Harassment in gaming

[Springheel]

His remedy? "Leave nothing up to the interpretation of the person making the complaint."

In other words, reduce the value of the voice of people who are harassed.

I didn't read it as "reducing the value of the voice of people who are harrassed". I read it as, "remove the possibility of misunderstanding and subjectivity as much as possible by clearly defining what constitutes "harrassment" at that venue."

I don't see how anyone could possibly object to that.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I don't see how anyone could possibly object to that.

Your definition of "anyone" must be pretty narrow, then.

And let's be clear: Rygar called for the voice of people who report harassment to be zeroed out. Any harassment policy that includes this idea isn't a harassment policy at all.

 

[Rygar]

I didn't read it as "reducing the value of the voice of people who are harrassed". I read it as, "remove the possibility of misunderstanding and subjectivity as much as possible by clearly defining what constitutes "harrassment" at that venue."

I don't see how anyone could possibly object to that.

Pretty much. To be very specific: "Remove the possibility of people using it as a tool to gain competitive advantage, or using it as a weapon to further their political agenda by removing those who belong to other political groups (Which is apparently becoming very common now)".

 

[dd.stevenson]

Which is why you talk to all known parties before action is taken (unless- as noted- security, etc. actually witness the incident).

I don't attend gaming conventions, but nonetheless I have a practical question: do we have a sense of the caliber of security guards these conventions are able/willing to hire?

I ask, because I was a part time security guard during for a couple years during school, and I did a lot of work at (non-gaming) conventions. And let me tell you, the cream of the crop we were not. A bit above minimum wage, backup (we had one former police officer on our staff, and another who'd taken some kind of self-defense class) about ten minutes away unless there was the threat of immediate violence, and all but direct instructions to sweep complaints under the rug, unless they constituted an actual disturbance to the peace. Completely untrained as well, though maybe that goes without saying. I'm sure we were (mostly) decent people, and most of us would probably never have let any assault (sexual or otherwise) happen right under our noses--but our inclination and ability to conduct any kind of investigation was severely limited, to put it kindly.

Obviously (god willing) the larger conventions will have better security than we were--but Umbran's story about a guard being the assailant leads me to suspect that the mid-range conventions are not generally that much better. And fundamentally I'm deeply, deeply skeptical about the notion of an event security guard spending much time (if any) investigating whether or not a sexist joke was told, or whether an imaginary elf was raped.

That's not to say there aren't avenues for enforcement on these issues--especially if the community is united around the idea of stamping this behavior out. Just based on my experience, we probably can't look to convention security guards to lead the charge.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Security personnel quality is HIGHLY variable. So no, they're not necessarily going to be the best people to handle the situation. But that IS the job.

Even with highly-trained off-duty/former cops, the same issue arises, though. They have limited time and investigating an incident perforce means they're not preventing other ones.

 

[MechaPilot]

Your commentaries on the quality of the security personnel are making me feel very relieved that I've never been to a con.

 

[Hussar]

Let's follow this a bit. I feel offended by your post. I report you to the mods. They can't ask me what was offensive or investigate to determine severity. They issue you your one warning. You will be banned from ENW for any other infraction.

This is fair and necessary, right? Be warned, though, I'll likely find your response offensive (can't ask why) and you'll be banned. This is a proper outcome, though, as we're all erring on the side of caution.

That's precisely what happens at En World. You hit the "report a post" button. The Mod's never contact you do they? They look at the post and then issue a warning - be it just big red text, or possible ejection from the thread, or possible ejection for the site. And, you better believe that the more times they have to step in for your (or my) behaviour, the less likely they are to let something slide the next time.

And, note, this is NOT the policy on En World. One warning then banning is not how it works. It would really help if people would stick to facts, rather than hypotheticals.

Now, it helps on En World that we have actual records - they can read the posts. But, I would point you to the Rules of En World that we all agreed to when we signed up on the site. Conventions and public places should also have these kinds of rules, posted publicly, so that everyone knows the score.

Ok, now let's consider what will happen in the real world.

I'm in a Magic the Gathering tournament at the con. I end up in the top 8, there's one person with a deck that can consistently beat mine. So I have a plan I setup earlier. I call a female friend that came to the convention separately and have her go report the guy for making an offensive rape joke. Wait 15 minutes, call a second female friend and have her report him for inappropriately touching her.

By your standards he's out, and I win the tournament.

That's the problem with these policies that permit anyone to declare "Harassment" by allowing them to define what is harassment and then making the mistake of following Anita's "Listen and Believe", it's trivial to exploit them to gain advantage in competitions or to eliminate people who disagree with you (I.e. Honey Badgers incident last year).

"I'm offended" isn't enough. "I feel harassed" isn't enough. The only way to handle this is to clearly define cause for ejection in the convention's documentation and leave nothing up to the interpretation of the person making the complaint, because otherwise people are just going to do what they're doing right now, exploiting it to eject people they don't like or don't want to be at the con.

/snort.

So, because someone might commit a crime (fraud is a crime - and you better believe that in a Magic Tournament where you have significant prize money it would be investigated) we shouldn't do anything?

Who is exploiting the rules to eject people from con's? This is the first time this has even been brought up. Is this actually a problem? Or is this just another way to obfuscate the issue and make it that much harder to actually deal with real problems, just because someone "might" exploit the rules?

 

[Hussar]

Security personnel quality is HIGHLY variable. So no, they're not necessarily going to be the best people to handle the situation. But that IS the job.

Even with highly-trained off-duty/former cops, the same issue arises, though. They have limited time and investigating an incident perforce means they're not preventing other ones.

But, there's the issue right there.

1. FLGS's most certainly won't have security. So, the person who has to deal with any complaints is likely the manager/owner. It's simply not his job to assign blame or determine the truth. It doesn't matter. His job is to find a solution that won't cost him business and makes everyone as happy as they can possibly be in this situation.

2. Most Con's are too small to have actual security. Sure, Gen Con or whatnot, where you have thousands of attendees, fair enough. But a local con with a couple of hundred attendees? Not a chance. Plus it's not a security guard's job to investigate. That's not what he's there for. He's there to provide security. By and large, any complaint of harassment isn't going to be handled by a security guard, it's going to be handled by the Con manager(s). And, again, their job is not to assign blame or determine the truth. Their job is to make the Con go smoothly and make everyone as happy as they can possibly be in this situation.

Expecting them to track down witnesses? Good luck. Not going to happen. Reviewing security tapes? In the middle of a convention? Again, good luck. It's just not going to happen.

So, you put a policy in place that is general enough to allow the manager to have some lee way to determine courses of action (i.e. zero tolerance policies are likely not the answer) but, are also strong enough that action will be taken.

Again, the most likely course of events is that a complaint is made, the manager goes and talks to the person, and informs him or her that a complaint was made and that he or she should cut it out or they will be asked to leave. Does it suck if it's just a misunderstanding? Sure. That blows. Again, most Con's are small enough that if it was just a misunderstanding, the accused can just apologise to the person who felt harassed and that will be the end of it.

By and large, that will be the end of the majority of issues. Just like any other public venue.

Personal anecdote time. I'm on the staff of the local Teacher's Association. We get together every month for training and seminars and afterward we all go out for dinner and a drink. Fifteen, twenty people usually. I received a complaint after one night that someone had said something offensive. My first response was, "Was it me?" ((I can be kinda loud, boisterous and opinionated... the hell you say? )) but, no, it wasn't me. And names weren't actually used. Just that someone said something that was offensive. So, I took this information, had a quiet word with everyone, not pointing any fingers, not accusing anyone of anything, that maybe toning things down and being a bit circumspect in their humour was a good idea. Problem solved and everyone, AFAIK, is happy.

THAT'S how the vast majority of harassment issues are handled. At least, AFAIC, how they should be handled. The point of a harassment policy isn't to punish harassers.

The point of harassment policies is to stop harassment.

If the harassment stops, job finished and everyone goes about their business. These ideas of punishment and whatnot, that's for the police and lawyers. Someone making dead baby jokes at a game table isn't a criminal. There's no need for police to get involved. But, there is need for the community to tell that guy (or girl) to tone it down and watch what they are saying. All this other crap about the need to get the truth is just missing the forest for the trees. The point of these policies is to provide a space where we can all be together without having to deal with other people's crap.

En World is proof that these policies, when enforced, work perfectly well. No one involves the police over Modable statements on En World. There would be no reason to. But, we certainly can report things to the Mods and have a reasonable expectation of action being taken. That's the way things should work in the real world as well.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

But, there's the issue right there.

1. FLGS's most certainly won't have security. So, the person who has to deal with any complaints is likely the manager/owner. It's simply not his job to assign blame or determine the truth. It doesn't matter. His job is to find a solution that won't cost him business and makes everyone as happy as they can possibly be in this situation.

I addressed this either earlier in this thread or in the one that for closed- it is highly unlikely that the person running a game store has the training or time to do an actual investigation. So after hearing from both sides, the pragmatic solution is to eject the accused if the accuser's allegation is believable.

2. Most Con's are too small to have actual security. Sure, Gen Con or whatnot, where you have thousands of attendees, fair enough. But a local con with a couple of hundred attendees? Not a chance. Plus it's not a security guard's job to investigate. That's not what he's there for. He's there to provide security. By and large, any complaint of harassment isn't going to be handled by a security guard, it's going to be handled by the Con manager(s). And, again, their job is not to assign blame or determine the truth. Their job is to make the Con go smoothly and make everyone as happy as they can possibly be in this situation.

We're not talking CSI here. "Investigate" here means no more than actually talking to the parties involved, and considering any obvious evidence- security cams, any phone vids, etc.

Expecting them to track down witnesses? Good luck. Not going to happen. Reviewing security tapes? In the middle of a convention? Again, good luck. It's just not going to happen.

Again, I addressed this. I agree that there is generally not enough time to ascertain beyond a reasonable doubt what happened. Security have to question, assess, and take action they deem appropriate before resuming patrol.

Bare minimum, they need to talk to anyone they believe to be involved, and ideally, take names & contact info. Reviewing of security footage need not be done immediately, since it can be submitted to police in the future.

Personal anecdote time. I'm on the staff of the local Teacher's Association. We get together every month for training and seminars and afterward we all go out for dinner and a drink. Fifteen, twenty people usually. I received a complaint after one night that someone had said something offensive. My first response was, "Was it me?" ((I can be kinda loud, boisterous and opinionated... the hell you say? )) but, no, it wasn't me. And names weren't actually used. Just that someone said something that was offensive. So, I took this information, had a quiet word with everyone, not pointing any fingers, not accusing anyone of anything, that maybe toning things down and being a bit circumspect in their humour was a good idea. Problem solved and everyone, AFAIK, is happy.

That's about as good as you can get with no names involved, no particular persons IDed.

The point of a harassment policy isn't to punish harassers.

The point of harassment policies is to stop harassment.

Yep.

En World is proof that these policies, when enforced, work perfectly well. No one involves the police over Modable statements on En World. There would be no reason to. But, we certainly can report things to the Mods and have a reasonable expectation of action being taken. That's the way things should work in the real world as well.

When you report something to a mod, the mod knows your complaint, and can see the words of the person accused. They then take action, up to and including a permaban.

...which is largely the same as listening to both parties in the Con incident, then deciding quickly what to do about it, and moving on.

 

[sunshadow21]

THAT'S how the vast majority of harassment issues are handled. At least, AFAIC, how they should be handled. The point of a harassment policy isn't to punish harassers.

The point of harassment policies is to stop harassment.

And if that is how they actually get used, they work fantastically, but I would say that it's fairly clear that's not how it ends up playing out in most of the scenarios that people are mentioning in this thread. In most small conventions and game stores, the policy doesn't actually kick in because they are small enough that it doesn't take an in depth investigation to figure out enough of what happened to for someone to either help the person making the complaint deal with the immediate problem and/or talk to the person that was claimed to be the source of the problem with very little fuss or difficulty. Most of the time one of the volunteers or workers (note, it doesn't have to be formal security) saw it or were close enough that they can get wind of it quickly enough to resolve it before it requires much more what you described. Most people who talk to the supposed offender though don't threaten to kick them out of the store/con; they will mention that the person need be mindful of the public place, keep an eye on both the accuser and the accused and leave it at that. That is where the big difference in what you are saying and I am saying comes in. Anything that comes with a formal warning of being kicked out almost certainly come as a result of either an investigation of some kind and/or repeated problems. That warning usually does come from formal security or an actual manager/convention organizer, and you can be certain that it didn't come out of thin air or is based solely on someone making the simple claim of being harassed without providing details. In most cases, I would suspect that staff is the preferred source for more information, as they are going to be the more reliable and consistent source that doesn't create a lot of extra headache, but that doesn't mean that the accuser is immune to having to answer questions related to the complaint if there is genuinely no one else who can answer them and the complaint is severe enough. Claims of sexual harassment especially are likely to create questions that the accuser is going to have to answer as the severity in today's climate is high enough that some kind of investigation is almost certainly going to be required if it's anything more than someone complaining about a random comment. I am by no means saying that the accuser will always have to answer more questions, but especially at medium to larger cons, the probability is quite high that whatever staff member is trying to help is going to require more than a simple statement of someone claiming to be harassed if for no other reason than it's quite possible that tracking down the person who supposedly caused the problem is going to be difficult at best and near impossible at worst, meaning that it isn't actually going to save them time or effort to use that particular approach. At that point, asking the person making the complaint for more details is going to be necessary to figure out if which of the various options they have available to them is truly going to be the best option.

EnWorld isn't that much different in that regard; they will flag a particular post or make a specific comment if they see a big enough problem, but they aren't going to actually threaten anything more serious than that unless it becomes clear that it's a repeat offender that refuses to listen; in this case, the investigation consists of someone reading the posts in questions and making a judgment call based on them. The investigation isn't that hard or long or time consuming, but it is there, but just because it often happens almost automatically and frequently almost instaneously in most instance does not mean that the resolution is being based entirely on a simple complaint of harassment. Other information is being utilized even if the person making the complaint doesn't realize it. In smaller gaming spaces, like a store or a small con, they generally don't have to worry about the distinction. You get to the medium and larger cons, the distinction suddenly matters a lot. A staff member trying to deal with the situation not only has to deal with the complaint, but also usually has to be aware of how having a crap ton of bystanders around is going to impact how they resolve it. They may very need to pull the person with the problem aside if for no other reason than to remove the difficulty of dealing with the bystanders and that alone will push the situation beyond the kind of resolution you seem to think should be the norm. At that point, it is absolutely crucial for the person making the complaint to understand that their ability to simply make a single statement and walk away while letting someone else deal with it is gone.