86 Sponsor

This page is for current Noisebridge community members considering sponsoring someone's return from the 86 page. Read this carefully before agreeing to sponsor anyone.

What Does It Mean to Sponsor Someone?

When you sponsor someone's return from the 86 page, you are putting your own social capital on the line. You're telling the community: "I believe this person has changed, and I'm willing to stake my reputation on it."

This is a significant commitment. If things go well, you helped someone get a second chance. If things go badly, the community will remember that you vouched for this person - and it will affect how much weight your future vouches carry.

Before You Agree to Sponsor

🪞 Ask Yourself These Questions

1. Do I actually know this person well enough? Not just their version of events, but their patterns of behavior over time?
2. Have I witnessed genuine change? Not just apologies, but observable differences in how they handle conflict, take responsibility, and respect boundaries?
3. Am I prepared to be present and involved? Sponsoring isn't just getting someone in the door - it's active involvement during their probationary period.
4. Am I doing this for the right reasons? Friendship alone isn't enough. You need to genuinely believe this benefits Noisebridge, not just your friend.
5. Can I articulate the harm they caused? Have I done the work to understand - from people who were harmed, not the banned person - what actually happened and who was affected?
6. Am I prepared to ask them to leave if needed? If their behavior regresses, can you be the one to enforce boundaries?

If you can't answer "yes" to all of these, you should probably decline.

Your Responsibilities as a Sponsor

🔍 Before the Return: Understand the Harm

Your primary responsibility as a sponsor is to understand the harm that was caused. This is non-negotiable. If you cannot articulate at a meeting what harm was caused and who was harmed, you have no credibility as a sponsor.

This requires extensive discovery:

• Read the 86 page entry - But don't stop there. The entry is intentionally minimal.
• Talk to people who were harmed - Not just witnesses, but the people who experienced the harm directly. Listen without defending. Use Restorative Communication skills: focus on understanding their feelings and needs, not on building your case.
• Talk to people who were present - Get multiple perspectives on what happened and the context around it.
• Don't rely on the banned person's account - They have every reason to minimize or reframe. You need independent understanding.
• Identify who would feel unsafe - Through your conversations, find out which community members would feel unsafe around, or be completely unwelcoming towards, the person you want to sponsor. This is critical information.

🛑 Some people will not want to talk to you about this.

Some community members who were harmed by the 86'd person do not want to revisit that harm - not even to help you understand it. Being asked to explain, justify, or relive their experience causes them additional harm.

You must respect this. If someone declines to discuss the situation, that is their answer. Do not push. Do not try to convince them. Do not go around them.

This may mean you cannot get the buy-in you need. If key people affected by the original harm are unwilling to engage with the possibility of this person's return, that may be your answer. The sponsorship cannot proceed without their willingness - and their unwillingness is itself meaningful information about whether this return is appropriate.

Only after you have done this work can you:

• Set clear expectations - Make sure the person you're sponsoring understands this is probationary and conditional
• Negotiate terms - Work with community members to establish what "probation" looks like: time limits, restricted areas, specific behaviors to demonstrate, etc.

📋 The Consensus Proposal

Bringing someone back from the 86 page requires a consensus proposal. Like all consensus proposals at Noisebridge, you propose at one meeting, and it can be consensed upon at the following meeting.

However - and this is critical - the proposal comes LAST, not first.

The consensus proposal is the final step, after you have already:

• Done all the discovery work described above
• Had extensive conversations with community members
• Identified concerns and worked through them
• Built broad agreement that this return makes sense

⚠️ WARNING: Do not skip ahead to the meeting.

If you put up a consensus proposal out of the blue - before you've had these conversations with the community - the reception will be extremely poor. You will succeed only in raising people's blood pressure and tanking your own reputation.

The success of the consensus proposal depends 100% on building the consensus ahead of time - through all those conversations. NOT at the meeting.

The meeting is where you formalize agreement that already exists. It is not where you build that agreement.

If you've done the work properly, the meeting should be straightforward. People will already know who you are, what you're proposing, and why. They'll have had a chance to raise concerns privately. The proposal itself becomes a formality confirming what the community has already worked through together.

If you haven't done the work, no amount of eloquence at the meeting will save you.

👀 During the Probationary Period

• Be physically present - When possible, be at Noisebridge at the same time as the person you sponsored
• Check in regularly - Both with the person you sponsored and with others in the community about how it's going
• Enforce boundaries - If the person violates terms of their return, you may need to be the one to ask them to leave
• Communicate with the community - Keep people informed about how probation is progressing
• Accept feedback - If people raise concerns, take them seriously. Don't dismiss them to defend your sponsee.

If Things Go Wrong

If the person you sponsored reverts to harmful behavior:

• Act quickly - Don't wait for it to escalate
• Take responsibility - You vouched for them. Acknowledge that.
• Help enforce the consequence - You may need to be the one who asks them to leave again
• Learn from it - This doesn't mean never sponsor anyone again, but it should inform your judgment going forward

What Probation Looks Like

There's no standard template - each situation is different. But probation typically involves:

• A defined time period - Often several months
• Increased scrutiny - People will be watching more closely than normal
• Quick consequences - Less tolerance for behavior that would normally get a warning
• Regular check-ins - With the sponsor and community members
• Gradual trust-building - The person earns back trust through demonstrated behavior over time, not through a single grand gesture

Trust is rebuilt individually, not collectively. Different community members will come to trust the person again at different rates - or not at all. That's normal and acceptable.

What You're NOT Responsible For

• Making everyone like them again - That's not your job and it's not possible to force
• Their behavior after probation ends - At some point, they're responsible for themselves
• Convincing skeptics - Some people may never trust your sponsee again. That's their prerogative.

Why This Matters

The sponsorship system exists because trust can only be rebuilt through individual relationships. There's no committee that can vote someone trustworthy. There's no form they can fill out.

When you sponsor someone, you're providing the bridge between the community's need for accountability and the possibility of genuine redemption. It's a valuable role - but only if you take it seriously.

If you're not willing to accept the responsibility and risk involved, it's better to say no. There's no shame in declining. In fact, declining when you're uncertain is itself a form of excellent community stewardship. ✨

See Also

• Path_to_86 - How someone ends up on (and gets off) the 86 page
• 86 - The list of banned individuals
• Conflict Escalation - Understanding conflict stages and appropriate interventions
• Restorative Communication - Communication framework for repairing relationships
• Conflict Resolution - Overview of how we handle conflicts
• Mediation - The mediation process (for early-stage conflicts)