I’ve registered as an attending member for the 2027 Worldcon in Montreal. Even though it’s in another country, it’s an easy day’s drive from my home. I hope that crossing the border won’t be too dangerous to consider by then, but today I’m here to talk about its code of conduct. There have been better ones and worse ones. I have concerns, but they weren’t enough to scare me out of registering. Let’s take a look, as I have with other conventions.
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In 2024, there were some disturbing actions in science fiction/fantasy fandom against people who are from Israel or support its existence. I’ve blogged about some of them before. Vancouver Comics Arts Festival banned an artist for being Israeli. A statement by the convention berated the earlier organizers for their “ignorance” in inviting someone who had served in Israel’s armed forces in the early 2000s. The CRIT awards put a blanket exclusion on nominating anyone who supports Zionism (i.e., supports the existence of a Jewish state). Both sets of bigots got slapped down and are now being less public, but they’ve shown that the problem exists in fandom.
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In my post on tech buzzword panic, I briefly mentioned a situation where Dragon Con bizarrely called the police to expel an exhibitor. Bleeding Cool mentions this situation and a somewhat similar one at Fan Expo Canada:
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Dean Cain, who had once played Superman on the TV show Lois & Clark, has taken a job as an ICE officer. He is listed as a guest at Cincinnati Comic Expo. He may be a guest at other upcoming conventions I don’t know about. Now that he is working for ICE, he is a dangerous person to have at any gathering of fans. By taking the job, he has shown that he has no regard for human rights. He may well pick attendees for ICE to grab.
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With Balticon coming around again, I took another look at their code of conduct. It still has some disturbing features, and I’m not going, although it’s within a day’s driving distance and will likely have a good filk program.
There is a blanket prohibition on “Slurs and derogatory comments about a person, group, or category of people.” That presumably includes, just to come up with some examples, the Chengdu con chair, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Russian army, billionaires, Neil Gaiman, and the new Pope. It will be one dull convention if no one can say anything bad about any of those people! When attendees can be accused without eyewitness testimony, it’s even worse. This isn’t just hypothetical; in 2022 Balticon used this provision to make life miserable for one of its program participants.
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The bid for a 2028 Worldcon in Uganda, which I had criticized here and here, has changed its proposed venue to Kigali, Rwanda. The name is now ConKigali. It may be an improvement in some ways, but is it enough of one to get serious consideration?
Freedom House gives Rwanda a rating of 23, categorized as “not free.” This is lower than Uganda’s rating of 34. From the standpoint of fans’ personal safety, though, Rwanda may be the less dangerous of the two. Homosexuality isn’t outlawed, but people traveling there still need to be careful what opinions they express. The US State Department has issued a long list of “significant human rights issues” in Rwanda.
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There has been discussion of whether science fiction/fantasy conventions in the US should be considered human rights risks along with countries like China and Uganda. Some people are already panicking. A post I came across on Bluesky said, “I’ve lost all my desire to attend Seattle Worldcon. Fully aware this is a first world sort of problem but wondering if other non Americans are felling the same?” Steve Davidson, the editor of Amazing Stories, has written: “For at least the next four years the United States will not be a suitable country for hosting Worldcon. It will not be a country that is generally reflective of Fannish values. It may very well become a country that is hostile to those values.” He recognizes that there’s no way to revoke the Seattle and Los Angeles Worldcons.
Giving in to worst-case assumptions this soon is a mistake, but it’s never too soon to consider the risks. What dangers might come to US cons in the next few years raise, and who would be at risk?
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Someone tried to buy a Hugo Award by buying a bunch of Glasgow Worldcon memberships and having them vote. Fortunately, the attempt was brain-dead stupid and the Hugo administration team caught it. Details are on File 770.
The stupidity consisted of using obviously fake names for the fake members. “These included, for instance, a run of voters whose second names were identical except that the first letter was changed, in alphabetical order; and a run of voters whose names were translations of consecutive numbers.” 377 votes out of 3,813 were disqualified. The nominee that was being pushed did not win, and the Glasgow committee says there’s no reason to believe that the nominee was responsible for the campaign.
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In an earlier post, I discussed the Code of Conduct of the Glasgow Worldcon. There have evidently been some changes since I wrote the article, perhaps in response to criticisms. My post quoted and criticized the following statement in the code: “In particular, exhibitors should not openly display sexualized images, activities, or other material, although this content may be kept out of sight and offered based on a customer’s inquiry, in keeping with the Indecent Display (Controls) Act 1981. Booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualized clothing/uniforms/costumes, or otherwise create a sexualized environment.”
That text isn’t currently present. Instead, there is this:
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