Worldcon 75 Apologizes for ‘Grave Mishandling’ of Weingart Firing

A growing controversy over Dave Weingart’s termination as Music department head, fanned to life by his explanation and complaint on LiveJournal, and the 2017 Helsinki Worldcon committee’s effort to explain and justify their actions on Facebook, now has been defused by the Worldcon 75 issuing an apology and taking down its Facebook thread about the matter. Weingart says he has also received a verbal apology from one of the chairs.

Worldcon 75 would like to apologise for the grave mishandling of a personnel issue over the past few weeks, in particular regarding communication, the delays in our responses, and for our role in escalating the situation. Specifically, we would like to apologise to both our current and former staffers, who are now experiencing harassment from various parties. We would also like to apologise to our staff and to the Worldcon community at large for the lack of transparency in how this issue was handled and for our missteps in communication about it.

In order to prevent issues like this from recurring, we are taking steps to improve our internal hiring practices, our staff services communications, and our public-facing communications.

  1. Worldcon 75 will no longer discuss this personnel matter with the public. We have deleted the earlier statement on this topic with the full knowledge and blessing of the current and former staffers involved.
  2. We will ensure that our staff services and social media teams are well-versed in compassionate communications across cultural differences and have a range of solutions available to them when issues arise.
  3. All senior staff will receive further management training and information.
  4. Communications with staff about behaviour and conduct expectations will be timely and explicit. All staff will have an opportunity to discuss any expectation placed on them with staff services and the chairs.
  5. Worldcon 75 will publish our Code of Conduct on 31 October 2016. We have a draft in review and are working with all our staff to make sure that it clearly communicates the values of Worldcon 75.
  6. An internal conflict-resolution policy will be formulated and published to staff by 1 December 2016.
  7. We reaffirm our commitment to making this convention a fun and safe experience for all our staff and members through clever, competent, and kind management.

… Thank you, Jukka Halme, Crystal Huff, and the Staff Services Division of Worldcon 75

Weingart had already made private his LiveJournal posts about the controversy in reaction to Vox Day linking to them from Vox Popoli:

Because Vox Day and his miserable crew of people have glommed onto my disagreement with Worldcon 75 I have made my DW/LJ posts mentioning any other party private. I’ve done likewise with my FB posts.

After Worldcon 75 took down its Facebook thread, Weingart responded:

The wording of Worldcon’s posted apology is something I agreed to verbally on the phone with one of the co-chairs on 2016-10-10, when I was also given a verbal apology. Worldcon’s deleting their other post on this subject (on the Worldcon 75 page) was done with my explicit permission as well.

Whatever the disagreement, neither Worldcon 75 nor I want Vox Day to have anything to do with this.

[Thanks to Karl-Johan Norén and Dave Langford for the story.]

38 thoughts on “Worldcon 75 Apologizes for ‘Grave Mishandling’ of Weingart Firing

  1. @Cassy B: More to the point, what is Bob responding to? There is no indication that Worldcon 75 is doing anything other than changing their communications policy, and isn’t making any changes to their actual decisions in this matter.

  2. Rush of brains for all involved.
    Holes are no longer being dug.
    I’m perfectly willing to believe the best about all parties – who among us has never been an idiot at some point in their lives?

  3. I’ve been an idiot a number of times in my life. Those were often the times that I learned the most, especially when I accepted responsibility and made apologies.

    I wish for all concerned that the thinking had happed before the outbreak of public cluelessness, but since it didn’t, this is a thoughtful resolution.

    Also, @bob k. mando, huh?

  4. It would have been nice with an apology from Weingart too. He made the other staffer identifiable and made her a target. But I guess you can’t hold private persons to the same standard as conventions.

  5. And I have also made some of the mistakes as Worldcon 75 did now. As an organizer. Actually, some of the mistakes Weingart did too. Still do.

    Fighting on internet is stupid. You have this feeling that you reach out to your friends to lighten your heart. But when you put things in writing, they start to live their own lives. Are copied, spread. Suddenly people you never heard of are using your comments as a weapon on a blog you never heard of, drawing strange conclusions from them.

    Your friends will take a stand. The other persons friends will take a stand. And they will not be reasonable, because they will defend a friend. Every time you try to explain yourself you pour on more oil. Emails will start coming.

    Talk with your friends offline instead. In SMS, phone, live or whatever.

  6. Of course, mando is purposely misquoting the video. At no time does Secretary Clinton differenciate victims of sexual assault by gender or sex. I also see a difference between her saying “you have a right to be believed” and you hearing “the female victim should always be believed,” but, them again, I am not attempting to advance the same agenda as mando.

  7. bob k. mando: what happened to “the female victim should always be believed”?… i mean, gosh, i’d hate for you guys to start participating in patriarchal rape culture by believing the man.

    The statement in the post has nothing to do with believing anyone. It has to do with apologizing for the incredibly ham-handed way that Worldcon75 has handled an internal issue.

    Your comment is not relevant to the subject at hand. It’s just a non sequitur here. And it certainly gives you the appearance of having poor reading comprehension.

  8. Bob K. Mando, I’ve watched the video to which you linked in answer to my question. I have gone to the trouble of transcribing the complete statement that Hillary Clinton made in that video, which follows:

    “I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault. Don’t let anyone silence your voice. You have a right to be heard, and you have a right to be believed. We’re with you.”

    Three points:

    1) Nowhere in that video does she say “the female victim should always be believed”. (And I note that she, unlike you, doesn’t assume the gender of sexual assault victims. Men are sexually assaulted, too.) So, I ask again, who are you quoting? Citation, please.

    2) Nobody to my knowledge has asserted that Redacted was sexually assaulted.

    3) What relevance does Hillary Clinton have to Worldcon, anyway? She’s not on the concom. To the best of my knowledge, she’s not even a member. And given that it’ll be in Helsinki anyway, if you must quote a politician, then the statements of a Finnish politician would seem to be more relevant to the circumstances.

  9. Would it be helpful context to know that Bob K Mando is one of VDs little minions?

    ETA: what Bonnie said.

  10. A simple “thank you” to Vox Day is in order rather than distancing himself from Day. It is likely that nothing would have happened if Day hadn’t posted about it.

    There is no need to be ungrateful.

  11. International non sequitur day always sneaks up on me. Other people are clearly more prepared for the celebration.

  12. Cheryl S.: International non sequitur day always sneaks up on me. Other people are clearly more prepared for the celebration.

    *snort*

  13. Xathor: A simple “thank you” to Vox Day is in order rather than distancing himself from Day. It is likely that nothing would have happened if Day hadn’t posted about it. There is no need to be ungrateful.

    There is no need to be grateful. This is exactly what would have happened anyway, if a miracle had inexplicably occurred and VD had not availed himself of the opportunity to spread more of his toxicity.

    This is what happens when people who are swept up in a runaway train wreck finally stop reacting based on egos and instead say, “Okay, clearly we’ve gone about this the wrong way. What will fix it?” — and perhaps even consult someone with expertise for assistance.

    Hell, this is pretty much everything I pointed out they should be doing in my comment a couple of days ago. I’m sure that I deserve more credit than VD does — and I’m sure that I don’t deserve any credit at all. 🙄

    Because this is the result of common sense — what happens when people are smart enough to step back, take a breath, and actually take the time to use their brains.

  14. JJ: Because this is the result of common sense — what happens when people are smart enough to step back, take a breath, and actually take the time to use their brains.

    I can see you were more confident than I was that was going to happen.

  15. Mike Glyer: I can see you were more confident than I was that was going to happen.

    I was pretty sure that if the concom didn’t come to it themselves, that there were some SMOFs who were going to step in and help them “figure it out”.

    After all, it’s not just the reputation of Worldcon75 they were besmirching with their poorly-thought-out choices, it was the reputation of Worldcon as an institution, and the WSFS, involved as well.

  16. @Cheryl S: Hee!

    Yeah, I’m sure the SMOFs were burning up the wires with W75 to come up with the apologies and steps to be taken. And we know SMOFs read here.

    As for our latest Teddy Boy, I hope he gets pats on the head from Teddy. He’s a perfect shining example of the dead elk. Run back and tell Teddy what a good boy you were today!

  17. @ Mark: I’m thinking that “VD’s basket of deplorables” might be a better description. There’s no indication of them being actual minions, who service their master.

  18. Oh, Lis, just be grateful that the ticky box has returned to us, with only a couple Shoggoth marks on it.

    @Sean Kirk: hee.

  19. It amazes me the power and control some people turn over to a person they despise, and do so voluntarily. Vox Day makes one comment and all hostilities are ended, apologies are made, and halberds are raised in unison against the Lord of Dark Chocolate.

    And somewhere deep in the bowels of the earth hides a concrete bunker. Inside, VD sits in front of a monitor laughing his as s off.

  20. Let VD laugh. His attempt to put his oar in woke up all parties to the fact that they were just making things worse. They came to their senses and stopped doing that. That’s a good thing.

  21. @Fruit Loop – Vox Day makes one comment and all hostilities are ended, apologies are made, and halberds are raised in unison against the Lord of Dark Chocolate.

    Yesterday I broke up a dog fight by throwing water on the participants. Unlike you, I didn’t credit the water for the subsequent cessation of hostilities, as any quick shock would have done it. Also, both dogs are generally good mannered, as are their analogous human counterparts.

    People, it’s International non sequitur day. Let’s not encourage another holiday to expand.

  22. For what it’s worth, the timeline does not support the idea that VD brought an end to this case and restored sanity.

    The first staffer made his announcement on on October 5, and a followup on October 7.

    VD made a link to the first staffer’s statement on October 8, seemingly around noon European time. (I am not sure about the time zone used.)

    Worldcon 75 sent their first statement with followup on the late afternoon Finnish time, ie I believe after VD first posted.

    The Internet and various SMOFs promptly fell over the head of Worldcon 75, and the apology was posted on the 11th.

  23. Karl-Johan Norén: The Internet and various SMOFs promptly fell over the head of Worldcon 75, and the apology was posted on the 11th.

    I agree that it’s hard to run a Worldcon when everybody’s mad at you. It threatens attendance — when the 1976 MidAmeriCon was trying to create policies to facilitate scaling up Worldcon attendance from around 2K to 4-6K, the backlash led a bunch of people to stay home. It also makes it hard to recruit experienced volunteers. So Helsinki would have realized what problems it was facing. However, Vox Day had nothing whatever to do with the core problem — but if Weingart and/or the Worldcon 75 chairs found Vox Day’s intrusive blog posts allowed them to do some face-saving changes in stance, then how wise they were to make that choice.

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