Dragon Con Harasment Policy

[next-friday.livejournal.com]

What is Dragon*Con's stand on Scalzi's Convention Harassment Policy?

"We reserve the right to ask you to leave the convention
and refuse to refund your membership money
if you are behaving - in technical terms - like a jerk."  <- this is not reassuring.

Comments

[trybutez.livejournal.com]

Security does MORE than just enforce harassment policies, but it is fair to say that they do, in fact, enforce any harassment policies, no? Perhaps a well worded policy will detract people from being asshats, but it's been my experience that people who harass weren't doing so just because there wasn't a strict policy preventing it. They either knew it was wrong and didn't care so long as they weren't caught, or sincerely think it's alright to do what they're doing. Maybe a policy will impede the latter, but doubtful. Few people who think they're not doing anything wrong do research to find out if they are.

That said, I will completely agree that-

A. we need a more well defined harassment policy, and
B. DC Security needs training in both implementing it and handling nonthreatening situations.

But like you, I also understand the limitations. We can, and should, do better... but when we fail, and someone is harassed, it's going to be security, not words on a poster, which will hopefully catch the offender and make sure they can't do it again.

[joshthestampede.livejournal.com]

Well, no, actually, most harassment policy violations would not be enforced by Joe Security wandering the convention floor. Things get reported to an official and are dealt with at that level, by either a security higher-up or someone specifically appointed to deal with harassment reports. We aren't talking about volunteer security wandering the Marquis Level scanning all the bar conversation and stepping in when they think someone is too forward, since obviously everyone has different limits and ideas of what is welcome and what is not, and security isn't in a position to know that for every conversation or physical contact they see. No one wants to go to a con like that. We're talking about people having a clear place to go and a series of steps to follow when they want to report what happened to them.

The policy is as much about letting people know that the con gives a shit about this stuff as it is to prevent actual incidents. And even then, it's more about dealing with incidents and making sure serial creepers aren't welcome back than it is about prevention. Prevention is a much larger societal issue and the con can only do so much, though having a clear and non wishy-washy policy is a good step.

You are correct that ultimately, creepers gonna creep and no policy will stop them, but that's not the whole of what the policy is there for.