You know what? You're right (more Arisia)
Jan. 11th, 2018 08:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexBackgrounder: Arisia has a Code of Conduct. It's an official corporate policy that every year's convention uses and every attendee must agree to abide by. If you don't agree, we refund your money on the spot. Read it here: https://www.arisia.org/Code-of-Conduct
Every year we get a few people complaining about the CoC, including one person (whom I shall call Complaining Person or CP) who recently asserted that it was one reason they don't go to Arisia. Now, I'm an old white dude myself. I've been to every Arisia since #2 and worked most of them. And Old White Dude drwex gets it.
CP is right - a Code of Conduct you don't agree with, or don't think will be enforced fairly, is a very fine and valid reason not to attend a gathering, be it a SF/F convention or other. Old White Dude drwex does not need any CoC - I move within a big sturdy privilege bubble and I don't get upset anymore when people call me "faggot" because I wear skirts or kilts, nor do I have strangers trying to stare down my shirt or making unwanted and prolonged physical contact with me.
You know who needs this Code of Conduct? My female-bodied partner. My trans children. My friends whose skin colors, hair styles, names, gender expressions, and facial appearances mark them indelibly as Other and for whom response to Other-ness is often frightening, intimidating, excluding, demeaning, or downright harmful.
I mentioned that I'd worked "most" of the cons. I stopped working, for a time, but came back in part because Arisia was making a Code of Conduct and trying to create a better place. Arisia next year will have been operational for 30 years. That's a remarkable run for any convention and I don't see any practical reason it couldn't go on for another 30. I won't be around then, I suspect. But my kids will be, and maybe they'll do what I did - wheel their babies out of the hotel room early in the morning so Active Kid can get some noisy time and not wake the sleeping parent. I came back to Arisia to help build the convention I want to pass on to my kids. I'm still doing it, and the CoC plus supporting structures are foundational pillars of that.
Another thing Complaining Person objected to is that "only some" behavior that violates the CoC gets dealt with. Again, CP is right. We don't deal with violations we don't know about. If CP reported a CoC violation and didn't get a good response from us, we owe CP an apology and to do better in the future. This year, Arisia implemented an Incident Response Team (IRT) structure based on our past experience and experiences at a Worldcon. The IRT is to try improving how we find out about, how we record, and how we respond to incidents.
The IRT isn't perfect. I have concerns about it; I've expressed those concerns. I can say with confidence that everyone in Arisia, from the Conchairs on down and from the Corporate President & VP heard my concerns and responded seriously to them. Some changes have been made. I think more need to be made and I plan to continue working with people on this so by Arisia 2019 we can get some improvements implemented.
Complaining Person is right, we let some things go that should not be let go. Sometimes we know about incidents and don't respond properly. Sometimes we drop the ball on follow-up, or on caring for people who've been subject to CoC-violating behavior. Sometimes we have bad judgment. Arisia isn't a monolithic black box - it's a complex and often self-contradictory mass of individual people and I don't think I've ever seen anything this complex function in an error-free way. That's not an excuse, that's just a fact of life, especially in an all-volunteer organization. As I said, we owe it to every past, present, and future attendee to do better.
There's no good ending to this post because the story isn't over. I respect Complaining Person's choice, even as I disagree with it. I don't know how we could resolve our disagreement. So I'll close with this, which I said last Arisia post: sometimes people are why we get to have nice things.
See some of you tomorrow...
Every year we get a few people complaining about the CoC, including one person (whom I shall call Complaining Person or CP) who recently asserted that it was one reason they don't go to Arisia. Now, I'm an old white dude myself. I've been to every Arisia since #2 and worked most of them. And Old White Dude drwex gets it.
CP is right - a Code of Conduct you don't agree with, or don't think will be enforced fairly, is a very fine and valid reason not to attend a gathering, be it a SF/F convention or other. Old White Dude drwex does not need any CoC - I move within a big sturdy privilege bubble and I don't get upset anymore when people call me "faggot" because I wear skirts or kilts, nor do I have strangers trying to stare down my shirt or making unwanted and prolonged physical contact with me.
You know who needs this Code of Conduct? My female-bodied partner. My trans children. My friends whose skin colors, hair styles, names, gender expressions, and facial appearances mark them indelibly as Other and for whom response to Other-ness is often frightening, intimidating, excluding, demeaning, or downright harmful.
I mentioned that I'd worked "most" of the cons. I stopped working, for a time, but came back in part because Arisia was making a Code of Conduct and trying to create a better place. Arisia next year will have been operational for 30 years. That's a remarkable run for any convention and I don't see any practical reason it couldn't go on for another 30. I won't be around then, I suspect. But my kids will be, and maybe they'll do what I did - wheel their babies out of the hotel room early in the morning so Active Kid can get some noisy time and not wake the sleeping parent. I came back to Arisia to help build the convention I want to pass on to my kids. I'm still doing it, and the CoC plus supporting structures are foundational pillars of that.
Another thing Complaining Person objected to is that "only some" behavior that violates the CoC gets dealt with. Again, CP is right. We don't deal with violations we don't know about. If CP reported a CoC violation and didn't get a good response from us, we owe CP an apology and to do better in the future. This year, Arisia implemented an Incident Response Team (IRT) structure based on our past experience and experiences at a Worldcon. The IRT is to try improving how we find out about, how we record, and how we respond to incidents.
The IRT isn't perfect. I have concerns about it; I've expressed those concerns. I can say with confidence that everyone in Arisia, from the Conchairs on down and from the Corporate President & VP heard my concerns and responded seriously to them. Some changes have been made. I think more need to be made and I plan to continue working with people on this so by Arisia 2019 we can get some improvements implemented.
Complaining Person is right, we let some things go that should not be let go. Sometimes we know about incidents and don't respond properly. Sometimes we drop the ball on follow-up, or on caring for people who've been subject to CoC-violating behavior. Sometimes we have bad judgment. Arisia isn't a monolithic black box - it's a complex and often self-contradictory mass of individual people and I don't think I've ever seen anything this complex function in an error-free way. That's not an excuse, that's just a fact of life, especially in an all-volunteer organization. As I said, we owe it to every past, present, and future attendee to do better.
There's no good ending to this post because the story isn't over. I respect Complaining Person's choice, even as I disagree with it. I don't know how we could resolve our disagreement. So I'll close with this, which I said last Arisia post: sometimes people are why we get to have nice things.
See some of you tomorrow...
