, although how we'd do it is up for discussion.

I'll attempt to write up a detailed version of the current process as it stands as I think it may help to have it documented separately from the grievance procedure for now. I'll endeavour to point out all the places it falls over and where I feel it needs to be applied more rigorously.

Unfortunately I don't have time to do it today, but will attempt to do it over the weekend - If you feel I've forgotten, feel free to post again on this thread.

[deanforbes]

@Jonty I know life happens, but just a freindly nudge, have you had a chance to start and do you have any idea of a rough ETA.

[Jonty]

Apologies - I fell ill on Saturday and only managed to get back on my feet yesterday. I'm aiming to get this done before the weekend when I can find time in the evening.

[Jonty]

Further apologies: The time I set aside for this on the weekend got eaten writing up the basement clearout, which I thought was probably a priority as it affected people in the space right now.

I'm trying to work on this in my lunch breaks and have made a start here: https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/User:Jonty/Approximate_Complaints_Process

Very sorry this is taking so long, I've not got as much free time as I'm used to due to my new job.