Crystal Huff, Michael Lee, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, B. Diane Martin, Patrick McMurray
“Cosplay is not Consent,” “Creeper Cards,” and colour co-ordinated lanyards indicating levels of approval for photography are all examples of responses to harassment experienced by convention attendees. In this session we assume the position that conventions need to have some kind of Code of Conduct and a procedure for implementing it, but that this is hard to get right. We explore examples from recent conventions, including Loncon’s Code of Conduct and Listener programme, to discuss best, flawed, and failed practices and how to move ever further towards the “best of the best”.
The last panel I went to on Monday, this was interesting getting the perspectives of people at the coalface of conrunning, with B. Diane Martin and Crystal Huff involved with Readercon and Wiscon, while Pat McMurray was part of LonCon itself, Teresa of course being a long time moderator of various online spaces. What struck me personally was hearing about the insecurity others felt about undergoing or witnessing harassment and whether it was actually something serious or not. That coalesced something about an incident on another panel I witnessed on Friday which I didn’t do anything with then, but now felt I had to report. I talked to Pat, he took it seriously and took me to the listeners who wrote down a report. As expected nothing could be done right then, not that I wanted it to, but it would be taken into consideration for the post mortem.
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