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drwextl;dr This is going to be a long (at least) two-parter of me talking about Arisia things. I will cut tag for those who don't care about Arisia stuff.
There exists a "Fans of Arisia" Facebook group. This is run by and for Arisia fans. It's unofficial and people involved in running Arisia, Inc and the Convention deliberately keep arm's length from it. At least, that was true before the new Board was elected in November. With the vastly expanded Corporate membership and the new Board we got many more Corp members who are regular participants in the community and at least a couple of the Board who are also regular contributors.
Some weeks ago, a conversation thread there blew up, badly. A person (Dan Kimmel) who is a well-known Arisia panelist, made some remarks to another Arisian that were widely seen as questionable. The remarks addressed the ongoing controversy over the association of the National Women's March organization and Louis Farrakhan. This came up because there is a march during Arisia by a Boston-local organization that is somewhat related to the national, though independent.
When called on his behavior Mr. Kimmel doubled down and wrote even more offensive remarks. The page's moderators stepped in, deleted the offensive comments, and tried to get the discussion back in line with the group's standards. Mr. Kimmel's remarks were noted widely, including by Arisia Programming staff. Mr. Kimmel was disinvited from programming this year, which caused another blow-up, further intervention by moderators, and there the matter lay.
A friend, who is by their own admission peripheral to much of Arisia fandom, posted a friends-locked question to which I replied. They asked: "what's your take on what happened with Daniel Kimmel, the Women's March, and Arisia programming?"
My response, which I reproduce below, was somewhat extensive. They then asked an interesting follow-up question to which I wanted to reply at more length. However, rather than continue to hijack their journal I asked if it was OK to reply here and point to their entry. To do that, they'd have to make their entry public, which they felt was unwise. We discussed, and agreed that I could reproduce a few things here, which I've done. With this entry as background I'll put the Q and A in the next entry.
Here's my response, lightly edited, and with URLs embedded for people who want to read further:
"I can't confirm or deny that there's an Incident Report (IR) around a certain incident or involving a certain person. Those things get published in Mentor (https://corp.arisia.org/Mentor), Arisia Inc's official newsletter, as well as reported out at Corporate meetings.
"People who are involved in IRs can choose to publicize things themselves but often do not. People whose behavior is report in IRs often don't want it known that their behavior was reported. People who make IRs often have a fear of reprisal or blowback, either from the person whose behavior is in question or from friends. Arisia, Inc. takes steps to protect the confidentiality of people who report IRs or who assist as witnesses or corroborating stories.
"It often surprises people how many IRs come from uninvolved third parties. Person X does sketchy thing toward Person Y but is overheard/observed by Person Z who reports it. Z may not even know X and Y but is unhappy or uncomfortable with the thing that was seen or heard.
"I've been careful here to say 'Arisia, Inc' because the Corporate body operates separately to a great degree from the Convention. People confuse the two and that's somewhat our fault for having similar names for things and not being as clear about procedures as we could. The latter we're trying to fix by having a new Problem Reporting process page on the convention site (https://www.arisia.org/ProblemReporting), and lots more data up on the Corporate site (https://corp.arisia.org/DisciplinaryProcessInformation).
"A third stream of action, which is relevant here, is Convention Programming. That group has its own standards and evaluates program participants according to it. Simply put, one can be a better or worse panelist, moderator, event organizer, etc. without ever crossing into IR territory. This is why Programming has feedback forms in every panel, has a feedback email system, etc. Since Mr. Kimmel is a panelist he's evaluated by Programming on how he has been, or might be, as a panelist. Again, that's independent of other evaluations that might go on. If Programming decides that someone would not be a positive net contributor they may not invite that person to participate in paneling or may even disinvite that person.
"One thing Programming has in common with other streams at Arisia is that it maintains a history over several years and uses that history to try and understand if something that happened is a one-off or part of a pattern. Let's say that a few years ago, Wex said some seriously anti-dog things on a panel. Some people noted it at the time. Programming keeps record of that, but may not say anything to me. Now let's say I go on Fans of Arisia and I spew some horribly anti-dog rhetoric, use the "b" word in an insulting and inflammatory manner, and so on. Programming might look at that and say, "Hunh, it seems like Wex has some issues with dogs. Maybe he wouldn't be a great panelist after all." Then they disinvite me from paneling for a year.
"Another thing Programming has in common with other things at Arisia is that they watch how people respond to being told that there's a problem. Imagine I'm told, "Hey, Wex, that was some pretty awful anti-dog sentiment there. It's upsetting and we'd like you to check your biases" and my response is: "Oh, crap! I'm really sorry, I was trying to make some jokes and they fell flat. I will not do that again."
"I likely still won't be on programming that year, but it'll be noticed that I owned my shit and then people will watch to see if I meant it when I said I wouldn't do it again. So I might get invited back next year.
"However, if my response is to get angry, bluster, make threatening remarks, deny having said anti-dog things, claim that since I'm a valuable member of the community and have been to every Arisia since #2 so therefore you can't disinvite me... well, I'd likely get a different treatment.
"This is super-relevant for Programming because they don't have the luxury of time that Corporate has. We (on the Board) have weeks to make decisions, communicate, do follow-up, and so on. In the real-time of Convention, you need program participants who are going to handle negative feedback gracefully and in a way that's going to add to the experience of the audience."
So that's a lot of background. Next up, a question for which I don't have a good answer, and I think nobody else does, either.
There exists a "Fans of Arisia" Facebook group. This is run by and for Arisia fans. It's unofficial and people involved in running Arisia, Inc and the Convention deliberately keep arm's length from it. At least, that was true before the new Board was elected in November. With the vastly expanded Corporate membership and the new Board we got many more Corp members who are regular participants in the community and at least a couple of the Board who are also regular contributors.
Some weeks ago, a conversation thread there blew up, badly. A person (Dan Kimmel) who is a well-known Arisia panelist, made some remarks to another Arisian that were widely seen as questionable. The remarks addressed the ongoing controversy over the association of the National Women's March organization and Louis Farrakhan. This came up because there is a march during Arisia by a Boston-local organization that is somewhat related to the national, though independent.
When called on his behavior Mr. Kimmel doubled down and wrote even more offensive remarks. The page's moderators stepped in, deleted the offensive comments, and tried to get the discussion back in line with the group's standards. Mr. Kimmel's remarks were noted widely, including by Arisia Programming staff. Mr. Kimmel was disinvited from programming this year, which caused another blow-up, further intervention by moderators, and there the matter lay.
A friend, who is by their own admission peripheral to much of Arisia fandom, posted a friends-locked question to which I replied. They asked: "what's your take on what happened with Daniel Kimmel, the Women's March, and Arisia programming?"
My response, which I reproduce below, was somewhat extensive. They then asked an interesting follow-up question to which I wanted to reply at more length. However, rather than continue to hijack their journal I asked if it was OK to reply here and point to their entry. To do that, they'd have to make their entry public, which they felt was unwise. We discussed, and agreed that I could reproduce a few things here, which I've done. With this entry as background I'll put the Q and A in the next entry.
Here's my response, lightly edited, and with URLs embedded for people who want to read further:
"I can't confirm or deny that there's an Incident Report (IR) around a certain incident or involving a certain person. Those things get published in Mentor (https://corp.arisia.org/Mentor), Arisia Inc's official newsletter, as well as reported out at Corporate meetings.
"People who are involved in IRs can choose to publicize things themselves but often do not. People whose behavior is report in IRs often don't want it known that their behavior was reported. People who make IRs often have a fear of reprisal or blowback, either from the person whose behavior is in question or from friends. Arisia, Inc. takes steps to protect the confidentiality of people who report IRs or who assist as witnesses or corroborating stories.
"It often surprises people how many IRs come from uninvolved third parties. Person X does sketchy thing toward Person Y but is overheard/observed by Person Z who reports it. Z may not even know X and Y but is unhappy or uncomfortable with the thing that was seen or heard.
"I've been careful here to say 'Arisia, Inc' because the Corporate body operates separately to a great degree from the Convention. People confuse the two and that's somewhat our fault for having similar names for things and not being as clear about procedures as we could. The latter we're trying to fix by having a new Problem Reporting process page on the convention site (https://www.arisia.org/ProblemReporting), and lots more data up on the Corporate site (https://corp.arisia.org/DisciplinaryProcessInformation).
"A third stream of action, which is relevant here, is Convention Programming. That group has its own standards and evaluates program participants according to it. Simply put, one can be a better or worse panelist, moderator, event organizer, etc. without ever crossing into IR territory. This is why Programming has feedback forms in every panel, has a feedback email system, etc. Since Mr. Kimmel is a panelist he's evaluated by Programming on how he has been, or might be, as a panelist. Again, that's independent of other evaluations that might go on. If Programming decides that someone would not be a positive net contributor they may not invite that person to participate in paneling or may even disinvite that person.
"One thing Programming has in common with other streams at Arisia is that it maintains a history over several years and uses that history to try and understand if something that happened is a one-off or part of a pattern. Let's say that a few years ago, Wex said some seriously anti-dog things on a panel. Some people noted it at the time. Programming keeps record of that, but may not say anything to me. Now let's say I go on Fans of Arisia and I spew some horribly anti-dog rhetoric, use the "b" word in an insulting and inflammatory manner, and so on. Programming might look at that and say, "Hunh, it seems like Wex has some issues with dogs. Maybe he wouldn't be a great panelist after all." Then they disinvite me from paneling for a year.
"Another thing Programming has in common with other things at Arisia is that they watch how people respond to being told that there's a problem. Imagine I'm told, "Hey, Wex, that was some pretty awful anti-dog sentiment there. It's upsetting and we'd like you to check your biases" and my response is: "Oh, crap! I'm really sorry, I was trying to make some jokes and they fell flat. I will not do that again."
"I likely still won't be on programming that year, but it'll be noticed that I owned my shit and then people will watch to see if I meant it when I said I wouldn't do it again. So I might get invited back next year.
"However, if my response is to get angry, bluster, make threatening remarks, deny having said anti-dog things, claim that since I'm a valuable member of the community and have been to every Arisia since #2 so therefore you can't disinvite me... well, I'd likely get a different treatment.
"This is super-relevant for Programming because they don't have the luxury of time that Corporate has. We (on the Board) have weeks to make decisions, communicate, do follow-up, and so on. In the real-time of Convention, you need program participants who are going to handle negative feedback gracefully and in a way that's going to add to the experience of the audience."
So that's a lot of background. Next up, a question for which I don't have a good answer, and I think nobody else does, either.
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