So, the second iteration of SFContario is underway just down the street.\u00a0 A few people asked if I was attending this year.\u00a0 Then they asked why not.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good question.\u00a0 \u00a0The con is local.\u00a0 A lot of my friends are going.\u00a0 If the inaugural edition is anything to go by, the panels will be lively and the management professional. Plus I haven\u2019t seen Scalzi for a while.\u00a0 So why am I staying away this year?<\/p>\n
Because of something that happened last<\/em> year, actually.\u00a0 SFContario banned someone from attending\u2014 turned them away right at the door, \u00a0without warning.\u00a0 The only reason, as it turned out, was because that person was disliked by another attendee whose patronage the ConComm valued more highly \u2014 and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s an especially good reason.<\/p>\n Neither did the ConComm, in hindsight.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give them that much.\u00a0 They stonewalled relentlessly during the event itself, delayed and obfuscated for a couple of months afterward, but they finally apologized to the offended party (even if that apology was<\/em> originally sent to the wrong person).\u00a0 They patched things up, offered the victim free admission to this year’s festivities.\u00a0 The victim accepted.\u00a0 As far as I can tell, it\u2019s a closed issue to everyone but me \u2014 which is why I\u2019m naming no names here.<\/p>\n The problem \u2014 and again, I seem to be the only one that would describe it so \u2014 was in the nature of the apology.\u00a0 When you fuck up that royally, the right thing to do is fall on your sword; you make your amends in public, you explain why the fuck-up occurred, you promise never to do it again.\u00a0 This was not that kind of apology.\u00a0 It presented no explanations, named no names, reserved the right to pull the same shit in the future.\u00a0 It was a case study in mealy-mouthed legalistic ass-covering, basically boiling down to \u201cWe regret that mistakes were made\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0It was in no way an expression of sincere remorse.<\/p>\n It was good enough for everyone else, though, so what\u2019s my problem?\u00a0 Only this:\u00a0 without that explanation, without that reassurance, there\u2019s no reason to think this couldn\u2019t happen again. \u00a0Simple third-person animosity was enough to get one person banned; I\u2019m pretty sure there are people out there who don\u2019t like me<\/em> all that much either.\u00a0 I could even name a few.\u00a0 I could be next.\u00a0 Anyone could be.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll grant you I don\u2019t think it\u2019s likely<\/em>.\u00a0 While I’m unconvinced that the ConComm truly regret what they did, I firmly believe they regret getting caught<\/em>; they\u2019ll think twice before trying something like that again.\u00a0 But they haven\u2019t put that in writing; they\u2019ve put hardly anything in writing except for lawyer-approved weasel words. \u00a0So I\u2019m keeping my distance for now.<\/p>\n I have to reiterate, though:\u00a0 except for that one egregious lapse, last year\u2019s SFContario was a really good bang for the buck.\u00a0 And I should also say that I know a number of the organizers personally, and I like them.\u00a0 They are good people, and they do good work, and I really kinda regret missing out this year because I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to be another winner.\u00a0 But I remain uncomfortable with the way this was handled. I like them, but I\u2019m not sure I trust<\/em> them any more.<\/p>\n I suppose it\u2019s just as well.\u00a0 I have a lot of work to catch up on this weekend anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, the second iteration of SFContario is underway just down the street.\u00a0 A few people asked if I was attending this year.\u00a0 Then they asked why not. It\u2019s a good question.\u00a0 \u00a0The con is local.\u00a0 A lot of my friends are going.\u00a0 If the inaugural edition is anything to go by, the panels will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-road","category-public-interface"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2511"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2520,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511\/revisions\/2520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}