Pixel Scroll 10/8/16 No Pixel Necessary, No Scroll Needed

(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, 1949Sigourney 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”.

View this post on Instagram

The best Mystique cosplay I've ever seen. #NYCC

A post shared by Jody Hou (@mindeclipse) on

[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.]

156 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 10/8/16 No Pixel Necessary, No Scroll Needed

  1. Christopher Davis: Lots of learning opportunities for what not to do, on the other hand…

    hoo boy, I do so hope that a lot of other concoms are paying close attention, and will use it for a case study in how not to handle such situations.

  2. Hmm. Poking about the internet on an unrelated note, I came across a post by a woman that pretty much went “Oops. I screwed up really badly and hurt person X. They’re clearly very upset about it, but haven’t decided if they’re willing to talk to me. I would like to apologize to them if they’re willing to listen, but that’s on my own head, and I’ll leave them alone until they decide what they want. I’m the bad guy this time, after all.”

    Followed by, as far as I can tell, never mentioning it again, pursuing person X by way of an e-mail or conversation via proxy, or any other method. No details were enough to identify person X to anyone not present. (Gender was, but I’ve redacted even that for this paraphrase). The post is over 2 years old.

    Basically, everything we did NOT see here. The contrast in approaches was … illuminating.

  3. JJ:

    “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.”

    No. This was not a major screwup. This was not even a screwup. This was absolutely correctly handled as he had not abided by the terms of the original agreement which was to stay away from the other staffer.

  4. Hampus Eckerman: he had not abided by the terms of the original agreement which was to stay away from the other staffer

    Your evidence? (needs to be something other than that he had posted on the same thread in a general con-staff forum as the other person)

  5. @ Christopher Davis “Lots of learning opportunities for what not to do, on the other hand…”

    @JJ “hoo boy, I do so hope that a lot of other concoms are paying close attention, and will use it for a case study in how not to handle such situations.”

    I agree, this situation should become an example case study offered in a ConCom 101 handbook. With all references to any actual person or organization removed, for the purposes of teaching, along with Standback’s earlier post, that was so eloquently executed.

  6. JJ:

    “Your evidence? (needs to be something other than that he had posted on the same thread in a general con-staff forum as the other person)”

    No, it absolutely does not have to be something other.

  7. Hampus Eckerman: No, it absolutely does not have to be something other.

    Yes, it absolutely does, given that W75 had not forbidden him to post on the con-staff forum threads, and given that none of his posts addressed the other person directly.

    They don’t get to say afterward, “oh, and ‘contact’ also means posting in one of the general con-staff threads if the other person has already posted in that thread”; that was not part of their original definition of things that he was not allowed to do.

    Is it possible that the other person considered that to be “contact”? Sure. Does that mean that he violated the agreement? No.

  8. “Yes, it absolutely does, given that W75 had not forbidden him to post on the con-staff forum threads, and given that none of his posts addressed the other person directly.”

    No, this is bull. They had told him to not contact her. He never wrote anything before this and then by pure random chance his absolutely first post is in a thread she started, after a comment she wrote.

    This is absolutely against the intent of the regulation to keep away from her. By mistake or not, he didn’t abide by the rules. The rest is just playing with words.

  9. @ Standback Not that I am aware of.

    I have been reading over some of the Conference anti-harassment/Policy that Steve Davidson posted this link to earlier.

    http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy

    “This is an example anti-harassment policy suitable for most open source, computing, or technology-related conferences. It may be adopted unchanged or tweaked to suit your conference.”

    Here is another link from that page with a lot of great boiler plate resources. Most of it is policies and procedures for the actual convention, but a lot of it could easily be modified to suite precon ConCom staff policies.

    http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy_resources

    http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Duty_officer

  10. Hampus Eckerman: No, this is bull. They had told him to not contact her. He never wrote anything before this and then by pure random chance his absolutely first post is in a thread she started, after a comment she wrote.

    You are misinformed. He had made posts on at least 4 other threads before this.

    And again, he did not contact the other person. He did not address a post to them. He did not violate the terms of his agreement.

    Do I believe that the other person may have considered this “contact”, given whatever the other circumstances were? Sure. But this alone was not contacting them, and claiming that it was does not make you look as though you are making a rational argument.

  11. Hampus Eckerman: This is absolutely against the intent of the regulation to keep away from her. By mistake or not, he didn’t abide by the rules. The rest is just playing with words.

    Supposed I messaged Mike and said, “Hampus behaved badly toward me at MidAmeriCon, and he’s sent me e-mails even after I asked him not to. I feel stalked and threatened. I don’t want him anywhere near me.”

    And suppose Mike says, okay, “I’ll talk to Hampus”, and he gets an agreement from you that you will not address any posts to me, or respond to my posts, or contact me in any other way.

    And then one day you happen to post on the same subject, in the same thread, right after me, and I complain to Mike that you have violated your agreement with him not to contact me.

    You are saying that Mike then has the right to take sanctions against you such as banning you from File770, and he is perfectly justified in doing so, even though you have not violated your agreement with him.

  12. @Sean Kirk:
    Geek Feminism is where I started out; it’s a fantastic site, and it was a huge help for my own local team to get started out.

    I really like the idea of case studies as a resource. It could seriously help demystify how incident response teams work, and help alleviate suspicion and criticism. What I really would want people to understand is that an incident response usually shouldn’t be taken as an investigation or a judgement. Very often it’s the reactions and the sense of being judged or labeled where the real escalation and long-term reputation damage happen. Accessible, understandable case studies, that aren’t linked to whatever incident is burning through social media at the moment, could be a huge help with that.

    This sounds like a really worthwhile project. I don’t have the resources to pursue it right at the moment, but if anybody else is interested in helping push this forward, I’d be very happy to help and support. And if nobody else picks it up, it does sound like something I could feasibly do, sooner or later.

    I’m doubly glad for this conversation now. Talking things over can lead to good places 🙂

  13. “You are misinformed. He had made posts on at least 4 other threads before this.”

    According to?

    “And again, he did not contact the other person. He did not address a post to them. He did not violate the terms of his agreement.”

    The two first sentences have nothing to do with the last one.

    “Do I believe that the other person may have considered this “contact”, given whatever the other circumstances were?”

    It is not interesting what the other person considered contact. What is interesting is that all involved at W75, including two co-chairs, unanimously decided that this was a violation of the agreement.

  14. JJ on October 10, 2016 at 1:12 am said:

    Hampus Eckerman: This is absolutely against the intent of the regulation to keep away from her. By mistake or not, he didn’t abide by the rules. The rest is just playing with words.

    Supposed I messaged Mike and said, “Hampus behaved badly toward me at MidAmeriCon, and he’s sent me e-mails even after I asked him not to. I feel stalked and threatened. I don’t want him anywhere near me.”

    And suppose Mike says, okay, “I’ll talk to Hampus”, and he gets an agreement from you that you will not address any posts to me, or respond to my posts, or contact me in any other way.

    And then one day you happen to post on the same subject, in the same thread, right after me, and I complain to Mike that you have violated your agreement with him not to contact me.

    You are saying that Mike then has the right to take sanctions against you such as banning you from File770, and he is perfectly justified in doing so, even though you have not violated your agreement with him.

    I think you have answered your own question there.
    In this scenario then the blog host would have the right to ban you – and would have the responsibility of deciding whether the agreement had been violated. Maybe your analogy is flawed or I have missed an important aspect of it.

  15. Camestros Felapton: In this scenario then the blog host would have the right to ban you – and would have the responsibility of deciding whether the agreement had been violated.

    So you are saying that, in the hypothetical scenario I have postulated, Mike would be perfectly justified in banning Hampus from File770 because I have complained that he has contacted me simply because Hampus posted right after me in a thread, even though his post was not addressed to me and was not responding to mine, and he has not violated his agreement with Mike?

    Really?

    That would be pretty damn unfair to Hampus when he had not violated his agreement with Mike, wouldn’t it?

  16. JJ:

    You missed to say that it was a post you yourself had written and asked Mike to post on the blog. And yes, that would have been a violation of the agreement, so I think it would have been very good of me, in this made up scenario, to acknowledge this – as Weingart refused to do.

  17. Oh, and next time? Use yourself as an example instead if you have to use real names.

  18. Hampus Eckerman: It is not interesting what the other person considered contact. What is interesting is that all involved at W75, including two co-chairs, unanimously decided that this was a violation of the agreement.

    Given that the Worldcon chairs and various other staff have committed a couple of dozen major errors of judgment in the last couple of days, out in the open where everyone can see those errors (but nobody knows exactly who did what, since it was all done anonymously under the nym of “Worldcon75”), I don’t find that a persuasive argument.

    They had an agreement. They suddenly decided that the agreement was different than what they originally said. You may think that this is an acceptable way for a “professional” organization to behave. I do not.

    If Worldcon75 wants people like me to have confidence in their judgment, then they’re going to have to start behaving in a way which earns that confidence — something they have not yet done.

    (I will point out that one of the chair’s comments that it was perfectly okay that the W75 concom wasn’t honest with site selection voters about the fact that the onsite hotel wasn’t going to be available to the general membership, because most of those people wouldn’t have been able to get a room there anyway [WTF???], does not enhance the credibility of their judgment, either.)

  19. JJ:

    “They had an agreement. They suddenly decided that the agreement was different than what they originally said.”

    According to?

    “(I will point out that one of the chair’s comments that it was perfectly okay that the W75 concom wasn’t honest with site selection voters about the fact that the onsite hotel wasn’t going to be available to the general membership, because most of those people wouldn’t have been able to get a room there anyway [WTF???], does not enhance the credibility of their judgment, either.)”

    It is mostly your own credibility that is taking damage there. The information was clearly available as they have been able to show to you.

  20. Hampus Eckerman: It is mostly your own credibility that is taking damage there. The information was clearly available as they have been able to show to you.

    No, it was not. Nowhere in the bid materials did it say that the onsite hotel would not be available to the general membership for reservations.

  21. JJ on October 10, 2016 at 1:42 am said:

    Camestros Felapton: In this scenario then the blog host would have the right to ban you – and would have the responsibility of deciding whether the agreement had been violated.

    So you are saying that, in the hypothetical scenario I have postulated, Mike would be perfectly justified in banning Hampus from File770 because I have complained that he has contacted me simply because Hampus posted right after me in a thread, even though his post was not addressed to me and was not responding to mine, and he has not violated his agreement with Mike?

    Really?

    That would be pretty damn unfair to Hampus when he had not violated his agreement with Mike, wouldn’t it?

    The question posed was whether the blog host would be in their rights to do so – and the answer is yes. Perfectly justified? I don’t know – that is a harder question to answer.

    What is the balance of harm here? Taking X and Y’s claims at face value (I’m not comfortable with making the analogy you and Hampus)
    X gets banned from a forum/blog/online place. I think there is harm in that – X becoming from isolated from a community they enjoy for reasons that will feel unfair and arbitary to X.
    Y feeling like they have to leave the place because they feel threatened/stalked. Again harm inflicted.
    And in handling the dispute harm to the whole community potentially. What would be nigh on impossible would be for the blog host to act in some neutral fashion – not acting would be as bad acting.

    I’m not saying Worldcon75 has handled this well but I suspect their error is in not acting more decisively sooner.

  22. JJ:

    “https://file770.com/?p=31173&cpage=3#comment-489171”

    According to yourself with no data to support it. Ok.

  23. Camestros Felapton: I’m not saying Worldcon75 has handled this well but I suspect their error is in not acting more decisively sooner.

    I think that they were overly optimistic that they would be able to have both people on staff without one of them feeling imposed upon.

    When you’ve got one person who feels that even having to look at another person’s name on a post is an invasion of their personal space and privacy (which appears to be the case), you can not expect that both will be able to serve on a concom without issues. 😐

  24. Hampus Eckerman: According to yourself with no data to support it. Ok.

    Both Weingart’s and Worldcon75’s emails support that. I encourage you to go re-read them, looking strictly at the words, without your lens of perception superimposed over them.

  25. JJ on October 10, 2016 at 2:21 am said:

    Camestros Felapton: I’m not saying Worldcon75 has handled this well but I suspect their error is in not acting more decisively sooner.

    I think that they were overly optimistic that they would be able to have both people on staff without one of them feeling imposed upon.

    When you’ve got one person who feels that even having to look at another person’s name on a post is an invasion of their personal space and privacy (which appears to be the case), you can not expect that both will be able to serve on a concom without issues. ?

    I agree. If they thought they would need these kinds of rules to make the arrangement work then clearly the arrangement wasn’t going to work.

  26. “Both Weingart’s and Worldcon75’s emails support that. I encourage you to go re-read them, looking strictly at the words, without your lens of perception superimposed over them.”

    Yes, I encourage you to do the same. Because the emails clearly do not support what you say.

  27. Hampus Eckerman: the emails clearly do not support what you say

    Actually, they do. Worldcon75 admits that he hasn’t technically violated the agreement, but expects him to agree that because the other person feels that he has violated the agreement, he has done so.

     
    There are a whole lot of people in this thread who can see both sides of what’s going on here, who can agree that mistakes have been made on both sides, who can agree that a lot of it is not clear-cut.

    And then there’s you, claiming that nope, everything Worldcon75 has done was just fine, and everything Weingart has done is all wrong, and it’s all quite clear-cut.

    Of course, you are entitled not to see shades of gray, and no one can force you to be able to see both sides.

    But based on my life experience, I am a lot more inclined to trust the judgment of people who can see both sides, who can admit shades of gray — and who know that doing so does not condemn one side or validate the other side.

    I don’t think that you, for whatever reason, can attain any sort of objectivity in this situation.

    And that’s fine. There’s no law saying that you have to.

    But that doesn’t mean I have to accord your stance on this much credibility. The fact that you are making absolutist claims about Worldcon75’s rightness in this tells me that your judgment is not nuanced — and so I’m inclined to not give it a lot of credit.

  28. JJ:

    “Worldcon75 admits that he hasn’t technically violated the agreement, but expects him to agree that because the other person feels that he has violated the agreement, he has done so.”

    The email states exactly the opposite of what you claim. The first one:

    “In June, I was present at a conversation you and [Co-chair name] had regarding [name redacted]’s concerns with your interactions with her, and you agreed not to interact with her in person (at conventions, and by not coming to the staff weekends) and not to interact with her online.
    It is clear that your comment below, following within minutes of her comments and on the same subject, is an online interaction with her, which is in breach of your earlier agreement.

    The second one:

    “The intent of our email was to provide you an opportunity to recognise you’d broken your agreement

    The third:

    You have broken this agreement with your messages…”

  29. “And then there’s you, claiming that nope, everything Worldcon75 has done was just fine, and everything Weingart has done is all wrong, and it’s all quite clear-cut.”

    Please do not lie. I have mentioned several mistakes Worldcon has committed. You are going Brian Z.

  30. Hampus, you have completely proved my point with your citations in this post:

    https://file770.com/?p=31173&cpage=3#comment-489238

    Worldcon75 is expecting Weingart to agree that he has broken his “no contact” agreement simply by posting in the same thread as the other person.

    Since their initial agreement was “no contact” — and not “in the same vicinity” — they are attempting to get him to agree to expand the terms of the original agreement.

    I’m done here. It’s clear that you are wanting to justify everything Worldcon75 has done, based on stretching the truth in the same way that they have. I can not respect nor agree with this sort of unwillingness to acknowledge shades of gray.

  31. JJ:

    The only thing I can see is that your point is not proven at all. You said Worldcon 75 had admitted hasn’t technically violated the agreement. There is absolutely no admission of anything like that in any of the mails. Instead they again and again say that he has broken the agreement. Do you have your own definition of “admit”?

    They say very clearly that one of the parts of the agreements was “and not to interact with her online”. And he did by commenting in her thread. Directly after her comment.

    He broke the agreement.

    And yes, my respect for you has very much declined when you started to lie about me and about others and also thought my name would be a good thing to use as an example of an abuser.

  32. Hampus Eckerman: you thought my name would be a good thing to use as an example of an abuser

    What I thought was that it would be good for you to use a hypothetical example to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to have a chance to look at things from someone else’s point-of-view. I didn’t ever describe you as an abuser, I described you as the target of accusations.

    The “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” hypothesis is a common rhetorical discussion device in the U.S. Perhaps it is not something done in Sweden.

    But I’ve noticed that both times I’ve done this, instead of trying to empathize with someone else’s situation, you have instead gotten quite angry.

    You might want to spend some time thinking about why that is, why you are so upset about being asked to think about what it might be like to be in someone else’s place.

  33. “The “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” hypothesis is a common rhetorical discussion device in the U.S. Perhaps it is not something done in Sweden.”

    Only rude persons do it in a way that you did.

  34. JJ,

    What are you hoping to accomplish? It is obvious that you think that David did nothing wrong. It is just as obvious that there are people who think that the Con acted correctly on dismissing. (he’ll some people think he’s a stalker).

    Your attempt to logic or rhetoric out of the reality that he was fired, is meaningless. He was. Your demands that Hampus provide proof is ridiculous because a) Hampus isn’t am agent in this and b) has access to the same material you said you read.

    Is there a reason you feel entitled to all of the details in this case?

  35. Alexvdl: What are you hoping to accomplish? It is obvious that you think that David did nothing wrong. It is just as obvious that there are people who think that the Con acted correctly on dismissing. (he’ll some people think he’s a stalker).
    Your attempt to logic or rhetoric out of the reality that he was fired, is meaningless. He was. Your demands that Hampus provide proof is ridiculous because a) Hampus isn’t am agent in this and b) has access to the same material you said you read.
    Is there a reason you feel entitled to all of the details in this case?

    Wow, what a weird comment. Have you even read all the comments in this thread?

    You know, I’m not even going to bother responding until you do that. Because not one thing that you’ve said about me in your comment here is true.

    Once you have read all the comments on this thread, if you still want to discuss, I’m happy to do so — if you can ask some questions that actually make sense.

  36. “You know, I’m not even going to bother responding until you do that.”

    You are mistaken, sir. You have indeed responded.

    And I read them. Your attempts to litigate the issue are apparent.

  37. Okay, alexvdl, you’ve now made it clear that you haven’t actually read all my posts in this thread, or you would realize that nothing you said about me in your previous post was true.

    1) I haven’t tried to re-litigate anything.
    2) I haven’t tried to “logic Dave out of being fired”.
    3) I have not claimed Weingart is innocent; indeed, the opposite is true.
    4) I have not demanded that Hampus provide proof of anything except the things that he himself has claimed — which is a perfectly legitimate thing to do.
    5) I don’t feel that I’m “entitled to all the details of the case”, nor have I demanded them — in fact, I have indicated just the opposite.

    Since you are still claiming otherwise, either you haven’t actually read my posts, or you’ve sorta/kinda skimmed them but not bothered/ chosen to understand them.

    Which is it?

    You have been doing a fabulous job of alienating the people who actually believe that Weingart should have been removed from the concom — and of demonstrating yourself to be wildly irrational on this subject. Congratulations.

  38. Sir. You have stated that you will not respond until I have read your comments. It appears you mean “until you read them and interpret them as I choose.” But you keep responding to me. You have now accused me of being wildly irrational.

    Enjoy your day.

  39. The way I see it there were 2 main mistakes made here. Worldcon 75 trying to use David and David accepting a position with unreasonable rules attached.

    And by unreasonable I mean for running a successful con not anything about the stalking the armchair detectives here have proven being true or not. If I had been given those terms I would have told them to shove them where the sun did not shine because they would have cut me off at the knees in my job and because they showed an unworkable attitude from the concom. If the concom thought the only way I would be safe to be around was to be in “jail” they should not want me there at all. The terms also spoke to an atmosphere were the escalation such as we have seen would be very easy.

    Worldcon 75 really comes out of this looking worst in this in my mind. David could not make them accept him or meltdown in the aftermath that all falls on the con.

    It does makes me feel better about having decided not to try to make it there before, so I guess every cloud has a silver lining.

  40. I think everybody in this discussion wants to be on the right and just side of the DW-W75 controversy.

  41. Rob, I’m not on either side. I’m on the side that thinks that both DW and W75 prioritized DWs contributions over another staffer’s comfort and safety. And then opened her up to harassment and abuse when, surprise surprise, it didn’t work out. I agree with those who think this is a great primer for future conventions on What Not To Do.

  42. I think absolutely everyone here can agree that it was a mistake to take on Weingart under unworkable premises. I have not seen anyone who thought it was a good idea. It hurt Weingart, it hurt the other staffer that they said they wanted to protect, it threw the convention into a wildfire that spread over the net.

    And the other mistake was to to answer on how the case was handled on an open facebook post. It is always disaster and pouring oil on flames. Even worse to try to enter a dialogue with random friends and general troublemakers from everywhere.

  43. Have we reached the point in the discussion where there’s huge amounts of rules-lawyering in an attempt to proove that what DW did was perfectly okay? *checks thread* looks like it!

    @magewolf

    It does makes me feel better about having decided not to try to make it there before, so I guess every cloud has a silver lining.

    Bye Felicia

  44. Bill said:

    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?)

    At this point, if there is a pre-existing conrunning organization behind the bid, that organization is likely to have a standard policy that applies to all of its conventions. For one-off organizations, see the earlier answer about the sample policy.

  45. Standback asked:

    IS anybody collecting anonymized or artificial case studies? That would be a fantastic resource.

    It is!

  46. @Petréa : I am not entirely clear on how seriously you’re implying this game-thing provides helpful information on handling harassment incidents, but oh boy do I want to read it now that I’m aware of its existence!

  47. Ah, the point got lost somewhere along the way (probably due to me reading three days’ worth of comments all at once) that you were looking for specifically harassment-related case studies, rather than ones about doing PR or social media wrong. I don’t believe If I Ran the Zoo Con has any harassment-centered scenarios. Sorry to get you all excited for nothing!

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