Idea: how to ensure awareness of Codes of Conduct

[major_clanger]

Loncon 3 seemed to do quite well with its Code of Conduct; it was available on the website and reprinted in the front of the convention pocket guide. As far as I'm aware, there were only a handful of incidents reported to the convention staff that required it to be applied.

However, I've seen discussion about the convention that suggests that some attendees still did not understand what the CoC was meant to set out in terms of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. I've been giving some thought to how we might ensure that everyone at a convention is clearly and unambiguously aware of the CoC, and more importantly, can be proven to be aware of it.

At Loncon 3, registration involved being handed your badge. How about if instead we handed over a sealed envelope containing the badge, printed up as below. (The box with my name in is an indication that there would be a sticker identifying whose badge was inside).



For this to work, you have to plan this from the outset, and ensure that:

- for online memberships, anyone joining has to click on a 'I agree with the Code of Conduct' tick-box in order to join;

- for direct sales, there is a 'sign to agree our Code of Conduct' box on the membership form.

This makes it absolutely clear both when you join the convention and when you pick up your badge that the Code of Conduct applies to you.

I've put in the refund option because I think this strengthens the convention's position: it allows someone a final chance to say 'no, I don't want to be bound by this'. Of course, as it excludes what we lawyers call consequential expenses (e.g. travel and hotel) I doubt that many people will exercise it, but the fact that it's there helps avoid arguments about the validity of the 'open the envelope and you're agreeing' notice.

(For those interested in the legality: this isn't a shrink-wrap licence situation, as the notice on the envelope is just confirming what members have expressly signed up to when they joined. Rather, it's actually adding an exit clause to the membership contract.)

Comments

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I meant what happens when the Daily Mail finds out we have so many problems we need to do something this draconian. That hasn't happened yet ( at a UK worldcon - I know nothing of anime cons etc, tho it seems to me the problems are very different because of what I hear are the very high number of female under 18 attendees) so Loncon experience irrelevant.

i think in general this next step ( not the original code and its publicity) sets the wrong tone for new attendees, in a primarily adult environment, and will make no difference except to make some , non harassing people, feel uncomfortable. As you well know, people do not usually set out deliberately to do anti social acts: they get drunk and/or tired/and or misread signals and behave in unfortunate ways. As with the Twitter controversies, I very much doubt warning people in ever more obvious ways at point of entry will make any difference. General societal education - in school, at home, in the workplace, not one weekend in the year on holiday - over time is what changes these things. Pure notice and choice, as we all know from DP, is a very broken idea :-)

However I am no doubt in the minority in current fandom from what I can see.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fandom person so I don't really have a dog in this particular fight, but as a general point, I think if you start not-doing-things because of what the Daily Mail might say, the terrorists Daily Mail has already won.

(speaking as a pregnant lesbian an' all!)