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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Continuing my irregular series on convention Codes of Conduct, here’s one on the North American Science Fiction Convention, coming up this month in Buffalo. Compared to some others, the problems of the NASFiC code of conduct are minor. There’s nothing like “Don’t say anything negative about anybody” or “Don’t offend anybody.”
BUFFALO in all caps means the convention, not the city.
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Not being an active gamer, I hadn’t heard about the CRIT awards before today and don’t know if they’re of any importance or just a fringe group of nuts. But they’re in the periphery of SF fandom, and I’ve made a specialty of analyzing Codes of Conduct. CRIT has the worst one I’ve seen yet.
They’re described as “an awards group dedicated to recognizing talented creators in the Tabletop Gaming space.” They were going to have an award ceremony at GenCon, a major gaming convention. They have pulled out as a result of widespread outrage at their code of conduct.
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In an earlier post, I discussed the Vancouver Comics Arts Festival’s exclusion of Miriam Libicki for, in effect, being Israeli. Today I found a newly published interview with Libicki that makes the convention look still worse. Based on what she says, the convention’s motivation was more a matter of book-banning.
She characterizes the disruption which allegedly endangered the convention as “screaming.” As described, it might be grounds for restricting or expelling the person responsible, but there doesn’t seem to have been any threat to anyone. At one point, security removed some people for being disruptive. The “screaming” person was objecting to Libicki’s books without having read them. Subsequently the convention demanded a review of Libicki’s writing. Libicki was asked for digital copies of her books, which she couldn’t readily provide.
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A few weeks ago I mentioned USC’s cancelling a valedictorian’s speech because of unspecified threats. In that case, the speaker was seen as pro-Palestinian. The heckler’s veto cuts both ways. It’s been in fannish news that the Vancouver Comics Arts Festival banned artist Miriam Libicki because of unspecified dangers her presence would create. The issue was that she was Israeli and had been in the IDF in the early 2000s, long before the events kicked off by the October 7 massacre.
The resulting reaction from the fan community has thrown the convention leadership into chaos. The people chiefly responsible for the bigoted decision have left the organization, which is good. What’s left of the board has issued an apology, a confession of cowardice. It says in part:
For background, the decision to ban this individual in our previous statement stemmed from two separate incidents on the VanCAF floor that took place during our 2022 and 2024 festivals. Neither incident was instigated by the individual referenced in our previous post. Both involved activists protesting the individual’s presence in a manner that caused concern for the safety of our volunteers, staff, and exhibitors.
Time to dissect another code of conduct from a fan-run convention. This one’s for Readercon, which is coming up in July in Quincy, Massachusetts. It’s got some of the usual problems but could have been worse.
The most pervasive problem is taking good ideas and inappropriately elevating them to rules. “Moderate the volume of your voice and the expansiveness of your gestures.” How much hand-waving constitutes a violation? “Be willing to learn new things and admit when you’re wrong, including offering apologies.” Is the con going to judge when someone has been proven wrong and mandate an apology? “If you’re not certain someone is enjoying your company, end the interaction yourself.” A lot of fans deal with self-doubt about whether others like them; this rule, if taken seriously, would practically shut down their social interactions.
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Penguicon 2024 disinvited SF author Patrick Tomlinson after he was targeted by a major online harassment campaign. Yes, that’s right. Penguicon disinvited a program participant for being the victim of harassment. He discusses the convention’s actions on his website, and I’ve confirmed much of what he said from other sources.
What the convention did to him is known as the “heckler’s veto,” though “heckling” is far too mind a term for the stalking campaign against him. It’s often a technique organizers use to get rid of someone they don’t like or find inconvenient. USC cancelled its valedictorian speech by Asna Tabassum because of vague “safety concerns.” The administration never said what dangers concerned them or who, if anyone, was making threats. The Provost’s statement cites “security concerns that rose to the level of credible” but nothing more specific. It subsequently cancelled all commencement speeches. The message USC unintentionally delivered was that threats work.
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A lot of science fiction conventions have codes of conduct that put severe restrictions on speech. They aren’t always enforced, and never fully and consistently, but they can be an excuse to embarrass or eject someone a concom member doesn’t like. For instance, Balticon pulled a program participant out of a panel and subjected her to humiliating treatment for vaguely defined violations of its speech code. The con apologized but dumped all the blame on one volunteer.
Conventions need to say what behavior is acceptable and unacceptable, but we have to look closely at each one’s rules to see how much it values open discussion. So let’s get a look at the Glasgow Worldcon’s rules.
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