On Dashcon And Creepers

I enjoy watching train wrecks in slow motion, and so have been watching the Tumblr-based Dashcon unfurl in all its glorious psychosis this weekend.
Highlights include:

• An “emergency fundraiser” at the con where they went around asking fans for $20,000 in cash or the hotel would shut them down…
• …but the hotel claims they know nothing about this $20,000 charge…
• …and while there’s YouTube videos of fans thrusting dollar bills into the staff’s hands and yelling High School Musical quotes, nobody’s sure if they actually got $17,000 or not.
• Also, one of the featured guests (Nightvale) pulled out, and the other discovered that their rooms weren’t comped.
• 5,000 were supposed to have attended; 1,000 did.

Read all about it here.  And the behind-the-scenes look from an ex-organizer here.
Dashcon looks to have been poorly-managed, run by teenagers with more dreams than sense, and it collapsed in ugly ways.  Which goes back to what I said on Friday about conventions seeming like monolithic, competent entities, but really being composed of volunteers with various levels of competence.  There was a lot of hype about Dashcon, so it looked huge, but “Having good press” does not equal “Actually getting the job done,” so watching this fiasco unroll should be educational.
Yeah, ReaderCon and Wiscon and Arisia are all great conventions.  But they’re all run by volunteers, and some of those volunteers are… well, not good at what they do.  And when a con burns through its top-tier management, as it inevitably will, they can only hope that wiser people will replace them, or else it can all fall apart like this.
This is why some cons thrive – they know who to promote – and other cons, like Dashcon, run on a bubbling stew of “Wouldn’t this be cool if…” that doesn’t actually get anchored in reality.

My New And Bittersweet Nails

I pass the seasons by scraping old nail polish off.
I first realized this when I had my first post-heart attack manicure.  I was still very weak, having been cut open for a triple bypass, but I had recovered enough to stagger into the Venetian nail shop to regain some semblance of normality.
And I had lucked out; under normal circumstances, I would have gone into open-chest surgery with no pretty nails.  The oximeters they use to check the oxygen levels in your blood – mission-critical in a man with three arteries clogged at 99% – clip onto a finger, and read oxygen through your nails.  Almost any color will block it.
But in my case, I had a super-girly princess nail cut that faded to transparent sparkles at the fingertips, so the oximeter worked.  And the hospital staff, sensing I needed comfort, kindly left it on.
I had those nails for the better part of four months.  And when I went to my manicurist and they scraped them off, I looked at a tiny pink pile of glitter and thought, Well, that’s it.  That’s that era of my life gone.
And so when I sat at the manicurist’s this Sunday, with her scraping off my Art Deco nails, I thought: Well, that’s it.  All the pain of Rebecca’s final days, all the numb trauma of Shiva, all the shivering recovery – that time is over.
Except I wasn’t ready.
And fireflies have been tied to Rebecca this summer.  Fireflies are always my favorite part of the season, those glorious specks of bioluminescence winging about the lawn, appearing for a few weeks.  But this year, I literally saw the first firefly of the summer next to the hearse on the night of Rebecca’s death.  We’ve lived in this house for almost fourteen years, but we’ve never had a firefly loose and inside and blinking around, but that happened this summer.
I keep thinking: fireflies come, and they leave too soon.  But they burn bright.  And there is nothing, nothing else like them.
So I had Ashley my mad manicurist make me some firefly nails.

There are many tiny fireflies on my fingernails, and her craft shines here: the triple-fade, the hand-painted grass, the dots glow in the dark.
But on my nails, among the hundreds of fireflies, there is one that I told her to put on over the top coat.  That one is Rebecca.  And over the course of the next few weeks, the Rebecca on my nails will fade and vanish into the night sky, lost from sight.
But never forgotten.
(Nails by Ashley, who is on Instagram as La_belle_etrangere, who can be booked at the Venetian Nail Salon in Rocky River, Ohio.)

Here's The Six Books I'm Taking With Me To Italy

In two weeks, I’m going to Italy, and I need some honest-to-God old paper entertainment.  Because I’m not sure of my power requirements, and I probably won’t have good Internets that I can afford on the road, I need some books.
(And plus, I like books.  They’re a little roomy, but their bookly nature comforts me.)
So what am I taking to read on planes, on buses, and in my Italian villa?  Well, here’s my most recent book order, which probably would have had a few things like Charlie Stross’s latest Laundry novel and Scalzi’s “Lock In” if I wasn’t ordering all paperbacks and not clunky hardbacks:

• Nexus, by Ramez Naam.  Hard science-fiction done by a science reporter?  Dealing with nanotechnology and linked brains?  Yes please.
• Two Serpents Rise, by Max Gladstone.  I don’t know why I read some books and am super-psyched about the sequels, whereas other books I love thoroughly but never seem to find my way to the next one in the series.  (“Feed,” for example.  I fucking loved Feed.  But haven’t felt an urge to shuffle on to the rest of the Newsflesh trilogy, though it’s sitting on my shelf, beckoning me.)  But I did absolutely love Max’s book Three Parts Dead, which featured lawyers trying to revive a dead God, and here I’ve been waiting for a good excuse to buy his next one.  So Italy will be good.
• Shield and Crocus, by Michael Underwood.  I haven’t read Michael’s writing before, but the pitch on this one – superheroes battling inside a city created within a giant’s skeleton – hits all my nerdy buttons.  I’m anticipating a lot of light fun and people punching things in creative ways.
• The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson.  The one time I met Brandon he struck me as a really nice and generous guy, and people have raved about Warbreaker – but personally, I’ve discovered I can’t read Thick Fantasy on plane trips.  So when he discussed this book on Writing Excuses, the worldbuilding – his forte – seemed quite good to me, and the YA nature means I can plow through it relatively quickly.  So this, I think, is where I meet Brandon’s writing.
• Southern Gods, by John Hornor.  All the right writers on Twitter seem to be kissing John Hornor’s buns, constantly going out of their way to mention him – which is usually the sign of a good writer.  I know nothing about the man’s work, but it’s a vacation, I like a little gamble.  And it’s horror, so I can always cope with horror.
• Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen, by Gordon Ramsay.  This is a vacation in Italy, goddammit.  I deserve some trashy reading.  Plus, I know I can hand it on to Gini when I’m done with it.

On Expunging Creepers From Conventions, Or: Why The World Is Exceedingly Complex

While pretty much everybody lauded the Geeky Kink Event’s attempt to keep sex offenders out, there were many who groused that the Sex Offender list was not a ban list for conventions.  And some asked a question I’ve asked before, which is, “Why don’t more conventions band up to create an officially shared blacklist?”
That’s a good question.  Let’s break that down in some detail.
The first thing you need to understand about fan conventions is that the people attending them tend to see cons as this monolithic corporate entity – and why not?  They bring thousands of people together!  They rent a whole damn hotel!  They decorate, they cater, they hold parties, they hold concerts!  These conventions must be professional organizations!
Whereas the truth is, most cons are run on a shoestring budget, barely making back their costs, about one bad event away from going broke.  They’re also all staffed by volunteers; I know few conventions that have one full-time salaried employee, let alone a board full of them.
No, unbelievably, the cons you love are most likely run by people in their spare time – all those guests booked for you in the two hours they have after they get home from work, all those investigations held on weekends when you’re out watching movies and they’re dealing with convention feedback.  Cons are not so much the “MegaCorp funds the grand ballroom gala” as “An Amish barn-raising.”
If you have fun at conventions, ponder this and thank the crap out of your local con-organizers.  Better yet: volunteer.
But this does mean that while conventions mean well, and the people are dedicated, they’re working with volunteer effort – which is to say that yes, the Literary Track that went so well last year is now in danger of going to shit because Louise moved to Minnesota and she was the only one who knew everything.  And she didn’t leave notes.  The guy who knew how to find the good hotels has to work double-shifts because of his new kid.
Conventions are not one entity, but rather a constantly-fragmenting hive mind composed of well-meaning people doing this in the corners of their life.  And as such, cons are good at doing what they’re passionate about, but it’s hard to say “Fred, you must follow these rules and regulations” when Fred gets to say, “Or what?  You’ll tell me not to come here, and I’ll get my weekends back?”
The fact that conventions get anything competent done is, in fact, a testament to the goodness of the human race.  Again: volunteer.
But when conventions are saying, “How do we keep these molesting dorks out of our con?” they’re often a bunch of not legally trained, not experienced people.  At this stage in time, yes, “Keeping cons a harassment-free space” should be a priority for everybody.  But when you see a con doing something spectacularly stupid, it’s often because Joe New Volunteer With More Enthusiasm Than Brains got put into a slot that, sadly, nobody else was stepping up to fill.
…did I mention “volunteer”?  Okay.  Good.  We’re done with that.
Anyway, so hopefully now you see your average con not as a sleek Porsche, but more like a soap box racer made of old popsicle sticks held together with duct tape.  They all strive to be the best, and many of them manage it, but they are constantly battling attrition and resources to make the magic happen. The fact that the magic happens at all is a miracle.
So anyone who wants to devise an official “blacklist” shared among not just one of these constantly shifting volunteer organizations, but many of them, is trying to herd cats.  The person they’re supposed to talk to each year about this may change as people shift positions, and Jackie who was totally stoked for this safety drive may have given up cons and moved on to Burning Man, and now who are you supposed to talk to at ConSternation?
Who knows?
But even once you get past that very considerable hurdle, you have the big issue: How do you compile a list of ban-worthy harassers?
Keep in mind, many people who get harassed – or even out-and-out raped – do not want to talk to people at the con.  All they want to do is leave this experience behind, and “testifying to a group of strangers” – even strangers inclined to believe in them – is not a part of their healing process.
And let’s say someone gets physically assaulted at your convention, and talks to a group of her friends.  The friends go to you to report what they’ve heard, but there’s no physical evidence or eyewitnesses.  And you’re willing to take her word for things, in fact are perfectly primed to toss this asshole out on just one word from her… but she won’t talk to you or anyone official at the con because she’s freaked and doesn’t feel like reliving the day.
Do you blacklist someone based on second-hand testimony?
Some say “yes,” some say “no,” but that’s a tricky goddamned call.  In fact, banning the dude in the absence of testimony may actually make the victim’s life worse, because people are going to ask “So why’d he get banned?” and gossip will flow, and now the victim’s name will be out in circles she may not want them out in.
It’s not simple.
And – again, remember, cons are each composed of messy well-meaning volunteers – what crimes get you banned for life?  If you say, “Well, we’ll come up with a clear list of bannable offenses” and break it down in detail, well, you have just started a large board argument at every convention you’re asking to join over “Whether these rules are acceptable to us or not.”  (Quite possibly with the obligatory sides taken of “Too strict” vs. “Not strict enough.”)  And like every law, you’re going to come across situations that aren’t covered, because creepers creep in new and not-so-exciting ways all the time.
Yet if you take the alternate route of, “Well, you know what’s acceptable,” remember: well-meaning volunteers.  They might not.  Or they might not feel comfortable enough to ban people based on “gut feels” and hence default to not-banning when they damn well should.  It could be that your ban-list creates a false sense of safety, which is, in a way, even worse.
And then you get into the whole mess of “How do you report this stuff?”  The initial instinct may be to say, “Well, we won’t reveal any details, of what happened, we’ll just ban them.”  And congratulations!  You have just become the TSA’s “No-fly” list – a mysterious shadow cabinet that holds secret trials and doesn’t tell you what you did.  Even if you’re really good at weeding out creepers, you’re going to cause drama among people who don’t trust organizations. And as we all know, cons never have attendees of libertarian bents with deep mistrusts of authority.
Or maybe you give some vague details. Yet as organization after organization has discovered, people can put together stories from the vaguest hints.  You run a very good risk of inadvertently outing a victim.
Yet either way you go here, private or public disclosure, you run the risk of legal action.  Banned douchebot may not take well to being ejected from one convention, but he’s unlikely to go nuclear.  But if this project gets successful and banned douchebot is banned from not just one convention but most of the fun gatherings on the Eastern Seaboard, he may well get a lawyer and decide to see what he can shake loose.
And yes: you will probably win the court case.  But you’re very naive if you think “winning the court case” means “JUSTICE SERVED PIPING HOT!” Remember, cons are run on shoestring budgets, often only carrying maybe $500 to $1000 in profits over to the next year.  Douchebot doesn’t have to win the court case, he just has to force TinyCon to pay out in legal fees.  Too many legal fees, and they go broke.  And that’s a concern.
Is it any wonder a lot of cons just rely on whisper campaigns?  Even though they’re closely dependent on reputation, fragile, and can break all too easily?
None of this is to say that cons should not attempt to fling out the creepers, of course.  They should.  And most do try.  But because people criticized using the Sex Offender registry as a blacklist and asked, “Why not just use a customized one?”  And this is why creating a really good list is an honest-to-God struggle.
The real world is complex.  We struggle with very serious problems that don’t have easy answers.  And a lot of cons have been trying to provide better alternatives, with some success, and the fact that they achieve any headway at all is laudable as fuck.  Applaud them.  Contemplate how much work is ahead of them at making cons into safe spaces.  Understand that mistakes happen, and happen for these reasons, and should never ever happen, but even as you hold their feet to the fire understand all the vectors for error they’re juggling.
Now.  If you’ve run a con and got any good tips for keeping people out as a convention (and not the usual true-but-not-particularly helpful “Tell everyone to be eternally on their guard!”), then share.

On Cons Screening For Sex Offenders

I’ll be presenting on polyamory at the Geeky Kink Event New England this year (come visit! It’s fun!) , and was finalizing my schedule with the organizers when they said this:

There will be a charge…. to run a check against the sex offender registry.

“Huh,” I said.  “They’re going to check to see if I’m a sex offender?”  And sure enough, I checked their website, and found this stunning little number under “Registrant Screening“:

When you register for GKE:NE, we will do two things to help ensure a safe, secure atmosphere for all of our guests.

1. We will run the registrant’s name against a shared list of people banned from various kink and alternative lifestyle events on the Eastern Seaboard.  Reasons someone might be banned include forms of severe misconduct, such as consent violation.

2. We will run the registrant’s legal name through the sex offender registry of either their home state or, by default, New Jersey.

And I thought, “How insanely great is that?”
Admittedly, the Geeky Kink Event is a kink event (the TARDIS bondage box and the sensory deprivation Companion Cube might be your clue as to the sexy here), so screening for sex offenders is a little more vital than it might be at your average filker con.
But I really like what this says about their commitment to their attendees: We’re going to try our damndest to keep the creepers out, and you safe.
Now, is the sex offender registry a particularly great method of filtering people?  Sadly, no.  The sex offender registry has a distressing amount of false positives, particularly from teenagers in consensual acts who got caught by angry parents.  There are people who plea bargain down to sex offender status not because they were guilty, but because they had 100% chance of walking free if they took the label or some not-zero percentage of jail time if they didn’t.  The sex offender list is imperfect and broken in an America that really dislikes sex.
Worse, the sex offender list isn’t near-comprehensive, either.  There’s a lot of rapists and molesters who didn’t get their much-deserved day in court, so “Not being on the list” is not proof that this is an upstanding citizen.  (Which is why GKNE backs it up by checking with their sister cons, sharing their ban-list.)
That said, holy fuck you guys go for making the attempt.
Screening for creepers is a tough job, in real life.  A really tough job.  The court system is incomplete, the word-of-mouth is ephemeral, the drama high, the legal hassles are tricksy, the defenders multitudinous, the creepers insidious.  People don’t like accusing other people, because it feels bad and often it puts a victim in a spotlight when they’d rather just forget this happened, so sometimes getting evidence would involve making a victim’s life infinitely worse.
And – never forget this – some of the consent violators are really nice guys.  Which is why I encourage you to question me, question your friends, question everybody, because “a nice guy” can often mean “has leveraged sympathy to get better traction for despicable acts.”
But make no mistake: despite its flaws, there’s a lot of dangerous fucking people on the sex offender list, too.  And rather than throwing up their hands and saying, “Wow, this is complicated, who the heck knows?”, the Geeky Kink Event is at least attempting to enforce some standard that – though I’m sure they’d readily admit has some flaws – is still much, much better than leaving it open to whatever creepazoids hand them their money.
I’m glad they’re screening.  I’m glad they’re asking about me.  I do not want to ruin someone’s convention experience, and if they check me out and think that I’d hassle people, I support their right to kick my ass to the curb.  (I doubt they will, as they vetted me last year before I emergency-cancelled thanks to Rebecca’s sudden illness, but who knows?)
Every convention is its own society and its own set of morals.  That society is shaped by what behaviors are judged acceptable – and, by proxy, what people you allow in to act.  Shaping that society is not wrong – in fact, it’s part of what makes the really good cons great – and finding ways to keep the away people who’d ruin the experience of the good people you want to attract to your gatherings?
I support that.  And in the absence of ideal solutions, I’m glad to see GKNE working towards imperfect ones.