Despite the amusing description of myself, I need to point out that Kohs certainly had a right to appeal the decision. He just didn't, and didn't try to attend in the first place. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:00, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That is incorrect. He was banned in advance in 2014, after having made preparations to attend, and advanced banned without explanation or recourse in 2015. These are the facts. "Friendly Spaces" in practice mean a clique or cabal of insiders banning and bending rules to exclude dissent and to enforce their hegemony. Carrite (talk) 19:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Substantiation of the general accuracy of my statement above followed by a food fight. Restoring original post for context and leaving reply. Stop edit warring. Carrite (talk) 14:18, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Carrite is correct. Gorman has a habit of running his mouth not only when he doesn't have all of the facts, but even when he has none of the facts. In addition to the information provided above about the 2014 act of cowardice, here is the message from the 2015 version of events:
Delivered-To: thekohser@gmail.com
Received: by 10.25.201.71 with SMTP id z68csp1477423lff;
I am reaching out to you on behalf of Wikimedia DC to inform you that an event ban has been placed against you. This means that you are banned from attending any in-person events sponsored or funded by Wikimedia DC, including WikiConference USA. This ban is effective immediately and not subject to appeal.
He made no effort to attend Wikiconference DC, which is, er, not the conference Kohs mentions trying to attend below. Though now that I think about it, WMDC's policies do have a provision for banning consistently disruptive people permanently, which can suitably be applied to Kohs given that before Wikiconference NYC (which, as a note, was not held in DC) he was tweeting offensively enough at me that I would've invoked it against him if he'd tried to attend anyway, particularly given that he frequently facilitates the outing and harassment of Wikipedians. The presence of someone who engages in the outing and harassment of Wikipedians is obviously inhibitory to free and open discussion. His tweets against me were of a sufficiently offensive nature under WMDC's policy to exclude him from 2014, and the totality of his behavior easily justifies a ban. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:04, 23 November 2015 (UTC)|}[reply]
Kevin says "Kohs certainly had a right to appeal the decision". By May 28, two days before the conference, Greg had his train ticket and a hotel booked. On May 29th, he received an email from Brad:
The organizers of Wikiconference USA 2014 have determined that based on a number of considerations, you are not invited to attend the conference. Your name has been removed from the list of registered attendees and will not be included on the list of attendees being provided to the venue. "Please note that this is not any one individual's decision but a group decision, for which I am acting as messenger/scrivener. The decision is final and is not subject to reconsideration or appeal.
16:00, 29 May 2014 Pharos (Talk | contribs) blocked Thekohser (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of indefinite (account creation disabled, email disabled) (Intimidating behavior/harassment) [1]
The ' Intimidating behavior/harassment' was never specified. I emailed Brad a number of times asking him for a bit of transparency, but he declined. Kevin is either not telling the truth or is being a bit forgetful. Peter Damian (talk) 19:59, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Mocking attendees (me) for being members of an ADA protected class would've been sufficient to remove Kohs under either the ADA or whatever final rule governs NARA. Kevin Gorman (talk) 13:46, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
