The 2018 Worldcon committee has notified author Jon Del Arroz that his right to attend Worldcon 76 in person has been revoked.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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Scalzi has weighed in with a blog post on the subject.
@Hampus —
“Baloney” is a reasonable response to most of Jon’s claims, so that’s probably a good word to end the discussion on.
Someone who isn’t a lawyer wrote:
Do you folks ever stop being ridiculous and making clown arguments?
An individual is not the public-at-large.
Jo: An individual is not the public-at-large.
So what is the point of your clown argument?
I’m wondering, because you keep harping on the status of non-profits as if it actually has some bearing on JDA’s situation, which it does not.
Why are you making that distinction when you refused to believe what the actual lawyer in this discussion told you about the subject? It’s not like you’ve shown any respect for expertise.
@JJ —
So much this.
@Jo — Yet again, Worldcon, like many other nonprofits, is a private membership organization. It does not receive governmental subsidies (that I know of), and it is not a public accommodation. Therefore it is free to determine who can or can not be a member, and it is free to rescind anyone’s membership at its whim.
Certainly anyone who wants to can bitch and moan about such an action being “mean” or “unfair”, to which I say “tough” and “grow up”. Worldcon has a responsibility to protect its attendees from harassment, and that’s precisely what they’ve done here. Good for them.
An individual is not the public-at-large.
The public-at-large does not own nonprofits. Go try your argument that the “public-at-large” owns nonprofits with Princeton University and see how far you get.
Maybe you should move on from this argument, or else educate yourself about the concept of entities — corporations, partnerships, trusts, etc. — and how they function within U.S. law.
Harping? Hardly.
I mentioned it once to someone and then corrected others who insisted otherwise.
How is it relevant? It’s important to understand that you don’t own Worldcon, and neither do the folks who run Worldcon. This is a nonprofit we’re talking about, and thus held to certain public standards and laws.
I think you folks are playing with dangerous concepts.
Right now, things are polarized and tensions are high. Two extreme sides of the political divide are waging war on one another. It’s getting loud and ugly, and occasionally real violence breaks out.
Jon Del Arroz is on one side of the divide, and the folks running Worldcon are on the other.
Jon isn’t well liked. In fact, a lot of you have insulted him and I think it’s reasonable to say that the bulk of people reading this blog think Jon is a jack***.
And I think we can all agree that the appearance of Jon being a jack*** is pretty much why he was banned from Worldcon. I mean, you could point to a bodycam tweet or whatever, but in general, the banning is bigger than one thing. Which also means the banning is more vague than one thing. It’s a culmination of smaller things that, when brought together, seem to resemble the shape and smell of a jack***.
Here’s the problem I have with this. None of it would have occurred if not for a difference in politics. Jon’s side of the political field doesn’t see Jon as an obnoxious jack***. In fact, that side actually sees your side as representing obnoxious and annoying behavior.
I repeat, none of this would have happened if not for a difference in politics. What does this mean? It means we can trace the source of this conflict, and the subsequent banning, to a political difference.
You might argue, no. You might argue that Jon was banned for his actions, but I would remind you that his actions were political. He is in a sort of a political revolt, and I would further point out that if you could distance yourself enough you would see that your reactions are political in return.
Now, the importance of a nonprofit being owned by the public-at-large, or rather no one entity (certainly not stockholders or the folks who created the nonprofit) is that the nonprofit exists for one singular purpose, and that purpose is outlined as the mission of the nonprofit.
What this means is that the nonprofit is not allowed to be weaponized for political purposes, and I think a clear case can be made that such is happening. As I mentioned above, I think a lot of you folks are playing with dangerous concepts, and I think what’s happening here is abusing the very nature of nonprofits.
Looks like Jo has now written enough speculative fiction on this thread to be Hugo eligible…
Is ‘public-at-large’ one of those sovereign citizen things?
Asking as a non-lawyer-non-Usainian.
I mentioned it once to someone and then corrected others who insisted otherwise.
Your “correction” was incorrect when you first made it, and has been incorrect every subsequent time you have advanced it.
I repeat, none of this would have happened if not for a difference in politics.
You keep trying to sell this lie, but it won’t work any better than it did the first time. This is not a “political” difference. This is JdA being a known serial harasser, and you lying to try to cover for him.
Now, the importance of a nonprofit being owned by the public-at-large
Nonprofits are not owned by the public at large. You are not just wrong, but fractally wrong. At this point, the only conclusion one can draw is that you are simply lying and trying to score points by lying.
You might argue, no. You might argue that Jon was banned for his actions, but I would remind you that his actions were political. He is in a sort of a political revolt…
Wait, Mr. Del Arroz’s harassment of me and others is excusable and understandable because its a political action.
Hell, no. So, if I were to turn into my Mirror Universe self and harass you for months on end as he has done to me, and call it a political act against the right, that would be excusable? No, it would not be.
Jo, do explain to me how encouraging people to harass one’s target on Twitter is a political action or, alternatively, explain how it is a political action that is necessary enough that being banned from a convention due to committing such harassment is an unacceptable burden upon one’s civil liberties. I assure you, I am waiting anxiously for this explanation.
He is in a sort of a political revolt, and I would further point out that if you could distance yourself enough you would see that your reactions are political in return.
No. He is not. JdA’s actions are nothing more than simple harassment. That’s all they are. No matter how much you try to dress them up as “politics”, they are not.
The blunt fact here is that you’re lying. Everything you say is a lie. You are simply a sleazy, shitty person who lies, and nothing more.
Jo: Here’s the problem I have with this. None of it would have occurred if not for a difference in politics… I repeat, none of this would have happened if not for a difference in politics. What does this mean? It means we can trace the source of this conflict, and the subsequent banning, to a political difference.
You’re probably right to the extent that JDA chose who to target with his harassment based on what he perceived their political stance to be.
But the banning from Worldcon was based on his long history of harassing behavior, and his bragging that he was going to do more of it at Worldcon. It had nothing to do with politics. Worldcon has ejected and banned liberal fans before for harassment. That is their only criterion in this case.
It seems to me that you are trying to make a legal case that Worldcon is not legally allowed to ban JDA, and all I can say to that after picking myself up off the floor from a paroxysm of laughter is “good luck with that”.
Even assuming that you can find an attorney stupid enough to take the case, as soon as the discovery phase started and the details of JDA’s harassment campaigns came out, they would drop it faster than a hot potato.
I’m not entirely convinced that using outrage marketing to raise your profile and flog your books to a small segment of fandom can in any way be described as political revolt.
@Jo —
The problem for you here is that those “certain public standards and laws” are not the public standards and laws that would actually help you to make an argument against Worldcon. As has already been explained to you multiple times, many nonprofit organizations are private membership organizations. Any purported “public ownership” of these nonprofits does NOT remove their right to determine their own members by their own rules.
The only relevant “divide” here is between those who are capable of acting with civility, and those who aren’t. Again, as has already been pointed out to you multiple times, we can sit here and make lists of multiple conservative authors and fans who have attended Worldcons without being banned. The difference? They were not proven serial harassers, and they had not indicated their intentions to harass people at a Worldcon.
Absolutely true — which I and multiple other people have already pointed out to you many times. It’s not just about the bodycam — it’s about Jon’s stated intentions and record of harassing behaviors against other people.
Bullshit.
Oddly enough, occasionally a liberal is just as capable of being a jackass as Jon. And a liberal jackass, if one declared his or her intention of harassing congoers and had a record of serially harassing people across the net, would be just a liable to banning as Jon.
Whointhehell cares? If someone assassinates the president for political reasons, does that mean we shouldn’t try them for murder? Of course not.
Many people are perfectly capable of discussing their political differences civilly. Such people would be welcome at Worldcon.
ROFLMAO.
Many political advocacy groups are nonprofits. Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit. Liberty Counsel is a nonprofit. The list is endless.
Seriously, try to stop advertising your ignorance quite so blatantly.
That’s correct. And none of those standards and laws obligate them to allow an individual to come to a gathering where he has announced his intention to make trouble, and where people he has unrepentantly harassed are likely attendees.
The depth and sincerity of your concern for the well-being of people here are noted.
This is true only in the sense that JDA picks the targets of his harassment on the basis of their politics. Which, again, doesn’t obligate the con to give him the chance to do it there.
ETA: ninja’d by JJ on that last one.
JJ:
Oh, how I would love to see Popehat’s response to that one.
Aaron,
You are clearly an expert at making assertions, but you’ll forgive me if I take the 501c3.org answer to the question over yours.
That said, if you are insistent and want to compare Avvo profiles, shoot me a link.
I will point out that you have resorted to simply insulting me.
@NickPheas
Is ‘public-at-large’ one of those sovereign citizen things?
Is that where the Business Meeting is invalid because it’s not under Admiralty Law?
@Jo —
Jo — regardless of whether you consider “ownership” of a nonprofit to be public or private, that “ownership” is irrelevant to the argument you are trying to construct. The truth is that many nonprofits are private membership organizations, and that many nonprofits are political, and that nothing about Worldcon’s nonprofit status precludes them in any way from banning members at their will.
Either produce evidence that actually supports your argument, or get over it.
Surely, if this were a sovereign-citizen matter, the name would be “j;?o”?
@Jo
As far as people on JDA’s political side not considering him a jackball, check this out:
Mad Genius and Jon (a summary of a post at the very right-leaning SFF writer’s site MGC):
https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/mad-genius-and-jon/
Stir the Pot (the MGC post where the author pretty much acknowledges that JDA is an untrustworthy jackball):
https://madgeniusclub.com/2018/01/05/stir-the-pot/
That isn’t to say MGC or others on the far right (or as they’d say, center right) support or approve of the decision, but of course they don’t – they don’t believe that harassment and bullying is a problem, so they come to the bizarre conclusion that the banning has something to do with JDA’s politics (which, as has been mentioned before, seem nonexistent – look at his FB profile image and it’s obvious his politics are “I’m a troll who enjoys trolling”).
You can also read JDA’s blog, where people who like (or at one point did like) him sometimes point out to him that he’s become a jerk, that his harassment is un-funny, and that he is apparently just doing this to get more sales. I don’t run in his social circles, but the people who despair of his nasty behavior comment in the tone of colleagues or friends.
This has never been an issue about politics. As has been repeatedly repeated, and as you have repeatedly ignored, there are many conservative writers in SFF, but only one was banned from Worldcon. I wasn’t around then, but I wonder if Breen complained that he was banned from Worldcon for being liberal?
We’ll make them walk the plonk!
I think some version of “walk the plonk” would make an excellent scroll title.
kathodus on,
You say that it has been repeatedly pointed out that this is not about politics. To respond: repeatedly pointing out that the sky isn’t blue doesn’t mean the sky isn’t blue.
Jon claims this is about politics. Several folks agree with Jon. I agree that this is about politics.
You clearly disagree.
It’s fine to disagree. But to disagree doesn’t mean you’re right. Do you see that? There’s an attempt here to say, “listen, Jo, we told you already and since we told you so many times that means we’re right.”
In other words, just like you (and the rest of team left) keep repeatedly telling me this isn’t about politics… I keep repeatedly telling you that this is about politics.
Strange. It feels like you live in this world where you’re surprised someone disagrees with you and asserts a different narrative from a different point of view.
I believe I have expressed my opinion politely. I cannot say the same for those who have resorted to base insults against me.
you’ll forgive me if I take the 501c3.org answer to the question over yours.
So, you’ll trust a group of nonlawyers who barely understand the legal concepts they are applying? Sure. You do that.
I’ve seen dozens of organizations like “501c3.org”. They are scriveners trying to stop just short of selling legal services for things that people really should consult lawyers for. Their “analysis” of the ownership status of nonprofit organizations is facile and incorrect.
But comparing your Google search with my law degree and the actual experience multiple people in this thread have had in setting up, running, and being officers of nonprofit organizations just shows how ignorant you actually are on this subject.
I will point out that you have resorted to simply insulting me.
Every comment you’ve made in this thread has been an insult to intelligence and rationality. Several comments you’ve made in this thread have been insults to people who JdA has harassed.
Calling you a sleazy, shitty liar isn’t an insult. It is a description of your behavior.
@Jo —
LOL.
At least you’ve gotten one thing right. You are correct: repeating a claim does not make that claim correct.
OTOH, providing reams of evidence in SUPPORT of a claim lends a lot of credence to that claim. And guess which side in this discussion has provided all the evidence?
Here’s a clue: not yours.
You have not supplied one iota of evidence that Jon has been banned because of his political views. Not one. Not a SINGLE one.
Gee, I wonder why?
Jo: I keep repeatedly telling you that this is about politics.
Okay, so that’s your perspective.
But so what? Why should I care about your opinion?
In my view, you haven’t made rational — or even irrational but persuasive — arguments to support your opinion.
There are commenters here who have, in the past, been able to make rational and persuasive arguments about their point-of-view, which I could respect even though I disagreed with them. But you’re not one of them.
Jo on January 6, 2018 at 1:15 pm said:
501c3.org’s purpose is to sell its services to people, and to be fair, some of those services are quite useful. Setting up a 501c3 group can be challenging, even if you have experience of it, as I do. I couldn’t have done what I did without the help of other SF/F groups who had gone through it before.
Questions for you, Jo:
1. Do you think that any 501c3 non-profit tax-exempt organization is categorically prohibited from denying admission or membership to any person whatsoever, for any reason at all?
2. If there are any reasons that such a group could in your opinion deny admission or membership to any person under any circumstance, what are those conditions?
3. What practical experience of any sort do you personally have with either running non-profit entities or organizing SF/F genre events?
-=-=-
As far as the reason for banning being because of personal politics: The person (the late Ross Pavlac) who gave me my first chance to show the members of WSFS that I wasn’t just a crackpot (a plausible opinion to many WSFS regulars at that time) was, as far I could tell, pretty conservative politically. (Based on t-shirts he wore and some of his comments.) This did not mean he got banned from Worldcons or that he (when he was in a position to do so) banned people of contrary politics. And I’m no right-winger, but he offered me the job of WSFS Timekeeper in 1991 anyway, and if I do say so myself, I think I did pretty well.
There are plenty of obnoxious, annoying people of any form of political stripe who attend Worldcon (and other SF/F genre conventions). In fact, if we had to ban every person who has been obnoxious and annoying at any point in their lives, there wouldn’t be anyone at all at the convention, including me.
Kip W:
“We’ll make you walk the plonk, but only if it tastes good?”
“Scrolled plonk and pixelled cheese”
PLONK is a wonderful word and boy, oh, boy are some people being boring and pointlessly repetitive in this thread and I wish Opera had a PLONK feature. I encourage anyone who can PLONK to do so.
Anyone wanting to see what the actual IRS says about 501(c)(3) organizations can just go look here.
As a person who has obtained 501(c)(3) status for one organization, and been the local chapter president of another 501(c)(3) non-profit, we can eject anyone we wish for almost any reason–including harassing and threatening to harass attendees at a Science Fiction and Fantasy convention we’re running on the behest of a non-incorporated literary society.
The legal entity who ran Worldcon last year, and the legal entity who will run Worldcon next year, have no legal relationship in any way to the legal entity running Worldcon this year. There’s no legal continuity.
And a lot of you are forgetting that Worldcon, as an entity of WSFS, did not downgrade JDA’s membership. Worldcon, as an entity of WSFS, does not have the power to do that. The people assigned by the legal entity running Worldcon this year did that and only a teeny tiny handful of Attending members of Worldcon 76 are actually legal members of that entity. The rest of us only hold a membership to WSFS for 2018.
It’s like the Olympics. Sochi has no legal relationship to Atlanta, has no legal relationship to Seoul. But they can kick your harassing ass out of the Olympic venues if they wish.
Couple things:
The “501c3 org” website is a creature of The Foundation Group of TN. It identifies itself (probably without intending to) as a company designed to separate people who are looking to create a non-profit from their money. Just like those “patent assistance” companies.
That “Ruin Company” offers “complete anonymity” with their shipments.
If the label shown in the pic is displayed on the outside of the tube (“Ruin Day”), I question the reasoning abilities of someone who opens it without bothering to check the website.
I agree that the displayed picture could be “staged”…but that does not prove or disprove anything about the purchasers, the shippers, or anything other than the picture does not resemble others of a tube that operated properly. (The promo for this “product” states “…literally cover their apartment in hundreds of tiny micropenises. Save this one for someone very special.” Customer reviews state “…Him and his wife are finding **** confetti all over the house…”, “… exploded and landed all over the living room…” among others.
But here is the comment that I find most interesting: “sent one of these exploding **** bombs to my 70yr old brother, he called me and said he got an unmarked cylindrical package in the mail,…”
Which brings me to this conclusion: either JdA doesn’t take the supposed threats seriously (or they simply don’t exist), or this product was not mailed to him by some SJW looking to cause trouble.
If you are being harassed, you simply do not open up unmarked, unidentifiable packages. It could be anything, and most of the categories of what it could be fall into the “you don’t want it” category.
Because there has been a fair amount of discussion of logic here recently, I’ll also mention that there is also the possibility that JdA is just not as smart as he thinks he is.
That scenario, however, requires that the package really was sent to him by a “well wisher” and he actually just went ahead and opened it.
Jo is Jon, right? I’m 90% sure Jo is Jon…
Could it be that wherever our guest normally writes, that this style of discussion or argument actually works? Maybe he’s used to people who don’t bother fact-checking and aren’t really experienced at logic? It would help explain his commitment to endlessly repeating the same transparent nonsense about non-profits and “it’s obviously about politics”. Or is it more likely that he tries to just wear people down so they stop replying and then declare victory?
@Ryan I don’t think so? From what I’ve seen of JdA’s Tweets* he doesn’t seem to be the type who’d be able to last this long without dissolving into spittle-flecked wrath. Scalzi’s blog post comments have a more likely candidate, a troll who was trying (poorly) to use overblown language to mock JS. It’s a bit sad.
*I think the tweets weren’t on Twitter, though, they were actually on Twitter For Nazis, so would we call them ‘gabs’? Dunno.
Ryan: Jo is Jon, right? I’m 90% sure Jo is Jon…
Nah, JDA is even more irrational and incoherent than Jo, hard as that may be to believe.
But they’re definitely both from the “Repeat the same nonsensical talking points over and over, and eventually they’ll have to concede to your argument” school of debate.
Jo’s malarky about non-profits sounds like it might be vaguely based on a very bad misunderstanding of how 501c(3)s interface with politics. There is no bar in a 501c(3) engaging in any sort of political activity EXCEPT for being involved in a political campaign for a candidate for elective office.
It should be clear to everyone that that is not what Worldcon is doing.
You are clearly an expert at making assertions, but you’ll forgive me if I take the 501c3.org answer to the question over yours.
From irs.gov:
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.Sep 13, 2016
The name is not the thing.
That someone has the domain name 501c3.org proves only that they wanted it, had a few dollars (or euros, pounds, or quatloos) to pay for the registration, and nobody else had already registered it. It doesn’t mean they are authoritative about 501(c)3 organizations; it doesn’t necessarily prove they know any more about the subject than my cat.
Bascally, nobody is checking these things to make sure that only “appropriate” or “qualified” people register a domain name. Who would? It would be significant amounts of work, for very little reward. (No, you can’t register the domain of your choice in .gov or .mil, but a lot of top-level domains, including com and .org, are wide open.)
Someone I know registered milk.com many years ago, just for the hell of it, and eventually resold the domain to an organization that actually had something to do with the dairy industry. A porn site operated at whitehouse.com for several years (and may still be there, for all I know), hoping that people who wanted the US government site at whitehouse.GOV would type the wrong URL, land on the .com porn site, and stay. Back in 2001, the band Anthrax had a website at the obvious anthrax.com, which was of course about the band.They did the public-spirited thing and quickly added information about the namesake disease when the website started getting a lot of visitors who were looking for information about that rather than tour dates, CDs, or T-shirts.
Vicki, my friend Harry’s web site (Harry-Go-Round) had the comment sections overrun with people talking about some kind of stretch pants a few years back. He tried to police it for a while, then shrugged and started a new web page for the pants and directed them to it.
Oh, what a world.
You know, at 440+ comments, this thread must be no. 2 or 3 most commented on ever.
Jo’s tiresome nonsense is good for something, at least.
Come on, Jo! Repeat your nonsense some more! Let’s see if we can get to 500 comments!
@Bonnie McDaniel
Surely that means it’s time for another round of book recommendations!
Has anybody read The Berlin Project by Benford? It looks promising. It’s either that, or re-reading Name of the Wind next.
I am currently reading an ARC of Myke Cole’s forthcoming novellla, THE ARMORED SAINT.
I just got done with Chris Brookmyre’s Places in the Darkness. At first I wasn’t sure whether I would want to finish it, because the two main characters were so unlikable. But it ended up being a solid SF mystery on a space station with great worldbuilding and character development.
During peak Puppy in 2015 a lot of posts got from 500 to 1800 comments each.
In these more “normal” times, though, only the post about Steven Brust in which Will Shetterley commented frequently has cracked 400.
So this one will soon be the most active in the past year or more.
I just finished Julie E. Czerneda’s 2015 continuation of the Clan Chronicles series, This Gulf of Time and Stars. I have the next two books, and seeing as the finale of the series, To Guard Against the Dark, was published this year, I’m definitely nominating it for Best Series.
@Bonnie I did read TGATD and I do think that she managed to stick the landing on the series and (:sniff:: the entire Trade Pact verse)
You’ve all completely misunderstood what a ‘not for profit’ is. The term has actually be corrupted but dates back to the Incan Empire. As you may know, Incan civilisation recorded numbers using cords made of wool called ‘khipu’. They would tie the cords in particular ways to indicate values and different colours of chords would indicate categories or names. (see http://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/WhatIsAKhipu.html ). In the sophisticated agricultural systems of Andean civilisation, khipu were presented to the empire’s economic forecasters, who could extrapolate from the size of the harvest, the various yields of corn, quinoa, potato etc and birth rates the food needs of the next five years. Preparing these forecasting khipus was obviously a “knot for prophet”
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I’ll get my coat.