World Fantasy Convention 2015 Harassment Policy

[wshaffer]

Being someone who helps run a convention, I think a lot about harassment at conventions. Every time a convention hits the news for something harassment related, I think "What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? What can we learn from this?" Sometimes I think, "Oh, please God, don't let that ever be us!"

I kind of assume that all other conrunners do the same. Except that I can't really imagine how the folks running World Fantasy this year would have come up with this harassment policy if they had.
(I recommend you go and read the linked post, but here's the policy in an image.)


I have too much going on at work this morning to write as well-reasoned a post as I would like, so let me just say this: everything of what I've witnessed of harassment issues at conventions I've attended and helped to run suggests to me that if your policy says, "If you report harassment, the police will get involved," very few people will report harassment. And while I recognize the convention's need to take into account the legal definition of harassment under New York state law and protect themselves from a possible libel suit, they could have done that while still doing way more to keep their guests safe.

Comments

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was quite pleased to see that.