Scarlet Letter

[lillibet]

In a recent conversation someone brought up the idea of using a "scarlet letter" (say, a large red H or P on their badge) as part of a con's approach to harassers. My immediate reaction was "oh, hell no," but with further conversation I found it worth at least considering why I have that reaction, what the problems with the idea are, and how it might be used effectively.

The idea as initially presented was that this would be a measure short of banning that the con could take in order to alert other con-goers to a potential "missing stair". The letter would indicate (and it would need to be well publicized to be effective) that this is someone with whom there have been problems and complaints, but whose behavior has been deemed not to meet the con's standards for banning, who is being given a chance to get a clue.

This would not be a replacement for banning, but an intermediate step that might make reporting less difficult. Maybe?

I thought that it might be also, or ever better used as a probationary measure for individuals who have been banned for a period of time and are now permitted to return to the con.

I wonder what the legal issues might be.

SMOFs in my f-list, is this something that has been considered?

Thoughts?

Comments

Hmm.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

(I've never been to a con, so take this all as very armchair philosopher...)

That feels to me like a weird wrong combination of punitive and excusing. That is, if the behavior is bad enough that it calls for publicly shaming someone, then it really *ought* to qualify as bad enough to tell them to go away. I also keep reading that it's not about punishing the offender, it's about making the victims feel safe, and I am not sure that being around someone with a "Known Harasser" mark would make me feel safe.

The one thing that it might well do is, if the con says "You can attend, but only if you wear the badge of shame", then I would guess the person would be much less likely to attend. So it might be a way for cons which go into agonies of guilt about banning someone due to the traditional geek social fallacies, to drive someone away without officially banning them.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I also keep reading that it's not about punishing the offender, it's about making the victims feel safe,

Hmm, well. I think there's a distinction missing there between "feel safe(r)" and "actually be safe(r)". Maybe that's a gap in the policies rather than in your takeaway. But -- the way I see it, while a "Known Harasser" label on someone in the vicinity would certainly tend to make me FEEL less safe, that's only due to increasing my awareness of the existing potential for danger. It would give me the opportunity to BE more safe by choosing to avoid interacting with them.

Moreover, if I went on to interact with this person in some relatively neutral way, and the person gave me any vibes that felt discomfiting (as such individuals by definition frequently do), the presence of the label would be enough to reinforce my perceptions that "hey, this probably isn't just me being 'oversensitive', this person clearly has a history of making people uncomfortable." And it might strengthen my resolve to just walk away sooner, to extricate myself from the conversation before it can escalate, instead of nodding and Playing Nice the way we are socialized to do.

That said, a label like that is also likely to prejudice my perceptions of *any* interaction I might have with the same person. And that's part of why I can't really see this as a good idea in practice. Also, I think "you can attend if you agree to wear the Badge of Shame", in hopes that the person will duly be too shamed to attend, is disingenuous and therefore tastes worse than banning them outright. Not to mention the potential for backlash.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

True, some of it is "I feel safer if I am unaware of the dangers that are really there", which is not so useful, but there's another aspect of it too.

Having people around wearing badges that suggest (sort of like those chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer) "I am known to the con to be a harasser" means that the con thinks that known harassers are appropriate people to have there, so it would make me feel like the con wasn't worrying all that much about protecting me from the harassers. Labelling the stairway with a warning "Third stair: missing" is better than nothing, but it just reinforces the point that you don't actually care about *fixing* it.

(Hmm. I wonder why I don't think of salmonella warnings on menus that way. I don't feel that restaurants are trying to kill me by offering to serve me rare meat or runny eggs with a warning. )

[sethg]

Judging from what I saw on my recent trip, the effect of that law was simply to have “there are chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer” signs all over the place.

[dpolicar]

First impression: in effect, this sounds like an efficient, reliable, explicit, public, and accountable way of doing what is traditionally done inefficiently, unreliably, implicitly, privately and unaccountably through whisper networks and quiet warnings.

As such, I'd be surprised and pleased if it caught on.

[muffyjo]

I would offer that it is ineffective at solving the original problem.

The original problem resides in the behavior of the person, who is convicted by their peers (either socially or officially), that their behavior is unacceptable. It does not actively change their behavior and actively encourages bad behavior in others. I'm not seeing the same win you are.

As a community who wants to be supportive of people learning to overcome their shortcomings, it would seem more productive to me to find ways to teach people what behavior is expected. Often times the people with the ill behavior are copying examples of ways they have been treated in the past. Is shaming them again going to change or reinforce that behavior?

I am not suggesting forgiveness. I am suggesting professional help and a whole lot of self-reflection. But that can't happen in space that doesn't feel safe. And I don't think a con needs to provide that safe space to someone who cannot respect it.

The whole point of the scarlet letter was to shame the person and warn off society from them. The whole point of the book was that society had failed them over and over. I think any kind of scarlet letter, overt or not, is us failing again. What rehabilitation are we offering? How are we giving them hope to be accepted by society ever again where they can become trustworthy? How are we providing a positive way for them to own the outcome of their actions so that they can learn not to do them again?

In the long run, I think those actions would serve the victims far better than the short term solution of shunning.

[dpolicar]

I agree that the problem you describe isn't solved by the scarlet-letter approach.

Neither is it solved by the whisper-campaign approach, which is what we mostly use at the moment in lieu of the scarlet-letter approach.

If we're considering dropping both approaches and going with the supportive educational professional-help self-reflection safety-for-everyone rehabilitation hope-of-acceptance positive-owning-of-outcomes learning-better-in-the-long-run approach, I could endorse that, though there's a lot of details to work out.

But I'm not seeing that on the table, honestly.

And simply rejecting the scarlet-letter approach, afaict, just leaves us with the whisper-campaign instead. Which I consider strictly inferior to the scarlet-letter.

[muffyjo]

I don't think the scarlet-letter approach will change the whisper-approach so I'm not sure it can be considered an alternative.

Let's select what behavior we are trying to solve.

Whisper-campaign

People use gossip as a means of self-selecting and providing information to one another to protect themselves and those people or things that they care about. I am not certain that this will ever go away. We show up with different agendas and different interests at any given community event be it someone attaching string to the water sprinkler and setting it off to the most egregious offenses of bodily harm. I'm not sure there is a one-fits-all solution.

In an ideal world, facts would be readily available and people could judge for themselves thus negating the need for intermediaries. That would mean that there would need to be an interest in each individual event by each individual person. Frankly, I'm not that interested in everyone's transgressions. I'm having enough trouble coping with my own.

But for those which affect the well-being of myself and/or my fellow con-goers, I have at least a passing interest and sometimes a more direct interest.

The problem with whisper campaigns, isn't the whispering, it's the lack of evidence or ability to offer more than opinions. People present their own ideas bent with their own agendas to their own selective audiences which then compete for "rightness".

One possible approach is a public statement by accused, accuser and witnesses available upon request as semi-public documentation with decision of appropriate committee and recommendations for remediation if available.
This approaches the need for facts to be available freely and allows everyone to have a say who feels strongly. It does not guarantee honesty but does hold everyone accountable for their actions to public scrutiny. Gives the story as each side wishes to present it and creates a debate instead of whispering.

It also does not protect anyone's privacy. Whisper mongering doesn't protect their privacy much, either. Although without fodder they usually, well, fade out or become urban myths. This provides fodder and open debate. It costs the individual for their rights to privacy for benefit of the community's curiosity and self-selection.

Should offenses be enough to warrant high authorities to intervene, we move into public discourse anyway.

Still, it gives a chance for public redress in the future.

*shrug*

Errant personal behavior
Clarity of boundaries established in writing with clear consequences spelled out and then carried out as written. No exceptions. And if an edge case presents itself, follow-through as spelled out and allow the rules to be modified in future cases. No changing rules on the fly.

There's more. Just have to stop procrastinating work in the real work with problem-solving here. I still think the Scarlet Letter approach is significantly more inferior than whisper-campaign and does more damage than the whisper campaign-alone.

[dpolicar]

So, let me clarify the following points of agreement:

• I agree that the scarlet-letter approach doesn't change the whisper approach. I consider it an alternative because they are two approaches to a shared goal; if I have that goal, I can choose to use one rather than the other.
  
  
• I agree that gossip as a means of self-selecting and providing information to one another to (among other things) protect themselves won't go away.
  
  
• I agree that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to achieving all our various agendas and interests.
  
  
• I agree that it would be ideal for everyone to have all the facts available and be able to judge, if they choose. I also agree that not everyone ought to have to judge every event, and that those events which affect our well-being are more likely to pique our interest.
  
  
• I agree that a mechanism for public (or semi-public) statements of various people's positions approaches this need. I also agree that it doesn't guarantee honesty, that it holds people accountable, and that it doesn't protect privacy. I also agree that whisper-mongering doesn't protect privacy much either.

I acknowledge that despite those points of agreement, we disagree about the superiority of the whisper-campaign approach to social violations. I look forward to hearing the rest of your thoughts when you have time to set them down.

[valadil.livejournal.com]

What's an offense worthy of public shame but not banning?

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

I did see something somewhat similar to this way back when, someone who had over-indulged in alcohol at some parties was forced to have his badge changed from drinking to non-drinking (in effect giving him a "minor" badge). In that case no major problems came from it, as the person was deeply embarrassed about the incident regardless, and the end result (not being served alcohol) did not impede his enjoyment of the rest of the con.

The consequences of a "missing stair" badge, in my opinion, is a lot more serious. The con might as well just require them to wear a "I'm a rapist" shirt to be allowed in the con. They would probably be excluded from room parties and shunned at any social gatherings (especially dances), and their credibility as a speaker or panelist would be severely damaged or destroyed.

The alternate problem that may occur would be if the 'missing stair' badge was given to someone that was largely assumed (rightly or wrongly) that was not deserving of it. In which case the badge may get a reputation as vindictive or incorrect, rendering it at best devisive or worse meaningless.

As always, just my 2 cents on the matter.

[beowabbit]

The con might as well just require them to wear a "I'm a rapist" shirt to be allowed in the con.

The alternate problem that may occur would be if the 'missing stair' badge was given to someone that was largely assumed (rightly or wrongly) that was not deserving of it. In which case the badge may get a reputation as vindictive or incorrect, rendering it at best devisive or worse meaningless.

I think the ideal situation would be for the “missing stair” badge not to actually mean “missing stair”, but to mean “there is dispute on record about this person’s behavior” or “there are statements about this person that somebody (maybe even the person themself) wants people to go look for”. So it wouldn’t be like an “I’m a rapist” T-shirt, and if the information about somebody is “person A says this person behaved badly at event X; event attendees B and C disagree”, then the fact that there’s dispute about the situation doesn’t undermine the usefulness or reputation of the marker.

I do think it would be very hard to implement effectively, though.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

If there is a "dispute about the situation" how do you apologize afterwards for making the person wear the marker on their badge if it is discovered that they are an innocent party?

[cz_unit]

Cool! We could also come up with a letter like "U" for unpopular. Because of course everyone should be judged by the appropriate clique of con "insiders" that assign the badges.

*sigh*

[dpolicar]

Would you recommend instead that they be judged by some other group (who)?

Or that no judgments be made at all?

[cz_unit]

The problem is there is no "Fandom" to judge. There are groups, cliques, and circles that people are a part of. If one of these circles doesn't "like" someone for some transgression do they have the right to run the person out of the entire town?

I understand the whole "we hate creepy people" but the definition of creepy is kind of subjective. And given that there are multiple groups, having the dominant/cool kid group branding someone in public is not something I'm comfortable with.

If you can't handle the fact that a con is a public place with public people who are all paying good money to be there, perhaps you need to limit interactions to more private groups/parties/whatever. Problem is private groups tend to be more difficult to fund and run, but them's the breaks. It can work (see Black Rose, etc) but that's not the same as a public con or party.

C
(Why yes, I do throw public parties. And I spend thousands at a shot doing so. So don't tell me who to invite, thank you.)

[dpolicar]

You're welcome.

[cz_unit]

I love you, you know.

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

Being unpopular is nowhere near the same as being a known harasser, nor does it make people feel uneasy or fear for their safety.

[cz_unit]

Being labelled as a "known harasser" however is quite subjective and these are not private events we are talking about.

Or is this a case of "I know it when I see it?"

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

In the context of a convention, where a charge is made against someone for harassment, witnesses are consulted, and an authorized Board makes a judgement based on the evidence given, it is not subjective. We're not talking about judgements based on rumors, we're talking about situations such as what happened at ReaderCon, where there was a clear case of harassment.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

This.

(I actually think labeling badges is a really problematic idea for the reasons miss_chance details below, but, as you say, there is absolutely a clear objective process in place for assessing charges of harassment. It is not remotely about someone's popularity.)

[cz_unit]

Isn't that what we call the "US Court system"? With legal standards for witnesses, evidence, and people who are qualified to be judges?

That's a tad bit different from the "People's Court" with judge Wapner.

[beowabbit]

Taken as a whole, the impression I am left with from your comments here is that you think that if somebody pays his (or her) con fee, that person should be free to harrass others at the con with impunity unless somebody can persuade hotel security to risk their relationship with an extremely large client by intervening in a dispute among that client’s attendees, or can persuade police to arrest someone. I trust that is not what you mean, but if that’s what I’m getting from the rhetoric you’re using, it may be what other people are getting from it too, and you may want to consider adjusting your rhetoric.

A con is bound by a bunch of things, but since it is not a government entity, it is not bound by the constitutional requirements of the “US Court system” (or the court systems of any states) and the consequent standards, any more than I as a private citizen am obliged to allow somebody to subpoena witnesses in their defense if I tell them I don’t want them in my home. OK, it’s a little more complicated than that, of course, insofar as events and businesses that are open to the public have some obligations under (at least federal) civil-rights law, and a business which takes money has some obligations under (mostly state) contract law, and so forth, but my point is that neither the Constitution nor the law mandates that everybody be treated *by everybody, for any purpose, governmental or otherwise*, as completely innocent of any transgression, annoyance, harrassment, or inconvenience until convicted in a court of law. And that’s a good thing.

PS — Apologies if I don’t see replies in a timely fashion or have time to reply; crazy-busy today.

Let's burn pretty straw men!

[cz_unit]

Oh brother...

Hm. Interesting way to start a reply. But Oddly enough: You are correct in your statement: If you can't convince hotel security that there is a problem, can't convince the con security that there is a problem, can't convince the local police, state police, national guard, etc... that there is a problem then raising a vigilante mob of like minded friends might not be the optimal solution to the problem.

Indeed, one might want to inquire more deeply into the nature of the problem.

The option that appears to be in the offering here is what I would refer to as the more classic and quaint "gather a mob, gather some pitchforks, tar, feathers, etc and run people out of town". That's a bit more complex and not something I would support in any way, shape, or form.

Thinking about this for a few more seconds, if you can't convince con security there is a problem then how are you going to convince concom to ban "bad people" from future cons or "proactively" ban people who might be trouble? Or put scarlet "A"'s on their badge?

Or is the Scarlet A awarded based on the Ostrakon system (enough of the mob votes and you get run out of town)? Is that the kind of con we're going for? (Make no mistake plenty of private groups do this, I'm talking open cons doing it).

Please note that for me this is not academic: I was involved in a exceptionally charged harassment situation at a certain convention in Boston a number of years ago where I personally had to deal with the hotel and Boston police at midnight, sit on a person of interest and personally handle removing said person from the con, the hotel, and from the City of Boston/Common Wealth of Massachusetts. I have also dealt with situations that could have ended the run for a certain SF convention held at the Omni in Baltimore at considerable pain and expense to myself.

Both of these items were handled using existing protocols, and what we like to call an appropriate level of touch. Firing up shaming parties, stocks, lists of "banned" people and other concepts is not going to look very good for fandom in general, and could wind up with more young people not coming in because of "all those rules from those old geezers!". In which case we can enjoy watching Fandom die and something else take its place.

C

[cz_unit]

Ok, let's work with this: What is this "charge" you speak of? What is the definition of "harassment"? Who are these "witnesses"? And how do I get on this "Authorized Board" that get to see "evidence"?

The problem you run into very quickly with this is that a lot of the conjectures raised in these situations do not rise to the level of standards under US laws. Being a histrionic nutjob is not illegal at this time, nor is being a complete dick-head. In fact to some people these are highly desired traits. Whatever.

But in the meantime you're building your own little legal system. That's fine, just be aware there are a lot of pitfalls to be aware of here, and what starts out as "ban the child molesters!" can quickly morph into "ban the sex predators!" "ban the people serving booze at parties!", which goes down a slope (ban the Bondage people! Ban those Poly People, etc etc".

The latter part of my argument could be construed as a straw man, but it is not unusual for people who build their own little justice system to then use it for further "improvements".

From personal experience, this past year I had one carbon-based-life-form-histronic-fucking-asshole at Balticon screaming about how my party violated 10 different moral laws between Man and God and insisted I do X,Y,Z now! I threw said person out of party because oddly enough they were not the moral judge, jury, or executioner of Balticon. Put this person in a position of "Arbitrator" (which they loooooove to do) and I won't be coming back with chocolate machines, homebrew, and a full-bore party. Hang out at the dead bid parties with the stale pretzels.

Anyway, if a con is public, it's open to all attendees who buy a badge. If people are being disruptive, you call hotel security, then the local police, then the state police, then the army in that order.

Now if you want an environment where a "Authorized board" determines who is in and who is out, then by all means *do so*. However that is no longer a public event and anyone shelling out $20 for a membership needs to know this. BR does this, the Shriners do this, closed swingers groups do this, other groups do as well. There are problems with this (many of today's stellar Con people were screaming assholes back when we were young, myself included) but those can be figured out or you can have a group of geriatrics meeting every year and ranting about "those damn kids with their cons! We need to go there and give them GUIDANCE on what is right and wrong!"

You know, like Boskone. :-)

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

We're not talking about "histrionic nutjobs" here. We're talking about someone who makes unwanted physical contact with or advances toward an attendee or guest, is told to stop, but persists in their behavior. This complaint is reported, witnesses corroborate the complaint, the committee that runs the convention decide to suspend or ban the perpetrator in order to protect future attendees. This seems pretty straight forward to me.

Even public events and venues (bars, restaurants) are allowed to ban or eject people (even if they've paid money) who pose a danger to their customers. If someone has been shown to be a danger to people or creates disruption such that the event or venue could lose attendees/customers in the future, I think the people who run or own that event/venue have a perfect right to ban someone from returning. Just because an event is public and you pay money to get in doesn't give you free reign to do whatever you like. These places do have rules of behavior (for cons, they're usually right in the front of the program) and, if you violate them, you can be punished accordingly. Are you saying these rules are unreasonable?

[cz_unit]

Actually we're talking about setting up a banning/shaming/shunning system here. That would include histronic nutjobs and bad people like me and barfleet who run parties.

As for the public venues, you're starting to build a little straw man argument here. The ending of the paragraph is the standard straw ending "Are you saying these rules are unreasonable"? So re-phrase it for starters.

Keep in mind you're also confusing an open convention with a private event.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I don't think I like the scarlet letter idea, here. I do like the instantiation of "you're a problem drunk, so you can come back if you have a no-booze" tag situation that vanguardcdk mentioned.

Most "public" events that are held on private property, and even some held on public property, still allow people to be ejected for behavior that is considered wrong that may not rise to the level of illegality.

Creating an actual code of conduct (here's an example of one for technical/professional conferences) provides a way to codify social norms enough so that you can say "hey, that's not cool. stop that." and if the person keeps doing it, you can say "hey, that thing? yeah, you kept doing it. get out." Personally, I don't want the hotel security to be the first line of "okay, you, get out" because who the fuck are they and what the fuck do they know about my group?

Some of the problems with events *not* having some kind of code of conduct are that you have differing ideas of what is "okay", and more importantly, if someone is violating expected behavior and being a serious problem, the only way to deal with them is some kind of organizational freak-out. (Readercon had a problem where they had a one-strike policy that worked great when it was used against someone people didn't like but suddenly was a problem when it was used against someone popular. This is why one-strike policies are bad, and you need levels of response to the spectrum of bad behavior, ranging from "hey, chill out" to "we are calling the fucking cops")

Having an actual process lends transparency and helps to avoid the "secret groups of people making decisions on who we should invite back" issue like the NESFA freak-out after the Boskone from Hell.

It also enables people going to see what the organizers are going to have problems with. So if some con is all "We are committed to stale pretzels at our parties", you know it's not for you.

I don't want anything like a case of an 'authorized board' determining who's in and who's out - rather, a way to handle problems without handing it up to legal authorities (1. it may not be something that's considered illegal, and 2. if you call the cops, they are not going to do what you want them to do, they are going to do what they consider best; chances are good that this will not be what will make the con-going experience more awesome for everyone), and without relying on murky handwaviness from someone putting an unofficial word in hotel security's ear or something.

[ron_newman]

This would be just banning under another name, because who would willingly attend and wear such a letter?

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I agree with Ron here.

Or, to put it another way: Can you imagine who a person might be that they might be willing to walk around with such a badge? Who would that person be and how would they comport themselves? I can imagine a group of "men's rights" persons gathering around together and wearing it as a badge of honor.

We do better in setting community standards against certain behaviors and attitudes when we don't make it easy for people who disagree with the norm we're trying to establish, to find each other and reinforce each others' behaviors.

I always think it's important to consider how a person will have to behave in order to save face; often that is what they will do if left no other option. If you privately tell someone they are on "con probation" and that security will be watching them more carefully as individuals, then they can gain more dignity by acting better. But if you label them they may feel they have to play the "I meant to do that" stance.

Alternatively I can imagine violence being brought down on a person wearing such a badge and it being generally quite difficult to procure their safety in the hallways or parties. there was certainly a time when I was younger and angrier, when I would have found a way to isolate such a person to harm them.

I can't imagine a way in which this would play out as you imagine as a half way point between full admission and banning. It's creating an entirely new class of attendees, the Undesirables. I can see no good coming of this.

And, as others have pointed out, it's hard to imagine a behavior that warrants public shaming and shunning, but not banning.

It reads to me as 1st inhumane, 2nd ineffective, and 3rd possibly even illegal.

So I guess I'm back with you at "Oh Hell No."

[gosling.livejournal.com]

This puts into words what I have been trying to articulate about this.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[cz_unit]

Me! I want a badge that has the coveted "CY" in red on the front for "Corrupter of the Young!"

C

[fenicedautun.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't a better intermediate step be mandated "counseling" (rape seminars, sexual harassment awareness, etc) before the person would be allowed to return? Given most cons are annual, that gives the accused plenty of time to comply, and if the accused really hadn't intended to make somebody feel unsafe, it would allow for education (and I assume the requirement would come with a list of potential acceptable sessions, which would make attendance easier).

[gosling.livejournal.com]

Turning this over in my mind. I'm not sure it would necessarily be *sufficient*, someone can go through all that education and not really change their behavior. It might be highly effective with some people though.

Another question is who determines when someone can return and what the criterion are? I absolutely believe change is possible. I also absolutely believe many people just don't change and continue to be a threat. Determining who is who is often extremely difficult and can seem very subjective.

(I have no answers here, just half formed thoughts.)

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

In my "probationary measure" point above, I was specifically thinking of a situation like the one with Jim Frenkel at Wiscon (http://www.dailydot.com/geek/wiscon-jim-frankel-sexual-harassment/) where the concom has said that he is banned for four years, but may be permitted to return after one year. Lots of people are upset about this and I've seen several longtime WisCon attendees say that they will not return because of this.

[beowabbit]

I’m basically with dpolicar. I don’t think it would actually work, for reasons a lot of people have mentioned, but I think a way to make the informal, unreliable, subjective gossip network more formal, reliable, objective, and accessible would be a good thing. (Well, actually, to supplement it with something more formal, reliable, objective, and accessible, because it wouldn’t go away and it wouldn’t be a good thing if it did.)

I think the way something like this could be work would be if it covered enough shades of gray that people wouldn’t immediately feel ostracised by being pointed out. So the symbol wouldn’t necessarily mean ”abuser” or “problem”, but “there is information about this person that people around them might want to have, and there’s a known way of finding it out”, and the sort of information so provided was not always negative or completely negative. And then people could go find out the details, maybe something like “was accused of theft by an ex-partner at art show in 2012; con staff did not feel the accusation had merit” or ”kissed someone without permission at X party in Y year under influence of alcohol”, or “In case of serious accident, please notify...” or something like that.

Actually setting up some system like that and making it complete enough and well publicized enough to be useful seems kind of implausible, though.

Another thing that might be useful would be raising the profile of the informal information network. I’m not entirely sure how to go about doing that, but it probably has something to do with improving our ability to deal with shades of certainty and degrees of severity. The current mindset is (on the surface) zero tolerance for harrassment, which I think in practice can sometimes lead to a greater tolerance for harrassment, because we’re not as willing to talk about accusations or suspicions publicly unless we’re 100% certain of the facts.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

Lots to think about here.

It's a very difficult problem. There is how badges might be *intended* and how they might actually work in practice.

And I think your point about zero tolerance policies is an important one, and I'm not sure how to address that either...

(I'm feeling like I have no answers at all, but lots and lots of questions, which I suppose as both communities and individuals is the first step in finding answers...)

[cz_unit]

So a thought:

I've been thinking about this since you posted, and for awhile before that in general. Oddly enough I think a solution that could work really well *would* be ostracism.

Not some random namby-pamby mob-based hodge podge, I'm thinking the good old fashioned Athenian system, directly applied.

There's no trial, no witnesses, no defense. Each year you hold a vote at a single regional con: "Do we want to have an ostracism this year". If the vote comes back as "Yes" then at the WorldCon you have a question: "Who shall we ostracize?". Each person who attended at least one con gets one vote. If there is a quorum of votes overall, then the person with the most votes is banned from participating cons for 5-10 years. No debate, no appeal, no loss of status, no discussions, no bullshit, no taking of goods and/or positions. Not a scapegoat since Marty Gear could be voted out as easily as StarPig. After the proscribed time the person comes back with no questions asked or comments made.

From Wikipedia, this sums it up perfectly:
In one anecdote about Aristides, known as "the Just", who was ostracised in 482, an illiterate citizen, not recognising him, came up to ask him to write the name Aristides on his ostrakon. When Aristides asked why, the man replied it was because he was sick of hearing him being called "the Just".


I'll have to think about this. When I asked Dylan about this issue he thought and said "Ah, the never-ending battle between freedom and justice". Maybe this sort of situation can be solved by the solution that is neither.

Hm.

[spatch]

I don't like this. Banning a harasser from a con isn't just about removing the threat so it won't happen again; it's also about removing the threat from the people harassed in the first place so they can feel comfortable and safe when they attend the next year. A scarlet badge letter goes nowhere towards achieving this.

Somehow I doubt seeing one's harasser walking by with a "H" on their con badge will make one feel more secure or safe, even with the knowledge that at least everybody else knows that this particular person has been publically called out for violating boundaries. It's the badge equivalent of "But I said I was really really really really sorry and golly, that won't happen again never ever ever".

Anyway, a harasser's reputation will spread socially. The con's not responsible for spreading that news with a walking billboard.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

I find that I'm glad the large event I go to most often has the property that it's from a community that already has a built-in dispute resolution process.

I don't think this generalizes, but it's at least apropos: http://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/gathering/handout/harrassment14

[dpolicar]

Having a dispute resolution process endorsed by the community and more-or-less practiced as endorsed is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Well, ironically, it's a rather broadly read and not exactly recent dispute resolution process, and it's from a source that Friends treat with different degrees of authoritativeness. And we've altered that basic set of principles a lot over the centuries. And we live in a fallen world.

But yes, it is.

[dpolicar]

Novelty isn't really necessary... people resolving disputes is not exactly a recent problem.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Indeed not. But it's sad how bad we are at it.

[muffyjo]

For me, the indignity of such a thing belittles a person who, by living, deserves some dignity. And it doesn't actively teach anything. Without a teaching aspect, I don't understand the use of it.

It makes more sense to me to have the person who stepped out of line go through a course where they can safely encounter the very behavior they have induced and can interact with ways to change it so that they have some stake in changing their behavior and some tools on how to do it successfully.

[aphrabehn.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this. Legally, it could open the con and people administering the con to both libel and slander. And how would the decision pieces work on who wears the letter work? Pretty review? Anonymous reporting? This also opens the door to a ton of bullying. Someone disliked could be railroaded. And since it would largely discourage anyone obligated to wear it to not show and work as a ban in effect, what would the response be too someone who actually attended the con and wears the letter? Would that open the door to the crowd handling the offender their own way? But to mention this whole idea scares the crap out of me. What's the line? What other behaviors could be lettered? What did this teach anyone? Couldn't this conceivably make a lower grade harasser even worse? Convince that transgressor that the hate they feel (because a lot of harassment is not about sex, it's about power and control and hate) is justified?

And I'm saying this as a woman who has been harassed, including at cons and gets angry about the myth of false rape allegations. This is patently the wrong course.

[sethg]

tl;dr: If you got into a fight at your local bar and then came back the following evening, I don’t think the bouncer would say “OK, we don’t have ironclad proof that the fight was your fault, so we’re letting you in, but you have to wear this special wristband warning the other patrons that you might have violent tendencies”. You’d either be let in or kept out. end tl;dr

The two paradigms that I see discussed for handling disciplinary issues at cons are the Court of Law paradigm and the Keep The Customers Satisfied paradigm.

Under the Court of Law paradigm, there is a great emphasis on the “innocent until proven guilty” principle, so alleged offenders get all sorts of procedural safeguards and the complaints against them are treated with skepticism... but since a con is not running an actual court of law, even if the offender is found guilty, they can’t lock the guy up or fine him. So victims of harassment have to put up with the same kind of crap that the actual legal system puts rape victims through, except that it’s run by amateurs, and at the end of the line they can’t even hope for the satisfaction of seeing the offender put behind bars.

Under the Keep The Customers Satisfied paradigm, the goal is utilitarian: the greatest happiness for the greatest number of con-goers. So if one alleged creep seems to be spoiling the experience for two or three other con-goers, then it is in the interest of the con, as a business, to remove the creep. Maybe this paradigm will sweep away some innocent people along with the creeps, but the banned person is by definition not a con-goer, and therefore, his or her happiness is no longer the con’s concern.

In my opinion, Keep The Customers Satisfied, as a general strategy, is the right path to follow. (In theory, I suppose, a con could decide that the customers it wants to keep satisfied are the creeps. Once the rest of us find out what cons have adopted such a policy, we can avoid it.) And having articulated this difference between the paradigms, I can articulate why I feel squicked about the Scarlet Letter technique: it belongs to the Court of Law paradigm, even if actual courts of law have not been meting it out as a punishment for a few centuries. Certainly it is incompatible with the Keep The Customers Satisfied paradigm, because it makes everyone (the letter-wearer and the alleged victims) more uncomfortable.