Overheard from the Smof Mailing List Direct quotes from a SMOF (Secret Masters of Fandom) mailing list,

offered without commentary. Be careful, tumblrs: So [heres] some of the responses on another tumblr list . . . [I] am wondering if this is the real idiot who is pirating them in the first place since they seem to be re-posting them to a different tumblr account and commenting on them there . . . and That account is held by a Seattle-area man named X. The one calling us thugs and claiming to be the grandchild of Real Fans? I live in Seattle but that name is only vaguely familiar. Hmmm. Research may be called for. Because now Im getting pissed off. * The logical conclusion of their witch-hunting, in my opinion, is the destruction of all SF/F genre conventions except a few Professional Trade Shows and Pop Culture Entertainment Events and gate shows. Oh, and a few events that these oh-so-Good Persons organize until they discover that they are no longer Good Persons because someone with an axe to grind will sic the flash mob onto them as well. And theyll discover that organizing conventions isnt nearly as easy as they assumed it was when they derided the abilities of the people who invest so much of their time and effort into doing so. * I apologise for a number of posts having been deleted earlier today. With the assistance of a Readercon concom member, DCMA notices were issued and tumblr is now enacting them. (I dont blame them.) The rest of the entries may follow. I do not know how much longer this account will stay open, as a result, and should this happen efforts will be made to move the posts elsewhere. * No means NO. * Realize that in todays societyeven (alas) fannish (yup, not all fans are slans) society some kinds of dress/behavior are sexually charged. (Is this right?not really. You dont ask to be raped by wearing a short skirt, etc. Butmy statement is (still and unfortunately) true.) In other words, if youre walking around with your boobs hanging out, be prepared to have them noticed (well, if you didnt expect them to be noticed, why are you dressed that way?) Understand that some of this notice isnt what you bargained for; if so, adjust your dress/behavior in some way to alleviate the situation. *

There are creepy people out therethis fact does not negate the fact that perhaps people should take some responsibility for their own actions . . . * While its nice to have someone helps a person out of a problem where she (and bowing to conventionhe?) feel threatened/stalked/abused at a convention, what about that person using some common sense to avoid the whole issue? * Now imagine youre Canadian and multiply that impulse by ten . . . * If Id have done something that had offended somebody, Id have immediately tried to apologize. We see where that can lead. * I was sad to see this story from Genevieve Valentine, as it demonstrates that harassment is something that can (and does) happen everywhere, and that we should try to do what we can to discourage and prevent this sort of behavior as a community. * God, femnazis, the Gen-Y so called psuedo feminists, make me sooooo ANGRY. What the hell did I burn my bra for all those years ago I ask of these delicate flowers? Most don?t even know about the early womens movement let alone the battles women fought. And dont get me started on those dweebs who have INDEXED all the comments, threads, blogs etc etc about The Scandal. Get out of your parents basement, cut your hair and get a real job! * Some, no nearly all, of the people pontificating on high about this issue dont have a clue where their own boundaries are. Hence, a rather ineffectual, mild-mannered person is crucified for bad behaviour (and the bad behaviour was on the lower end of the scale to say, real stalking, rape, domestic violence, murder, slavery? . . . ) * The thread here on SMOFs (it sure aint a debate) is totally, whimp-arsed, touchy-feely bullshit. For fucks sale, sixty years on, and people are still banging on about feeling safe. Ooooh, dweeeby guy is looking at me across the room. I am so afraid. Make safe spaces so I, the delicate Gen-Y blossom, can exercise my right to feel safe. Make it safe

yourself, sister, is what I say. * If someone is following you around because he really, really wants to apologize to you, if you let him apologize, he wont keep following you around for that reason. * What really is annoying in this situation is that nobody seems to have tried to defuse it, and it just got worse. (Well, I think Rene tried to defuse it by apologizing, but made it worse.) The victim could have defused it by simply saying I heard your apology, now go away or somesuch. * Observing that there was opportunity to stop the behavior is not the same as blaming the victim. As has been observed upstream, it is possible that the victim was also socially inept. * WisCon may have established an unfortunate precedent for conrunners in the aggregate. What worries me most is that once the behavior is established as an effective MO, it is likely to be very difficult to extinguish. My fear is that this is going to be the new dynamic for change discourse from here forward. Because extinguishing bad behavior requires coordinated and consistent effort, and I dont think that conrunners as a group are likely to be able to enforce a collective agreement not to cave to future flame fests, even if they all agree that this must be done, which I doubt will happen either. The example of the Republican Party over the past couple of decades does not give one much hopethat is, the GOP seems to be getting pulled to ever more extreme party positions because it has been amply demonstrated that the party will cave to loud, abusive, well-organized extremists. * Ive been a female in fandom a long time and frankly, if the description of events that I first read is accurate, I personally would not have classed it in the category of sexual harassment. Further, to be even more frank, if the person reporting the incident had let the male fan actually apologize to her while she was in a crowd of her friends (which if I recall correctly was at all times when he was trying to approach her), I dont think that the stalking would have occurred. *

One comment I would like to make. I believe that a lot of the anger is from a _small_ group of very loud people. The person behind this tumblr account does not represent popular sentiment. They are a coward, trying to ferment an us vs them attitude to further their own goals. It is bullshit, and should be treated as such. Most people, even those who agree with the poster, see through this. If anyone wants to excerpt this post all I wish is that they properly attribute it. My name is Chris Hensley. C-H-R-I-S. H-E-N-S-L-E-Y. * I noticed many people at Chicon using a pseudonym or just one word on their badges. Some people only used their badges when confronted, otherwise they did not wear or show them. This is an alarming trend which I think should be snuffed in the bud. * What *jackass* thinks this sort of thing is appropriate? Quoting this private list without context *or* consent, to a public which is already rabidly (and getting more rabidly) antismof? I would like to say this to whoever is doing this: Get stuffed. * Im not surprised to hear that Nick Mamatas would be involved in feeding out-of-context posts from a private mailing list to the public. Heres his public livejournal from last Monday, where hes been, well . . . http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1788553.html * Mr. Mamatas has been having a high time fanning the fires of all of this. I know him only from his online interactions, which I find to be mean-spirited and trollish in the extreme. * Unfortunately the way debate is being driven is more likely by far to result in there being less volunteers and less conventions. * Being heavy-handed *now* will prevent a lot of crap later, especially if whatever jackass started this continues. *

Sometimes you need to be heavy-handed when youre dealing with bullies. * While in the general way, I am very much in favor of organizations being responsive to criticism and comment, I was concerned even at the time of RaceFail that Wiscon was establishing a precedent of rewarding bad behavior by responding so quickly to the furor. While they may well have taken a measured look at the legitimate criticisms and responded in a thoughtful way to the underlying arguments, what it looked like from the outside is that if enough vocal fans are loud enough and abusive enough, they can win the day. The lesson learned could easily be that large, loud, vitriolic crowds of assholes win. * Please be careful here, guys. Being heavy handed about removing material can have the unintended consequence of feeding the fires. (See: Streisand Effect) * As a thought, would it be possible for folks to ask Tumblr to take this down, especially as the person appears to be claiming copyright on other peoples words from semi-private correspondence? * Dear Sir, As you have noted, this convention has a zero-tolerance non-harassment policy. We have determined that you are in violation of it due to your harassment of the convention committee. As you demand we do, you are therefore banned from this convention permanently. Have a nice life. Somewhere else. Sincerely yours, Convention Committee * There are obnoxious and seriously crazy people out there. How can one stop liars who think a public lynching (or two or more) will make them more important than others . . . * I realized after writing that: the Readercon thing is the guy who made a woman nervous by following her around trying to apologize.

* Yes. Its dangerous to speak upwe saw this on Smofs just a few weeks agobut if we dont, we risk losing everything weve built. * The best hope is for communal self-policing i.e. if someone posts a trolling response (especially if they do it repeatedly) then other con members (not committee, just other attendees) come in and support the con or at least say they are being unreasonable. There have been a few of those responses on the Chicon FB page but not enough to stem the tide. * What really disturbs me even more is a rather marked generational divide, again, particularly around the sexual harassment. The most horrific abuse Ive seen, and experienced, has come from thirty-somethings, roughly. Their eagerness to see and punish harassment worries and befuddles me. I wonder if were beginning to see the bitter fruit of helicopter parents and/or the notion that safe spaces are possible. (This latter is a hot button topic for me. No space can be made safe. Safer perhaps, but I just want to say that I have never felt unsafe at an sf con and am completely boggled by the whole notion.)