|
Kai Tave posted:https://twitter.com/WCgameco/status/1556684331200008193 Worse, that sounds like they want to focus on lovely overproduced board games with terrible designs.
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 05:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 16:17 |
|
|
hyphz posted:Worse, that sounds like they want to focus on lovely overproduced board games with terrible designs. Did anyone expect more from Awakened Realms?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 05:39
|
|
|
Coolness Averted posted:What's your trick for filing a police report without to the police being contacted? Keep in mind jurisdiction is gonna matter. You can file em online where I live. I meant in the sense of calling them to physically come over in person though. AFAIK most places will take reports over the phone. Just don't ask them to come by in person when you do. Improbable Lobster fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Aug 12, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 05:46
|
|
|
edit:Improbable Lobster posted:You can file em online where I live. I meant in the sense of calling them to physically come over in person though. AFAIK most places will take reports over the phone. Just don't ask them to come by in person when you do. Yeah there was some miscommunication here. Dexo posted about entirely avoiding the criminal justice framework whenever possible because of the potential for the rotten system hurting people. I think their position is a fair one, by the way. I'm saying that (once again due to that rotten system in the US) the victims of crime can be forced to interface with it, and can be at an active disadvantage in getting access to remedy, healthcare, or even protection from their aggressor without a police report being on file. The conversation about how you file a police report doesn't change if the police might abuse their power to harass someone, though it hopefully could help avoid police escalation. As an aside, it's actually kind of funny how much stuff varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. When I had my car stolen in the early 2000's I was able to get a police report taken over the phone. When I was the victim of another property crime in 2019 my only choices were a cop came out or I went to the station. I couldn't make a statement over the phone or do anything online, this was in LA county too, not some rural PD. Coolness Averted fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Aug 12, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 05:52
|
|
|
Coolness Averted posted:I think there's been a miscommunication here. Dexo posted about entirely avoiding the criminal justice framework whenever possible because of the potential for the rotten system hurting people. I think their position is a fair one, by the way. I'm just making jokes about how the police are poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 05:54
|
|
|
Coolness Averted posted:Otherwise I'm still just puzzled about what "file a police report but without the police being involved" is supposed to mean. quote:others of us seem to be using it to mean calling the police phone number and trying to get a squad car out to the crime scene. Also don't put words in my mouth.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 05:57
|
|
|
Midjack posted:Getting hosed up and loving is so heavily integrated into con culture that it will be impossible to remove unless you completely evacuate the community in question and repopulate it with an entirely different bunch. Doesn't matter what the topic is: tabletop games, comic books, information security, loving analytical chemistry. Nerds are going to get blackout drunk and sexually assault people at these things forever, and you basically have to be on alert the whole time. More critically, you have to be fearless in defending yourself, up to the risk of getting yourself excommunicated when you (for example) kick somebody's rear end when they wouldn't stop grabbing yours and your dick after you'd asked them to stop nicely five or six times. And as distasteful as I found it as a straight white guy it's a million times worse for women and minorities because the whole room turns against them the instant they raise a hand against their attackers. I dunno, I think most people find it pretty easy not to sexually assault people at work events. Those who struggle with it need to be driven the gently caress out, because that poo poo is intolerable.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 12:45
|
|
|
yeah nothing about that is impossible to change, especially with support from organizers
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 12:52
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:Dot said in her statement that she reported it to GenCon through official channels before going public. The way she wrote it reads more like she was giving them a heads up before she shared it, rather than she wanted it handled and they did nothing, but that could just be either poor wording from her or misinterpretation on my part. The biggest problem with curbing this poo poo at Cons is that the majority of the people you're supposed to report this stuff to are temp workers who have no training and either don't know how or don't want to deal with situations this delicate. Truther Vandross fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Aug 12, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 15:21
|
|
|
sportsgenius86 posted:The way she wrote it reads more like she was giving them a heads up before she shared it, rather than she wanted it handled and they did nothing, but that could just be either poor wording from her or misinterpretation on my part. I got the impression she forewarned GenCon that she was going to make a public statement, then did so. I don't know if she accepts their response or not, but it seemed like her intent was always to tell what happened. On the police response point, I was mostly surprised that I haven't seen anything about the police being contacted, which may be a difference in attitude between the US/ UK. Confidence in the police is very low here in the UK, but you would still expect stuff like this to be reported even if no charges are actually brought. Which is depressingly very common in sexual assault cases.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 15:38
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:I dunno, I think most people find it pretty easy not to sexually assault people at work events. Those who struggle with it need to be driven the gently caress out, because that poo poo is intolerable. Tuxedo Catfish posted:yeah nothing about that is impossible to change, especially with support from organizers You'd think that, and yet it's been happening for well over sixty years. If you're in a position to make things different at an event then have at it. I would love to hear that you made sure an attacker got what was coming to them, whether that was some wall to wall counseling, a public burn notice that doesn't get retracted when the attacker's sycophants start screeching about, or a ride through the legal system.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 16:06
|
|
|
Midjack posted:Getting hosed up and loving is so heavily integrated into con culture that it will be impossible to remove unless you completely evacuate the community in question and repopulate it with an entirely different bunch. Doesn't matter what the topic is: tabletop games, comic books, information security, loving analytical chemistry. Nerds are going to get blackout drunk and sexually assault people at these things forever, and you basically have to be on alert the whole time. More critically, you have to be fearless in defending yourself, up to the risk of getting yourself excommunicated when you (for example) kick somebody's rear end when they wouldn't stop grabbing yours and your dick after you'd asked them to stop nicely five or six times. And as distasteful as I found it as a straight white guy it's a million times worse for women and minorities because the whole room turns against them the instant they raise a hand against their attackers. There's a parallel in a lot of academic societies' annual conferences - the same con culture is there in a lot of them, but I feel like we're watching it die since every year you have a new crop of grad students coming in and increasingly people are refusing to put up with it. There's still a lot of really terrible abuses, but I feel like the trend is towards professionalizing the engagement. I think for a couple of reasons, partially relating to the social culture of gaming and partially relating to the fact that there's not as much turnover in who shows up, gaming/pop culture cons might be slower to change than some other professional societies but I really hope we'll get there in the next couple of years because the expectation that networking requires mass drinking combined with the hotel environments of cons sets up a lot of truly gross dynamics even before you get into the issue of power imbalances within the professional communities.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 16:12
|
|
|
I mean, you're certainly correct that it's impossible to fix these issues in an old boys' club that runs on Geek Social Fallacies. But it doesn't have to be that way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 16:15
|
|
|
Coolness Averted posted:edit: "I need a police report because I need that report for XYZ system that requires it" falls under "no option available other than calling the police."
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 16:20
|
|
|
Midjack posted:Getting hosed up and loving is so heavily integrated into con culture that it will be impossible to remove unless you completely evacuate the community in question and repopulate it with an entirely different bunch. Doesn't matter what the topic is: tabletop games, comic books, information security, loving analytical chemistry. Nerds are going to get blackout drunk and sexually assault people at these things forever, and you basically have to be on alert the whole time. More critically, you have to be fearless in defending yourself, up to the risk of getting yourself excommunicated when you (for example) kick somebody's rear end when they wouldn't stop grabbing yours and your dick after you'd asked them to stop nicely five or six times. And as distasteful as I found it as a straight white guy it's a million times worse for women and minorities because the whole room turns against them the instant they raise a hand against their attackers. I don't know if it's possible to separate the attitude of this being a fun multi-day outing for regular convention-goers who are going to get together and drink after a day hitting the floor for merch, and maybe connect or reconnect with distant buddies who may or may not work in the con's industry. If you're there in some formal capacity repping a company or if a company is having some official or even semi-official get-together in the evening with drinks though, then I think it's reasonable for those to be held to a higher standard of decency. That's not fun, but there are plenty of ways to unwind after a hard day dealing with the public that don't involve getting blackout drunk and sexually assaulting your coworkers.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 16:35
|
|
|
Ugleb posted:On the police response point, I was mostly surprised that I haven't seen anything about the police being contacted, which may be a difference in attitude between the US/ UK. I think only specific police officers are armed with tasers in the UK, and they are mostly sent to deal with a smaller range of specific issues, so we do get instances of cops killing/causing the death of someone going through a mental health crisis but not other cases where American police have pumped someone full of lead, like traffic stops or shooting someone's dog while doing something completely unrelated, etc. Although, presumably, someone's going to correct me with newspaper reports of British police killing people and dogs in those circumstances as well. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 17:11
|
|
|
LashLightning posted:I think only specific police officers are armed with tasers in the UK, and they are mostly sent to deal with a smaller range of specific issues, so we do get instances of cops killing/causing the death of someone going through a mental health crisis but not other cases where American police have pumped someone full of lead, like traffic stops or shooting someone's dog while doing something completely unrelated, etc. Yes, generally our police are not armed so there is less chance of being straight up killed for little to no reason. Last year there was however a high profile case of an off duty officer using his credentials to randomly stop, arrest, kidnap, rape and murder a woman he saw walking home alone in central London. So you don't always need a gun.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 17:31
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:I mean, you're certainly correct that it's impossible to fix these issues in an old boys' club that runs on Geek Social Fallacies. But it doesn't have to be that way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 19:30
|
|
|
It's social anxiety.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 19:39
|
|
|
Notahippie posted:There's a parallel in a lot of academic societies' annual conferences - the same con culture is there in a lot of them, but I feel like we're watching it die since every year you have a new crop of grad students coming in and increasingly people are refusing to put up with it. There's still a lot of really terrible abuses, but I feel like the trend is towards professionalizing the engagement. I think for a couple of reasons, partially relating to the social culture of gaming and partially relating to the fact that there's not as much turnover in who shows up, gaming/pop culture cons might be slower to change than some other professional societies but I really hope we'll get there in the next couple of years because the expectation that networking requires mass drinking combined with the hotel environments of cons sets up a lot of truly gross dynamics even before you get into the issue of power imbalances within the professional communities. Yeah. My experience has been that both graduate students and an increasing number of people in the tabletop industry are tired of after hours socializing/networking being drenched in alcohol. It will not change right away but I don't think everyone has the attitude of "this is part of the experience, even if I hate it and it's unsafe."
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 19:48
|
|
|
Couple friends of mine had been going to multiple cons a year all over the place - their thing was cosplay - and always targeting the afterparties as a big part of the fun. I think for them, seeing their regular friends and attending the room parties with them was a big part of the draw. That changed when someone roofied her. Fortunately she figured out she wasn't feeling right and got her husband over and they escaped before an assault took place. They contacted the police, who did nothing but take a statement - they did not even contact the person who drugged her, or search him for roofies, or anything. Basically they assumed she was drunk and discounted the rest of her claim completely. The fact she styles her hair in a mohawk and generally has an alt/punk look may have further prejudiced the officer. They still go to cons now, but they're super selective about who they drink with and have basically written off open parties, bars, etc. I think the above incident is not a totally isolated one, and it also illustrates that some people attend these cons with the specific intention of getting laid, no matter what. The alcohol-drenched atmosphere just gives cover for premeditated sexual assault. Of course most of the coupling at cons is consensual, and not actually a "problem", but whenever you get a few hundred drunk people together in a situation where casual sex is a traditional expectation of many of the participants, you have to set up extra precautions for everyone. To put it another way, IMO a well-run con concerned about safety would ban in-room open parties, ensure that there are sober chaperones at every official party with alcohol (e.g. in the hotel bar or whatever), make sure there's a safe place anyone who needs it can retreat to to get away from a person who is pressing unwanted contact, and actively look for inappropriate behavior the way a bouncer at a bar does, rather than just passively wait for it to be reported later. Someone grabbing people's dicks at the party should be snagged and booted the gently caress out at the first sign of a victim saying "hey I said don't touch me!" Of course that would require money, organization, training, and a willingness to enforce rules that would be very unpopular with a significant fraction of attendees.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 20:15
|
|
|
MadScientistWorking posted:Also, I'm not sure how admitting to sexually harassing people was going to get ahead of the situation... A bit of a late reply, but Daisy opens up on Monday with this "hey we're all cool, right buddy?" tweet about Dot (rescued from Google Cache):  She knows something is wrong; Dot spends Sunday avoiding her and doesn't come back to the room that night. That moves on to an apology on the 10th for having "messed up, made people uncomfortable, and behaved poorly," and saying she's getting professional help, as it becomes clear that things were not, in fact, all cool. The undersell and deflection feels conspicuous.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 20:34
|
|
|
Ugleb posted:Yes, generally our police are not armed so there is less chance of being straight up killed for little to no reason. I've heard plenty of stories from an old school "friend" about him doing totally cool poo poo like slamming someone up against the wall with a riot shield in their own kitchen because she was suicidal. Of course, she was also his ex. It's cool though, he recognised the address so his mates knew he knew how to calm her down and deescalate the situation. Haha totally badass police stuff, so how's your career going?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 20:35
|
|
|
moths posted:It's social anxiety. Anxiety doesn't cause sexual assault
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 20:35
|
|
|
Improbable Lobster posted:Anxiety doesn't cause sexual assault Anxiety causes drinking, which is the answer to the asked question "Why are all these convention attendees drinking so heavily?"
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 20:38
|
|
|
moths posted:Anxiety causes drinking, which is the answer to the asked question "Why are all these convention attendees drinking so heavily?" We have the (hopefully, relatively small) number of people who are using alcohol as a cover for sexual assault in several forms, whether roofies or "lol I'm drunk time to bite asses" or probably several other methods that I have not considered. These people must be removed with vigor tout suite independent of the level of drinking going on. I'm talking about the kind of second thread, which I think reinforces the first, which is social acceptance and toleration of binge drinking as a cool, awesome, fun, perhaps even somehow necessary thing to do. And I will be explicit that I am not talking about three beers at a long party, I mean stunt drinking. This doesn't even seem to be that fun if you're not an alcoholic already; and it also seems to give cover to the first set of people.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 20:45
|
|
|
Nessus posted:As someone who has never been able to really drink due to both liver issues and a religious rule, it has always mystified me how people will come such distances, spend so much money, position themselves with so much effort, just so they can go back to their hotel rooms and drink themselves into stupors and/or assault frenzies, whether regular or sexual. I have wondered if some of it is also connected to the institution of the expense account (not that people appear to need encouragement to get loving drunk) Drinking can be fun. Being tipsy is fun and can reduce stresses and allow tightly wound people to be more loose and free for a period of time. Like I've gotten tipsy/drunk at bars and clubs, and other social gatherings(none related to work tho). Not something I recommend you regularly do. But like any drug it can be a fun enough experience. I've never jumped into someone's bed naked and attempted to initiate something like that tho(lmao my black rear end would be in jail or get legitimately shot by a cop lol). The worst is probably like some incredibly cringe poo poo I've said to someone I was interested in, but even then it was a brief flirt/shot attempt and then moved on when that poo poo got swatted away. Like was stated before, alcohol only removes a thin layer of social anxieties and hesitation of action. It doesn't instantly turn you into sexual assaulter, or harasser unless you are leaning that direction already, which that person clearly was with how weirdly forceful they were about tinder and other poo poo constantly laying it on someone who clearly wasn't interested.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 20:59
|
|
|
Nessus posted:it has always mystified me how people will come such distances, spend so much money, position themselves with so much effort, just so they can go back to their hotel rooms and drink themselves into stupors and/or assault frenzies, whether regular or sexual. They're not sitting in a room drinking by themselves. They're doing it over dinner, at events, etc. That's why they call booze a social lubricant.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:02
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:They're not sitting in a room drinking by themselves. They're doing it over dinner, at events, etc. That's why they call booze a social lubricant. Like a lot of this is that "drinking with someone" is a synecdoche for "spending time with someone" culturally, which is its own problem with Western society and unlikely to be remedied by convention policies... unless...?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:08
|
|
|
Are there other conventions that mix the professional with the social as much? Like, a lot of drinking happens at industry conventions like OSCON or NAWLA or whatever (and the former is stocked to the brim with socially awkward folk). But deep down everybody understands they're here for work, that loving up here can gently caress up your job. And there are "social" / "fun" conventions, but from what I've gathered there isn't quite the same after party scene at boat shows or landscaping conventions or whatever - people go to the convention and then bail to do whatever they were going to do in the city anyway. And the people who work the conventions aren't interested in palling around with plebes with normal colored lanyards - they're done with work and maybe feel like connecting with other people in the industry but might just close up the booth and go to sleep. I feel like nerd cons (tabletop, video game, comic cons) are in this weird middle space where a lot of people go there just to see cool poo poo and buy poo poo and experience it, much like wedding conventions or auto shows. But there are also lots of people there for whom this is a work destination, where the networking takes place. And the fact that it's both results in a lot of problems, I think. Are there other industries / cons that are destinations both for networking and fandom / hobbyiest interest?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:10
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:Are there other industries / cons that are destinations both for networking and fandom / hobbyiest interest?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:11
|
|
|
https://mobile.twitter.com/KoboldPress/status/1558181370136088579
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:17
|
|
|
Nessus posted:I'm not a drinkologist for obvious reasons but if you're getting blackout drunk does it not kind of spoil the experience? I don't know what the aftermath is like other than the hangover experience, and I don't have the direct experience. Like if you're getting super drunk, not tipsy/lit up, at what point does it actually mess up the experience you're trying to have (spending time with friends, etc.) Why are you asking these high level questions about human behavior like there is any singular answer for anything you are asking? People like to socialize. They like to drink because they have more fun socializing that way. Some people go too far and lose inhibitions or take advantage of those that did. This happens more frequently when there are large numbers of.people together, like say at a hobby or business convention.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:18
|
|
|
On this very special episode of the TG As An Industry Thread: we solve the global social ills of substance abuse and optimal processes to follow after cases of sexual misconduct.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:23
|
|
|
It's definitely also an issue of scale. The worst 10% of drinking at an event with 50,000 attendees is going to be exponentially worse than the worst 10% of dads at an Applebee's.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:23
|
|
|
Nessus posted:I'm not a drinkologist for obvious reasons but if you're getting blackout drunk does it not kind of spoil the experience? A lot of people have unhealthy relationships with alcohol/drugs and their portrayal in media and political demonization often mean that they really don't ever meaningfully examine this in any way. So, they just are flatly unaware that having moderation is even an option. CitizenKeen posted:Are there other conventions that mix the professional with the social as much? I just touched base with my brother on this who has done a lot of travel during his grad program and now that he's working, does a lot of the conference work and also booking for his grant-adjacent work (biochem). His exact response was: Hell yeah, people get hosed up all the time and always have. The only thing that slowed it down a little was COVID, but they are back at it again. My uncle does psychology/neuroscience, and we'll into his 50s was telling us regular stories about the wild parties and binge drinking at the conferences he spoke at. TL;DR: Everyone, everywhere is still getting wrecked when they travel to events, full stop.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:29
|
|
|
moths posted:It's definitely also an issue of scale. The worst 10% of drinking at an event with 50,000 attendees is going to be exponentially worse than the worst 10% of dads at an Applebee's.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:37
|
|
|
Toshimo posted:My uncle does psychology/neuroscience, and we'll into his 50s was telling us regular stories about the wild parties and binge drinking at the conferences he spoke at. I was asking if there are other conventions that are equal parts "industry networking" (you're there to socialize with people in your industry) and "hobby conventions" (you're there to buy stuff and check out vendors you like, and the vendors are just there to sell poo poo to you). As far as I can tell, the nerd industries seem to be a little unique in that aspect.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 21:54
|
|
|
I think you're on to something, at least in that what you call the "nerd conventions" - sci fi/fantasy, gaming, comic book, maybe a couple others - explicitly support an after-hours party atmosphere, seeking convention hotels where it's OK to have party rooms, scheduling late night events like screenings of topical film/shows, meet-and-greets at bars, etc. I've been to a technical writing convention in hawaii and while people absolutely went out afterward and got hammered, they more or less had to make those arrangements with each other on an ad-hoc basis or they were entirely outside the convention hotel, like maybe you'd hear one software vendor was having a party at a particular restaurant and you were welcome to come, but that was totally not "part of the convention". My current employer holds its annual convention in Vegas. I haven't been yet and I hope I'm not asked to go, ever. I don't think several tens of thousands of software people let loose in vegas after long boring days talking about enterprise cloud application platforms are going to be restrained. We have strict corporate rules and training that we all have to take over and over that covers poo poo like how it's unacceptable to take clients to a strip club as entertainment... but I'd bet dollars to donuts it'll happen anyway. But there's no alcohol-provided official events at our convention, whatsoever. I'm sure if you eat a meal at your hotel you can order booze, but that's on your own tab. And I bet if an employee got caught hosting a booze-up in their expensed hotel room they'd be fired.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 22:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 16:17 |
|
|
Leperflesh posted:I think you're on to something, at least in that what you call the "nerd conventions" - sci fi/fantasy, gaming, comic book, maybe a couple others - explicitly support an after-hours party atmosphere, seeking convention hotels where it's OK to have party rooms, scheduling late night events like screenings of topical film/shows, meet-and-greets at bars, etc. I've been to a technical writing convention in hawaii and while people absolutely went out afterward and got hammered, they more or less had to make those arrangements with each other on an ad-hoc basis or they were entirely outside the convention hotel, like maybe you'd hear one software vendor was having a party at a particular restaurant and you were welcome to come, but that was totally not "part of the convention". And more importantly, I don't think there are many people going to those corporate software conferences on their own dime for funsies, just hoping to get invited to an after-party with Scott Hanselman or Joel Spolsky or to pitch their idea to Adam Selipsky in his hotel room (to borrow your work). My job is lumber-adjacent, and lumber brokers absolutely get together every year, and drink, and drink on the company dime, but drinking and networking is the point of the event. They're all there to better their job prospects. People get drunk, and sometimes people do dumb stuff, but everybody there is in the industry, and anything you do at an afterparty is presumed to be a part of your job. You can have fun while you work but everybody knows they're at work. I feel like some of the problem with things like GenCon is that people are there to have fun and also to work and the line between the two gets blurry. (The blurry line doesn't explain/excuse sexual assault.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2022 22:23
|
|