Readercon: The Bad and the Ugly

That title comes from a post by Genevieve Valentine. Have you heard about this? It's one of those stories that's ripping around sff fandom at the moment.

I love Readercon. Every time I miss one (which I've had to do several times the last few years) I'm bummed. But they're not perfect...

The issue Genevieve is writing about is sexual harassment. I know Genevieve. She's very cool, and I've no doubt about taking her word on this. If she says this guy was crossing the line, again and again, then I'm sure he was. I don't know what the appropriate actions are in response. (I mean, I don't know the Con's actions necessarily should be. My own actions, had I been there... those I can well imagine. Anyway...)

It does seem to me to be a problem when the conference has a stated policy of zero tolerance for harassment, when they've banned people for life in the past, but then... in the case of an influential member of the community they veer from their own policy to give a much lighter response.

I'm no expert on any of this. I wasn't there. If you're interested, google the topic. There are plenty of people writing intelligently about this. Or go to Genevieve herself. She has three post about it:

The initial one.

A follow up.

And a final one after the conference committee took action. (Kind of.)