The 2018 Worldcon committee has notified author Jon Del Arroz that his right to attend Worldcon 76 in person has been revoked. He will still be allowed to retain a supporting membership with Hugo voting rights. They made the announcement today on social media. Here is the Facebook version:
Worldcon 76 has chosen to reduce Jonathan Del Arroz’s membership from attending to supporting. He will not be allowed to attend the convention in person. Mr. Del Arroz’s supporting membership preserves his rights to participate in the Hugo Awards nomination and voting process. He was informed of our decision via email.
We have taken this step because he has made it clear that he fully intends to break our code of conduct. We take that seriously. Worldcon 76 strives to be an inclusive place in fandom, as difficult as that can be, and racist and bullying behavior is not acceptable at our Worldcon. This expulsion is one step towards eliminating such behavior and was not taken lightly. The senior staff and board are in agreement about the decision and it is final. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to share them here or in email at [email protected]
They added on Twitter:
FYI, Jonathan was banned because of his own actions. Not because of any ‘email campaign’.
— Worldcon 76 San Jose (@worldcon2018) January 3, 2018
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@Brad: Somewhere in the conversation, the SFWA suite, which is a private party (if one with a fairly large number of invitees) has gotten confused with the Worldcon con suite (which is public for values of “public” that mean “open to all attending members of the convention”). I hope this helps clarify (though it doesn’t sound as though del Arroz’s intentions with regard to SFWA were the main reason for the concom’s decision).
In answer to your other question, given that [I and] the San Jose concom think del Arroz is “guilty” (in your phrasing) of an intent to continue harassing people within (and outside of) fandom, the best way to handle the exclusion is the one that minimizes harm to the people he has harassed and/or would be likely to harass.
By analogy, a bartender isn’t punishing a drunk when she refuses to sell them another drink and offers to call a cab so they don’t drive home drunk, even though she’s preventing that drunk from doing what they want. If you had a friend who you knew liked to get drunk, you might reasonably suggest that they drink at home and then sleep it off quietly, even though they’d never been stopped for DWI. You probably wouldn’t shrug and say “okay then” to someone who was talking about their plans to get really drunk and then drive home, or agree with their complaints that it’s unfair to arrest drunk drivers without waiting for a crash.
It’s occurred to me that the issue of taking video in a consuite is . . . somewhat overemphasized, especially to someone concerned with civil liberties.
I strongly suspect that if a casual videographer, with a background of casual videography, and no history of harassment or other forms of shit-stirring, had announced an intention to make a video recording of events in or at Worldcon76, including in the consuites, that the response would have been a warning that that was against the rules, or that permission was needed first, and nothing more. (Of course, an actual Serious videographer would know that there are rules and laws that have to be obeyed about video recording, and would become familiar with them first)
It’s not the making of the video in the consuite alone, but the entire contextual history of harassment, threats, dishonesty, and a general disregard for rules, self-restraint, and common decency, as consistent behaviors from the individual in question. Shit-stirring repeatedly, and a refusal to stop shit-stirring [ETA: and a history of inciting many others to stir the shit ]. Milo Yiannopolous writ small.
The thing about the video is specific enough that it has overshadowed the less specific large body of actions.
/I repeat many others, but repetition is the soul of the ‘net
The size of this thread and others and the extent to which it has been politicised is evidence I may be correct — more transparency would eliminate many of these questions and some of this debate.
This was going to be “politicized’ by JdA’s sycophants no matter what. One only has to look at this thread to see his defenders waving away evidence that JdA has engaged in persistent and repeated harassment of several members of science fiction community to realize that.
On the other side of the coin, what really would have been accomplished by detailing more other than satisfying the curiosity of bystanders? It is highly likely that the other factors involved JdA’s harassment of various people who were associated with or intended to attend Worldcon – some of which is likely to have been done on JdA’s part via private channels such as e-mail (we know he has sent harassing e-mails to some people). Making the information they gave to Worldcon public would have essentially been painting a giant target on their back for JdA and his cadre of hangers-on to launch further harassment campaigns against those individuals. How forthcoming do you think people would be in the future to report harassment if that were done?
@Brad Templeton
Description of the SFWA consuite, from Mike Resnick’s webpage:
link
So yeah, not open to the general public to wander in as they please. I have seen some defenders of Jon state that as SFWA is a separate concern from Worldcon, Worldcon has absolutely no responsibility to do anything if Jon announces the intention to bull his way into SFWA’s suite and film them, regardless of whether that’s against SFWA’s rules of their consuite AND against Worldcon’s own rules about behavior in areas that are ‘not common’. I wonder, would they say the same thing if a male con member announced that he was going to crash a female conmember’s private suite where she was having a gathering and film there when she doesn’t want him there?
Suppose we were talking about my theoretical man mentioned above who publically announced plans to crash a woman’s suite and film there. The Worldcon hears of this, checks and finds that, yes, the man has indeed announced such plans and ALSO there is plenty of publically available evidence of his harassing her and getting his friends to harass her.
Worldcon announces that Mr X. is barred from the con due to his stated intention to breach the CoC he has agreed to abide by. Do you think, in the name of transparency, Worldcon is ALSO obliged to announce to the public at large that Mr. X was barred because his long history of harassment of Ms. Jane Doe [whose real name can be found in a moment’s search of Mr. X’s Twitter history?]
– which made his announcement to film her credible harassment?
Look at the quality of Jon’s defender here on this thread. Jon has a history of calling up trolls at large to help him harass his targets. Worldcon pointing out a target for these trolls would open my theoretical woman up to blame for Jon’s banning and thus to MORE harassment by them – public arguments about whether what Jon did REALLY constituted harassment, public sneers at the snowflake SJW who should just brush it all off, even pictures of her at cons speculating that a woman who dressed that way must have been asking for it, more internet trolling as punishment for daring to get their darling banned – basically a repeat of the harassment she was no doubt hoping was over. Is THAT the kind of ‘transparency’ you think is needed?
Y’all could’ve written a novel in the amount of word count being used to argue with Jo.
Jo keeps moving the goal post of the discussion. They aren’t engaging in honest debate. They, like JDA, are shitting on commonly accepted social contracts. This is a type of gaslighting, intended to drive you nuts, deflect, muddy. Like screaming at a wall. They are getting off on it personally.
Not everyone is worthy of your time, guys. The first clue to this: if you ever find yourself explaining basic human emotions, rights, or decency to someone…they are probably an abusive personality.
I love you all. Pathological people, trolls, are just around to drain your soul.
Brad Templeton on January 7, 2018 at 11:54 am said:
I’m pretty sure at some point the SFWA Suite was conflated with “consuite” by some people not familiar with all of the nuances of terminology and that “consuite” wasn’t actually intended to mean “The Official Convention Hospitality Suite” but “a party/social gathering space held in a suite at the convention.”
Contrarius on January 7, 2018 at 1:58 pm said:
The only mechanism I could see would be to either amend the WSFS Constitution to name an individual, or to add a mechanism for creating such a list. And I rather expect that the former in particular would have an Objection to Consideration (not the milder Postpone Indefinitely) dropped on it and probably sustained, based on analogous attempts to attack a named individual by constitutional amendment at the 1993 WSFS Business Meeting.
@Kevin Standlee, there’s nothing that I know of, however, to prevent subsequent Worldcon ConComs from looking at what the previous Worldcon(s) did and deciding independently whether banning a specific individual from the convention was appropriate.
I was once on the ConCom of a convention which had to decide what to do about a longtime repeat member who was talking openly on social media about recruiting a “posse” to beat up another member of the convention for a perceived personal insult which had nothing to do with the convention. These sort of decisions are not taken lightly, or for trivial cause.
Yes, I noticed that “SFWA Suite” was being erroneously conflated with “Consuite” some time back in this thread; I probably should have jumped in and pointed that out when I noticed it before newcomers to the thread got confused.
@MM – Not everyone is worthy of your time, guys
Well, but someone was being egregiously, provably, ridiculously wrong on the internet and some of us really, really like playing with people who are ridiculously wrong. It’s not like even a million words are going to make someone say, oh, hey, you’re right. So, kind of like cats playing with their food…
Seemed to me the switch happened when Brad quoted “a consuite — which is not part of the common area” and decided that meant “the” consuite, rather than a suite at the con that is not part of the common area.
@Kevin —
There ya go, then. Thanks, Kevin!
So Jon is not, and basically cannot be (unless, I suppose, he were to do something truly outrageous — bring an actual bomb or whatever — to raise the likelihood of that constitutional amendment) banned for life.
He is going to miss one year of Worldcon. Boo hoo. Yes, I know it’s especially annoying given that he lives so close to this one, but I suspect he will survive. And maybe, juuuuuuuuuust maybe, he will take home the message that actions — and words — have consequences.
Contrarius: And maybe, juuuuuuuuuust maybe, he will take home the message that actions — and words — have consequences.
hahahahaha… I don’t see that happening. 😀
Hope springs eternal!
Cassy B on January 7, 2018 at 6:05 pm said:
Of course not. Each convention is an independent entity. But the question was (in effect) whether there was some way to force future Worldcons to ban an individual from attending.
There’s nothing technically preventing some group from bidding for a Worldcon, and, if they win, announce that they will only allow half a dozen of their best buddies from attending it. It would be stupid to do so, but there’s nothing preventing them from doing so other than us relying on the members who vote for site selection to pick committees that they think will act sensibly.
I note that it has become common at various “fannish inquisitions” (or in FAQ questionnaires to bids) to ask whether a convention intends to have a code of conduct. Like the question “Will you participate in Pass-Along Funds?” it appears that answering the code-of-conduct question with a flat “no” is a non-starter to a potential bid.
Meanwhile, on the conflation of “consuite” with “SFWA Suite” — there do seem to be a fair number of people who (erroneously) think that SFWA (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) and WSFS (the World Science Fiction Society) are the same entity, and that SFWA runs the Worldcon and the Hugo Awards and that WSFS runs the Nebulas, or some other brand of mash-up. Apparently having three letters in common (albeit not in exactly the same order) means that they’re the same entity. Some of them think this out of simple ignorance, which is curable. Others think so out of willful ignorance, and I’m skeptical of that being easily correctable.
Yes, but Jayn isn’t one of them.
Brad was quoting Jayn. Jayn is the person who’s used “consuite” most often in this thread, and quite clearly knows which con suite they’re talking about. Jayn identifies it more than once as the SFWA con suite, and thereafter as “a consuite,” rather than “the consuite.”
The point at which someone starts referring to it as “the consuite” and assuming it’s the Worldcon consuite is when Brad does it.
Mike
I have just discovered that you are now so all powerful that anything at all in fandom must be the result of your Machiavellian plans.
I would have noticed it earlier but I’m old school; I celebrate all 12 days of Christmas, and frankly, after 12 days of it, I usually nap. A lot.
So here we are; in the presence of the GodEmperor of fandom, and there are wailings and lamentations from those who think it’s downright unfair that just because someone’s won 11 Hugos people think he knows what he’s doing.
After all, their hero(es) play 28 dimensional chess; none has ever got past the first move, but Mike has never even tried it, on the grounds that maths is maths.
I shall now return to my attempts at sleep, secure in the knowledge that Mike’s got it…
@ Kurt Busiek
Thank you. Funny thing is, I’ve never actually been to a Worldcon, though I’m considering it now.
Is JDA even a member of SFWA? Given his harassment of the president, I suspect there is more faux-outrage to come when his membership application is (completely justifiably) rejected.
Chris S on January 7, 2018 at 9:35 pm said:
Is JDA even a member of SFWA? Given his harassment of the president, I suspect there is more faux-outrage to come when his membership application is (completely justifiably) rejected.
Somewhere in the million plus words here, Twitter, and his Facebook page he commented about joining SFWA. I’m not up to asking Mr Google.
@Chris S:
As I type this, the SFWA online membership lookup system [ membership.sfwa.org/page-308449/ ] returns 0 results for “arroz”. There is probably a lag before names are entered in the database, so keep that in mind.
Chris S: Is JDA even a member of SFWA? Given his harassment of the president, I suspect there is more faux-outrage to come when his membership application is (completely justifiably) rejected.
He’s applied for membership, but considering that he’s given them reams of evidence of him violating their Code of Ethics, we should probably start making popcorn, because there will no doubt be a fresh round of baby tantrums from him when he gets declined. 🍿
@Michael J. Walsh:
You could click on the “Jon Del Arroz” tag in the post on this very page, as I did, and find that the post “Pixel Scroll 12/20/17 God Stalk Ye Merry Pixel Scrolls” has the item that JdA “publicly applied for SFWA membership today”.
/just sayin’
I read some of the bylaws of the SFWA [ http://www.sfwa.org/member-links/by-laws/ ], and while I am not a lawyer, nor an expert in professional organizations, I note the following:
[bolding mine]
Which suggests a direction for a rejection letter to take (an actual lawyer would probably have to vet it, but I don’t think there’s anything actionable here):
======
Dear Sir,
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., (hereafter, SFWA), returns to you your initial membership dues and rejects your application for membership. Given that one of the purposes of the SFWA is “To be a comprehensive source for [. . .] support and fellowship for authors of science fiction, fantasy and related genres”, your behavior wherein you repeatedly “Troll The Shit Out Of” your fellow SF authors is completely incompatible with said purpose of support and fellowship.
You have mentioned having 10,000+ readers of your blog. We heartily recommend that you and your myriad blog readers form your own organization which will allow “Trolling The Shit Out Of” your fellows, and we wish you the very best of luck in doing so.
Sincerely, &c
SFWA Code of Professional Conduct
3. Deal with members and the public with courtesy and honesty, and refrain from spamming fellow members in email, gratuitous insults (flaming), and ad hominem attacks.
5. Not make false statements, spread rumors or innuendo, or deliberately misrepresent fellow members in private or public with the intent of damaging their reputations, private lives, or careers. Members should not misuse this Code for false accusations of professional misconduct.
@Stevie —
Surely that should read “Mike-iavellian”?
Just to back up what Jayn has said regarding the consequences of specifying the victim(s): I’m aware that one of JdA’s former targets has spoken up to identify themselves as such, with the result that JdA went straight back to harassing them. Jayn’s hypothetical matches reality.
[SFWA Code of Professional Conduct]
7. Present self and field in the best possible light in public appearances.
[body-cam, hijinx, SFWA con suite]
9. Respect a fellow member’s time. No pressure should be made upon members to provide support to other writers unless it is their wish.
[Relevant in light of JdA’s treatment of writers who, for whatever reason, did not provide him with the promotion he wanted, possibly including Sharon Lee]
Owlmirror on January 7, 2018 at 10:29 pm said:
@Michael J. Walsh:
Somewhere in the million plus words here, Twitter, and his Facebook page he commented about joining SFWA. I’m not up to asking Mr Google.
You could click on the “Jon Del Arroz” tag in the post on this very page, as I did, and find that the post “Pixel Scroll 12/20/17 God Stalk Ye Merry Pixel Scrolls” has the item that JdA “publicly applied for SFWA membership today”.
/just sayin’
And why would I click on that particular post amongst all of the other posts that the tag returns??
Thanks all. The above responses indicate there will be more tantrums’n’popcorn in the near future. Applying for membership knowing you’ll get rejected seems a bit of a waste of time, but I’m not a Prominent Local Author so what do I know?
Being rejected (for being a harassing jerk) will of course feed into JdA’s victim narrative, so I’m less surprised.
Still, less of the boring man, lets talk about SF. Being a bit behind the times, I only just finished watching the first series of The Expanse, which I enjoyed, but felt like I was missing half the story. Is that just because they were trying to cram a huge book into only eight hours of TV, or is the book set up with lots of mysteries to be explored later on in the series?
is the book set up with lots of mysteries to be explored later on in the series?
The book has lots of mysteries that are explored in later volumes in the series.
The Expanse: there’s a lot of worldbuilding in S1. Season 2 has a lot more narrative propulsion and is generally better TV.
@Nick:
I’ve also seen Season 1, but have paused before starting Season 2. (Got both for my birthday a couple of months back.) I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, but then, I have read the first book, and my understanding is that Season 2 finishes adapting that volume. I really need to get cracking on the rest of the books that I own in the series; the only other stories I’ve read in that setting are some of the shorts and The Martian.
The adaption is a little odd, season two finishes off book 1 and then covers some but not all of book 2.
I was thinking there was a lack of closure.
Current readings:
Provenance – Ann Leckie – disturbing lack of tea 😉 Actually, I enjoyed it, but it did feel slight/low stakes compared to Ancilliary Everything. Some interesting concepts in the worldbuilding, and alien aliens, which was nice.
Borne – I think I’m coming to the conclusion I’m never going to finish a Jeff Vandermeer book. I borrowed the omnibus Area X and got through Annihilation, stalled out halfway through book two. The common thread seems to be great worldbuilding, but the characters kind of wander around looking for something meaningful to do. To me, his settings are in the Jeff Noon/M John Harrison mode of weird and wonderful, but there’s just a lack of storytelling going on. I’m just over a third of the way through Borne and there’s be a lot of not going outside going on. I’m not sure I can summon the impetus to carry on, though. Rira n tnetnaghna znq sylvat orne vf abg gung vagrerfgvat jura vgf abg ernyyl vagrenpgvat.
I did see the trailer to Annihilation, which appears to be from a completely different book with gunz in it.
Chris S.: To me, his settings are in the Jeff Noon/M John Harrison mode of weird and wonderful, but there’s just a lack of storytelling going on.
I read the Southern Reach Trilogy, and it was interesting — but pretty much exceeded my bag limit for that sort of thing. It’s the only VanderMeer fiction I’ve read, but I thought it very much fell into the Lovecraft mode: Here are some really weird things which were seen and experienced, and here are some really horrifying things which were seen and experienced, and some people died. Fin.
@Chris S
Yeah, Borne didn’t really develop for me, and the landing wasn’t stuck IMO.
Up to you all whether you want to move the book discussion or keep it here, but Daniel Dern thought book talk is worth its own post — so he wrote one.
Can’t hurt, talking about books here seems to have accomplished it’s purpose of chasing away the trolls the way that holy water chases away vampires. Mission accomplished!
Amazing how often that works.
I’ve also seen book talk calm the fires of some flame wars here, and add new Filers who were originally posting here out of anger. Reading and making book recommendations is a horrific temptation.
Book recommendations is a powerful force. Be sure to use it wisely.
Food also works, in a pinch. Except barbecue. Barbecue just starts a different flame war.
Meredith, so does pizza. And, apparently, at least if you’re Scalzi, burritos.
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