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<blockquote data-quote="Lord Twig" data-source="post: 6888545" data-attributes="member: 31754">I very much like the London police policy of believing reports of harassment and taking them seriously, but you will notice that that alone is not enough to take action against the accused person. It allows them to focus their attention on problem areas or check video recordings (if they have them) and so forth. But they don't just arrest the person and throw them in jail without evidence.Likewise I think in any gaming gathering any reports should be believed and taken seriously, but you can't (or shouldn't) inflict a punishment on the accused just on the word of one person alone. And yes, it is very hard to prove a mumbled sexist statement or prove a grope that no one else saw, but that is true of many crimes. I don't like anyone getting away with a crime, but this is a case where the cure would be worse than the disease.However I do think it is possible to get evidence in many cases. The apparently common &quot;your character is being raped&quot; scenario should have at least a half dozen witnesses. If truly none of them would come forward to corroborate the harassed person then there are several options depending on the environment.If it is a private game you don't want to be with them anyway. They are a bunch of jerks, and it's not against the law to be jerks in private.If it is a store then you have to talk to the owner/management. If the management backs up the jerks then you will need to take your business elsewhere. Other than that a bad Yelp review is about all you can do. Ideally you should be able to report them to the police. But unless they have a policy like London...Honestly a convention should be the easiest place to get evidence. There are so many people it would be very hard to harass someone for very long without someone noticing the behavior.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lord Twig, post: 6888545, member: 31754"] I very much like the London police policy of believing reports of harassment and taking them seriously, but you will notice that that alone is not enough to take action against the accused person. It allows them to focus their attention on problem areas or check video recordings (if they have them) and so forth. But they don't just arrest the person and throw them in jail without evidence. Likewise I think in any gaming gathering any reports should be believed and taken seriously, but you can't (or shouldn't) inflict a punishment on the accused just on the word of one person alone. And yes, it is very hard to prove a mumbled sexist statement or prove a grope that no one else saw, but that is true of many crimes. I don't like anyone getting away with a crime, but this is a case where the cure would be worse than the disease. However I do think it is possible to get evidence in many cases. The apparently common "your character is being raped" scenario should have at least a half dozen witnesses. If truly none of them would come forward to corroborate the harassed person then there are several options depending on the environment. If it is a private game you don't want to be with them anyway. They are a bunch of jerks, and it's not against the law to be jerks in private. If it is a store then you have to talk to the owner/management. If the management backs up the jerks then you will need to take your business elsewhere. Other than that a bad Yelp review is about all you can do. Ideally you should be able to report them to the police. But unless they have a policy like London... Honestly a convention should be the easiest place to get evidence. There are so many people it would be very hard to harass someone for very long without someone noticing the behavior. [/QUOTE]

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