The program schedule for Octocon is now online here (PDF). It looks like the LGBTQ panel is still on, though I’m not sure whether I’m actually on it. The panel on the Bechdel Test looks interesting too. Hopefully a good weekend is in store.
In less good news my email is currently buzzing with the news that my good friend Pádraig Ó Méalóid has apparently been banned from the convention. I know that Pádraig has been rather critical of the Octocon committee this year, and perhaps rather more aggressive about it than he should have been, but I know my fan history well enough to remember that banning people from conventions rarely ends well. The right way to deal with one’s critics is to prove them wrong by running a great event.
Unfortunately, as another Irishman has just pointed out to me, as a nation they do have a tendency for a bit of hot-headedness. Here’s hoping that this doesn’t degenerate into a legendary feud carried on unto the nth generation.
The right way to deal with one’s critics is to prove them wrong by running a great event.
As someone who ran conventions in the past I can concur completely with this advice!
By the way I understand that I’m on the Bechdel Test panel, much to my delight.
Looking forward to seeing you at the weekend!
Maura:
Oh good, I was hoping you would be on that panel.
To the best of our knowledge (which stretches back over 10 years) this is the first time we have had to ban someone from the
convention since 1993. This was not a decision taken lightly nor was it one where we felt we had any other option. We were hoping to deal with this matter privately to avoid unpleasantness.
Over the last few years we have tried to be generous with people who cant control them selves or behave in a civil manner when dealing with guests and attendees but this year we felt that we had no choice but to make the point ahead of any unpleasantness at the convention.
If there are any further questions please consult our code of conduct.
http://octocon.com/faq/are-there-any-rules-octocon-year
Here’s hoping that this doesn’t degenerate into a legendary feud carried on unto the nth generation.
We are fans you know. I suspect you already knew the answer as you wrote this…
I will give you a laugh – we still don’t know what the ‘incident’ that warranted this ban was or when since 1993 it happened.
I know they were hoping to deal with it privately but not properly informing the person involved is taking privacy to the nth degree – perhaps if they clarified it then he could explain his part in the incident or just take what is being dealt out, as is fit.
As for Pádraig being critical – you should try being married to him!!
D.
Is it very wrong of me that my first thought, from the safe distance of being across the Atlantic and knowing none of the principals, was that someone was going to make a secondary filk of this, based on “Banned from Argo” * ?
Call it “Banned for Aggro,” maybe.
* Once upon a time, it would have been me, before I became old and slow.
Now that’s no fun — the preview rendered that perfectly, with superscripts for the footnotes and everything, only to have it flattened out and boring in the final submission. Oh well. I guess it’s time to recall the mantra of Daily Kos: “Preview Lies.”
Ray:
Sorry about that. The preview plugin appears to be a bit buggy. I keep it there because it is OK for most things.
I believe the event in question was the disruption to the good Mr. Vaughan’s premier of My Dad. A regrettable incident with lots of blame for everybody (including the committee for not checking the PA system before hand).
This would be when the soundtrack was being broadcast in all the panel/dealer rooms, at a volume making doing anything else impossible?
When the first attempt by the panel I was on to alert the key personnel in the room playing the video to the problem was rebuffed out of hand?
Yes, I was there for that. Don’t recall P O’M doing anything egregiously awful.
I learn more of this every time! Yes, the time there was no duty committee member about, or any committee member of any kind, actually, and the sound for the movie being shown in one room was piped through all the con rooms, including the one where the con’s Guest of Honour, Alistair Reynolds, as well as several other con guests, were being drowned out by said movie soundtrack, and, as there was no committee member about, I attempted to get the sound turned off to allow it all to be sorted out, but got nowhere. That time, you mean?
As I said, I learn a bit more about this every time. The real puzzle to me right now, though – leaving aside why I’m apparently being barred for what was clearly a failure on the committee’s part to do a simple sound check beforehand, or to actually hang about to run their own con – is how come you know about this, Pony, when I didn’t? And why was this not brought up last year when, far from being barred, I was singled out for thanks by the then chair – I think she was the chair, but a lack of any online committee list makes all this very difficult to pin down for sure – at the closing ceremony?
But why not ask the committee then? Instead you turned your ignorance of your own actions into a press release and yet again try to say something nasty about an event run purely by people who donate their time.
Good publicity so very hard to generate for fan events, why work so hard against people who are donating their time to an event you don’t even like to go to?
“We were hoping to deal with this matter privately to avoid unpleasantness.”
That’s impossible unless the person you ban chooses to remain silent, or knows no other fans they can tell.
Then you have to find a way to silence all those other fans. And all their friends. And all their friends. And so on, insofar as they are capable of raising a fuss that will be heard by attendees, or would-be attendees, or potential attendees, of your convention.
I’m quite sure you’re unfamiliar how not quietly the banning of a particular fan from the Worldcon went in 1964, beyond the Exclusion Act of 1939 that Cheryl mentions.
Those who do not know their fanhistory are doomed to pretty much get their heads kicked in, particularly in the internet age.
I know absolutely none of the people involved here, and live on another continent, so I’m perfectly neutral about all this, but speaking as someone who has been around fandom since 1971, and has as much knowledge of fandom’s history going back to 1926 as, well, there *is* a reason I created the first institutionalized Worldcon fanhistory display in 1977, and did one or co-did it for a number of years afterwards, and I’d offer the following unsolicited advice to James Brophy, and whomever else on the Octocon Committee may be in a responsible position as regards this decision: you have a bad public relations problem now.
If the person in question has many friends who attend Octocon, your problem is serious. If said person doesn’t, your problem is small.
If the person has enough friends who attend the con who feel strongly enough that the problem is serious enough to warrant a boycott of the convention, you have a large problem.
I have no idea which of these cases describes the situation.
But if we assume the worst, you now have only three choices:
1) you can either ignore it, and watch it get worse and worse and worse, or:
2) you can try to deal with it slowly and as each new person speaks up to complain and ask questions, and post further about it in yet some other internet forum, and let your public relations problem fester, and be fed and grow yet worse with each response you make, and each complaint someone on the internet makes, or:
3) you can find some way to, ASAP, make it go away.
Option 3 subdivides into several suboptions. The primary choices would include:
a) Immediately, or ASAP, putting forward a public explanation that almost everyone who might comment on the affair might find satisfactory.
For instance, you are banning someone because they have made credible death threats, and you present irrefutable evidence of the threats.
I won’t fill in the various lesser possibilities of what might be reasons most people would find acceptable, but you should be able to derive those from some spot surveying, I should think. Generally speaking, if you have evidence that the banned person presents a sufficient threat, physical, or otherwise serious, to other members of the convention, and you present the evidence publically, you’ll probably have general credibility, and your problem will effectively go away.
I’d keep in mind libel law, and the need for your evidence to possibly pass the bar of provable in court.
b) publically explain you have some other sufficiently good reason, publically explain what that reason is, and, again, supply credible evidence publically.
c) reverse the decision.
You could certainly try the option of, say, explaining to a few Highly Respected Opinion Leaders among those who regularly attend Octocon, privately, what your reasons are, seeing if you can get them to agree that your reasons are sufficiently good, and that, additionally, there are sufficiently good reasons for not making those reasons public, seeing if you can get those Opinion Leaders to defend your decision publically, and seeing if their credibility is sufficient to back yours. Whether that might work or not would depend on the specific dynamics of Octocon fandom, and I can’t speak to that.
Or if, to be sure, the banned person has few friends, you won’t actually have a serious problem, but simply a small kerfuffle.
Again, knowing none of the individuals involved, I can’t speak to that, either.
Meanwhile, while your rule 8 — “8. The committee reserves the right to revoke the membership of any
member whose behaviour they feel is disruptive and is preventing others from enjoying the convention” is, in itself, perfectly reasonable, it is insufficient to explain why you’d ban someone in advance of the convention. You do know what “present tense” is, I trust.
Since the convention is, in fact, not presently going on, Rule 8 explains nothing whatever, and isn’t at all relevant.
You’d need a rule that extends backwards to past acts, and circumstances that allow for a sound prediction of the future, to have a relevant rule.
Additionally, as the letter in question states: “We believe that your attitude towards us has been far to aggressive both online,” this opens up an entire realm of fascinating possibilities as to what Octocon does and doesn’t consider unacceptable writing that rises to the level of warranting the banning of someone.
Do you have a cite to your announced policy on this, or is this a purely arbitrary, whimsical, policy, that everyone who might attend Octocon should be left to guess at?
I’m mildly curious about this, as although the chances of my attending an Octocon in the foreseeable future are quite small, one can never predict the future, and I, for one, would benefit from knowing what I might write online that might be sufficient to warrant my banning. Perhaps I’m the only person who might wonder about that sort of thing, though.
As a trivial issue, posting a set of rules in picket-fence format that makes you look like you’re so ignorant of how to post online that you can’t manage to get words to wrap properly makes you look, in a trivial and small way, either not terribly competent, or indifferent to small matters. You might want to fix that little thing, while you’re also working on your perhaps larger problem.
(Which as I said, might only be a small problem, in any case; I am, as I said, in no position to judge.)
I’m idly curious, though, as to when these rules were posted to the website FAQ: before, or after, this morning, and the email to Pádraig Ó Méalóid.
A trivial reason I’m wondering is: have you left up up such bad formatting for very long, or is the bad formatting a result of posting it in haste, ex post facto?
Either answer is a bit embarrassing, really, but, to be sure, it’s a quite trivial point.
Incidentally, as an even more trivial note, Octocon has been running in Ohio since the early 1950s. The Cincinnati Fantasy Group (CFG) has been around since, depending on your point of view, 1948, or 1935.
Best of luck to you!
How can he ask the committee – the mail said “This matter is not open for discussion” However it seems that they are intent on discussing it with people like Brian Nisbet & Pony.
He worked very hard for Octocon for many many years and has subsequently worked for other conventions – he is fully aware of how difficult it is to generate good will. Unfortunately it is all too easy for a convention to undo all its own good work.
Believe it or not he loves Octocon but has found it disappointing in the last few years but would continue to support it and yes critique it in the hopes that it would improve on the previous year.
Sorry – I must say I haven’t had any contact with either Brian or Pony to know the extent of what they know – all I can see is what is online – both are quoting it to be an incident in 2007. This is more information than was given to Pádraig.
“Instead you turned your ignorance of your own actions into a press release and yet again try to say something nasty about an event run purely by people who donate their time.”
Fans will do that. Inevitably.
Like any internet kerfuffle, the very very very worst thing you could possibly do is to make sure tons of people who have never even heard of the person who was being nasty, have heard all about it, by doing something really controversial that fans all over the world will talk about.
Yes, whereas previously, what, a dozen or a few dozen, people were aware of such criticism, now thousands and thousands of people, perhaps more, will hear about this as the one thing they know about Octocon: that they have a committee that is totally clueless about how to handle criticism, and is completely ignorant of what happens when you ban a person in advance of the convention without having very clear publically justifiable reasons for doing so.
This, again, might be something you possibly should consider. Or not. I have popcorn.
“Good publicity so very hard to generate for fan events, why work so hard against people who are donating their time to an event you don’t even like to go to?”
And yet it’s so very easy to generate the worst possible publicity by virtue of galactic-scale cluelessness, both about how fandom works, and how the internet works.
You’re giving further reason for people to believe that what you’re doing is banning someone because your feelings are hurt by things they’ve said.
If that’s not the case, it would serve you well to present evidence as immediately as possible that this is not the case.
If is the case, I’m going to have to pick up lots more popcorn. And a lot of other folks will do the same.
All over the world.
Keep in mind, again, that few of us fans around the world, outside of Ireland, have ever heard, prior to today, of James Brophy or Pádraig Ó Méalóid, and for most of us, all we know of Octocon is that we’ve heard it’s the national convention of Ireland in recent years.
But, hey, now everyone who hears of this will know y’all by this one thing.
You just can’t buy publicity like that.
I agree with everything Gary Farber says!
Well, except the bit about me being nasty. I like to think I was being critical, which is not the same at all. I do hold forth about it a bit on LiveJournal: http://slovobooks.livejournal.com/301717.html
But, as my wife says, if they wanted to deal with it privately, they really shouldn’t have told me!
on 05 Oct 2009 at 2:53 pm12 James Brophy
But why not ask the committee then? Instead you turned your ignorance of your own actions into a press release and yet again try to say something nasty about an event run purely by people who donate their time.
Good publicity so very hard to generate for fan events, why work so hard against people who are donating their time to an event you don’t even like to go to?
You’re kidding, right? Ignorance of his own actions? You ban him from a con he used to run, you don’t even have the good grace of telling him why, and then hold the fact that you didn’t tell him why against him? What kind of convoluted doublethink denial is going on here?
As for generating bad publicity, mate, by banning Padraig from an Irish convention you did that all on your lonesome. Unless you can come up with some obscure incident in which he punched a guest of honor in the face or set up a coke-selling station in the dealers’ room or kicked a wheelchair-bound orphaned child clutching a sick kitten down the stairs, I’d say that you have shown extraordinarily bad judgment not to mention the thinnest skin I have seen around.
Come to think of it, I urge you to spell out publicly what kind of incident or behaviour led you to this step, because as things are, there are bound to be people who will be left with the sneaking suspicion that Padraig must have done something awful to merit such a ban, although knowing Padraig, I am not one of them.
And as for the fact that people donate their time – well, everybody in fandom does that. You seem to think you are a unique and fragile flower for doing it. Well no. It’s the norm. It doesn’t mean that you don’t get to be criticized.
Gary asked if those FAQ rules existed before the letter.
A simple Google cache check shows that they weren’t there last week (30th September 2009)
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:28KlxCqa_lMJ:www.octocon.com/faq+octocon+faq&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
I have been a member of several con committees (I think three) that have had to eject members from conventions for physical abuse, sexual harassment or threatening behaviour … three in 25 years isn’t too bad really.
I do not know what Pádraig Ó Méalóid has been accused of, and apparently neither does he. I have only been party to banning one person from joining a con, a person with mental health issues that made her a threat to herself and others … and we told her that, and what she would need to do to be able to attend our future events.
Octocon’s PR has the ears of the world at the moment, it would be a good time to explain what is going on, because in the absence of such, things will only get worse.
Well Cheryl, this has been going allot longer then you might think.
Would you believe that we have actually be working against letting this spill out on to the streets since 2002? This was when we had to tell Padraig to resign from Octocon because he wasn’t being straight with us about what work had been done.
I’m resigning from the Octocon Committee because I can’t stand to work in this environment any more. I cant be polite while a bully and a thug is allowed to keep getting away with misrepresenting our convention to people.
Now Anna, how often have you walked into an event at a convention an screamed at a guest of that convention in order to get attention rather then doing the sensible thing and asking for a committee member. Would that not be memorable to you? How about when the rest of the convention attendees shouted at you to leave? This also would not be memorable to you? How about interrupting a film premier? Do you do that so often it slips your mind?
Anna, sorry, but you have no idea what your talking about. If he wanted to have the mater settled he would have tried to contact the committee, he dident. Infact if he sends us a letter in private he gets a response. that whay he dosent send priate letters to us any more. However he does his beset to make every esoteric enquiry into a press release for our convention and how we are hiding something.
We have kept allot of things to our selves in the name of good will and everyones constant fear of a schism.
The committee has had a gag order on talking about him for years because everyone is so afraid of the perception of a split. Their is no split or schism in Irish fandom, because quite frankly everyone in fandom over here has to work around Padraig. And most choose not to. He is a bully who berates and attacks people till he gets his own way. He has done this to Octocon since 2002, to P con when Frank Darcy was running it and he did this with mecon and now he has looped around back to us.
How about writing a letter a two days before the convention claiming that the entire schedule has been constructed to spite you. How about claiming to be an integral part of a book launch when the author doesn’t know what your talking about publisher doesn’t even know your name?
We have been VERY generous with Pádraig Ó Méalóid over the years. Very very very generous. I have a list of guests and attendees who wont come to this convention because they don’t want to meet him. This year one of our co chairs who has literally met him once in her life saw this coming again and based on the emails which we had been receiving from him for the last few years and the flatly nasty things he has said about our guests, committee and con.
This bully has been getting away with harassing people off of the committee for Years now. Starting with ex chair Ruth Cassidy (who preceded me) right down through the years to members of the current committee who are ready to quit out of simple exhaustion with having to constantly justify them selves to a man who as I under stand it, has been kicked off of every committee he has ever been involved in.
How about refusing to hand back the database of members because “they are my personal friends”? how about misrepresenting yourself in order to steal photos that the convention had paid for? How about threatening other members of the committee with violence? If you did these things, you think they might slip your mind?
He can be utterly charming and very lovely but heaven help you if you are of no use to him. once that happens then he has the most awful and unbalanced side to him and I hope you don’t have to see that.
In writing this I’ve essentially killed off any idea of being involved in con running again, but it’s worth it to finally be able to even hint at the level of frustration, awkwardness and sleepless nights he has caused con runners from Belfast to Dublin. and frankly if people love thugs like him so much then fandom is not for me.
This man is poison to every convention he goes to unless he is heavily placated by the committee. He is the very definition of a cheep violent and narcissistic bully.
Octocon is ramping up for a big year next year and I wont have that pissed on by a man who has never had a con come close to breaking even and then scuttles away blaming everyone else every single time.
James Brophy
Former chair of Octocon 2001 – 2003
Former committee member of Octocon 2000-2005 and 2009
As an addendum, what would he have gotten if he skimpily tried to contact the octocon committee if he really was confused as to what he has been doing wrong all these years.
He would have gotten an answer.
What he for for making a private communication public and feigning ignorance?
Attention
and isn’t that what all bully’s want deep down.
James
“I cant be polite while a bully and a thug is allowed to keep getting away with misrepresenting our convention to people.”
I’m interested to know how you believe people should be kept from “getting away” with saying things you don’t like. What’s your proposed general solution, given that we all, in life, have to deal with people who dare to say things we disagree with and don’t like?
I’m looking for new tips on what I might do about that. So far, I’ve written down:
1) Try To Ban People Who Say Mean Things About Me From Anything I Have Anything To Do With.
2) Run Away From Anywhere People Might Say Mean Things To Or About Me.
Could you fill in 3 and 4 for me, please? Thanks!
To be sure, it’s difficult to make out what you’re saying when you write “…allot… we have actually be working…I cant…an screamed… you have no idea what your talking about… the mater settled… he dident. Infact…that whay he dosent send priate letters to us….he does his beset to make every esoteric enquiry…We have kept allot of things to our selves….”
Including, apparently, your ability to write anything remotely coherent in the English language. Is this par for the course, or are you merely at your keyboard in a state of intoxication? Either way, you continue to not help yourself.
This certainly was an interesting explication: “This year one of our co chairs who has literally met him once in her life saw this coming again and based on the emails which we had been receiving from him for the last few years and the flatly nasty things he has said about our guests, committee and con.”
And? And? And then what happened? You can’t even write a coherent sentence.You’ve got half a sentence there, laddy, and no more.
A gag order would indeed serve you well, if this is the best you can muster.
But let’s look at the next part as a whole:
Now, this makes no sense whatever. If the man is so terrible, why was he on these committees that he was able to “get[…] away with harassing people off of the committee for Years now”? And is a “Year” a specially different sort of “year”?
“a man who as I under stand it, has been kicked off of every committee he has ever been involved in.”
So, wait, let me get this right: he was on all these convention committees, and thus was able to force all these other people off these committees, thus leaving on the committees only people he could work with, who then had him “kicked off of every committee,” which resulted in him being asked back to next year and another committttee so he could harass other off again which would result in his being kicked off….
Do you have any sense at all here that what you’re saying can’t be made any sense of?
So, bottom line: you’re terribly terribly angry, so terribly angry that you can’t begin to be remotely coherent, or even write in English — if English is your second language, I do apologize — and you have a firm and clear case, that’s so firm and clear, that you feel it’s best to make it in completely incoherent fashion, with no specifics, no dates, no t.imes, no references, no witnesses, no documents, no evidence at all– just an incomprehensible rant that gives a pretty good imitation of someone in the throes of a nervous breakdown.
Well, who wouldn’t find that convincing?
“Octocon is ramping up for a big year next year and I wont have that pissed on by a man who has never had a con come close to breaking even and then scuttles away blaming everyone else every single time.”
This seems to translate, best as I can make out, to “he was going to say mean things about us again, and we’re now stopping him from bringing our committee into disrepute by saying mean things, by our choosing to give him the largest possible soapbox for him to speak from, and by our choosing to attract endless numbers of people to listen to him, by making him sound sympathetic, and us look like our spokesperson is in the middle of an acid trip while simultaneously sounding less coherent and sympathetic than a four-year-old wailing that somebody has been meeeeaaaaan.
So, then: good job! Mission accomplished!
Here, have another shovel, and come back in the morning, or later in the day, please. This is a great show you’ve got here.
But before I go, let’s address your last query: “As an addendum, what would he have gotten if he skimpily tried to contact the octocon committee….”
A sexual harassment lawsuit?
But this is great writing, guy. Have you considered turning professional?
Let’s set aside the highly entertaining “skimpily,” for what meaning we can derive from this:
So, James, how do you reconcile your assertion with “This matter is not open for discussion and we will not enter into any online discussion regarding this nor will we discuss this with any other persons. This decision is final”?
Do you sense any sort of problem here between your claim, and the actual statement made to Pádraig Ó Méalóid?
Anything at all? Any perhaps inconsistency between what he was told, and your assertion that all he had to do was ask and “He would have gotten an answer,” when, in fact, he was told “This matter is not open for discussion and we will not enter into any online discussion regarding this nor will we discuss this with any other persons. This decision is final”?
If you don’t see a problem here, just keep working at it. I’m sure it’ll come to you eventually.
Just to set the record straight: I was never asked to leave any convention committee, neither in 2002 nor any other year. Any time I left, I did so of my own accord.
I think that James Brophy is A) confusing ‘having an opinion and not being afraid to state it’ with, oh, various things, including ‘bullying’ and so on, and B) should ponder on the notion that if you’re in a hole, you should stop digging.
If I was shouting at someone to do something about the sound of a film, it was because it was too loud to be heard over otherwise, and for no other reason.
Just to say that if anyone here doesn’t know Padraig, I’ve known him for years, and he simply is not the man James is describing. He tends to mutter and sigh rather than scream and rant. Padraig started PhoenixCon in Dublin (I think: he’s never particularly insisted on that point to me), handed it on to the next organiser after a few years, and has always been welcome back at that event. I note that a few of the terrible, terrible happenings that James describes are rather carefully phrased. So someone reacted badly to him when she saw him coming based on what she’d *heard* about him? Well, no wonder, eh?
James, it’s a well known fact that you and Padraig do not see eye to eye on many issues, and that the previous clause is a gross understatement. I don’t believe that you can give an unbiased view on the events.
I’ve worked on committees with Padraig and have found him an incredibly hands on organiser, and yes, given that I’m an extremely hands on organiser as well, it drove me demented, but I would not hesitate to be on a committee with him again. I, at least, have confidence that all the vital tasks would get done.
I will be the first to admit that Padraig is loud at times and opinionated but honestly, when you are passionate about something that’s to be expected. But honestly, can you look at your own post and not see the same reflected back. That Padraig is not involved in Irish Fandom – that is your hot button issue. And instead of looking at this and seeing how badly the decision has backlashed on the committee as a whole and addressing that, you have chosen to post what amounts to a rant on someone else’s blog.
From a process point of view (I can’t help it, it’s the main focus of my job), you, and I should clarify that I mean the greater you, the committee you, need to sit down, virtually or actually and draft a statement on behalf of the con which will explain the events in question and explain why the actions were a banning offence. I know of no situation that does not involve direct physical threat that requires a banning rather than a warning.
Also, if the events happened in 2007, as most people seem to be guessing, the warning should have taken place then. The committee runs Octocon, not someone who has just paid a membership. The perfect time to hold him to account for his actions was in 2007 when everything was still fresh in everyones minds. He should have been taken aside, informed that the committee were not happy with him and given the opportunity to apologise for any actions that may have caused anyone discomfort. That would have shown that the committee were strong enough to reactive to any events, had a clear handle on the situation and were actually in charge of the convention.
Dredging the incident up now, and claiming that it is the reason or at least part of it, which I know you technically as a committee haven’t, but your post does seem to point at that specific instance, seems far too late and feels more like a ‘we don’t want you at the con and it was fine when we thought you weren’t coming but now that you are… you’re banned, mister!’ The timings of the incident are a little too coincidental for my liking.
And now to inject some humour: If you want a quiet Padraig at a con, just invite Alan Moore and lock himself and Padraig in a room by themselves with enough food and beverages to last the weekend. 😉
Just to second everything Paul Cornell says earlier, and to say James Brophy’s version of events emphatically doesn’t tally with my understanding of goings-on Irish fandom these past ten year.
When I have been well aware of the bad blood between James and Padraig, and have taken pains to get my facts from 3rd parties doing their level best to be impartial and fair to both sides.
I don’t know who this ‘bully” is Mr.Brophy is refering [and I’ve meet enough bullies in my life to be able to spot them] to cus it’s certainly not the Padraig I know. Padraig has been a big support of the Irish 24 hour comics day since it started 4 years ago. He has never been nothing but polite and supportive of the event and we certainly did nothing to “placate” him before or during the event, I’ve disagreed with several views Padraig holds regarding comics. We welcome him to attend this years event and I also welcome any feedback he has to offer on the event as, while sometimes it can be hard to take negatives, I’ve certainly never felt anything malicious from him with his comments but rather a genuine desire to improve an event.
If Padraig really did “threaten someone with violence” why wasn’t he banned on the spot? That seems like the logical step and frankly a massive failing of a con not to do so, surely you value peoples safety above all else? If anyone even hinted at violence at an event I ran they would be gone straight away regardless of who they were. To ban someone [a week before the event mind] due to claimed past issues from several years ago seems suspect. You have this massive list of claims Mr. Brophy and if he is really such a bully why on earth have you waited till now? And don’t claim fear of split cus that’s rubbish, splits have happened over far far smaller things.
And finally don’t bitch about him going public looking for answers when the email sent said the committee wouldn’t discus the issue – if they won’t talk with him directly how else is he meant to find out?
Ms. Morgan sorry for spamming your blog.
Mmm, popcorn.
Is it unseemly to pass around popcorn at the scene of a train wreck? It is, it is, so probably just as well that no actual trains were harmed in today’s production.
I’m in Tbilisi, and heard of this from a friend in Brussels. But cheer up con committee members! No comments have yet arrived from South America or Australia, so it’s possible that nobody from those continents knows the one thing about Octocon that I know now.
———To Padraig,——————-
Near as I can tell the octocon committee has neither responded or explained anything to you is because YOU HAVE YET TO ASK THEM. i’m certain they would respond if you wanted a response.
But hey, it’s a week to there con they might be doing something other then watching you rally the faithful and flatly ignorant behind you. You Didn’t want to handle this privately, you wanted attention and defense from others because you know your a bully and you Know that this was the best way to get attention and defence from people who dont know the history of this.
…and the word was “Screaming” and I don’t think that acceptable thing for you to do to a guest of any convention. You had made it clear that by the point of the next con that that you were going to not make a fuss so we decided to let it be. So far this year you have accused the con committee of hatching an all out conspiracy of silence because people dident want their names published.
Banning you this year was not my decision. I only make posters for this years committee. It was a decision of some one else.
——–To Paul Cornell,—————-
I’m sorry to hear that you won’t go to a con, I really am a huge fan of your work and was hoping to see you in Ireland at the next p con. The reason things are phrased like this is because people wanted to know why we banned him, and how it dosent juibe with there interpretation of the Padraig you all know and love. Those were some of the reasons why. In the first part, I’ve known him allot longer then you and with respect, I’ve worked for him and run cons with him, I’ve had him grumble scream shake fists and tell horrible slanderous stories about me. So I feel confident talking about him.
I have to avoid mentioning other peoples names because people are too araid of him and what his friends will do to protect him. I had one writer tell me “I dont want to get into this because getting on the wrong side of someone like Cheryl Morgan could destroy my career.” They dont want to be subject to the harassment of letters that are 40 pages long every day. They don’t want shaded comments made about them and the lack of with of there work and ethics made in Padraigs writing.
I also wanted to leave this in the realm of people being able to write me off as a crazy person, If you don’t want to believe me fine, just believe that there are people who have a different interpretation of someone then you do. But then again Octocon now no longer has me because I’m doing this. I don’t want this to reflect on the Octocon committee so I’ve quit. Octocon is one person down the week before a con because of this.
——–if you want facts————–
If you believe i’m dealing in lies and half truiths and want some hard facts on the other hand, what happened to me personally, not to a (guest, or an attendee or another convention.) Is he threatened to ” beat me into a pulp” in the royal marine hotel the night of 15th of October 2001 relations were strained after that, at that point he was still a good friend and you try to forgive lapses in judgement by your friends.
Thanks to Dave Stewart trying to keep us together as a group, we lasted until later into 2002 until later that year when we arranged a meeting to look at spreading the work load out and taking stuff off of Padraigs over worked shoulders. Things were getting missed and things were actively getting messed up. I was of the opinion that he needed to step down for a while, go off committee and stop getting on his high horse at people and aileniating them from us as a group. Dave wanted an amcable solution but like the other committee member Vince Penell forced to accept that Padraig wasent going to give back anything he had belonging to octocon lightly. Essentaslly we were prepaired for conciliation but I was certain it wasent going to happen so I drafted a leter fireing him ready to use. He never turned up for the meeting so instead of being fired he quit.
Later that year we anouned that we were not goign to run a con in 2003 because we were all on the edge of burn out. espically after reciving leters that accused us of having the convention scheduled to piss padraig off. We asked an old hand from irelend who has started running cons in the uk to start unning a con instead of octocon and this was the point where Padraig anounced P con. One of his first acts was to ask the photographer if he could pick up the prints of the previous years Octocon he dident make it clear he was no longer a pert of the comittiee. wehn we found out he quickly returned the prints through a third party to avoid being arrested to theft.
Other people have diffrent stories. in 2000 the octocon committie started with 8 and when padraig joind it shrunk to 5 (Robbert Mcgregor, Skye McNeil and Ian Sinkovitz) he left before the convention making us 4 on the day. Being his friend at the time I wanted to see him come back to comittiee. Because ultimately how long do you wollow your friends when they are abusive amn mean to people, but utterly charming to you I mean how was I to know untill it happened to me.
————————————–
——Gary—————————
“This matter is not open for discussion and we will not enter into any online discussion regarding this nor will we discuss this with any other persons. This decision is finalâ€? is not a sentince that I wrote, ask the co chair Nichola Hannigan. I agree it’s a clumsy sentince but what are you suppose to do when every private response becomes a press release for your event. I guess trying to keep things brief didn’t work.
It’s not so much that he is mean it’s that he is deeply unpleasant to people who he judges should not be part of science fiction fandom in Ireland.
If you were running a con and you were told that a person who was accusing you of withholding vital information from the members and the public was also capable of shouting at guests. What would you do?
——Bon——————————–
Bon I have no idea who you are, at least garry has a name and a face. What am I suppose to do, people wanted reasons why he might be banned from a con, I’m giving a few from my personal experience. The guy is a thug, he threatens people with violence he screams at guests he misrepresents himself to take work paid for my the committee these are all events that have ben witnessed by other but don’t want to say anything because the gamage is already done and what’s the point ofopening old wounds.. but hey, I’m just someone from the internet who is responding to questions I was asked and everyone can happily ignore me if they want.
——To everyone else.————–
I’m just one guy who does not represent any convention, I honestly just make posters for cons since I left the chair. All I can do is tell you my experience of events and guess why he was banned. I wasent involved in the decision to ban him. At this point I’m probably banned from Octocon for mutch longer then he ever will be. In any case, your experiences all differ from mine. So it’s pointlss to keep trying to convince you untill you see him bully someone yourselves.
James:
I had one writer tell me “I dont want to get into this because getting on the wrong side of someone like Cheryl Morgan could destroy my career.â€
Have you any idea how ridiculous that sounds? You have done quite enough damage to the good name of Irish fandom for one year. I suggest that you now shut up. Except for one thing. I want you to find that person and get him or her to come and talk to me about it. Until I have got to the bottom of this, and have been convinced that it is not just another wild accusation you have made up for the purposes of persecuting a feud, you are banned from this blog.
I don’t like the way James put together ‘I’m sorry you won’t go to a convention’ right next to ‘I was hoping to see you at PCon this year.’ He *will* see me at PCon this year! That’s not the convention I’ve banned myself from!
Ok, I’m not going to get involved in the ins and outs of the situation, given that I really don’t know enough about what went on. What I will say is, to Gary Farber – Whatever your opinions on the actual argument are, I find it exceptionally rude to start attacking someone on the basis of their sentence structure and spelling. Yes, the grammar, syntax, and spelling were inaccurate. But the meaning was still incredibly simple to extrapolate. Say whatever you want about the situation, but don’t get an attitude with someone just for having difficulties writing.
I would like to make it very clear that James Brophy’s posts here do not in anyway represent the views of the Octocon committee. He is no longer a committee member and will not be attending the convention this weekend. His involvement this year was in making graphics for web and print, he took no part in the decision to ban Pádraig Ó Méalóid from the convention. We’re sorry to see this blog turned into such an ugly exchange
As we’ve said to Pádraig , we’re not willing to discuss this ban with third parties, we were hoping to keep this dignified (!). I feel that no amount of accusation and counter-accusation on a public forum is going to resolve the disagreement.
We’re aware of the problems of Octocon over the last few years, and this committee has been working hard to build the con up from this. We’re all set for a great event this weekend, and are really looking forward to it.
James:
OK, the person you quoted has got in touch, so I have unblocked you.
Paul:
This came in from James while he was blocked:
Nichola:
I’m delighted to here that Mr. Brophy’s comments are not sanctioned by the Octocon committee. However, the more I hear about this affair the more convinced I have become that Octocon will not be an enjoyable weekend for me. In particular I am extremely angry at the suggestion that I would try to destroy a writer’s career (as if that were even remotely possible) over a fan feud. I realize that much of this is outside of your control, but I have no intention of spending a considerable amount of money and four days of my time to spend a weekend being dragged into a vicious feud. I will not be attending Octocon this weekend, or at any time in the foreseeable future.
Nichola:
You said:
‘This matter is not open for discussion and we will not enter into any online discussion regarding this nor will we discuss this with any other persons. This decision is final.’
You also said:
‘As we’ve said to Pádraig , we’re not willing to discuss this ban with third parties, we were hoping to keep this dignified (!).’
Which of these two mutually exclusive statements is true?
Are you prepared to discuss it with Pádraig or not? – it would seem like a basic courtesy to let him know what he is being excluded for, yet you have already stated your unwillingness to do so.
With the best will in the world, this does not reflect favourably on your position!
This seems to have come full circle. Now that the committee have clarified that James Brophy does not speak for them, we’re back to them saying they won’t discuss their reasons for banning someone, apparently without warning.
I understand the point that “no amount of accusation and counter-accusation on a public forum is going to resolve the disagreement”, but surely the committee can see how badly their lack of explanation reflects on them? If you ban a well-known fan from your convention, people will find out, and if you can’t justify it, people will be angry.
Also, I’d like to address a couple of specific points made by James Brophy:
“He is a bully who berates and attacks people till he gets his own way. He has done this to Octocon since 2002, to P con when Frank Darcy was running it and he did this with mecon”
As a former Mecon committee member (for many years), I can say that this is, to the best of my knowledge, untrue. And I do not appreciate Mecon being dragged into the argument in this manner.
Pádraig was certainly very critical at times, and his manner can be abrasive. He sometimes annoyed me, and at least one committee member got very upset at him (with some justification). However, James’s characterisation of him does not jibe at all with my experience, and certainly Pádraig was never banned from Mecon, nor was such a thing ever even considered as far as I know. Indeed, on one occasion I thanked Pádraig for his (highly critical) comments, as while I wished he could have phrased them more diplomatically I nevertheless considered them valuable criticism.
I note James mentions Frank Darcy; sadly, as many of you will know, Frank passed away last year and so he can’t speak for himself. I will, however, say that my impression (as someone on the outside) was that Frank got on very well with Pádraig and appreciated his help.
*sigh*
Look, let’s all calm down now at this point, shall we? I do know all the protagonists, I do know the situations, I am fully informed on this. So, despite my better instincts, I’ll pitch in on this.
The people who run Octocon don’t like Padraig, and Padraig doesn’t like the people who run Octocon. This is a purely personal thing on all sides, and a well known fact.
Everyone is choosing their words very carefully, but I’ll be blunt – Padraig can act like a bit of a dick sometimes. Again, this is a known fact. That’s not to take away from his contributions to fandom, nor his love for it, nor any comment on whether any actions he ever takes are justified or not, it’s just a statement of something that he does. He pushes their buttons. To be truthful, he pushes mine.
And no doubt he knows that. And he’s been pushing buttons lately, too. And then the people at Octocon did a very stupid, reactionary thing and used Octocon to get at someone they didn’t like personally, and banned Padraig. Which, aside from the practical considerations of all this bad press, was not a fair thing to do. The con is not them, and they are not the con. The best way to prove people wrong is to run a good con, as has been said already.
So Padraig pushed them, then they massively over-reacted. So who’s to blame?
I don’t really care.
If we all could just be grown ups, apologise to each other (no-one has come out of this well – Padraig is not blameless in this) and try to do better in the future, that would be fine.
On a purely side note, I think complaining about the freaking grammer in other people’s posts is the most pointless and futile thing a person can do. If you disagree with the *argument* being made, or the *facts*, then for gods sake go for it, but drawing some kind of conclusion based on their goddam writing style is moronic. Sorry, pet peeve of mine.
That’s sad news Cheryl at this stage I totally understand. I would like to make something clear. I don’t know Padraig at all. My decision and it was mine was made from what I’ve seen this year and witnessed in the past. I was prepared to talk about it but It’s all so messy now that it’s hard to know what to say. Brian is right to say that Padraig does push buttons but I would also like you to please give me and the committee the benefit of the doubt and not think that we did this lightly or for personal reasons.
I would hopefully like to leave it at this. I will contact Padraig and no doubt you’ll all find out why we made this decision. However with this being con week I am sure you will all appriciate that this has taken up a lot of our time and we have a lot to do an the octocave!
“I have to avoid mentioning other peoples names because people are too araid of him and what his friends will do to protect him. I had one writer tell me ‘I dont want to get into this because getting on the wrong side of someone like Cheryl Morgan could destroy my career.’ They dont want to be subject to the harassment of letters that are 40 pages long every day. They don’t want shaded comments made about them and the lack of with of there work and ethics made in Padraigs writing.”
Shorter James Brophy:
I was one of the founders of Octocon, and one the committee of both Octocon 1 and 2. And I remember ly what happened in 1993. It was resolved before the convention and with less vitriol.
Friction arises: it’s inevitable. Conrunning is complex and stressful. I can’t help feeling that discussing this online is making a difficult situation worse and piling hurt on top of hurt. Could I appeal for those not directly effected to step back a little, please, and let the principals negotiate and discuss this themselves? Octocon is a very special convention. Let’s keep it that way.
Kari (Maund, in my Octocon days).
Point of information; I have seen it reported elsewhere that James Brophy is dyslexic. This would explain the typo and syntax issues with his posts.
The content remains there to speak for itself.
I agree wholeheartedly with Brian. At the end of the day, a convention has the right to ban someone if it chooses. I don’t know the full situation, but such a decision is never taken lightly. And Padraig, whether you all like it or not, has been very critical about Octocon and the individuals running it for some time. Criticism is fine, and fair enough, and necessary on occasions, but such criticism has often come across as rudeness, and with no actual suggestions on how to improve whatever was being criticised. This may have been completely unintentional. But, like it or not, a lot of people have been pissed off over the years – off the top of my head, there were a lot of unhappy people when he decided to organise a convention on the same weekend that the Belfast convention, Mecon, usually ran (and had done for years), all because he felt that the numbers were low, and without actively discussing it in advance with the Mecon committee of that time. I know that’s an old issue, but Mecon was mentioned earlier.
And Gary – I’m in utter agreement with Brian and Elizabeth regarding your criticism of spelling/grammar. Such an attitude strikes me as pathetic and is also somewhat suggestive of someone who doesn’t really have a strong argument so they’re picking on anything they can find…
Kari: I’m sorry, but I believe you’re missing the point.
The initial letter from Nichola to Pádraig gave no reasons for his banning, and was perfectly clear that this was not up for discussion. If that has changed, I’m not aware of it.
To then say we should “let the principals negotiate and discuss this themselves” seems to me to be saying we should do nothing and let this happen.
As I said above, they should have expected people to find out about this, and to want an explanation. Whatever Pádraig has done, if it’s so bad as to warrant banning him without warning then the committee should be able to justify that decision. And while in one sense this is none of my business, in another sense it’s the business of us all, especially those who will, or may, be supporting Octocon by attending, this year or in the future.
If the committee start arbitrarily banning people because they feel like it, I certainly don’t want to support them in any way. If they have reasons, I want to hear those reasons and judge for myself; even if I find their reasons inadequate, I might be able to see their point of view. And certainly, the worst thing they can do at this point is refuse to discuss it.
Now, Nichola has said she’ll be contacting Pádraig, so presumably an explanation will be forthcoming. That’s a step forward, but would it have happened without all this public discussion?
“Near as I can tell the octocon committee has neither responded or explained anything to you is because YOU HAVE YET TO ASK THEM. i’m certain they would respond if you wanted a response. ”
This still flies in the face of the passage from the original letter:
“This matter is not open for discussion and we will not enter into any online discussion regarding this nor will we discuss this with any other persons. This decision is final.” When one wants to talk, one usually does not say, “Do not talk to us”.
This puts me in mind of an old Hal Roach joke oh how Irishmen will answer a question, and then ask it, as in, “You won’t have a drink….wil you?”
A few suggestions for online debating…
I don’t like to call out spelling and gramar errors on BBS posts because it suggests you have no better tools to argue with, so you aim at the easiest target. But having said that, once you’ve been called out on your spelling, it’s likely a good idea to at least TRY to polish it up a bit.
Once you’ve resigned and left an argument (usually in a huff, a popular mode of transportation), it diminishes your position to come back and argue some more. The whole point of of resigning is the hope that everyone comes after you saying “Och, wullie, we were only having you up, come on back now, yah?” If they don’t, coming back on your own doesn’t work nearly as well.
And for the record, news of this bit of silliness has reached the United States, courtesy of noted Fanner Of The Flames Of Emnity Rich Johnston. This little indelicato is all I know about Irish Fandom now. Well Played, sirs.
I swear, if more people had heard of the Streisand Effect, things like this might not happen.
This has involved so many people from all over the world. It’s true, Pádraig is well known in SF circles over here, but I don’t think that has much bearing on why everyone has chipped in, especially those who don’t know Pádraig.
At the end of the day, a con banning anyone for mysterious reasons is something that is a concern to everyone, and makes everyone feel a little wary about the atmosphere at the con. Like those shops in seaside holiday towns plastered with ‘IF YOU BREAK IT YOU BUY IT’ and ‘CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN’ signs. The vague threat hangs over your shopping experience and makes you a little uncomfortable, even though you can probably understand why they do it. It isn’t good PR.
Are we now going to Octocon wondering if they are reasonable, or unreasonable? Wondering what behaviour we might be subjected to at a con which had to ban someone and didn’t say why? What sort of people attend that this course of action is merited? Maybe we’ll be santioned if we dissent too loudly or to the wrong person? Isn’t it easier to just go to a different con with a nicer atmosphere? At least before it was just Pádraig, and if he ruined the atmosphere we could just stay away from him.
Regardless of the interpersonal stuff going on here, the international interest proves this isn’t really about Pádraig.
As for the people who have posted in defence of Pádraig’s character, I think it’s quite insulting to try and put this down to the idea that he is such a clever and manipulative bully that lots of authors and big name fans are under his sway. People aren’t pitching in because he is drumming up support, it’s because they are genuinely horrified at what has happened, and at what is being said!
And rather than complaining that we don’t know the real Pádraig, the committee would do well to recognise that some people are more influential than others in this life, and that pissing them off will have negative consequences whether it is justified or not. So doing it, and then not even justifying it, is just MADNESS!
Take a cue from the recent BFS apology and come out and say unreservedly “We were daft, we made a big stupid mistake in the way we approched this and annoyed a lot of people. We are deeply sorry, and will work on resolving things much more appropriately in the future. We have apologised to Pádraig for the way we treated the issue and hope he will talk with us about how we can move past this.”
Apologies aren’t necessarily about accepting all the blame, they are just about saying you deeply regret what has happened… and when you are asking people for their money and support they are just damn good business sense.
To those who feel we should all just butt out, at least part of the reason I am pitching in is because I am concerned that the Octocon actions are making Irish fans and conventions look like bloody idiots. The actions right now have the capability to tar other Irish cons and their membership rates. As far as I am concerned, we are all responsible for calling that out.
Later comments have suggested James Brophy is dyslexic; if so I withdraw (with apologies for lack of information) the comments about spelling.
“Near as I can tell the octocon committee has neither responded or explained anything to you is because YOU HAVE YET TO ASK THEM. i’m certain they would respond if you wanted a response.”
And back we go to the official letter from the convention committee:
So, since you’ve been informed of this statement over and over, that you continue to claim other that “i’m certain they would respond if you wanted a response” means either that:
a) you’re being untruthful;
b) you believe the committee letter was untruthful; or:
c) you are unable to comprehend what you read.
None of these possibilities serve you and the Octocon committee well, nor do they do anything other than dig you in more deeply. Keep shoveling.
“But hey, it’s a week to there con they might be doing something other then watching you rally the faithful and flatly ignorant behind you.”
Repeat: most people reading this blog have never heard of you guys, so we’re hardly the “faithful,” other than faithful to trying to keep nitwits from screwing up their own conventions. Some of us have tried to do this sort of thing for decades, mate. And it’s you and the Octocon committee that seem to be “flatly ignorant” of any other convention’s experience with attempting to ban an attendee before the con.
(By all means, refute my suggestion that you are ignorant of how this has gone before by naming three such conventions, and what happened. I’ll just wait right here for you to demonstrate you’re not ignorant of how that’s gone before.)
You also seem to be flatly ignorant of the fact that every single incident on the internet wherein someone has tried to sue someone, or demand they take down things from their website, or otherwise prevent anyone from doing anything, always results in 100,000 times worse publicity than letting what it is happen in the first place.
This is such astonishing ignorance of how the internet works, and fandom works, and, indeed, people in general work, as to boggle the mind. (The word “carrot” springs oddly to mind, but I digress.)
“You Didn’t want to handle this privately, you wanted attention and defense from others because you know your a bully and you Know that this was the best way to get attention and defence from people who dont know the history of this.”
If you wanted to handle it privately, you’d have done something that you could have kept private. Why someone you ban from a convention should keep their banning private is a mystery: why would someone want to do that, if it didn’t involve revealing something embarrassing to them?
Here’s how it works: people want to keep something private when it embarrasses them. In this case you and the Octocon committee wanted to keep this private because it embarrasses you.
And, indeed, here you are, squirming around, unable to make anything resembling a coherent case for your banning decision, and unable to come up with a convincing explanation, let alone supply any evidence to support it.
Unsubstantiated accusations that someone was loud somewhere years ago aren’t a sufficient justification to ban someone from a con.
Assertions that someone has written things about the convention that you don’t like, and that that’s sufficient reason to ban someone simply suggests that the convention committee is thin-skinned to the point of idiocy, arbitrary to the point where few people knowledgeable of this would trust them, and dumb enough to have flailed out in a frantic last-minute gesture that they couldn’t possibly have thought through the implications of.
This isn’t at all about what the person you banned wanted or not; it’s about what a National Science Fiction Convention has done. You folks — of whom James is apparently not one any more — are responsible for your convention. You’re collectively responsible for your actions, and statements. If you want to handle something privately, you have to do something that you can be sure will stay private.
Here’s a hint as to how that works: both parties have to agree to it, and have reason to agree to it..
It’s not a choice you get to make on your own.
And so, again, it appears that the Octocon Committee either has yet still mysterious and unrevealed further explanations that could, theoretically, conceivably, make their acts explicable — or it could be that you folk — the committee, of whom James is apparently not one any more — have demonstrated that you make very poor decisions.
So far, even if we set aside the banning itself, watching how you’ve handled this here, rather than the committee holding an immediate meeting/discussion (whether by email or phone or whatever means), and issue an immediate public statement giving a rational explanation that will satisfy folks and prevent attendees from deciding not to attend, boycotts from not being created, and your reputation as competent con-runners — such as that may exist (is there some reason you all decline to provide last names, by the way?) — being severely damaged, you’re continuing to demonstrate that the Octocon committee is prone to making very poor decisions. (This paragraph and much of this comment was written before I’d seen Nicola’s most recent comment; bear that in mind, please.)
“It was a decision of some one else.”
Someone who can’t even be named. So, was this a decision by your committee, or just some nameless individual on it who isn’t taking public responsibility for it?
Regardless, you have a committee, and you all are jointly responsible for your convention.
Of course, if you prefer, you can start pointing fingers at each other. That’d be even more useful, and a fine way to demonstrate your convention-running competency, and general cluefulness. That should refute all worries!
“I’ve had him grumble scream shake fists and tell horrible slanderous stories about me.”
Say, you know what? Lots of us have run many many many sf conventions over many many many years. In total, the people reading this have run conventions in many countries!
I, for one, worked my first major sf convention committee posts at Lunacon in NYC in 1975. I’ve worked on a long list of conventions, and a long list of worldcons. I’ve worked on some of the most controversial worldcons. And I assure you that I’ve had far more fans “grumble scream shake fists and tell horrible slanderous stories about me” than you have.
I’d bet that I’ve literally had a thousand times more fans tell horrible slanderous stories about me than you have.
Hell, I’ve had that happen at or before just one Worldcon, let alone all the other cons I’ve worked on, let alone all the other dreadful things I’ve had people say about me on political blogs.
But never once has it occurred to me that I’d help myself out by trying to ban a critic from a convention, or otherwise make myself look petty, arbitrary, foolish, ignorant, and silly.
You want to accomplish something? You have to have a thick skin. Otherwise you’re going to wind up doing something that makes you look like an idiot, and you’ll have a lot more people engaging in the “grumble scream shake fists and tell horrible slanderous stories about me,” and then you have to have a thick skin about that, too.
Or you can quit trying to accomplish anything, denounce everyone else as horribly unfair, blame it all on them, accept no responsibility for yourself, and move on to somewhere else, where doubtless you’ll keep repeating that same pattern until you learn it doesn’t work.
“…is not a sentince that I wrote, ask the co chair Nichola Hannigan. I agree it’s a clumsy sentince but what are you suppose to do when every private response becomes a press release for your event.”
Here’s what you’re supposed to do:
a) have a sensible policy so you don’t get into trouble in the first place.
b) stick to publically announced policy; hastily committing to an act and retroactively announcing a policy alleged to cover it makes it plain that you had no relevant policy, but are acting in a purely arbitrary fashion — which means everyone who might attend or have dealings with your con now has good reason to believe you might be just as arbitrary in dealing with anyone else, which means no one now has reason to believe they’ll be treated fairly and sanely by the committee.
c) if all else fails, put out a satisfactory official statement that can be supported by objective evidence, which will put the matter to rest, which is the only thing that would satisfy most onlookers that justice is being done, and sensible actions taken.
d) if you can’t do c, go back to a. If you can’t do c or a, then do your best to not just quit digging yourself in deeper, but instead cut your losses immediately, announce that you’ve made a mistake, you regret it, you apologize to your membership, and reverse your banning decision.
D is, trust me, much much much less embarrassing to you a week from now than is letting things carry on the way they are.
Six months from now, if you, the committee, have cut this short by issuing a quick apology and reversal, it’ll be a small blip in the past, and only a few jokes will be made about it, and in a year, it’ll be almost forgotten.
Or you can carry on with the pathetic and ludicrous defenses, and you can become legendary, a con that people around the world will be laughing at for decades to come, just as we’re still laughing at the Worldcon committee of 1939, and just as many people still remember the infamous acts of the 1964 Worldcon, and just as people still tell so many stories of unbelievably dumb things done by sf convention committees decades ago.
Fandom has an astonishingly long memory for acts that are truly foolish.
There’s only one way to prevent something from being inscribed in that memory in a big way, and that’s to act as quickly as possible to make it go away.
If you can’t figure out further on your own, mate, what you need to do, and why it’s in your own interest to do it, well, matters are probably hopeless for you and your chums.
“It’s not so much that he is mean it’s that he is deeply unpleasant to people who he judges should not be part of science fiction fandom in Ireland.”
There are unpleasant people everywhere, including fandom and prodom. Deal.
“If you were running a con and you were told that a person who was accusing you of withholding vital information from the members and the public was also capable of shouting at guests. What would you do?”
Before the con? Ignore it and carry on. Done it hundreds and hundreds of times.
If someone behaves badly at the con, deal with it as it happens: take them aside, and warn them not to engage in unreasonable behavior — specificying the exact nature of the unreasonable behavior they’ve engaged in, and exactly what they mustn’t do again, and inform them that if they engage in such behavior again that you’ll revoke their membership and have hotel security ask them to leave the premises of the facility.
Next? This is con-running 101 stuff, by the bye.
“At this point I’m probably banned from Octocon for mutch longer then he ever will be.”
So you’re saying that Octocon is a convention that frequently arbitrarily bans people because the committee doesn’t like what they say on the internet?
Geez, now I’m really starting to think about ways to get together enough money to attend Octocon, just so I can see if I can get banned.
“So it’s pointlss to keep trying to convince you untill you see him bully someone yourselves.”
FTW!
Nicola: “I would hopefully like to leave it at this. I will contact Padraig and no doubt you’ll all find out why we made this decision. However with this being con week I am sure you will all appriciate that this has taken up a lot of our time and we have a lot to do an the octocave!”
Indeed. This is just one reason why it’s a dreadfully poor idea to ban anyone a week away from a con without an extremely prepared and explanation, accompanied by convincing evidence and third-party testimony, that would present a reasonably irrefutable case that the committee was doing the right thing, and engaging in an act that neutral third-party observers would look at, and say “oh, well, that seems perfectly sensible and justified, then, doesn’t it?”
If you aren’t able to do that when you ban someone a week before the con, then don’t ban them. It’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth.
Anyone who has been around convention-running very long, or knows much fanhistory, knows that.
Thanks for your statement, and please note that despite the phrasing of much of my comment, I’m now clear that James is no longer on your committee, doesn’t speak for it, and that the committee is not responsible for his statements.
Best of luck with your convention, and I hope you can make it come out all right in the end. Really. I have no other interest here than in hoping that all sf conventions come off a success and a wonderful experience for all concerned.
Failing that, I’d like to see as many sf conventions as possible at least come off adequately, and a good experience for as many as possible.
So I wish you nothing but the best, and hope that, at worst, this will have been a learning experience for some.