(1) ALL IN. It’s a rule of thumb that most small businesses fail within five years. Do professional writers face the same odds? Kameron Hurley discusses the long haul, in “The Mission-Driven Writing Career” at Locus Online.
What drives you, then, when you have reached the goal of selling work, and perhaps making a little money doing it? What drives you when you have finally achieved the financial freedom afforded by your writing career?
(2) TOO YOUNG FOR BRADBURY? In the latest installment of Young People Read Old SF, James Davis Nicoll presented his charges with a Ray Bradbury story.
I considered choosing “The Veldt,” on the grounds it seemed to be the Bradbury most often adapted to radio—but I rejected that because it was not one of the few Bradbury stories that managed to burrow themselves into my brain: “The Foghorn,” “There Will Come Soft Rains,” “Frost and Fire,” and the story I actually chose, Bradbury’s tribute to children everywhere, “All Summer in Day.” But as has been established before in this series of reviews, just because a story resonated with me half a century ago does not mean younger readers will find it interesting. Or will they?
(3) MUDDLING. Carl Slaughter points out that No Zombies, Please, We Are British, Vol. 1 by Alex Laybourne came out in August.
The dead may rise, but the British spirit will always live on. Trapped in his apartment building, Jack knows that riding out the zombie apocalypse inside is not an option. Especially when his girlfriend is trapped in the city. Jack knows it is a fool’s errand, but he has to try. In a terrifying journey across London, Jack finds that the entire city has fallen. The dead are waiting around every corner, but even in the first days of the apocalypse, it is not only the dead that pose a threat. Deception, lies and heartache are a part of life, and Jack will soon realize that it is the people that stand beside you that matter most. Thrust into the position of leader, the rescue mission becomes a symbol of something much larger.
(4) LEVIN OBIT. Well-known antiquarian SF/fantasy bookseller Barry R. Levin, 70, owner of Barry R. Levin Books in Santa Monica, CA reportedly took his own life on September 14. According to Andrew Porter, “I was able to confirm this with the help of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) office in New York, and his nephew Joe Levin, who is his executor.”
Levin was born June 11, 1946 in Philadelphia, and after a brief career in the aerospace industry, opened his store in 1973. He wed Sally Ann Fudge in 1983; she predeceased him in 2006. There were no children; he is, however, survived by several relatives including an older brother, a niece and two nephews.
(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRL
- October 8, 1949 — Sigourney Weaver (Alien, Ghostbusters) is born in Manhattan.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born October 8, 1920 — Frank Herbert
- Born October 8, 1943 — R.L. Stine
(7) NETFLIX’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. New Statesman’s Anna Leszkiewicz asks, “What do we Learn about Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events from its new trailer?”
“The story of the Baudelaire orphans is so upsetting and so utterly unnerving, the entire crew is suffering from low morale, a phrase which here means, currently under medical observation for melancholia, ennui, and acute wistfulness.
“So please, don’t make the same mistake that Netflix has, and look away before this dire tale is even filmed, and avoid the cruel whimsy and whimsical cruelty of what’s to come.”
This seems like an unconventional way to introduce a new Netflix original series, but for fans of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books, it will make perfect, nostalgic sense.
(8) WORLDCON 75 EXPLAINS. The Helsinki Worldcon chairs wrote a post on Facebook to justify their decision to drop Dave Weingart from the committee, and have become embroiled in a comment exchange with his defenders, and other critics of the process. Their statement begins:
David Weingart was recently dismissed from Worldcon 75 Staff for failing to abide by an agreement he had made to not interact with another staff member who reported feeling stalked by him in the past. The agreement had allowed both valued staff members to work on Worldcon 75 for several months. Once broken, David refused to recommit to a course of action intended to prevent problematic interactions from happening again, and refused to accept responsibility for his actions or impact. The situation, unfortunately, was at an impasse.
The decision to dismiss David was not easy to make, but it was the decision that the co-chairs and Staff Services came to, after much discussion. Both staffers have every right to feel upset and hurt about this situation. Worldcon 75 is something both cared about and worked hard for. That does not excuse David’s behaviour or his actions, nor does it negate his impact; we stand by our decision to dismiss him. We wish David only the best in his future volunteering….
(9) FILKERDAVE ANSWERS. Dave Weingart published further responses in “Worldcon follow-up: e-mail chain”.
I was really hoping not to have to do this. I’m not fond of publishing emails, which I’d normally hold in confidence I’m afraid that I don’t see much of a choice. The official Worldcon responses are…disheartening and I will flat-out accuse them of lying. There is, for example, one that says that I gave them an ultimatum. This is an unusual use of the term ultimatum, one which I hadn’t previously known, unless it’s an ultimatum by my responding to “quit or be fired” with “go ahead and fire me, then.” Or one that says “we gave him multiple opportunities to work within the rules set by the convention, which would have enabled him to do his job. He was only dismissed when he refused to follow them.” One is, I suppose, a multiple in some form of mathematics. I was given an unacceptable condition that I refused to accept and was fired 2 weeks later with no further communication between.
These are the three emails I received from Worldcon 75, along with my replies….
(10) THE FILK SIDE. Filker Gary McGath’s reaction is “Let’s not surrender fandom to bullies”.
The illiberal factions in fandom just want power. They don’t care much whom they go after, as long as they can flex their muscles. The Worldcon 75 committee has offered the latest sample of this, shoving Dave Weingart out as the filk head.
Dave discussed what happened here. In brief: Someone got the notion that Dave should never talk to her. He respected this. One day he inadvertently posted a Babylon 5 video link to a chat group which this other person was also in. For this, he was told he could continue to run filk only if he agreed to end all staff contact outside his division. Of course, it’s impossible to run a part of the program that way, so his only choice was to withdraw.
The concom’s action makes no sense of any kind. It grows out of the notion that “feeling offended” trumps every other consideration and entitles someone to claim any remedy. Well, listen, Helsinki gang. I’m offended. I hope every filker who was planning to go cancels out on you.
(11) POWER EQUATION. Alexandra Erin has posted “Public Statements: David Weingart and Worldcon 75” at Blue Author Prepares To Write.
I don’t know the other person’s side of things. I don’t want or need to know the other person’s side of things. But it seems like David Weingart knew his position was untenable, and he chose to continue hold onto it until someone else forced the issue.
I suspect the reason for this has something to do with the calculus of priority that we tend to make, in fannish and convention circles, which is: what I or this person has to offer in terms of experience, passion, and expertise is worth more than the comfort and safety of a few people. That’s how you look at a situation where you agree that a person has a right to be free of you and you realize that the position you accepted makes that impossible and you conclude that the solution is for everyone to just sort of power through anyway. You’ve made the decision that what you do for the con is more important than what you do to this individual.
I think no one would dispute to Mr. Weingart’s contributions to cons actually have been tremendously valuable. But as fannish circles and conventions embrace community standards and commitments to safety and work to be more welcoming to people from every walk of life, we really have to internalize the lesson that nobody is irreplaceable.
(12) SPECTACULAR COSPLAY. Business Insider’s headline is easy to believe: “This brilliant Mystique costume stunned everyone at New York Comic Con”.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bruce Baugh.]
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Airboy: My reading is that he was fired for not abiding by the directives of the convention when he was told not to comment on a thread and kept doing so.
@Cally: Was this the thread on meatballs where he never directly addressed the individual? If so, firing for insubordination is not very unusual, even from an unpaid job.
One minor issue here seems to be that Codes of Conduct are generally written and put in place for the attendees of a convention, but here one might have been useful in the run up to the convention, and to apply to those working to organize the convention. The only way that can be done is if the CoC is written before the bids are made.
Is there a model Code of Conduct that can be referenced as applying until a con-specific one is written? Would it be useful for bids to include some statement like “We will definitely have and publish a CoC, but until we do, we will use MidAmericon2’s (or whatever) as a surrogate”? (or is that already occurring in bids?)
Airboy:
It would be easier if you read the comment section as the answers are already there.
I’m finding myself in complete agreement with earlier commenters: Both Weingart and Worldcon need to shut up and stop digging. This repeated posting/commenting is making both parties look worse and worse and worse. And it’s not that Weingart’s post make Worldcon look bad and vice versa – every single post hurts both parties. Ugh.
@Bill: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy.
In the absence of time and/or needing to tweak for specific usages, conventions not yet operating might find something like the above and incorporate it into their policies as
“Until such time as the convention adopts its own policies in regards to conduct, the following shall serve as guidelines.”
In reading Dave’s answer (9) one thing puzzles me: he said he’s the one who surfaced the issues to WorldCon75 because he knew she’d be working there. (How did he even know that?) Merely by bringing it up, he managed to force her to deal with him. If he’d just said nothing, most likely she wouldn’t have either, as had apparently happened at a previous con. Even when he tells people to stop harassing her, it comes across as him trying to impress her. It really seems to me, just from reading the things Dave himself posts, that he’s really obsessed with this woman and will do anything to get her attention. WorldCon75 is just collateral damage.
I’m inclined to give people some leeway on the stalking thing; if a relationship with someone ended badly, it’s human nature to want to put it right, and the Internet makes it possible to reach people we haven’t seen in decades. But if they push you away, you don’t persist. He’s persisting.
@Airboy:
Boss says: Don´t interact with this Employee.
Employee does interact with the employee he should not interact with.
And more than once (How often is under dispute).
If the employer cant trust you not doing the things you are not suppose to do, then you will be let go. Its simple.
airboy, while his tellings have focused on the fact that it was a public thread on an all-staff forum, in point of fact the thread in question was started by the individual he had agreed not to contact.
I’m not familiar enough with Campfire’s set-up to know if this would have been glaringly obvious or easily overlooked in the heat of the moment, but I find it troubling that he hasn’t really acknowledged this. He focuses instead on the fact that the person commented on the thread moments before he did (an easily explained and thus easily excused coincidence), ignoring the fact that it was that person’s thread to begin with.
And if it really is that easy for him to reply to someone’s post without knowing who made it, that makes the requirement that he stay out of the forum entirely seem that much more reasonable, doesn’t it?
The whole thing could be a series of innocent misunderstandings and nebulous bad vibes, of course. But his refusal to acknowledge and take responsibility for what he did, even accidentally, and his refusal to agree to terms that would prevent such an accident from recurring should give anyone pause.
As for why he was let go? As you note, he told them he couldn’t do his job under the circumstances. I don’t know what he or anyone else would expect to happen in that situation.
Brian Blessed has opinions on a certain american.
[celery-stalk]
@Airboy:
I’m speaking only for myself, and I can’t even say I’ve read up on the intricacies of this particular case.
That being said: a lot of navigating situations like this is setting boundaries to prevent intricacies from arising. That’s what I think happened here.
—
Let’s start with this: the fact that one staff member was directed not to contact another, seems like one you find understandable and acceptable. So let’s take a look at that choice for a minute.
Alice and Bob are on a con staff (I’m turning this into a generic example 😛 ), and Alice tells the staff she has prior history with Bob and doesn’t feel safe around him.
Here’s what you don’t do: You don’t say, “No problem, Alice. You just go about your business, and tell us if Bob does anything creepy.”
Here’s why: “does anything creepy” is a huge can of worms. It’s vague, it’s open to interpretation, and it’s sooooo easy to play with the ambiguity of the definition. “I wasn’t bothering her; I was just in the same room.” “I wasn’t bothering her, I just said hello.” “I wasn’t bothering her; I just gave her a hug; I give everybody hugs.”
There’s a huuuuge range of things Bob can do that will be plenty creepy to Alice, but might be very hard to persuade a random third party to see as being somehow “evidently” creepy. I’m not even assuming Bob’s doing any of this intentionally, or maliciously! — he might honestly think he’s being OK. But Bob isn’t the point; Alice is. There’s a huge gap between “This feels creepy to Alice” and “This is acknowledged and understood as creepy by [PERSON MAKING DECISIONS]”, and that gap means Alice doesn’t feel safe at all.
So what’s a conperson to do? Well, he could write the situation off as too volatile, and not accept Bob in the first place. But, there’s a million and one reasons he might not do that. It might be a minor case; it might be a muddy case; nobody’s saying that if you get in one fight with one person, you’re banned from all participation everywhere forever. The reason doesn’t matter.
Instead, you’ve got another option: draw a boundary. Something clear-cut, unambiguous, that’s easy to discern, and doesn’t reduce to feelings and subjective measures.
Tell both of them “Hey, don’t talk to each other, don’t contact each other, don’t be in the same room together.” There; ambiguity gone. Heck, you don’t even need to “judge” who’s “right” and who’s “wrong”; they just shouldn’t get near each other. It’s a little more trouble for them, but it’s much better for everybody not to have that constant tension, and it’s infinitely better for the response team to need to answer an easy question like “did you talk to her?” than a hard one like “please explain precisely what about Bob’s presence you found discomfiting.”
Hence: No contact.
Is it the most fair solution? Does it provide perfect protection? Does it rely on a deep, thorough investigation determining precisely who is at fault; ascertaining real and present danger? No; it is none of those things. But it’s a pragmatic, enforceable boundary that removes every last shred of ambiguity from any future interaction.
You sound like you’re OK with Worldcon’s right to declare and enforce a No Contact on Bob. So I’m going to assume that you’re OK with this basic reasoning, and press on.
—
Here’s the next problem: People are hard, weird, and unexpected. People are full of edge cases.
You’ve set down your clear boundary.
And then something happens that isn’t quite clear.
If Alice DM’s Bob on Twitter and Bob answers — is that a violation of our boundary?
If somebody unaware of the issue invites them both to a small, informal staff get-together, is that a violation?
If Bob, entirely outside of the convention, suddenly gets a new job two floors above Alice, is that a violation?
In any of these situations, whoever’s responsible for the No Contact has a call to make. And to be honest, there’s no obvious right or wrong – it’s only a question because things have become ambiguous again. But you have to make the call – and since the rules have shifted, you need to bring things back to a state where they’re clear again.
So let’s take a look at forum responses. A few examples:
* Alice posts a picture of her kitten with a Con badge to a staff forum; Bob responds with a cat picture.
* Alice posts; Bob responds asking how Alice’s cat is doing.
* Alice posts; Bob responds, making an in-joke that only Alice gets.
* Alice posts; Bob responds five different times.
* Alice posts; Bob responds five different times, and thanks Alice for opening such an awesome thread.
…and so on. Which of these are unambiguous violations — and which are just creepy to Alice?
—
Again — you can make the call either way. You might see Bob as being within
bounds, or as needing only a minor clarification.
But calling this against Bob is not wrong either. You needn’t even attribute Bob any fault here – the judgement is simply that the situation is untenable, and that the No-Contact isn’t holding.
This is, in fact, exactly the same kind of situation in which you originally created the No-Contact. You can only keep both Alice and Bob if you can all commit to clear boundaries that everybody can live with.
With the original situation, you had a boundary — No Contact.
With the new one — maybe you do. Maybe you don’t.
(As an aside, something of a draw-breaker: if you try to resolve the situation by saying, “Listen, you’re toeing the line with this one” —
Well, in those cases, there is a world of difference between the people responding with “Crap, I didn’t mean to do that, how can we fix this?”, and the people responding “No, but technically–” or “How DARE you”.)
—
Even if you’re trying to be very, very fair and even-handed, these are tough decisions that you know will spark anger. (And if you’re trying to err on the side of caution and generally trust that complaints are not false, which IMHO is a much healthier approach, then you don’t quite need to decide as much, but you also know you’re going to be sparking anger.)
You ask what Dave was let go for, but you’ve got to account for the fact that not letting him go would have been at least as problematic, and could very easily have continued to fester and get worse in the coming months. In the context they had to work with, I’m not saying the decision was obvious or unassailable — but it was reasonable and justifiable. They had a call to make; they made it; that is precisely their job.
—
A small note: I’m not arguing with those who have said the PR was poorly handled – beyond saying, as I’ve said, that PR handling of harassment incidents is absolutely horrible. Volunteers for this have my appreciation; volunteers who have skill and sensitivity at this, I outright worship.
—
OK, that was a long, long answer. Now you can tell me if it made any sense 🙂
… has there been any indication in the past that Airboy is capable of entering into a discussion with anything resembling good faith? Usually he disappears as soon as someone points out something he’s not able to refute.
alexvdl: I don’t know if it’s wasted on airboy, but I enjoyed reading Standback’s “Worldcons for Dummies” approach.
Standback:
Very well said!
@Mike, @Hampus: Awww. ::blushes:: Glad you liked.
@alexvdl: Airboy isn’t on my radar one way or another (which is saying nothing in any direction; I’ve had a few busy months, and my radar hasn’t been updated recently 😛 )
This was certainly bouncing around in my head (and not just from this particular incident), so I was pleased for the chance to write it and get my own thoughts straight. And I’d be happy to hear responses and/or whompings, particularly from those more experienced than I with response teams and dealing with harassment incidents!
Thank you for that explanation, Standback. Nicely done.
My own feelings on this stem from two underlying factors for me — I’ve worked as a volunteer running a con and my outlook tends to value the practical and the end result over “How do we please everyone?” I’m not saying you overlook feelings and emotions, but that if I were managing an event like Worldcon, I’m pretty sure my biggest priority would be managing Worldcon, not mediating disputes between staff members or making sure every single person is happy or satisfied with my dispute mediation skills.
Not sure if that is saying what I want it to say, but I’m just trying to give you an idea of what’s underneath my opinions on this.
I think that the Worldcon team has a very big job to do and there are going to be times they weigh their choices on some challenge or problem or stinky tire fire that has started, and for me, their approach should be based on, “What choice can we make that will get us to Worldcon the most smoothly? What can we decide that will keep operations on an even keel with the fewest additional sparks and stench?” Not “What can we do to make Bob (the Bob in Standback’s example) happy?” Or even Bob and Bob’s friends. But “What can we do to get our personnel working toward their individual jobs so that Worldcon business is on schedule and on target?”
In this situation, in hindsight, they probably should have passed on using Bob at all. But they didn’t know that Bob was going to jump right over the boundaries they had set up and were probably trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and, again, do what was best for the team in attempting to use the volunteered talents of someone who had been an asset to cons in the past. And they probably had no idea that their version of Bob would take his grievances to a bully pulpit and keep trying to raise a fuss and keep himself in the center of a tire fire.
I don’t know any of the parties involved in the actual dispute. But I have tried to manage people not unlike Bob and I often found myself muttering, “I don’t have time for this nonsense. I have a conference to put together/venue to wrangle/show to out on. Bob’s agenda — to make sure everybody knows that he is put upon and misunderstood and has been treated badly — is not my problem.”
From the outside looking in, I get the idea that Dave wants very badly for “Alice” to continue to have to deal with him and to know he’s there. And once the people working with him at Worldcon noticed him jumping up and down waving his hands in the air, they said, “Don’t do that.” But he jumped higher and waved more. So they said, “You’re out.” Denied the venue he wanted, he has kept up the jumping and waving, only louder and bigger and to a larger audience.
If they felt like they needed to respond, so be it. I’m not going to stamp my foot and demand they give this any more attention or say things in a way I approve of.
@Standback
That was quite insightful. Thanks.
@airboy: Yay! Pleasure 🙂
I’ll tell you about my experience chairing a Worldcon. Nearly all “management” was done by the division heads. Whereas, I spent a great deal of my time mediating between people who weren’t getting along together, usually the same ones. It was a certain small percent that constantly required a listening ear and my engagement to satisfy them that they were valued, heard, and should stick with the con. And why would I do that, and not just cut them loose? Some of them I had a long-term friendship with and I valued the relationship. One was the perfect person with all the right connections to accomplish an important task that no replacement was going to do nearly as well — it was an excellent use of my time to mediate with that person. Finally, Worldcons need a great deal of volunteer help, so it’s wise to try and resolve issues and keep people in the fold, because when you lose somebody, you generally also lose the friends they might have gotten to help them (and, obviously, help the con).
By the time my Worldcon was over I had come to realize my job description was very different than what I thought going in. I had no time to spend thinking up cool stuff and adding value here and there. My job was to find people to work the con, and be the shock absorber between some of our brilliant staff as that was needed.
I think Standback’s postings should be required reading for everyone.
My experience in personnel conflicts is that the party loudly declaring unfairness/ being misunderstood/ not *technically* breaking the rules is almost always the aggressor, and that that person will continue to be a pain in the arse as long as he or she can milk any attention from the situation. Sometimes longer.
2) James Davis Nicoll, and anyone else who found “All Summer in a Day” interesting or memorable, may also want to read The Sun Shone on Venus, a fanfic by Ravenbell which follows Margot after the end of the original story and gives her a worthy ending.
@ Lis Carey: Dave Weingart (please, people, spell it right) has also put up multiple posts requesting — with increasing emphasis — that people NOT pursue the other party on his behalf, speculate about the other party’s mental condition, and/or harass or threaten the other party.
@Standback that was in no way meant to diminish the amazing contribution you made. Quality post!
Including mine? David is a good friend of mine, who is now firmly believed by people here to be a stalker despite the fact that nobody accused him directly of being one. I am not happy about this outcome.
@Anna Feruglio
Most of us don’t know him from anything but his postings on this topic. It’s his own words that lead us to that conclusion. This entire situation is of his making. Nothing would have happened if he hadn’t brought it up in the first place. It all looks like a long, self-destructive attempt to force her to acknowledge him. Some of us who have been managers have seen similar behavior from others–complete to the deceitful excuses to try to make it all look like someone else’s fault.
If you’re a good friend of his, you should advise him to stop talking about it. Lie low for a while. And leave that poor girl strictly alone.
Mike wrote “My job was to find people to work the con, and be the shock absorber between some of our brilliant staff as that was needed.”
I remember seeing James White with a delighted grin on his face every day for the whole convention. That made my con.
Alexandra Erin wrote
Are you sure about this? The email from Worldcon admitted the contact was accidental. If Dave had replied to a thread started by the woman in question, it seems highly unlikely that they would have described the contact as accidental.
Their use of that term seems to confirm Dave’s story, i.e. that the woman concerned posted to the thread while he was typing his reply.
Greg Hullender wrote:
If you’ll forgive my saying so, unless you’re privy to some information other than that publicly available, this sounds like an attempt at “mindreading”.
To me, a far more likely explanation is that Dave felt angry and hurt at his treatment, and expressed that on his blog. One can argue about the judiciousness of his choice to go public – but I’m very uncomfortable at labeling someone a stalker based on sheer speculation as to intent.
Something I noticed: Dave Weingart forced Worldcon to fire him and wrote a blog post entitled “My Side of the Story” that incredibly overshared about how this woman didn’t want anything to do with him, you guys, and he didn’t know why and it made him sad but he was so accommodating until this little whoopsie. Which he helpfully posted a screencap of. That’s…a lot of words and identifying information. And then says “but it’s not about her, it’s about Worldcon”.
He has to follow up that post with one asking not to contact redacted or badtalk her, speculate about her mental health, etc.
Then he posts the e-mail chain from Worldcon which includes the screencap again.
Then he again has to ask people to not contact redacted or threaten her.
I’m seeing a lot of bad decisions that appears to be putting a disproportionate amount of heat on one person. And that initial LiveJournal post did a very good job of focusing it on that person. Unintended consequence or deliberately so. I spotted several red flags in Dave’s side of the story as he presented it and it made me pretty uncomfortable.
Update to my response to A. Erin:
I see that Worldcon 75 is claiming that the thread was in fact started by the staffer DW was supposed to avoid. Though the FB thread is suggesting that by the time DW posted, the thread OP was no longer obvious.
OTOH, W75’s claim, that DW posted 9 more times after being asked to stop, seems more damning. Assuming that they are accurately representing the situation, which is open to doubt given their gross mischaracterization of the email exchange with DW.
@Standback
That was excellent, well done.
@Standback
You should be writing HR policies for future Worldcons, well done.
Sky said:
“I see that Worldcon 75 is claiming that the thread was in fact started by the staffer DW was supposed to avoid. Though the FB thread is suggesting that by the time DW posted, the thread OP was no longer obvious.
OTOH, W75’s claim, that DW posted 9 more times after being asked to stop, seems more damning. Assuming that they are accurately representing the situation, which is open to doubt given their gross mischaracterization of the email exchange with DW.”
5 times and then 9 times is somewhat hard to misrepresent unless it is a complete fabrication on the part of Worldcon 75 leadership.
Is that what you would have me believe?
No one except Worldcon staff members with access to the “Camp Fire” chat rooms could possibly verify the validity of yesterday’s statement. At this point I just have to take their statement from yesterday, at face value.
Yesterday on Facebook Worldcon 75 said:
“We are not calling a post in the staff chat harassment. We are saying that when David agreed last spring not to interact online or in person with the other staffer, that included the staff chat. He posted five times in one day to the staff chat conversation that the other staffer had begun. When this was brought up with him, he was asked to stop posting in the staff chat. He not only refused, he posted there another nine times before his access was revoked, and he wrote belligerent emails delivering ultimatums about it to our Staff Services division.”
After further reading of the Facebook comments, I discovered DW claimed that he made just one post to the “Meatballs” thread, and 9 posts to other topics related specifically to Worldcon business. He posted to the FaceBook thread explicitly giving W75 permission to post any of his emails or forum posts which contradicted his version of events, or confirmed theirs.
W75 has not done so, nor have they so much as acknowledged his offer. In other words, DW has published evidence to back up his claims, while W75 has ignored his invitation to substantiate theirs. That makes it easy for me to decide who looks more truthful in this situation.
By all means throw the whole exchange in the open, Sky. The added details will no doubt make the woman whose anonymity DW claims to want to protect all the more identifiable for harassment. You really don’t see the problem with that?
Such incompetentcy. No wonder the Hugos are old news.
At least we have dragon con now
@Anna Feruglio David is a good friend of mine, who is now firmly believed by people here to be a stalker despite the fact that nobody accused him directly of being one.
If he didn’t want to be thought of as a stalker, he shouldn’t have made a very long, public LJ post describing his exacting efforts to mimic one.
W75 could redact any identifying information, couldn’t they?
The disagreement rests on the number of times DW posted on the topic of meatballs, and whether he made multiple belligerent posts after being asked to stop. It would be easy to publish enough information to discern how many posts discussed meatballs, and how many were “belligerent”, without identifying anyone but DW.
After all, the posts were in a private forum – it’s not as though anyone but W75 staff could do a search of the text of a post and locate the original. Furthermore, if doxxing prevention was the reason for W75 not substantiating their attacks, why didn’t they say so? it’s been 36 hours since DW gave them permission, and they’ve made plenty of other posts since then.
W75 is taking a lot of heat – responses to their FB announcement have been overwhelming critical of their handling of the issue. And these are not GG trolls – they are civil, reasonable comments. I hope they recognize the need to to defuse the situation by adopting a less adversarial strategy.
@ Sky
As of yesterday Worldcon 75 has said that they will not be making any further official statements on this particular subject. So I don’t think that any type of answer will be coming from them.
– In his original LJ post from 10-5-16 he references only one posting (The Meatball Video).
– Yesterday WC75 said “We feel David violated this agreement when, after never having posted in the all-staff forum before, he selected a thread begun by the other staffer to post in five times in one day. We regret that David has chosen to frame this action in a different light that leaves these crucial details out, while including information that makes it trivial to uncover the identity of the other staffer. ”
So the only way to contradict their statement would be for Dave to address that particular portion of their statement.
But, FYI your friend Dave has gallantly removed the screen capture pic from his original post on 10-05-16 that led to the woman being identified and replaced it with:
[image removed for possible identifiable information]
BUT, conveniently includes the same exact identifiable screen capture pic as part of his release of the official emails between Worldcon 75 and himself yesterday 10-8-16.
Prefaced by “One final important note here: if you’re giving [name redacted] grief over this, STOP IT NOW AND APOLOGIZE TO HER. She reported something to the convention according to procedure. The convention is the one who I feel screwed up here, not her. This situation exists because I very specifically didn’t want her to get any grief.”
FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY THE SAME ORIGINAL SCREEN CAPTURE PIC. THAT LED TO THE WOMAN BEING IDENTIFIED THE FIRST TIME.
It was still up on that 10–8-16 LJ post as of 10 minutes ago.
But this is not about her?
Your friend might need to get that blind spot checked out, before he steps out into a busy intersection, and accidentally gets hit by a bus.
Sky: You are aware it isn’t an all-or-nothing situation? Worldcon can have screwed up handling it and Weingart can still be in the wrong.
In fact, that is how pretty much every explosion like this seems to go.
Anna Feruglio: I’ve been the friend who stood by a stalker. I’ve been the one who had to tell him that he went beyond the pale. I’ve been the one who stuck by him regardless. I’ve been the one who eventually had to cut him out of my life for being unable to stick to certain boundaries or not overreact to certain actions on my part (those actions being things like express interest in other men. We were not dating.)
It’s hard to be in a position where you are looking at a friend appearing to be dragged through the muck. But sometimes, it requires taking a good hard look at whether you’re really sure, in your heart of hearts, that there is no truth, that you aren’t justifying away problems other people are seeing because it hurts to think of it.
I’m starting to see some pretty damning behaviour here and now. I’m willing to believe the initial offense was plausibly something this woman overreacted to, something fairly harmless (I am also willing to believe it wasn’t — my information on this is as far as I am concerned at a zero point) — but I am not willing to believe his *current* behaviour is pardonable based on whatever went on two years ago.
Anna Feruglio:
I do feel you trivialized the existing issue because a friend was involved. If peoples thoughts about Dave has changed, that is a pit he dug by himself, just as he did with his blog post last year.
If he didn’t want to be thought of as a stalker, he shouldn’t have made a very long, public LJ post describing his exacting efforts to mimic one.
And then continued further in the same vein after that post.
He could have posted his side of the story without putting in the info that made it trivially easy to identify her, by redacting her country and so forth. Then no one would be hassling her, which is what he repeatedly says he wants.
Everything he’s said and done is completely by the playbook of harassing/stalking assholes, particularly the MRA/GG type; it’s no wonder he’s being seen as one by people who never heard of him before this week.
The Helsinki concom is bad at PR and certainly overestimated their ability to control things, but incompetence isn’t malicious.
Helsinki has applied the first rule of holes; maybe Dave’s many friends should counsel him to do the same?
@Hampus Eckerman – FYI, that post of Weingart’s you linked to is not publicly viewable.
kathodus: that post of Weingart’s you linked to is not publicly viewable
It was publicly visible until a day or so ago; he’s apparently made it private since then.
It detailed (to the best of my recall) how he’d met someone at a con, they’d gotten on well, the other person had said “hey if you’re ever in town and you need a place to stay, give me a call”.
At which point, two weeks later, he’d announced he was coming to visit and booked a flight from London, where he was living at the time, to the other person’s country.
He says he does not know what happened, but right after that weekend, the other person said they did not feel comfortable, and wanted less messages and tweets and other contact from him. He says that he backed off to a lower level, and shortly after that the other person said they’d decided they wanted no contact at all, and blocked him on one or more social media outlets.
He describes being hurt and confused, and at some point he sent the other person a lengthy apology e-mail, trying to find out what had gone wrong (to which he received no reply).
Now, I don’t think there was anything wrong with spilling his guts on his LiveJournal, but he should not have sent an e-mail apology to someone who had said “don’t contact me again”, and he named the other person’s home country in this post, and he linked to this post in a post he made a few days ago (which, combined with something he posted in the last few days, made the person’s identity trivially easy to find; I know, because it took me less than a minute, and I don’t know either of them, or associate with either of them on social media).
At this point he’s made the post private, and he’s removed the other identifying information from the posts that he’s made in the past few days. But the damage is done.
And I have to say: at first I felt that Worldcon75 had erred on the side of arranging everything to ensure the other person’s comfort without regard for the fact that it might have been just a case of clashing personalities, where no one was in the wrong.
And it may still be that that is exactly what W75 did — and that this is something about which they need to spend time thinking, because CoC policies can’t just assume that whoever complains first is in the right, or completely in the right; each situation has to be evaluated on its details.
But I have to agree with lurkertype, that Weingart’s behavior over the last few days reminds me of nothing so much as the child who, after being told to leave their sibling alone, continues to make faces at the other child, gets in their personal space again and again, repeatedly comes a hairsbreadth away from actually touching them, and does other things which are generally intended to ensure that they are continually in the other child’s face whilst maintaining plausible deniability — so that when the sibling complains to mom, and mom says “I told you to leave him alone!”, the child can say “But haven’t touched him! I haven’t done anything to him! You saw him repressing me, didn’t you?!!!”
So regardless of how badly Worldcon75 has handled this (and they have; they need to fire their social media people and get someone who actually knows what they’re doing, because their current volunteers clearly don’t know things like 1) you don’t handle something like this on Facebook, and 2) blocking people from your Facebook page removes all their comments and all the comments thread-nested below those comments, and makes it look like you’ve actually deleted comments made by people, and 3) you should then acknowledge your fuckup instead of blaming “a Facebook glitch”), I’d say that Weingart has pretty thoroughly indicted himself whilst trying to give the appearance of being a White Knight for this other person.
Leaving aside the larger questions of stalking and/or behavior indistinguishable from stalking, the history between the individuals involved, and even the justifiability of a request to a con staff member not to post on the staff chat board:
We have a situation where a staff member was told not to do something by one of the Staff Services division heads, continued doing it, and when asked about it responded with “You are also correct that I continued to post in the all-staff area of Basecamp. Your expectation and requirement that I not do so was unreasonable and I did not agree to it. I said as much in my email on 04 September. I still do not agree to it and still consider it unreasonable”.
In other words, someone who was not willing to follow the directions of Staff Services and the convention chairs.
He was, still, given the option to resign rather than be fired.
The response? “As far as resigning, no. I said a month ago that I will not do your job for you. If you want me fired, go ahead and do it.”
The logical consequence followed, at which point he started making public posts about how angry he was about being removed from Worldcon staff and that “Note that I have no official confirmation of there was a complaint that I jumped in to the discussion on the all-staff campfire. Unofficially, I’m pretty sure that [name redacted] complained, but I don’t know.”
(This from someone who’s only been on the Internet long enough for his LJ account to be a few days away from its 15th anniversary, so clearly he couldn’t be expected to foresee any unfortunate consequences of a post like that.)
Even if we consider the initial posts to be an innocent mistake and the ban from all-staff to be an unreasonable response to it, an appropriate response to the latter is “We seem to have an irreconcilable disagreement, and I am therefore no longer willing to work on this convention” rather than to keep posting and demand to be fired instead of resigning.
(If this were a piece of fiction, I’d say that the Need To Be Seen As Right is hamartia.)
I know no one involved and offer no opinions–PR is easier to armchair quarterback than it is to do, lord knows–but that was a very nice breakdown, Standback.
The part where in my opinion WC75 grossly mis stepped in handling this situation earlier on was:
– Putting Dave on notice with their 1st email on 09/03/16.
– Dave replies within 24 hours on 09/04/16.
– And then nothing from WC75 for 11 days!
– Until WC75’s 2nd email on 09/15/16.
– Dave replies once again within 24 hours on 09/16/16.
– And then nothing from WC75 for 17 days!
– Until WC75’s final email on 08/03/16 telling him that “Given your responses, Staff Services recommends, with the Chairs backing, that to maintain the safety and well being of our staff, the only option at this juncture is for you to step down or be let go from your position with Worldcon 75.”
WC75 left Dave hanging in the wind for 11 days the 1st time, and then leaves him hanging in the wind again, the 2nd time for 17 days, after they initiated the “this is now a formal Worldcon 75 notification”
I would have thought that situations, especially where harassment is the issue of concern, would have been dealt with in a timely manner. Something within say 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, but, 11 and 17 day intervals between replies. This most certainly did not help the situation.
Christopher Davis: We have a situation where a staff member was told not to do something by one of the Staff Services division heads, continued doing it… In other words, someone who was not willing to follow the directions of Staff Services and the convention chairs.
Yeah, you know, leaving aside the rest of the circumstances, it was not okay for Worldcon75 to come back and “give him new directions” by changing the terms of the agreement, and issuing him an ultimatum, when he had abided by the terms of the original agreement. This was a major screwup on their part.
I must say, I can see no way in which enforcing a policy you have not yet written, using procedures you have not yet developed, by staff you have not yet trained, could possibly go wrong. Yep, no way in hell.
On a personal note, I have been more or less exactly there. My very first harassment complaint, when I became Code of Conduct Chair for Minicon 50, was from one staffer about another staffer, and this was before I had any procedures, and before the policy was approved. I handled it…badly. It did not go as toxic and weird as this because the people involved did not contribute to the clusterfuck.
Of the things that I found most surprising as a CCC chair are 1) a majority of my complaints were about the behavior of concom members and 2) there is a desire to use the Code of Conduct to address garden-variety rudeness. (I would tangentially note that Midwesterners are very bad at rudeness: they don’t know how to be intentionally rude, they don’t know when they are being unintentionally rude, they don’t know how to apologize for being rude, and they don’t know how to deal with being called rude. But my oh my can they be rude.)
I second and third the calls to have a fully fledged Code of Conduct in place way before the convention. I would also ask that you have at least nascent procedures and a skeleton staff. This flailing about in confusion is damaging. And, yeah, I didn’t know any of this two years ago, either.
@Sean Kirk: [delays in responding]
@JJ: [changing the terms of the agreement]
I agree that both of these aspects were badly handled by WC75. This is a situation where neither of the two main parties has presented a positive example to be followed by others in similar situations. (Lots of learning opportunities for what not to do, on the other hand….)