Jim Hague’s April 27 comment about John Ringo on this blog, now removed, was responded to by the author yesterday in a Facebook post, “On the Subject of Slander”.
The comment’s allegations about the author’s conduct at FenCon 2013 were also contradicted by the FenCon committee in a statement today signed by Julie Barrett, Chair of Dallas Future Society (DBA FenCon) and the board of directors.
We have been made aware of allegations regarding John Ringo’s behavior at FenCon X in 2013. The con committee agrees that no such incidents took place. As Mr. Ringo mentioned on his Facebook post, we were aware of his family obligations and respectfully gave him free time to attend to those. To that end, we were protective of his privacy and tried to keep him and his family free from interruptions.
No incidents of any kind were reported over the weekend. We received no complaints about any of our guests, Mr. Ringo included.
Our Guests of Honor do not participate in judging the FenCon Short Story Contest.
All our parties take place in a controlled area of the hotel, and no party matching that description was held. We’re a small convention, and rumors travel fast. We very likely would have heard about it.
As far as we are aware, Mr. Ringo did not have a security detail present. At the very least, a detail such as the one described would certainly have caught our attention.
Mr. Ringo and all our guests of honor and program participants did a fantastic job and appeared to greatly enjoy themselves.
FenCon is committed to providing a safe and congenial environment for all its members and maintains a strict conduct policy. We encourage people attending the convention to report incidents as soon as possible so that we may investigate and respond in appropriate manner.
Hague’s comment is quoted at the beginning of Ringo’s post.
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I’m in the same boat as Lenora Rose, more or less, and also regret having lent any credence to the false report. I am glad to know it was not true, and so sorry that it should have tarnished such a magical weekend for John Ringo and family. At least I can say that I would never spread such a story without checking into it much further, and, in fact, I did not.
@Chris Smith, thanks for your input on this. I think the t-shirts sound charming and extremely fannish!
It is so difficult to be even-handed with stories about people you disagree with, especially if they are unpleasant to you (“Vile 770”, really?). I very much respect Mike’s ability to do so.
I think that all accusations must be considered rather than automatically rejected. The risk of ignoring a legitimate problem – a missing stair – is too high to do otherwise. On top of that, if they’re just thrown out instead of assessed then a thorough rebuttal such as this might not have the chance to happen, and that would leave doubt to fester.
I’m still sorry, as I am for Camestros and Foz and Toby Meadows, that Ringo had to deal with a false accusation of that nature. I dislike it when Puppies use “you did x!” as a response when they do something not-okay, and so I wasn’t happy with a couple of the early comments on this thread which were essentially pulling the same stunt*, with very little of the fleshing out that it got in later comments. It has since gained some nuance, although I’m still not convinced that this is the thread to hash that out in. I suppose at this point it’s gained enough momentum that it’s unavoidable.
*Although I disagree with the idea that Mike and/or Filerdom are collectively and personally responsible for the content of any single comment.
I know my personal reaction was skeptical but not dismissive. I don’t see any other reaction that would have been appropriate. I think that’s where most folks were at pending further information. I can’t find reason for shame in it. What else should the reaction have been?
@Meredith
I think it was more calling out the hypocrisy of the outrage. Someone caught cheating on their wife is still responsible for their actions, but Donald Trump pointing to them and claiming how horrible and offensive they are for it is clearly not an honest or credible reaction.
@Meredith: “I think that all accusations must be considered rather than automatically rejected. The risk of ignoring a legitimate problem – a missing stair – is too high to do otherwise.”
Sure. But considered by who? And submitted how? And when?
If the answer is everyone, everywhere, all the time, well, that’s got costs, too. As we just saw.
@Dex
I’m pretty sure that’s what they think they’re doing when they do it, too.
@John A Arkansawyer
There might very well be a third way that would be best, but until someone comes up with it I’ll take open discussion over whisper campaigns that neither go anywhere nor can be refuted, and leave people vulnerable to being preyed upon. I’m wholly uninterested in going to back to that method.
Just on the question of what is the right reaction to cases such as Jim Hague’s comment (or similar past comments).
Demanding proof or reacting sceptically would exacerbate the problem as it would lead to the potentially defamatory claim being repeated and the person making the claim then providing further details. Also, if the situation was personally traumatic to them, having their word challenged would not be a nice thing to do (even the most honest people get details wrong).
Accepting what was written at face value would appear to endorse the claim. That’s also problematic even if it looks like the polite or sympathetic thing to do.
Ignoring it also has its downsides. I get a tiny fraction of the comments on my blog compared to the volumes that Mike handles and I’ve still missed comments that I should have sidelined. That was exacerbated in this case by a new comment on an almost dead thread (I think the previous comment was 20/4 and the problematic one 27/4) and technical issues.
1. The issue in such cases is not whether the claim is true or not.
2. The issue is whether an open comment section is an appropriate place to make or repeat the claim.
3. Adding a claim like the one made to a comment section places a burden on the people managing the blog/website/forum etc that they have not consented to.
4. The right reaction IMHO is to point out that the claim is an INAPPROPRIATE one to make in the particular place.
I didn’t see the comment in its original setting and using the magic power of 20/20 hindsight, I hope I would have said something like this:
“Given the severe implications of what you are saying I think this is not an appropriate place for posting the claims you presented.”
Having said that, I can imagine circumstances where a person might share a traumatic experience* for the first time in an open comment section in a way that was also potentially defamatory. I still think it is worth pointing out that the setting is not appropriate e.g. a true account of somebody behaving appallingly might still leave the person recounting the events open to legal action. Reaching out to the person through other channels or asking them if there is some other way place you could discuss the events or lend support to them (if that is what you feel you should do) would be appropriate.
*[to be clear – this is not what JH did.]
@Chris Smith —
I should also have said thanks for your calm and civil participation in this thread. Good on ya.
When talking about false accusations when it comes to reports to an actual authority, I always have the same answer – a thorough investigation does a lot more to clear a person’s name than does erasure or dismissal or refusal to investigate.
I’m not sure how this translates to a situation like this, where it was more along the lines of a spurious rumour, but I do think Mike handled it well; removed it when brought to his attention, and linked to corroborating information about its falsehood in fairly short order. It seems similar enough: Claim was checked out, debunking was made sufficiently public.
Dear Contrarius,
Which is the point! It is terrible process!
They ARE different and they ARE NOT connected. Crying “hypocrisy” is an ad hominem stalking horse, it is a what-about derailment, that only has two purposes — to let the party throwing out the charge feel morally superior (as if this has any bearing on the real matter under discussion. Hint — it doesn’t) and to allow the people crying hypocrite to ignore the merits, or lack thereof, of the points their opponents are making.
It has no redeeming social value, it’s just inappropriate deflection— “Oh look, they are hypocrites, I don’t have to pay any attention to what they’re saying about MY behavior.”
It’s not okay when the other side does it, it’s not okay when we do it. If you disagree with the alt-right’s take on how Mike handled the Hague matter, then disagree with their take on it. Argue the opinions and the facts about their take on it. Arguing that they are hypocrites because they behave just as badly (or worse) is a deflection. Even if they bring it up first, it is still not a good engagement. It only demonstrates the derail has been 100% successful.
longior, non legi? Hiding behind “look at their hypocrisy” is NEVER a good idea.
I know nobody else (at least so far) agrees with me about this. Well, one person does — OGH. Fortunately his vote counts more than all the others added together, so I’m satisfied.
– pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. Dragon Dictate in training! ]
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— Ctein’s Online Gallery. http://ctein.com
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I haven’t ignored the merits of what the ‘opponents’ are saying. I’ve explained why I raised the issue and what it applies to. I don’t appreciate you claiming that I’ve ignored other dimensions when manifestly I haven’t.
Please do not misrepresent what people are saying or misrepresent their motives.
Wow and making up straw men like that is not the way to engage in debate.
I’ve deflected nothing about the substantive issue on Jim Hague’s defamatory comment. Again you are overtly misrepresenting people.
Dear Lenora,
Entirely agree! There’s no way to prevent someone from creating fake news (which this qualified, in spades) and it seems impossible to avoid promulgating it unless you hew strictly to the journalistic two-independent-sources rule. (Sometimes it can be really difficult determining that they’re actually independent — I’ve been bitten at least once by that.) Which is not this, nor most websites/publications.
The best you can do, when fake news has successfully polluted the data stream, is engage in active rapid cleanup and make sure that the correct information is promulgated at least as widely as the fake news and given a more prominent forum.
Within the last few months, there was a paper published in Science (or Nature, we get both, so I forget which) about the Speed of Lies vs. the Speed of Fact. The authors seem somewhat surprised that Lies propagate over the inter-grapevine six times faster on average.
I don’t think that would be a big surprise to any fiction author. As fictioneers, we have the freedom to write any narrative we want, custom-designing it to make it as enticing and appealing to the readers as our skills allow. We are not constrained by reality. It’s not the least bit surprising that, on average, Lies propagate much faster than Facts.
That’s not limited to any political persuasion, belief system, or moral compass. We liars have the field advantage.
Fortunately I get paid good money to use this as a force for good rather than evil, so I don’t have to go over to the Dark Side. [Wicked grin]
– pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. Dragon Dictate in training! ]
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— Ctein’s Online Gallery. http://ctein.com
— Digital Restorations. http://photo-repair.com
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Dear Camestros,
I have no idea what your motives are, nor do I need to. I am describing the effect of going all hypocrite-ad-hominem.
I’ve seen nothing posted here that indicates it is doing anything but degrading the discourse.
First rule of doing good process– Bad process is bad process no matter how pure one’s motives.
pax / Ctein
Firstly there isn’t a single “take” on the issue nor are all the people critiquing Mike “alt-right”. As for facts, the past behaviour and the way others run comment sections IS a pertinent fact. You declaring it not relevant does not magically make it not relevant.
There are MULTIPLE claims being made by multiple people. You make no distinction between them and falsely characterise one set of arguments as addressing claims they are not addressing – then chastising people on that false basis.
Your now making sweeping arguments so that you don’t have to engage with the more specific replies you’ve been given.
@Ctein
Small aside: I just finished “Bubble and Squeak” in Asimov’s – I loved it.
And yet your recent comment repeatedly addressed motive. Do I need to list the points where you did so?
Bad process is bad process and misrepresenting people is ALWAYS bad process and that is EXACTLY what you have been doing.