It’s too stupid. It turns out TAM had an anti-harassment policy after all (good for them), except that it was secret and implemented by hidden cameras and disguised security goons who would turn their entire focus on victims of harassment, rather than harassers.
I don’t understand at all.
All I can guess at is that this policy was kept secret so it wouldn’t discourage any creepy guys from attending. Their money is just as good as any woman’s, after all! TAM wants to be open to everyone, including gropers and PUAs and drunk fumblers, and doesn’t want to send any messages that might inhibit them. And I think it’s perfectly fair that there be a skeptics’ convention that caters specifically to frustrated, privileged men — I just didn’t think that TAM, with its history of inclusivity, was going to elect to be that conference.
Yes, good for them for having a policy. Cheers all around.
So why didn’t they tell anyone about it? Why all the secret-squirrel stuff?
Why does Bob on Ophelia’s blog say that all the staff were trained in harassment procedures and wear ‘ask me’ badges, but another attendee state blankly that they had no idea they were supposed to take harassment complaints to these people?
The lack of transparency is a failure, it seems to me. B minus, see me after class.
I can’t wait for someone to come here and say, completely seriously, that we shouldn’t badmouth a policy we haven’t even read.
I also have to note that anything other than full-throated approval for the TAM policy risks us being pillioried as being whiners whom JREF are unable to please, whatever they do.
I’d like to think that we can be generous on the one hand, by saying that it is good that they put a policy in place, while being able to question the execution, which appears somewhat ham-handed. The intent was, I believe, good and genuine. The implementation leaves something to be desired.
No, but the shirt did contribute to the hostile atmosphere that Surly Amy, as one of the Skepchicks, encountered.
I’ve written about this on Ophelia’s blog and no, I don’t think it is harassment.
I view it as mean-spirited. It’s unnecessary, jerk-like behaviour and therefore open to criticism. But no, not harassment.
B-? No way. This is D work. They took a stab at it in a half-assed way, but it’s so poorly executed that it doesn’t deserve a passing evaluation.
DJ Grothe has this weird notion that even mentioning sexual harassment is going to hurt his convention, and it’s distorting all of his decision making.
What good is a policy that nobody knows exists? How do you know what behavior’s acceptable and what’s not? How do you know what to do when someone crosses the line? I really wish DJ (or the new communications director) would speak to this and give some idea of what they were (or weren’t) thinking.
Doubtful.
Harassment policies have been widely discussed, other conferences have already implemented policies of various quality and controversy. Considering all that, they shouldn’t have failed at theirs so hard. They are either completely incompetent or someone’s good intent was severely influences by their stubbornness and spite.
I don’t suppose you could cite where anyone said anything even remotely like that?
Why is everyone on the other side of the isle completely insane?
Because that worked SO well when criticizing the implementation of TAM’s 2011 policy.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/ashleymiller/2012/05/30/harassment-at-tam9/
That’s probably unfair of me. It’s probably mostly the trolls that say incredibly stupid stuff.
This is surreal. Usually I’m all for ‘hearing the other side’, but I don’t think that I care to hear the explanation for how DJ arrived at the conclusion that this is the best way to handle things. Is there any hope that next year’s TAM will just have a regular code of conduct like CfI?
A secret anti-harassment policy? Why? So that someone would step over the unknown line and be hammered as a way of showing how strong the policy is? If an anti-harassment poicy is not public and in your face it will not do what it is supposed to do. It would, however, provide great opportunities for selective ‘gotcha’s’.
Then again, maybe this is exactly what was intended? An unpublicized policy so that a person refusing to take no for an answer can be hammered to show that the policy is there and works, but no advance notice of the policy to make sure ASPUAs (Atheist/Skeptic PUAs) will still pay their money and go. If that was the goal, they probably succeeded. If the goal was making the convention safer for all? Dismal failure.
I’ve been saying that for the last coupla weeks.
Given that sexist, libertarian arseholes may well be richer than most women, it even makes sense to cater to that demographic.
I don’t wish to defend something as ill-judged as this. But we have to ask the question: what specifically have TAM failed at?
For me the answer is that they failed to publicise their policy, failed to provide guidance on procedures or how complaints could be made. Instead instituting what in practice, if not in intent, was a secret surveillance policy.
The motives for maintaining secrecy are up for debate. I am certainly ready to believe that stubbornness and an unwillingness to admit there is a problem may have motivated it. But I feel that accusations of spite or malice require a slightly higher standard of proof.
However, that’s just my view, for what little it’s worth.
I’m not too familiar with transparency rules for USAian NGOs. Is there a public list of sponsors of JREF anywhere?
And I would call that a pretty big fail. As far as my understanding of this kind of policies goes, the whole efficiency depends on the policy being known.
Then someone who was in charge is really really stupid. Because we are not talking about some super special policy-making secrets. We are talking about some pretty obvious things.
leebrimmicombe-wood
If the goal is to make TAM more welcoming to women, training a bunch of security guard surveillance on them, instead of addressing the harassers, isn’t the correct approach.
Surly Amy already described how uncomfortable it made her feel, and frankly, it would make me uncomfortable as a male.
If the goal is to make TAM more welcoming, it has failed in this approach.
hey! it’s Chickenshit Tigzy! Want to respond to the posts from yesterday that caused you to tuck tail and run away?
or are you just going to tuck tail and run away again?
A secret policy. Overseen by shadowy disguised people and hidden all-seeing eyes. THey won’t show you the policy, nor give a clear understanding of what it is. Gee, sounds like another viciously defended stupid idea we know.
An invisible, unknowable policy is indistinguishable from no policy. And it’s about as effective as no policy, too. What were they thinking?
Oh, wait.
Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn’t you tell the world, EH?
Lol exactly. PZ said it – they didn’t want to drive away creepy ass PUA/MRAs. I say, if that’s the audience TAM wants, that’s the audience it deserves.
PZ #7:
No. This doesn’t even deserve a zero, much less a D. It’s a case study in doing it wrong.
And, frankly, the way that events played out is highly suspicious. I have a hard time believing that the chilly climate was unintentional, especially not with the way the
ThoughtHarassment Police swooped in seemingly of their own accord.And this is not even the case of “I wrote a policy, but I left it in the sock drawer and forgot to show it to anyone”. It goes from a harassment policy that has zero effect (the one left in the sock drawer) to one that can actually have negative effect – that’s the one they have, of which some select people know. For someone afraid of people misusing a policy, they made it open for misuse by those who are implementing it.
Beatrice, Jasper. Yes, it’s a fail. Yes, this policy seems to have derived from some Bizarro World logic. It’s just I’m having difficulty assigning motives of spite or malice towards this rather clumsiness, thoughtlessness or incompetence.
Though I could well be proven wrong…
Sili #15:
And this is TAM we’re talking about, where the popularity can be mainly attributed to Penn Jillette.
The libertarians can have TAM. It’ll make discussing social justice easier for those of us who don’t want to deal with hyper-privileged assholes.
My reading of that was that the ‘TAMbassadors’ were the ones interpreting Amy’s being upset as being a victim of harassment.
Blondin – don’t give Tigzy the Chickenshit Troll that much credit. He alrady had his ass handed to him yesterday about this. And his response was to run away. He’ll do the same thing here. It’s a slimepit bigot, nothing more.
TAM is guilty of tantrum-based decision making. Their entire behavior in this matter has been fueled by anger that anyone would dare not celebrate TAM and defer to JREF without question. Instead of just doing the reasonable thing that all the other conferences did and moving on, JREF decided to fight tooth-and-nail, paint targets on the backs of speakers and guests, send their online goon squads to troll every thread on the subject, and generally stomp their feet and scream at the top of their lungs.
Their “policy” reflects their institutional anger and immaturity. They’re a broken organization, and if they can’t change they’ll be done in a few years. They’ll still operate on some level, but anyone think that their expensive desert vacation in Harassment-ville is going to attract new people when there are newer, more accessible, and clearly more welcoming groups putting together conferences every year? They can blame everyone else, but the true fault lies in the mirror.
Double Secret Anti-Harassment Policy!
Animal House writ large in real life. Hurrah! Can we expect a toga party and a chorus of Louie Louie?
Dean WormerDJ Grothe: Minion, what is the worst sub group in this movement?Minion: Well that would be hard to say, sir. They’re each outstanding in their own way.
DJ: Cut the horseshit, son. I’ve got their disciplinary files right here. Who dropped a whole truckload of complaints onto the internet over rape threats? Who said that reasonable, public anti-harrassment policies were a good idea? Every conference, there’s people not putting up with the upskirt photographers. Every TAM, some women flee from perfectly innocent gropers.
Minion: You’re talking about The Women, sir.
DJ: Of course I’m talking about The Women, you TWERP! This year is going to be different. This year we are going to grab the cow by the OVARIES and silence those bitches so we can pretend there is no problem.
Minion: What do you intend to do sir? The Women have already got us to say we are not fans of sexual harassment and get women speakers.
DJ: They have?
Minion: Yes, sir.
DJ: Oh. Then as of this moment, we will instigate a Double Secret Anti-Harassment Policy!
Minion: Double Secret Anti-Harassment Policy, Sir?
DJ: There is a little-known codicil in the Evil Atheist and Skeptic Constitution which gives the head of the JREF unlimited power to preserve order in time of a Deep Rifts™ emergency. Find me a way to silence The Women. You live next door. Put Russell Blackford on it. He’s a sneaky little shit, just like you, right? [Minion nods] The time has come for someone to put their foot down. And that foot is me. After all if we instigate a Double Secret Anti-Harassment Policy who can say we haven’t done everything in our power? The Women have to shut up then, after all anyone who doesn’t is just being unreasonable.
Louis Louis
I know, I know, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
But this has been discussed for so long. There’s stupidity and then there’s improbable stupidity.
Could it be that the harassment policy was not publicized with the hope that there would be no harassment reports and then TAM could claim that harassment policies are not needed? Or am I, once again, getting way too cynical?
Yeah, sometimes people reach a level of stupidity that can only be the result of real effort to be stupid.
OK I guess I’ll be a voice of disagreement on the matter of undercover security: there are good reasons why one would elect to employ them in this case. The obvious one being that people might change their behavior depending on whether they believe an authority figure is around. Naturally you’ll still want clearly marked staff to be nearby. By most accounts this is what they did.
Retail stores do this all the time with a mix of both uniformed and non-uniformed security.
Again, I am only addressing the specific undercover security aspect and I am going based on off published accounts since I was not there. I don’t want to discuss or opine on the other aspects.
Joe: Hey now, to be fair to JREF (…I know, right?) THEY didn’t fight tooth and nail. Except for DJ opening his big yap, JREF has been absolutely silent on the whole issue. Silence on this is still reprehensible, but if there’s any fighting going on, it’s all been internal with them.
(Also, the slimers and haters that trash comment threads aren’t THEIR goon squad – just the usual wave of privileged assholes who go after anything supportive of women.
(…TAM’s goon squad was within their own convention. /snark)
I dunno about that specifically, but having a secret policy and secret enforcement (if any) sure puts the lie to any concerns about gathering accurate data on any incidents that did occur.
A conference is not a retail store.
Well, was the point of a harassment policy to tell slimeball predators to stay away or, if the do come, behave like humans? In that case, the lack of a public harassment policy failed. Big time. And there was no way it could succeed. If the purpose of the policy was to make TAM a giant sting operation to, hopefully, catch some of the slimeball predators, then the policy, and your reading of it, makes sense. The point of a public harassment policy is to make certain people change their behaviour! And it does. So why keep the policy under wraps unless you want to encourage that behaviour for whatever reason?
@Gnumann:
The IRS requires 501c3 orgs (nonprofits) to file a form called a 990 – it’s the equivalent of a tax return – and they’re publicly available. There’s a number of “charity review” websites that collect and publish them – here’s JREF’s 2011 990. Apparently they don’t have to list out individual donors the way that some other types of orgs do (like PACs and things). I’m no tax law expert!
A nonprofit will, though, typically list its biggest sponsors/financial supporters on its website/other marketing material but I couldn’t find it on randi.org, which really surprises me. Odd.
Five large bundles of thanks to you sisu!
Implemented by hidden cameras seems to be stretching it. Unless there’s evidence that TAM put in special cameras for this specific purpose. I’d imagine they had access to the venues pre-existing CCTV systems.
@Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus
As I said, I don’t want to discuss the other aspects of the post. That includes whether it was a good or bad thing that the policy appears to have not been public.
Tom Foss over at Jason’s made a point that bears repeating:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2012/07/18/tams-harassment-policy-was-secret-why/#comment-71904
I’d just like to point out that the problem with this implementation is exactly what the anti-harassment resistance has claimed to be worried about.
Zero visibility. Anyone could be ejected from the conference without knowing why – and if they were told why as they were being kicked out, that would have been too late for them to avoid the problematic behavior in the first place. An invisible policy doesn’t act as a deterrent, and can hardly be effectively utilized for anyone who feels that they’re experiencing harassment. It depends on the event organizers to step up their observation of their attendees. It creates more work than necessary. The lack of policy visibility raises concerns about recording procedures.
In short – not a good thing for the conference organizers or their attendees.
Pteryxx, I’m being fair to JREF… exactly as fair as their behavior has earned them.
I’m cross-posting a modified version of my comment from Ophelia’s here, since I feel it’s kind of relevant to JREF’s motives. (DJ Grothe’s, not so much; I do see him as a caked asshole over all this, someone said at B&W that hhe practically fawned over Harriet Hall while she was wearing the shirt.)
While I do feel for Surly Amy and I think she was completely justified in her response, I’m not sure what TAM staff could have done about this T-shirt. Even asking Harriet Hall not to wear it because of corporate sponsor issues could have been seen to violate freethinking principles in the sense that freethought is not supposed to be bound by appeals to authority or higher influence or money.
This makes it even more poor form on Harriet Hall, though. She placed both Surly Amy AND TAM staff (for three straight days, even) in an awkward position; Surly Amy in dealing with what reasonably looked like an attack from someone she wanted to count as a friend, and TAM staff in having to censor another guest in squicky and slippery-slope terms in order to enforce the situation.
This isn’t Surly Amy’s fault, or even (to my mind at least) TAM staffs’ in any sense of malice. Harriet Hall made the situation bad for everyone, even the conference I thought she wanted to support.
The problem with a secret harassment policy is that two fold.
For one, what are the expectations? What qualifies as harassment, how do you report it? And for those who were so all fired up about it restricting their fun, how do they know if their behavior is crossing the line?
Second, it puts the burden where it doesn’t belong; on the staff. Yes, they should be trained to recognize dangerous situations but what about micro-aggressions and minor escalations they probably aren’t privy to?
And then there’s the video taping. I really want to know the reasoning behind this. I want to see the policy with the explanation, because it comes off as intimidating. Maybe that wasn’t what they were going for, but then what were they thinking? Were they covering their own asses by recording all her intera
taking their q
@Gnumann you’re quite welcome! I sit on the board of a quite small nonprofit so even though it’s not my area of expertise, I do know a bit about nonprofit reporting requirements. :)
Wow. Commenting from my phone stinks. That last line should read something ti the effect of “Were they filming the interactions in an attempt ti cover their own asses? Did they have her permission to do so? It’s like their taking their cues from the Scientology PR handbook.”
Imagine the following conversation between two totally fictional people, let’s call them “DJ” and “Harriet”:
DJ: Hi Harriet. That’s an uhmm interesting t-shirt…
Harriet: Thank you, I thought it might spawn some debate
DJ: And my, it’s got an even more interesting back… Now, with all the shit that I stirred up earlier, don’t you think it might lead to some misunderstandings for some people. Like Amy who’s sitting in the corner over there obviously fighting tears. And don’t forget you’ll be up on that podium in a while, not all people able to see that t-shirt are able to engage you to get a clarification
Harriet: Oh my, I didn’t think of it that way. Let me change into something that’s a bit more becoming and doesn’t make me look like a hateful idiot.
Now, I’m not saying this would have happened, but there are other recourses than use of TAMs formal authority as an organiser.
Lee:
That’s nice. How about you stop scolding those of us who think otherwise, both here and on other blogs?
Agreed, it a very slippery slope. I don’t see how the issue that Amy wanted to count Harriet as a friend has much relevance, though it probably hurt more. However, there is no scale for hurt-feelings and there really shouldn’t be.
That the harassment policy was used in response to a persons complaint over hurt feelings is more worrying than anything. Even if it was secret, i’d rather that it was used to protect people in danger of physical sexual harassment. Isn’t that why these policies were drawn up? Isn’t it drawing resources away from that task?
The rule of scepticatheistreason strikes again I see…
No, or at least not entirely. Any other stupid questions you should already know the answer to you want answering ?
By “physical sexual harassment,” do you mean sexual assault? Because no.
My apologies if I’ve caused any offence.
Gnumann, they could have done that although I don’t know if they could enforced the request, hence hedging it with ‘binding action’ and so forth. That they didn’t do at least some kind of damage control, however, is why I took off the last line of my original post that I don’t blame anyone other than Harriet Hall, I just think she has most of the onus in this, though admittedly not all. Something else they could do at this point is not invite her back.
‘reason’abel…how is it not relevant? O_o I was discussing Harriet Hall’s behavior, and going out of her way to hurt someone who was otherwise kindly disposed to her is pertinent as a malicious action and therefore bad behavior. Relevant.
No, “physical sexual harassment”, a.k.a. sexual assault and/or rape, should be dealt with by the police. The point of these policies is to prevent bullshit harassment from happening by making it clearly unwelcome. That can’t happen if the policy isn’t known in advance, and it especially can’t happen if the response to every instance of harassment is a fucking SWAT team and camera crew.
This secret police nonsense is a way of making the victim of harassment way more uncomfortable, making the response victim-oriented rather than aggressor-oriented. This is exactly analogous to those parts of rape culture where the only person’s life that gets scrutinized to any degree is the victim of rape, leading to underreporting. Sure, harassment isn’t rape, but treating them the same — and treating both wrong — is what we’re fighting against, not for.
If DJ Grothe wanted to make sure nobody ever reports harassment, implementing a secret police is the way to do it.
I would say thats the most important thing to stop if its happening, or seems likely to happen. Wouldn’t you?
Well, having a secret policy certainly addresses all the concerns of those who objected to the proposed written policy for being too vague, “no one will know for sure whether they’ve crossed the line.”
Right?
reasonabel seems to be missing the point quite deliberately. No one can be that ignorant.
Just quit being so deliberately stupid.
If you think I am missing the point then explaining that point might be more productive than calling names.
I am not an US lawyer, but usually someone who has the right to dispose of a private property has the right to ask someone to leave said property. It’s the legal basis of bouncers everywhere. Throwing out one of your speakers would have been embarrassing as hell though. Their problem is more one of the political opertune than legal base if the basic principles from my neck of the woods are transferable.
@reasonabel
There are levels of harassment, and there are levels of response. Verbal harassment (making lewd comments, making insults, aggressive comments, etc.) is an example of something that should still be covered in an anti-harassment policy. There are things that fall into the gap between acceptable, polite behavior and behavior that warrants calling the police. Anti-harassment policies address the stuff that falls in that gap.
Why ? You already know how you are missing the point. You are not asking honest questions. You have read the anti-harassment policies that have been put in place, so you know very well what they cover. I have no duty to treat someone lacking in integrity and honesty with civility, and you have no right to expect or demand of me. The only way to deal with dishonest shits like you is to tell you to fuck off.
That would be the course if it looked like you missed the point accidentally. Not when it looks like you’re missing it deliberately.
@59 Jason:
You really can’t envision a situation where it might be easier to catch someone in the act of doing something untoward in the absence of an obvious staffer/authority figure?
It’s OK to debate whether the positives of the undercover aspect are outweighed by the negatives, but let’s not go on as if there aren’t any.
Of course. I agree with that, the most important thing to monitor would be situations where it could reasonably be assumed that physical sexual harassment is likely to take place based on the actions of a person.
The point I was making was that calling harassment teams to deal with a situation so seemingly minor as a t-shirt somebody doesn’t like diverts them from that job.
You may agree with it, but you were ignorant of it, remember ?
Yeap, you really did not know there were issues other that physical sexual harassment.
Since this is a harassment policy, it should deal with harassment, which is not limited to the physical. Sexual assault is part of what should be covered by any policy, but to think that sexual assault is the only thing that should be covered by a harassment policy is just fucking stupid.
@simonsays
A balanced approach would be much more effective. A visible policy states the acceptable boundaries of behavior, identifies the people to go to for help, and lets both potential harassers and potential harassment-targets that the conference takes it very seriously. Could this approach also benefit from some undercover people keeping their eyes open for any such incidents? Absolutely. But it’s not an effective approach on its own.
Does this kind of bullshit notpology get you a lot of mileage elsewhere? It doesn’t fly here. Your “now now” fingerwagging at people who are affected by this bullshit is patronizing and obnoxious.
Then you’ve got the issue of what constitutes harassment. If wearing a t-shirt with a message somebody doesn’t like constitutes harassment. Does disagreeing constitute harassment? Am I harassing you right now?
@reasonabel
Then you’d have to ask the conference organizers. According to the information that we have, the harassment team was sent to Surly Amy – not the other way around. So if there’s anything to criticize about the response, then the criticism should be directed at the conference organizers. Also, just because the T-shirt was the most visible thing that upset Amy, doesn’t mean that it was the only thing contributing to the hostile atmosphere she was feeling.
There were flaws to TAM’s approach in this regard, which is what this thread is all about.
@mythbri:
Perhaps. Like I said, I don’t want to opine on the public vs. private policy bit. However IMO it’s not a matter differing approaches to policy as a matter of enforcement.
You can have the best policy in the world and make it so public that every attendee has memorized it (so to speak), however there will always be some a-hole who will flout the rules. This is a fact of life. If used sensibly (again, I wasn’t there and won’t judge if that was the case), undercover staff can make a positive contribution.
@ SimonSays 69
A real caring person wouldn’t be interested in catching someone in the act, but instead making sure that act won’t happen in the first place.
@78 mero:
There is no 100% preventative measure for behavior. See my comment #77 to mythbri.
Ack. #80 above meant to say: “There is no 100% preventative measure for bad behavior”
You are the dumbass who said that sexual assault was the reason harassment policies were drawn up, and preferred that the harassment policies not be used for things other than sexual assault. I noted that this was idiotic. Whence the strawman?
I wouldn’t rule out criticising the con organisers. If its the case that they noticed Amy was being upset by a t-shirt and swooped in to help prevent further harassment, they should be criticised.
Something about that scenario seems far-fetched to me, lets bear in mind that we’ve read only one side of this story.
@simonsays
I don’t think that anyone is under the illusion that a visible anti-harassment policy would magically make the problem go away. Indeed, many people involved in the conversation have said that conferences are generally no worse than any other public venue. But there’s nothing wrong with trying to reduce the baseline amount of harassment, and that is what anti-harassment policies address. It also ensures that there is a plan in place to deal with assholes who decide to flout the rules. It deters harassment, makes potential targets feel more comfortable about reporting, and protects the conference itself. Win-win-win.
You won’t answer my questions and instead prefer to focus on an unclear sentence. Says it all.
Oh. Of course. As you are the arbiter as to what I am allowed to discuss, I bow before you.
Or not.
I would think that whether or not keeping the policy secret was a good or bad thing is an important part of the discussion. But, what do I know.
Harassment policies, like all policies and laws, are first and foremost deterents. If the policy is secret (the first part of what I have quoted) it fails as a deterrent.
reasonabel seems to be. Or at least hir writing presents that impression.
Did you read the OP? the comments? The parts about verbal harassment as opposed to physical assault? Any of it?
Undercover officers in stores are there to protect private property from theft. Do you really want to go there?
The point of the policy is deterrence, not catching someone in the act.
Whether the situation descends to physical harassment or not it should not be tolerated. This includes verbal harassment which you seem to minimize.
Okay, what level crosses the line as to whether an official notice should be made of the incident? Does the conference blow off minor incidents in the hope that they can catch someone doing something really egregious? Stop and ask yourself what the anti-harassment policy is meant to do? Is it meant to catch and punish people? Or is it meant to deter unwanted actions?
WHICH IS WHY EVERY CONFERENCE SHOULD HAVE A PUBLISHED AND PUBLIC HARASSMENT POLICY IN PLACE AND DISTRIBUTED TO THE ATTENDEES LONG BEFORE THE CONFERENCE!!!!!!
You keep writing this and I (and others) keep pointing out that a private policy will not act as a deterent and therefore is a failure.
So, unless a rule, policy, law, whatever is 100% effective it is not effective in any way? Telling attendees what the minimum standard of behaviour is may tell some people not to come. Others will know what is expected and, if they cross that line, they will not (or should not) be surprised when they are asked to leave (this assumes, of course, that people know what the rules are going in).
Since it doesn’t seem to bother you that “it’s just a T-shirt” reasonabel, then why are you posting about it again?
@simonsays #80
Sure, but the percentage of harassment occuring will be lower if there are visible authority figures nearby.
What’s your end goal? To catch perps or to have women feel safe to begin with? Having undercover people helps in the former, not so much in the latter.
I won’t answer your questions because 1.) your questions are stupid and 2.) other people have answered them and you have ignored it.
Could you repeat the question in question?
@Ogvorbis
You’ve mixed up my quotes with other peoples. Its difficult to sort through, but i’ll answer this one.
The other view to this is that a published policy does not act as an adequate deterrent to scumbags who are intent on harassing women. There’s value in the deterrent argument also, and i’m not disputing it. It seems that you are attempting to position my argument as being “it should have been secret”, which is not the case. I said “Even if it was secret”.
@Utakata
It leads into more interesting topics.
@reasonabel
A secret deterrent is not an effective deterrent, though. That’s why poisonous animals come with markings, chemicals come with hazard warnings, and conferences should come with visible policies.
@Ogvorbis
Yes, although it was directed at Cipher: The Fighting Fucktoy.
Gee, what stoopid questions. Obviously you have never had corporate anti-harassment training, or if you did, ignored the contents thereof. Harassment is directed at specific people or a group of people who are disadvantaged compared to you. Not general being an asshole like you are doing.
Seriously? How am I being an asshole?
I notice you didn’t answer the question or make an attempt to provide an argument to why its a bad question.
I quoted them in the order they were posted. As I normally do.
So you really are making the argument that, because some people will ignore a written policy (or law, or regulation, or rule) are not 100% effective as a deterrent they should, what, not be in place? Oh, you do admit there is value in the deterrence — but it is not total deterrence. Hmm. It is illegal to murder, yet some people do. It is illegal to speed, most people do. Drugs are illegal. Shoplifting is illegal. Do you see the parallel?
Look, a conference is a private event. The conference organizers, and the host venue, have the right to ask people to leave for any reason. If a PUA wants to attend a conference, that is fine. I have no problem with that. If the PUA harasses anyone, that is a problem.
So what would make it less likely for a PUA to play sick games? A secret document which does not tell people where the line is until after they have crossed the line, or a public document that says ‘here is the line, do not cross it, or this will happen’?
Your commment about ‘even if it was secret’ was exactly my point. Secret rules have no deterrence effect at all. Ever.
The consequence for murder is either death or prison time. The consequence for speeding is a fixed penalty fine etc.
If there’s “pickup-artists” (man, I hate that), at the conference its likely that ejection from that conference won’t be a deterrent. They don’t care about the conference, if they’re only there to pick up women. However, I do think it should have been a published policy.
Evidence suggests otherwise. Where their are clear anti-harassment policies in place it seems that that incidents of harassment decrease. There is plenty of evidence for this from the workplace. Do such policies total eliminate harassment ? Of course not, but they help.
Cipher, I was honestly unaware I was acting so obnoxiously. I clearly have some blind spots and am sorry if I have caused any hurt. How, then, may I make amends?
First off, this is a public thread. I, or anyone else, can comment on what anyone else has written. This is not private, one-on-one communication.
There have been roughly five hundred million BILLION conversations about what constitutes harassment. People wrote down policies for what constitutes harassment. People picked apart those policies, the policies were defended or changed, conversation continued. In the midst of all this bullshit, reasonabel comes in and says, “I think only sexual assault should count as harassment.” That is pointed out as obvious bullshit. Reasonabel asks “Well what is harassment then?” and acts like the fact that everybody is going “ARGH GO READ” is a fucking victory.
American grade inflation. It’s not a B–. It’s a plain obvious F, because it failed to say “guys, don’t do that”.
That could be. It would also testify of stupidity greater than heretofore imagined.
Getting the bum’s rush out of the venue isn’t a deterent? And perhaps banned from the bar? What rock did you grow up under? You can’t make is think that the policies don’t work without evidence. Your fuckwitted opinions and questions don’t mean anything intelligent, since they say nothing intelligent. Third party evidence to back up your assertions. or shut the fuck up. Not one anti-harassment policy arguer has shown real evidence. They have shown attitude and OPINIONS like you have. But nothing but back up said attidues and OPINIONS, and you follow suit. Which says you know you have lost the reational argument, and must use the emotional arguments.
@88 mero:
Yes. By most accounts this was the case.
All of the above. This is not either/or as far as I’m concerned. All I’m saying is that adding an additional undercover security element is not in itself a bad thing.
Or malice, let’s not rule out malice even though stupid is the natural null hypothesis.
Important words in that sentence are all derived from the word add. As in add to something else. Something else which constitutes the basics of any harassment policy and which was in this case missing.
I never said you couldn’t and in fact repeated the question to you. Despite this being a public forum and easily locatable should you try.
Ok, so you’ve narrowed it down to disagreement with provocative behaviour. There’s still that very fuzzy line as to how provocative you can be before it becomes harassment. If wearing a t-shirt crosses that line, how? How does that impact on the ability of people to speak there minds, or put across unpopular opinions. You’d think that an atheist conference would be concerned about this.
Except that i’ve already answered both of these. Yes, it would be better if they were public. The goal of harassment policies should be to intervene in situations where physical sexual harassment seems likely to place.
How much does it cost to attend a conference? Losing that money, some or all of it, is a nice economic incentive to keep one’s assholish behaviour under some control.
There also may be some PUA predators who look at a conference, discover there is a published harassment policy, and don’t go to the conference.
It also protects the conference. If a PUA is ejected for predatory behaviour and there is no published harassment policy, said PUA could sue for breech of contract. Not sure if the PUA would win, but it would cost money. If a PUA is ejected and there is a published harassment policy, the chances of a lawsuit are diminished.
No policy is 100% effective. Never is.
The Boy Scouts/Cub Scouts in the US have a policy that there must be 2 adults present at all time. Those adults cannot be husband and wife. And I know, from personal experience, that those rules are not always followed. What do you do? Give up and say, well, the rule didn’t prevent x, y, and z, so we get rid of them?
I have decided that I can never overestimate stupidity. No matter how stupid, it can, and will, be topped.
=====
And, oh, yeah, All Hail Borkquote, Accolyte of Tpyos!
Does reasonabel not realise that every single one of its objections has already been dealt with, many times, before it even brought them up ?
@simonsays
And as I said, there’s nothing wrong with undercover security in conjunction with a clear, visible, communicated anti-harassment policy. This doesn’t seem to have been the case at TAM. It wasn’t “additional” so much as it was “only”.
What the fuck is your fixation on ‘physical sexual harassment’? Sexual harassment can be verbal. It can be photos. It can be text. It can be sounds. All of these can be harassment and all these forms of harassment are unacceptable.
I think its a far more serious issue than any of the other types of harassment you listed. Do you disagree?
Tigzy the Chickenshit Troll: So, in addition to not knowing what “vacuous” means, you also can’t tell the difference between someone blatantly mocking you and “popping a valve”.
Tigs, dumplin, you’re getting dumber with each post. Save your poor remaining two brain cells!
Or, let me continue to point and laugh at you, you sniveling coward.
If you really want to apologise, just do it. Don’t if it.
It wasn’t additional!
It would have been if the policy had been published.
@mythbri #111:
Fair enough. According to Jason’s post that PZ links to above, TAM volunteers (which again by my understanding were clearly labeled) were also available and had some training. So it seems like there were both staff and the undercover people.
OH MY FUCK.
Okay I’m going to go hit my head on that table over there for a while. It will be more productive than this discussion.
reasonabel ,
The goal of policies should be to cover different levels of harassment, no?
I’ve seen several posts on a few blogs talking about what TAM could/couldn’t do about the shirt.
But, Amy didn’t ask them to do anything. NO ONE expected TAM to do anything about it. Amy didn’t approach TAM at all. Someone else reported it to the Sopper Sekrit TAM “police” who decided the best response was to point their cameras on Amy’s table until she got uncomfortable enough to changer her flight and leave early.
No one is complaining that TAM didn’t make Hall take off the shirt. Everyone with a brain and a sense of empathy has said it was a shitty, childish, petty thing for Hall to do.
Have fun Cipher. Give it one extra whack for me.
Except that the staff counts as undercover people too, as far as harassment complaints go, since people didn’t know they could approach them when they are being harassed.
I offer my abject apology for the offense I have caused. How may I make amends?
*quickly pushes a cushion under Cipher’s head*
*puts some chocolate on the side*
Exactly. A key element of any anti-harassment policy is making clear how people can report incidents of harassment. Any policy that does not do that might as well not exist.
It’s kinda like somebody hearing the phrase “speak softly and carry a large stick” and then deciding that shutting up and hitting people with sticks is the thing to do.
[headdesk]
[headdesk]
[headdesk]
You really do not grok this discussion at all, do you? Are you really this stupid, or are you being intentionally obtuse?
Do you have a job? If so, ask to see your company’s policy on sexual harassment. Read it. Read it again.
‘Creating a hostile environment’ is the key phrase. If your company has a policy, I gaurantee you it is in there. It is an accepted idea in US courts of law and has been upheld in federal court. Any harassment, whether there is physical contact or not, is, or should be, unacceptable — at work, at home, at a conference.
The penalties do show a difference between non-physical and physical. That is a legal difference. That has nothing to do with making sure that assholes at a conference do not create a hostile environment.
Fixed that for you fuckwit. Since physical sexual harassment is assault, you are being an idjit, and you know that. Sexual harassment falls short of pure assault. See the Federal law which forms a basis for any company’s sexual harassment policy. Show this isn’t the case by you doing something other than giving your OPINION, like citing law or third party evidence. Funny how those who are against harassment policies never cite the third party evidence, and do idiocy like you have today. And think their uninformed OPINION will be accepted without questioning. I reject your OPINION as you reject the OPINIONs of women who want those policies in place and enforce.
@simonsays
I think it’s great that the volunteers and conference staff were visible and had training – but absent a clear directive that they were the people to go to for help in dealing with harassment, they’re also not as effective as they could be. The lack of visibility really creates more work for the conference than is necessary, because they’re asking the attendees to help them do their job.
Tigzy,
Have you looked up the definition of “vacuous” yet? Illuminata, at B&W, suggested that the impact of Hall’s actions (her wearing that T-shirt for 3-days) needs to be analyzed within the context of the shitstorm that Skepchick has been enduring. You call this a “vacuous” comment?
reasonable,
Stop fucking JAQ-ing off. You are coming across as willfully-ignorant.
Do you think this situation would have been upheld in a court as constituting a hostile work environment or are you being deliberately obtuse and making a false equivalence?
reasonabel,
I think genocide is far worse that physical harassment. Do you disagree?
We should not have policies in place that deal with physical harassment. That takes resources away from fighting genocide!!111!.
Answer it yourself. Did it create a hostile environment at the conference?
Fuck, you are stupid.
We are not talking about what would hold up in court. We are talking about a private organization having a policy in place to deter harassment (both physical, verbal, and otherwise). A policy can, and should, address behavior that doesn’t reach a legally actionable level.
@reasonabel, 91:
“It leads into more interesting topics.”
This is an interesting claim from one who *posted over at Butterflies and Wheels, “A t-shirt made one of the organisers cry? Is she 5 years old?” I presume you where referring to Surly Amy.
*Souce: http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/07/in-your-face/#comments
…note: 342
Then you have the presumption to ask, “Seriously? How am I being an asshole?” here. Evidence is now strongly suggesting you are. But I digress…
…it’s clear that you spun this is just a T-shirt, yet you keep on harping about it. When reasonable people who have no interest in the topic being discussed, they usually don’t furhter it by discussing it. Unless of course, they’re coming with another agenda to exploit it as a wedge issue. Which you seem to be doing. This suggests you are most likely trolling.
That’s right, Woo. Chickenshit Tigzy, being the boring, garden-variety misogynist, just wants the bitch to stop bitching about mere ‘words on a t-shirt’.
He called ‘vacuous’ my pointing out that while he insists on being a lying asshole and erasing the context of the situation, the shirt explicitly said the word ‘skepchick’ which, being the TITLE OF AMY’S BLOG, explains – in part – why she took it personally. Whether Hall meant it like that or not.
Since he then couldn’t refute me, and I pointed out how he’s too chickenshit to own up to that, he called me vacuous. You know, cuz bitches are dumb when whiny ass D00d loses an argument. LOL
And fuck yes, that would create a hostile environment. There is a context to Hall’s shirt. The context is a years worth of harassment pointed at Skepchick. This t-shirt is yet another jab, certainly intended to be hostile. And, if you listen to Amy, it was understood as being hostile.
And, before you jump on this, I will reiterate what was already said upthread. It was the TAM secret-security that treated this incident as harassment. TAM considered it harassment.
Ding ding ding!
Sastra has a comment over at Ophelia’s blog, in which she says she spoke to Hall about the T-Shirt, and tried to explain why it would be taken as being hostile. Hall either could not or would not accept that. However, given she was made aware after the first day it was being taken as hostile then to wear it for two more days suggests a deliberate intention to cause offence.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/07/in-your-face/#comment-224321
It is also worth scrolling down to read Surly Amy’s comment in which she makes it clear that the t-shirt business was not an isolated incident but merely one example of what went to make up a very hostile environment for her.
I hadn’t seen Hall’s shirt until just now.
Fuck, what a needlessly hostile thing to display.
But only a hysterical feminazi would react like that to a T-shirt. It is just werdz!!11 lol !!11. Werdz can’t cause harm!!1!eleventy!!1
And their response was to focus ONLY on Amy. Until she felt uncomfortable enough to change her flight and leave early.
Now, this begs the question- did the TAM Sooper Sekrit police think that Amy was going to be harassed in such a public place, as opposed to somewhere where there WEREN’T camera focused on her?
If so, did they have a reason to think that? Or did they just not bother to think about where harassment is most likely to happen?
If not, what other reason is there for putting ALL the focus on Amy, if not to drive her out of there?
And, let’s remember – this was AFTER DJ painted a big old target on Skepchick and Skepchick still went through with their plan to give out grants for TAM attendance AND have the table there.
I hope Skepchick drops the grant program. TAM doesn’t deserve their time or money.
With regards uncover staff, the problem is that it is rarely a single serious incident that makes women feel unwelcome, but the accumulation of many lesser incidents. I am not sure how uncover staff are supposed to handle that.
Tigsy – this trolling thing…
You’re not very good at it.
Good trolling requires a certain amount of subtlety. You’re as subtle as a drunk PUA at a sober feminist conference.
I don’t think so. Its easily ignored, not something worth breaking down into tears about.
A failure of a troll like you, Tigzy the Chickenshit, will never garner more than mockery and disdain. You really flatter yourself by thinking that you are actually getting under Illuminata’s skin. You are not.
Who give a fuck about how an idiot chickens hit like you interprets anything?
Fuck off, Tigzy. You’re just a tiresome drive-by troll, and at this rate you’re going to get banned for stupidity. At least try to put some effort into intelligent discussion, if you’re capable of it.
The t-shirt was not an isolated incident. It is dishonest of you to pretend it was.
Actually (and keep in mind, I am not a lawyer (though I have had some experience as a union steward (including a harassment case (which very quickly went way past my level)))), I think we are. If a harassment policy is published, in place, and in force at a conference, and person A violates a part of that harassment policy and is asked to leave without a refund, person A could persue the conference organizers and the individual who asked person A to leave for damages. And the better written the policy is, the less likely there will be a lawsuit.
This is yet another reason that a harassment policy must be public, published, provided to all participants, and must be very clear an unequivocal about what is not acceptable activity. This is where the phrase, ‘creating a hostile environment’ comes in and, without knowing any of the people involved as more than internet names, the evidence provided in just this thread would lead me to accept the claim that it was creating a hostile environment.
David Marjanovic @103: “It’s a plain obvious F, because it failed to say “guys, don’t do that”.”
NOT THAT PHRASE! Anything but that! Saying “guys, don’t do that” is tyranny and YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! (Begins humming “America the Beautiful” and waving “Don’t Tread On Me” flag, clutching a copy of Atlas Shrugged with the other hand.)
Sorry, your OPINION is meaningless. To be meaningful, you wouold have to discuss Federal harassment laws, the harassment policy at TAM, how this fits in with appropriate court cases, and how your final decision fits the evidence. Your unevidenced OPINION is *POOF* dismissed.
Illuminata,
I tend to agree with Josh Slocum’s analysis over at B&W. They put the camera’s and security on Amy to cover their asses.
dipshit reasonabel,
Fuck off. It isn’t for you to decide how Amy should respond to an obviously hostile shirt, picking out her organization, which has been subject to relentless harassment since E-gate.
What are you hoping to accomplish here, reasonabel? Do you just want everyone to see what an ass you are, that bitches aint shit, and that Amy was being another one of them hysterical wimmenz? Well, mission accomplished. It is clear that you are an un-empathetic ass.
Gee, tigzy, you desperately want to believe that the woman who trounced your dumb ass is angry and hysterical?
LOL could you BE anymore stereotypical?
*points and laughs at Tigzy, the Chickenshit Troll*
So is yours, and until there’s a specific enough guidelines to factor in every variant of human behaviour a lot of this stuff will be on the discretion (otherwise known as OPINION, so you’re following) of the organisers.
That t-shirt was also targeted scorn aimed at Skepchick.org, a group that has specifically supported TAM in many ways for many years. It’s the weirdest attack ever: to treat Skepchicks as the enemy when they’ve been some of the most enthusiastic supporters of TAM, pouring money and time into aid, advertising, and promotion.
That’s been the most jarring thing for me. JREF must have a lot of behind-the-scenes moneymen if they’re so willing to publicly cut the throat of people like Rebecca Watson and Surly Amy.
But then, Penn Jillette probably does sink a lot more cash into TAM than any of us peons.
So after discussing this with some of my friends who are in no way a part of the skeptic movement, something one of them said seems very pertinent and dovetails quite well with what some folks said in response to my earlier post.
It was noted that letting Harriet Hall wear this T-shirt for three days straight, attacking another con-goer, was very unprofessional. As a matter of courtesy and private organizational handling, completely within their rights, they should have given Harriet Hall an ultimatum of ‘quit being an ass’, especially when she was there in an official capacity as their guest. If, for instance, a paid/invited speaker or guest had worn a shirt on the podium or in official capacity attacking James Randi, I doubt it would have passed.
For the people wondering why there’s been discussion on whether DJ Grothe is even a fit leader for JREF, this incident is another part of why. Most administrators of large functions would blanche in horror if you suggested the scenario of allowing someone in official capacity or attendance to wear a garment that attacks another well-known congoer, especially on a podium or some other publicly disseminating venue. This should be no different but, because DJ Grothe lets his feelings get in the way of professionalism, we get messy situations like this that reflect very poorly on TAM and JREF as a whole.
(And yes, this is me modifying me earlier position that there wasn’t much TAM staff could have done. The folks that suggested a talking-to are quite right, and I defer to that opinion henceforth.)
This might be very hard for you reasonabel since it’s an exercise in empathy. But try!
Imagine that you got a spouse of several years. Then imagine one day when you come home your spouse wears a t-shirt that says “I’m leaving reasonabel because he’s a JAQ’ing little troll” and on the back it said “and I’ve slept with three of his best friends”.
Given this, you would be able to ignore it since it was just a t-shirt. Right? Even after you’ve spoken with your spouse and they show no signs of jesting or otherwise not taking the text seriously?
I know right! Its not like rape jokes ever make it onto t-shirts…
http://www.amazon.com/Means-Womens-Babydoll-Petite-Colors/dp/B002AK1NCW
I went to support gaypride last year and march w/the local atheist group. There was some douche canoe there with a shirt that said something about how satan was cooler because he lets people “do anal”. It looked like a commercially made shirt rather than being a home made deal. I didn’t go alone, one of the people with me was a young girl and I was fucking horrified.
…
I don’t think the shirt at TAm everyone is talking about is harassment (and thankfully NO ONE SAID IT WAS ANYWAY), but all this “ITS JUST A SHIRT” crap is really starting to wear on me.
First, your thinly veiled sexism is noted.
Second, the t-shirt was not an isolated incident. If you have been actually reading this thread, you would know that. And that is just this thread. The shirt was part of a pattern of harassment with the goal of making TAM a hostile environment for Skepchick.
Third, I have tossed out the idea that you are really stupid and have decided that you are attempting to alter the perceptions of an event in order to further your personal agenda. In other words, you are not arguing in good faith, you are trolling.
screechymonkey – thanks for the nightmares! ;)
This weird scenario/fantasy of yours is relevant to the the discussion how? It wouldn’t be the message that upset me there, but the infidelity. I wouldn’t count it as harassment.
Sorry federal law, court cases and and academic studies there, showing policies do work if enforced properly, unlike what you have said. And you know that. All you have is lies and bullshit. Prove otherwise by citing something pertainent to your assertions, and not just your OPINION.
Who cares what an unevidenced MRA fuckwit thinks? Meaningless self-serving drivel.
@Nerd of redhead:
I’ve said that they should have made it public 2 or 3 times now. If you want to keep on having this discussion, may I point you to a brick wall.
answer my question reasonabel,
Another incident of the harassment police creeping someone out: http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2012/07/18/tams-harassment-policy-was-secret-why/#comment-71947
You might note that UAJamie is one of the big names behind the Hug Me I’m Vaccinated campaign.
Amy didn’t either. It was PART OF A PATTERN OF BULLSHIT THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE CON.
Has that sunk through your incredibly thick skull yet?
Thats not a question Woo Monster. Its an accusation veiled in question intertwined with insults. So i’m not going to answer it, and I won’t respond in kind.
There are two issues being discussed here. The bullshit that was Hall’s t-shirt, AND, the fact that a sekrit harassment policy is not a good policy.
from Jason’s link,
Well done, TAM!
Personally I hope they discontinue their support. Or rather, make a new Skepchick policy of only supporting conferences with publicly published and actionable harassment policies to protect the women they are sending to these things. If TAM fits the criteria then they could make the list. That way it’s nothing personal.
@171
I just threw up in my mouth.
Fair enough. I am telling you that your JAQ-ing has made you look like an ass. Your sexism shines through in your comments (see your #146). If you had a purpose for coming here other than getting ridiculed, I can’t figure out what it is.
By the way, in case anyone hasn’t seen it, Surly Amy has commented at Ophelia’s to clarify a few points, among them that it wasn’t simply a matter of her seeing a t-shirt and bursting into tears.
I already told you. It was an empathy exercise. You failed. Though I’m not sure if you failed because you didn’t try or you failed because you havn’t got the prerequisite skills. Either way, you’re not really qualified for telling people how they ought to feel.
Everyone should go read the comment linked to by Jason at #167. Revealing stuff.
Oh, given the lack of evidence you show, that is exactly your argument. You being a brick wall, and as intelligent. Where is your evidence? Funny how evidence makes you run scared. Look lurkers, it is scared to provide even one bit of evidence to back up its sexism.
Has there been any word from Carrie Poppy about this? Now seems like a good time for the JREF’s new Communications Director to do some communicating.
Also pretty darn triggering stuff for abuse. I feel pretty sick now, and got tears in my eyes. Not your fault in any way Woo_monster, and I’m glad I read it, but ¡Yikes!
It seems the goal was very clear: They don’t want any harassment reported at TAM.
Who have they used for staff training? The vice squad of the Iranian police?
@Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation
How did I fail your “empathy excersize”? This sort of thing is useless if you’re not going to elaborate. It seems to be “you’re wrong, shut up” rephrased as if it was some academic excersize.
@screechymonkey
She mentions that others there contributed to her feeling harassed but says that “they don’t deserve our attention at this point”. Ok. Well I think it does more information is always good. Right now she looks to be making a mountain out of a molehill. If thats not the case, and she cares, she should elaborate.
@Nerd of Redhead
You come across as a very angry person. It damages any argument you want to present, I can’t take you seriously. Though i’m sure you’ll get plenty of cheers from the home crowd, maybe thats your goal here?
I read about what happened to UAJamie. It’s horrible. And these people were supposedly specially trained on ways to handle harassment? Right.
Oh gods, the comment at Jason’s is awful. This is her account of the specially trained (anti?)-harassment squad:
Bitches be hysterical, amirite reasonabel?
If you can’t read for substance because the tone is too angry, that is your deficiency.
@ One thousand needles
If there is any reaction about the horrible thing linked at #171 – big IF – I’ll bet real money they are going to go the route of demonizing the person who got harassed. We’ve already been through this before, and we know how Grothe deals with stuff like this, so it stands to reason this is how the organization is going to deal with this.
Anyway, that experience must have been horrifying, and, since I have no legal expertise, I can’t tell if it was entirely legal. Seriously? Sequestering someone in a closet and interrogating them? Telling them not to talk about if afterwards?
That’s following proper procedure only if the procedure you follow comes from “How to treat people like shit” rule book.
Each to their own. I was taught that getting angry means you’ve lost the argument. Nerd has lost it big-time.
As a lot of people have told you by now, you come off as using a troll technique called “just asking questions” – or JAQ’ing for short.
As a consequence of this you’re not going to see your questions answered as much as you’d like to.
As long as you come off as a troll you’re going to be treated as a troll, even though you might not be. We have no magic insight in the contents of your head, and have no choice but to react towards your outward presentation.
@181-
And once again, we have a case of “victim not providing enough details, therefore liar.”
Here’s an interesting thing: Get enough molehills and you can make a mountain. Do you really want details of every single tiny incident that can help create a pervasive atmosphere of harassment?
PURE SPECULATION: Little things, like maybe conversations stopping when you near, or people seeing you and turning around, someone taking something you’re reaching for, being at a panel and you missing supplies while everyone else has the full amount. Things that, when taken separately are not really big deals, but when seen together as a whole are clearly a pattern of a larger thing.
If you really want a full account of every tiny thing you are being even more hyperskeptical than you are showing and that is a *bad* thing.
You know, I’m wondering if TAM’s approach to harassment this year is a direct result of the “independent security consultant” that they mentioned they hired. It kind of sounds like this security consultant might have been more involved in the personal protection type of security, rather than someone experienced in dealing with general harassment in general groups of people. The actions that have been described are just so bizarre.
…There’s even a term for this goon squad treatment; it’s “revictimization”. Well-known silencing tactic familiar to sexual assault and abuse advocates everywhere.
I have no benefit-of-the-doubt left to give TAM or JREF at this point. None.
I’m asking questions as a means to enable a discussion and shift it away from barrage of insults. If you want to continue the insults thats fine also, but your unwillingness to engage in any topic deeper than “who’s evil and where’s the nearest tree” is noted.
“You insisted there be a harassment policy and we warned you it would be like living in a totalitarian state. See? Now we PROVED it! We were right!”
Yes, I’m feeling cynical this morning.
@reason-un-abel #186-
You were taught wrong. If the other person is being what appears to be increasingly purposefully obtuse, anger is a natural response. It doesn’t mean the angry person has lost the argument. It means the obtuse person is being a dick.
I get angry when people act like inflicting pointless harm on an animal is okay. I get angry when they don’t want to vaccinate their dog, then take the dog to the dog park, and then decide to euthanise when it gets parvo. I am not the one in the wrong in these situations, but I’m the angry person.
unreasonabel, diddums, did you seriously think that pulling the tone trolling card after strawmanning basically everyone was going to win you the argument that you clearly lost quite awhile ago?
I’d suggest thinking before posting in the future, but that’s not how trolls like you roll, is it.
Just out of curiosity, how does that even work? Presumably, in an argument, the two participants are trying to arrive as close as possible to the truth. How, exactly, does emotion change reality?
@193, myself-
Gah. Sorry about using dick. Old insult habits are hard to break.
seemed to me like they hired someone who is an expert in keeping shit quiet, not making anyone more secure. That is the job of security sometimes when something potentially scandalous happens.
You were taught by a privileged idiot. Being angry doesn’t take away from the merits of one’s argument.
Tone trolling is very poor form around here.
What “you were taught” matters precisely why? Some skeptic you are, huh?
reasonabel
Your questions seem to amount to asking why someone else is upset over something you (imagine) you wouldn’t be upset over, mostly because its on a shirt. Someone gave you a genuinely upsetting situation to ponder that also involved a shirt, so you could perhaps empathize with how a slogan on a shirt could potentially be hurtful. You seemed not to understand the point of that, and you’ll probably ignore me too because you seem to only answer posts that are easy to dismiss. I thought I would give it a shot on the off chance that you really don’t understand the argument.
Emotion doesn’t change reality, but resorting to angry invective in place of reasoned opinion probably means that you don’t have any reasoned opinion and have been forced into that corner.
@ reasonabel
The tone of delivering a statement is irrelevant to the truth of the statement. People get angry because they are directly involved and directly affected by the things they are discussing.
We had another poster around here who said the first person who gets angry in an argument has lost, and that’s an idiotic thing to say.
Also, if you align with the skeptic movement, your goal is to get to the truth, and “winning” comes a distant third, if not more.
The goal here is to have conferences which are safe for everyone, and that means they must have a public, detailed policy, and they must enforce it.
I am going to repeat the questions of another poster here:
What do YOU want? I’ve read comment after comment of yours complaining about nothing, really, and continually moving the goalposts.
So, reasanabel, what is your purpose?
I’m excited about this power!
I’d love to bring the thylacine back from extinction. Now, I’ll argue that they are extinct, and I’ll need someone to make me angry.
Poof! Thylacines as far as the eye can cine!
“I was taught that getting angry means you’ve lost the argument.”
I learned that too, back when I was also using argument (more precisely trading insults) as a form of sport, playing the dozens aka “ribbing on each other” with my schoolmates at the lunch table.
Guy who got angry and lost his cool first loses the game, a fist-bump was shared all around and the next match would begin.
Life isn’t a grade school sport.
Oh, for the brick wall and lurkers, Title VII include sexual harassment. This can be defined well enough to withstand court challenges
Your turn to cite something to support your fuckwittery brick wall.
I really wish people would stop teaching children shit like this just to shut them up. There are better educational techniques than lying available.
shit like this:
is how you know you’re talking to someone clueless and blinded by privilege.
How wonderful for unreasonbel to have a life where nothing upsets them and there’s never any reason to be angry.
Unfortunately, not everyone can live in this comfy, safe, fantasyland that unreasonbel inhabits, and therefore they get justifiably angry.
But anger is unseemly to the delicate, never emotional unreasonabel. So, if you show any – especially as a direct result of the asinine and idiotic behavior of unreasonbel -they don’t have to actually respond to your points.
it’s all so perfectly pleasant in Privilege Land.
You’re not the only one.
The more info comes out, the more it seems that the organizers deliberately sabotaged the policy.
Where’s your evidence for that dumbass claim? I “resort to angry invective” when it becomes obvious that the assholes I’m dealing with are being willfully obtuse and there is no point in attempting to reason with them. Or when they say evil bullshit.
Yes they were. Trained to keep it under wraps. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hired goons from Haliburton.
Incidentally, I was also taught the “getting angry means you lose” rule by my dad as he complained about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because he led protests instead of “working from within the system.”
And at this point in conversation, I’m gonna make some popcorn. This is going to be a looong thread.
I’ll make enough to share. Is extra salty ok?
see what I mean?
unreasonbel apparently believes that, despite literally just typing the words that emotion doesn’t change reality, it must change reality because . . . .uh . . . . showing emotion means you don’t have a reasoned opinion.
Which is the sociopathic version of tone trolling.
Funny. Resorting to unevidenced clichéd bullshit like “getting angry means you’ve lost the argument” means exactly that, with a side of you being a smug fuck as well.
Is there any more shit you learned at your parents’ knees you’d like to lay on us, or can we go ahead and work with evidence as it we’re not all a bunch of fucking morons here?
@ Jafafa Hots
Also, telling people they lost an argument if they got angry is a silencing technique. If you try to take their right to vocally criticize and complain about an injustice, you are closer to the goal of pretending that injustice doesn’t exist, and those people are just looking for things to get angry about.
Every single movement for rights, even the non-violent ones, always involved people getting loud and angry. How else are you going to shake others out of apathy and a cocoon of privilege?
By writing polite letters to the president?
God fucking dammit! I’m so fucking mad that anthropogenic climate change is happening!
[Watches global average temperatures stabilise.]
Fuck me! I fucking don’t fucking have a million fucking dollars sitting right fucking here on my lap.
[Waits for riches to materialise.]
False dichotomy. Here we dispense angry invective with our reasoned opinions.
Non sequitur. Or it could mean they got bored and went with invective because it’s more entertaining. Or they could have realized that the other party in the argument is to dense or dishonest to pay attention to reasoned opinion, and decided to stop putting forth the effort. There are more Or’s. The point is, there’s nothing about “X is using invective” that implies “invective is all X has”.
My confusion got the better of me so I email Carrie Poppy the communications director at JREF
Here is part of her repy to my email of 18 july 2012
Carrie Poppy
“All incident reports were handled by an expert in security and boundary issues, who has decades of experience in this field, in conjunction with hotel security where appropriate. You mentioned that you feel the policy not enforced; I don’t know of any cases where someone filed a complaint and it was not followed up on. If you know of anyone who was at the event and feels this happened, please have them contact me, as the comfort and safety of our attendees is extremely important to us.”
Neither does your lack of emotion *SNICKER*. Somebody doesn’t like being told his OPINION is worthless due to lack of evidence, which it is. That is a truth.
This feels a lot like reporting crap to HR at a company. They want to keep everything in house and seem effective to avoid lawsuits, but do nothing to help people prevent problems.
Why the FUCK don’t they post their god damned policy somewhere? what excuse is there for that?
I happen to derail into angry invective pretty often when confronted with overt homophobia. I actually sorta lose control in those situations. Do you think that’s because I don’t have any reasons to support my idea that homophobia is wrong? Or do you think maybe the fact that people I love have been horribly hurt by it, and I find that upsetting for some odd reason, might explain my behavior better?
I LOVE this.
I just adore how she completely ignores the part where people weren’t informed that they can file a complaint.
@brownian
The evidence for it is strewn throughout this thread. I ask a question regarding the priority that conference organisers should take, and how to draw the line as to what constitutes harassment, if wearing a t-shirt breaches it.
No sensible discussions back, or reasoned points of view so far. Like I said, thats fine, but is indicative of a community that hasn’t really thought things through.
You know, I am so sick of the line of reasoning.
Grow up, reasonabel. Adults learn to use their anger effectively.
Besides, the consequence is that i’m not going to entertain Nerd Of Redhead. No big loss.
Your assertions are not evidence.
Given the reported treatment of those who did anyway, I will say not giving people this information is the lesser of two evils. The other one is a huge mofo though…
“Someone in this thread was mean to me! Therefore they lose!”
“Wtf?”
“Because being mean means they have no arguments!”
“Evidence?”
“My evidence is that someone in this thread was mean to me!”
Yawn, what a derail this is turning out to be.
This is evidently not true, but even if it was you’ve been told why. Several times and with great patience. Much more patience than you deserve.
Even you realize that your “angry invective = lose” is bullshit. You’re just a very poor skeptic and refuse to admit when you’re wrong.
@ reasonabel
Those are things for the conference organizers to deal with, and they are covered in the harassment policy. If you want to participate at such an event, read the policy and contact the organizers for further clarifications and/or suggestions.
If you are Just Asking Questions in an attempt to invalidate the necessity for a policy, you are trying your shit with the wrong crowd.
STOP asking about the fucking t-shirt. You clearly were on the relevant thread at Butterflies and Wheels, so you must have read what Amy had to say about the t-shirt. This is not about the t-shirt, and your fixation on it is just a way to attempt to delegitimize the entire conversation.
You keep moving the goalposts. You use tone trolling and strawmen (see but what about the t-shirt) to try to negate the necessity for a policy. No matter what arguments with evidence posters give – and they have given you plenty – you will forever insist they are not sensible enough. That means you are not arguing honestly, and you never came to this conversation with the slightest inclination to change your mind.
You passing judgement on the ENTIRE community based only on your unsubstantiated opinion of this thread is illogical and invalid.
Nobody believes your shit, so why don’t you take it some place else? I heard the slimepit is welcoming to people like you.
First of all, reasonabel, pay fucking attention to whom you’re quoting.
Secondly, let me show your little pea brain how to work:
If I give you an orange, is that indicative that I don’t have apples?
Think hard on this one. I know it’s tough, but the rewards will be worth it.
Its a subjective opinion or rule-of-thumb that guides what I interact with. I think it is backed up by evidence but in any case it can’t really be proven wrong.
@brownian
Thats really priceless in this context.
reasonabel
I tried, with my post, and you ignored it, as I predicted.
Saying “everyone is so mean” and then only replying to posts you feel are mean doesn’t prove much. It just makes you look very dishonest.
@234-
But it can be proven “not right” when people who have reasoned arguments use them + invective.
Evading the discussion is indicative that you don’t have a reasoned viewpoint. You lose.
It most certainly can be proven wrong. All you need is someone who is angry about something they are demonstrably correct about (like vaccines or climate change). There are plenty of people who are angry about these things and it doesn’t diminish their correctness.
So the discussion has moved from where to draw the line in harassment policies to it not being ok for me to ignore a poster that I consider to be rude. Its laughable that people are accusing me of shifting goalposts at the same time.
Again, evidently false from the contents of this thread. Just go away little troll. Pretty please with sugar on top!
Was that a discussion? Yes if you say you have oranges and give me apples. It makes me think you don’t have any oranges. That clear enough for you?
And when I, and others, have answered your questions, you have ignored the answer and asked again, or pulled a ‘but what about y’ response, or gone into tone troll mode. You obviously have no clue about harassment law in the United States and you prove this with every question.
Yet those who do offer reasoned evidence (as opposed to reasoned evidence with angry invective tossed in for pleasure) get ignored. Odd, that. Almost like you are trying to stir the pot for your own personal agenda.
No, if the comfort of your attendees was of any importance at all, you would have had a public harassment policy provided to all attendees before the conference including clear guidlines on what was unacceptable behaviour, what constitutes harassment, how to report harassment, and what would happen if harassment happend. TAM did not, so I would call that part of the quote from joed’s email from Carrie Poppy a flat out lie.
If they post the policy, they can’t play ‘gotcha’ with people with whom they disagree.
Really? You sure you want to go with that? Since we can all scroll up and see multiple questions of yours that were answered, fully and without fucking swearing, that were ignored by you.
Even more evidence of trolling. What the hell are you trying to do, reasonabel? Get your “I got banned at Pharyngula” button with the super secret decoder on the back?
Heh.
Heheh.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!
[falls on floor laughing at total cluelessness]
You’re the one who keeps trying to derail the thread! Only physical harassment counts. He who makes mad loses. But what about the t shirt. All attempts to derail.
Translation: If I fuck with people long enough they get pissed off and when they get pissed off I get to claim victory and winning is far more important than women feeling safe at a conference!
===========
Damn these fast moving threads. I refresh before commenting and discover three more things I want to respond to.
Reasonabel –
So if I say I have snakes, and give you a picture of one of my foster cats, you’ll think I don’t have snakes? *Awesome*
http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/7656/einstein1.jpg
You know what makes you a fucking asshole? Shit like this.
Don’t fucking call people rude when you’re sitting there posting fucking YouTube grade smarm, you dumb fuck.
If you’re not getting the quality of argument you think you deserve, then navigate your browser elsewhere.
Continuing to sit here and tut-tutting over the terrible treatment you feel you’re getting just demonstrates that you’re a smug fuck more interested in stroking your own fucking ego than conversing.
So fucking leave already if you don’t like it here, you fucking lying shithead.
You have to shift the goalposts as your non-evidenced OPINION is slowly refuted. Where is your evidence that well publicized and enforced anti-harassment don’t work? Otherwise, shut the fuck up as you lost big time…
@ reasonabel
Since I am the only poster who used that particular bolded phrase, it means you do read the comments, you just don’t reply to the ones you know you can’t argue against.
The thread has shifted – here’s that word again – its focus because YOU keep avoiding addressing the issues and continue to come with with bullshit claims that have to be refuted.
Respond to the posters who have all made salient arguments directed at you or go away.
reasonabel
No one said you have to pay attention to rude people. The problem is that you declare everyone rude and then assert that ignoring rude people makes you somehow more correct than they are.
I’ve attempted to be polite to you in this thread. If you are really wanting a discussion then you should respond to posts like mine, but you don’t. Why is that?
You weren’t unclear, you lying fuck, you simply didn’t answer.
Now that you did, do you see anything wrong with your assumption? Like the fact that it’s fucking false?
Well that other post seems to have angered brownian so much s/he could only respond to the first one. With “shut up, this is my echo chamber” no less.
I’ve never understood how someone can spend hours and dozens of posts that can be pretty much summed up as “I deny that the preceding 250 comments which are still visible ever happened! Neither the ones where I said what you’re claiming I’ve said, nor the ones where YOU said what I’m claiming you’re refusing to say!”
@251-
And yet *you* lament the derailing of this thread?
reasonabel:
Are you trying to get your “I Got Banned At Pharyngula” pin (complete with super secret decoder)? Is that your investment? Is that why you are arguing dishonestly?
Oh sorry you did reply. No how is it “fucking false”. Its what I would think based on the available evidence. If thats not the case give me an orange, instead of more apples.
As we’ve already established, you’re not qualified to give assessments of other people’s emotions.
I for one wouldn’t even trust you to get your own emotions right.
@reasonabel
Is there a quota you are trying to meet? As in, let’s see how many posters I can annoy with my bullshit before I get banned?
Because you are doing a lovely job so far.
Also, whatever happened to your desire to discuss sensible arguments? Isn’t going for angering commenters the polar opposite of that? Aren’t you shifting goalpoasts yet again?
But what if we really like our oranges and don’t care for the apples so much?
I’m pretty sure that was bragging, not lamenting.
@skeptifem
As much as “tone” is important to some people, they don’t want to engage with anyone but the commentors they wish to scold.
skeptifem is the only exception I’ve ever seen to the rule that commenters who use ‘nyms that describe themselves as a “reasonable” or “advanced” or “logical” or “rational” are invariably privilege-blind, self-absorbed, egotistical jerks.
Yeah seriously, what a waste of time. There are always a few of us who try to indulge tone trolls only to get ignored. It proves the case for pharyngula style rudeness nicely…
Maybe we should start a page full of links to discussions like this one, so next time someone wanders in asking why we aren’t all nicer they can see for themselves. Niceness gets ignored 99% of the time because the people demanding it are not being honest to begin with.
So if I give you an apple it’s reasonable to assume that that means I don’t have an orange, or a swimsuit, or a flat-screen TV, or a sewing machine or health insurance.
I think I get it now. Since all I gave you is an apple, clearly all I own is an apple.
@ reasonabel
Word salad cleanup on Isle 4! Please bring special cleaning fluid for injecting sense into bullshit!
I’ve been reading everything, here and on other blogs, rarely commenting. But with this incident, I’ve been thinking something I see no-one mentioning.
From #171:
This, in itself seems to be a form of harassment. How does having cameras trained on you, and instructions to keep your mouth shut, not create a hostile environment?
In fact, this is what it did, to the extent that she, a speaker, left a day early.
why thank you. I actually didn’t go by this nym until after I started my blog of the same name. Naming a blog is fucking hard, too, it can’t be long enough to communicate nuanced shit like a lack of total confidence in ones own opinions.
Lurkers, today’s brick wall is following the SOP for evidenceless trolls. 1) Ask inane questions. 2) Ignore posts that answer the questions and refute the implications thereof. 3) Tone troll by pretending that being polite wins arguments, rather the evidence. 4) Fail to present evidence inspite or repeated requests to do so. 5) Try to dictate the terms of the argument, with them always being the “authority”. 6) This adds up to somebody who knows they can’t win the “debate” (it isn’t a debate since there is no chance to change their minds), so they must bullshit (troll) their way until they finally flounce claiming victory. Since they changed no minds due to lack of evidence, some victory, which can be compared to them throwing a temper tantrum while we smirk and laugh at their efforts.
@skeptifem
Sorry if i’ve ignored you up to this point. Is this the post you wanted answered?
I still don’t understand the point of that and asked for further clarification. If my wife wore a t-shirt saying that she’d had sex with three of my best friends… it would hurt a lot but it wouldn’t be harassment. Do you think it would be harassment? This is why I haven’t answered until now.
No one said it was harassment to begin with.
The issue was that you said you didn’t feel it was sufficient for her to cry about it. That is why the empathy exercise was suggested.
@ reasonabel
You were the one to frame the t-shirt thing as harassment.
STOP it with the fucking t-shirt. Asked and answered about half a billion times so far.
Apples? Oranges?
I WANT KIWI FRUIT! WHERE IS MY KIWI FRUIT?
{This makes about as much sense as arguing with a tone troll who’s pretty obviously here for Teh Lulz. Less than fulsomely honest interlocutor is less than fulsomely honest}
Louis
You’re a lying ass, reasonabel. And you’re a JAQ offer. And I bet you’re a Nice Guy too. Consider yourself lucky that the intelligent people here are giving you as much attention as they are. You don’t deserve it.
Ok, and so I managed to distinguish a message like “i had sex with 3 of your best friends” from “i am not a skepchick”. I failed the empathy challenge? No, I just recognise that one is more hurtful than the other.
Judging by the I Get Email thread, raisinbagel is VERY empathetic toward teenagers, just not adults, or at least not adults who don’t have penises.
# reasonabel
Hey, let’s try to see if I can make your JAQ-ing work for me.
What represents harassment for you reasonabel?
What is your opinion on harassment policies?
Ah, but you see your wife isn’t wearing a shirt like that. Her shirt says “My sex life is awesome. Matt has a huge penis and knows how to use it. Brian is very creative. Dave keeps me climaxing all night.” Lately, your wife has been belittling you, mocking your insistence on missionary and that you never get her to orgasm. She brings this up everywhere; at parties, at family functions, on the street. She tells you that you are a failure as a spouse, that she doesn’t know why she’s married to you.
Then she wears the shirt when you finally go to couples counseling. And then the counselor looks you over, and reads the shirt and tells your wife “Yeah, those guys really ARE better.”
I just read the original quote from Jamie. I am conflating two incidents, with two separate people. I think this doesn’t change my view of this as harassment in itself; instead, it suggests that it was working as planned.
@ rowanvt
I know what you’re trying to do – that is, to get through to reasonabel, which is nigh impossible – but I really don’t like the way you phrase that hypothetical situation. It uses the tired tropes of bick dicks are better, you can’t have a happy couple life unless you get an orgasm/minute, and everyone’s favourite, the evil, cruel, cheating wife.
I’d rather you had taken this hypothetical scenario in a different direction.
@rowanvt
Thats another reason the “empathy challenge” doesn’t work. I have no idea how close Amy is to Harriet, but I can pretty much guarantee that they are not joined in matrimony.
@ reasonabel
You are deliberately being obtuse. Parallel examples are not supposed to be identical in every way, they are supposed to be joined by at least one common feature.
Once again, What represents harassment for you reasonabel?
What is your opinion on harassment policies?
Josh, careful. I pointed out last night that Reasonabel is a liar, and he said I said that to make myself feel big.
So, y’know, you pointing that out also just means you’re trying to make yourself feel big.
I have to warn you that after last night I learned that “making myself feel big” is pretty much the same as “feeling mildly annoyed and bored.”
It’s just not worth it, Josh.
I chose those partly on purpose, because of the general absurdity of it. Frankly, I don’t *like* big penises, because I’m built small. I had an ex with a large penis and intercourse attempts were incredibly painful. I also don’t do multiple orgasms. Stimulation after one is also painful for me.
As to the evil cheating wife, well, unreasonable brought that up first so I was attempting to work within the parameters of an already absurd offshoot from the original t-shirt.
For comparison purposes, here’s the quote from Surly Amy (via Lousy Canuck)
And here’s what Jamie said, from above:
Who cares what the brick wall’s OPINION is? What can the brick wall support with evidence is the real question. Still not one link backing up any argument, and it has no authority, as it is recognized as a bullshit artiste.
*cough*
If someone’s in “tears” over this Harriet Hall’s T-shirt:
Then maybe they should go home a day early.
oh look, someone crapping the same message in every thread. my life is complete.
Oh dear, unreasonabel. Is a woman who is not body shy too disturbing for your delicate tone sensibilities?
I’m not nice and I still get ignored 99% of the time.
@ rowanvt
Like I said, I know what you were trying to do, and I know you were not the one to introduce that scenario. Thank you for the reply, and we’ll just move on. I only commented because those tropes, particularly the evil, cheating wife really rubbed me the wrong way. This trope is a favourite go-to of MRAs and other garden variety misogynistic assholes, so perhaps that clarifies my reaction to your post.
Another context-blind little fucker unable to read…
In times like this it’s ok to ignore the rule of three? Right?
No its fine. You don’t like big dicks. Thanks for sharing.
@ Erülóra Maikalambe
With an awesome nym like that I can assure you your posts do not go unnoticed.
Hey, redgreen, did you read the rest of the thread? Did you read about how the idea of a harassment policy was handled? Did you read about the pattern of harassment (which was far more than the shirt)? Or did you just jump in with a bit of assholery that was shown to be a lie for the trlolz?
There is no universal scale of hurtfulness. Nor are people affected in the same way by a single phrase. That is why a different phrase and situation were brought up.
The reason empathy is useful is not that it is exact, it is that it allows us to better understand each other. Maybe after contemplating how a shirt could be hurtful you would not be so dismissive of someone whose feelings were hurt by words on a shirt? That is the aim here, for you to try and understand what amy may have felt from a purposely hateful shirt slogan.
Still no evidence from the brick wall…For help brick wall, Google Scholar.
@ reasonabel
Stop latching onto to your twisted versions of what commenters are saying, and answer the questions:
What represents harassment for you reasonabel?
What is your opinion on harassment policies?
@ FluffyTheTerrible
Quetilyë Eldarin?
(No jokes about gendered slurs, mythbri, even if they’re made easy)
Tell me about it, mythbri. I’m practically bleeding from biting my tongue so hard.
My sentiment exactly. Must control bad sense of humour…..
Let me get this straight. First JREF didn’t tell their attendees about a harassment policy being in place, then they recruit the fucking Stasi to watch proceedings, and in the case that complaints came up, they had instructed their secret police to harass and stress out the victims ? You couldn’t make this shit up.
@ Erülóra Maikalambe
No, I don’t speak Elvish, but fortunately I can google. Thank you for making me smile. If you actually found someone fluent in Elvish, and started a conversation on a thread, that would be the apex of all derailments, but it sure be awesome to behold.
Does your nym mean something? Google didn’t help me this time.
I like big dicks and I cannot lie. You other homos can deny.
@skeptifem
No, and nor should there be but you and I both know that a shirt with “I had sex with 3 of your best friends” is going to be more hurtful coming from your spouse than the shirt Harriet wore.
I understand that Amy found it hurtful and why. I also understand that different people have different thresholds, but see no reason to remake the world based on the feelings of people with the lowest possible tolerance because that would inevitably encroach on the rights of others.
Thanks for addressing the actual argument by the way.
Bets on how long Paula Kirby’s defenders will scream HYPOCRITE when faced with an example of an apt use of the word.
@ Josh
I see a fruitful career in the music industry for you. Your lyrics are miles better than some of the things I’ve been hearing lately.
{Louis vaguely wakes up}
Big dicks?
Where?
{Louis goes back to googling mortgage offers for upcoming house move}
Louis
When will address the actual argument with evidence, and not just bullshit OPINION? Until you do, nobody believes a word you say…
FluffyTheTerrible
That’s because the both parts are compound words, and I’m the only person who’s ever put them together this way. :-)
Erülóra = Godless
Maikalambe = Sharptongue
@ reasonabel
Harassment laws, and discrimination laws are already made based on
. What is harassment for a minority or a disadvantaged group will probably not be harassment for the privileged one.
Also, your right ends where someone else’s right begins, so don’t you DARE make YOURSELF the victim here.
Esteleth and I started down that path once, but I couldn’t keep up for long. I don’t know that much, really.
Just proof that harassment policies don’t work, dontcha know.
The more I think about this, the more cynical I get. If nothing had happened, would JREF have told us that harassment policies are not needed? But something did happen, and I would have to think long and hard to find a worse way to handle it, does that mean that all harassment policies are bad? Curse the world that has made cynicism a viable life philosophy!
@ Erülóra Maikalambe
That is awesome! [does geeky dance]
This isn’t about making anyone the victim, certainly not myself.
In this case there is overlap. Asking a person to remove a shirt because you find it offensive limits their rights to freedom of speech, and hey, the right to be offensive. Its not as clear as you’d like to make out.
@Ogvorbis
I genuinely like the philosophy of the original Cynics, like Diogenes. I identify with being a misanthrope that nevertheless cares about other people.
If my posting this entire emailing is not proper then I apologize.
Carrie Poppy sounds like a sincerely concerned person and my intention is not to harass her but to open some communication. I just can’t see why JREF/TAM would not try to communicate or indicate they are aware of a slight glitch in their Anti-harrassment Policy procedures.
“Hello,
I am really confused about JREF/TAM anti-harassment policy.
Why has the debate raged on for months when JREF could have simple said you guys have an anti-harassment policy in place.
I really don’t get it. Seems JREF has something to say but refuses to say it. Surely Randi is aware of the problem and for some reason hasn’t spoken out. Randi has been one of the great leaders of the last 50 years. The only reason I can think of that Randi has not spoken about the problem is that he is not well. I wish Randi and everyone at JREF the best and hope Randi is ok.
I did email DJ Grothe a week or so ago but he did not reply.
Can someone at JREF please tell me what is going on concerning the anti-harassment policy and why paticipants of TAM were not informed and why it was not enforced.
Thank you”
Carrie Poppy’s reply
“Thanks for emailing me and expressing your concern. I’m very sorry to hear that you sent a prior email which went overlooked. Please accept my apologies for that. I want you to know that this issue is very important to me, as I’ve been a victim of violence of this type myself. I would not work for an organization that refused to listen to reports of safety and boundary issues, sexual or otherwise, and I was pleased that the JREF did have a policy in place at TAM that covered not only sexual harassment, but any security threats. You can find it here: http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/faq
All incident reports were handled by an expert in security and boundary issues, who has decades of experience in this field, in conjunction with hotel security where appropriate. You mentioned that you feel the policy not enforced; I don’t know of any cases where someone filed a complaint and it was not followed up on. If you know of anyone who was at the event and feels this happened, please have them contact me, as the comfort and safety of our attendees is extremely important to us.
Again, thank you for emailing regarding this. I sincerely appreciate it. Please let me know if you have any other questions or thoughts.
Best,
Carrie Poppy
Director of Communications, James Randi Educational Foundation”
@reasonabel
Along with those rights you mentioned is included the right to criticize people for doing things that are offensive. That is actually perfectly clear.
reasonabel #42
TAM was held at a casino. I work at a different, non-Vegas casino. We have security cameras all over. TAM probably made arrangements for casino surveillance to be particularly diligent to the convention areas.
Some months at my casino ago somebody stole an expensive piece of electronics belonging to an outside vendor. Going over the tapes, surveillance was able to track the guy from the time he picked up the gear all the way to watching him put it in his car.
On private property, one’s right to free speech is limited. It isn’t gone, but it is limited. And there is shitloads of caselaw.
And a well-written harassment policy, published and provided to all attendees, would also have helped.
And it was more than the fucking shirt you douchebag asshat! As has been pointed out multiple times!
And, rather than pulling shit like this, you could answer FluffyTheTerrible’s questions:
What represents harassment for you reasonabel?
What is your opinion on harassment policies?
*blushes*
Once again, you clearly don’t understand the situation. Look back over the last few months about how we were told that talking about incidents of harassment was causing a severe decline in the number of female attendees at tam. And how it was all the fault of certain female bloggers, some of whom blog for Skepchicks. And the initial “there was no harassment last year!” that was proven false when Amy brought to light her story.
So now Amy is there and aside from other incidents of low level harassment gets to be confronted with the t-shirt that is basically saying that her experiences don’t count, nothing is wrong, everything is fine and that ‘skepchicks’ are to be looked down upon because they *dare* to reclaim the word ‘chick’ which is often used as a sexist insult for women.
Hmm. The entire available-to-the-public harassment policy appears to have been:
Am I missing something here?
@Ogvorbis
Yes but the question here is how limited should it be. I know, I know, JAQ or whatever.
Its been pointed out multiple times that this was more than the shirt. No effort to elaborate on what it was, and according to the person in question “these people are not worth our attention yet”. Which means all I can do is discuss the shirt.
I’d say that prolonged, proactive and unwanted attention constitutes harassment.
I think they’re better than nothing, but could be improved upon. I also think you should answer those last two questions so that I know what your position is.
A visit from the TAM secret police?
Don’t worry, I suspect we will all get one soon.
(or rather: Worry!)
Redherring. Freedom of speech is only guaranteed by the government for politial reasons, not private groups. Think you have freedom of speech at work? Not a problem, a private matter, and the company wins. No governmental free speech violations.
It feels like some people take the slogan “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” too much to heart.
Almost as if an influential person in the organization, y’know, lives and works there and likes the whole libertarian grab-ass atmosphere.
Fucking liar.
Ogvorbis,
Nope, that seems to be the whole thing. It’s… er, sweet that she’s so proud of that policy* covering not only sexual harassment but any security threats.
*Too bad that independent consultant didn’t tell them that a point in FAQ a harassment/security policy does not make.
reasonabel
Amy didn’t want to make her remove the shirt. I haven’t seen anyone saying she should be forced to wear a different shirt. What people are saying is that wearing it every day was a shitty thing to do, especially when (according to other coference attendees) she had been made aware of how crappy it made amy feel.
reasonabel wrote @ #324:
For instance – and this is purely a hypothetical off the top of my head – someone wearing for three days in a row a shirt festooned with a message personally targeting someone?
Is three days not prolonged enough? Is wearing the same shirt two extra days not proactive enough? Is Surly Amy describing how uncomfortable it made her feel insufficient to establish that the attention was unwanted?
Which you have ignored.
Oh, it was explained far earlier than that. More than once, too.
Because you are a liar.
And you missed the multiple times that what happened to her at TAM, the parts that described prolonged, proactive and unwanted attention. Because all you see is a shirt. Right. Got it.
Your knowledge, or lack thereof, of harassment policies shows. Do you have a job? If so, ask for a copy of the harassment policy and look for the areas that speak to creating a hostile environment. That is a keystone of harassment law.
Many, if not most, security specialists/independent security consultants are retired federal, state, or local police officers. Some of whom are very proactive when it comes to harassment. Some ignore it. Depends partly on the person and the department. One would think, though, that with all the preamble, JREF would have thought to ask about or emphasize harassment, right? Right?
rowanvt, me too!
…That’s all I had to say. <_<
@ reasonabel
Dude, you are the one who is the dishonest interlocutor, not me. I don’t have to answer anything, since, like most people on this thread and in this community, have been in favour of harassment policies and their enforcement.
Also, let’s see if we can apply the reasonabel’s pattented dishonest treatment to your own statements.
Define prolonged. Define unwanted. Who gets to decide if something is unwanted? What if – according to your own ideas – someone deciding my attention is unwanted infringes on my right to hit on them?
Improved how? What if some poor person gets wrongfully accused and his whole life is destroyed?
[warning: the above statements use reasonabel’s patented dishonest arguing techniques and do not represent my actual opinions]
So are people here saying the shirt is harassment? I don’t want to misrepresent pharyngulites in this conversation.
It looks like no one has godwinned reasonabel’s anger comment @186, so I’m here to fix that.
skeptifem:
No. My understanding, and what I have stated, is that the shirt could be considered creating a hostile environment. And that is my opinion, not the opinion of anyone else here. reasonabel has, repeatedly, claimed that the shirt was the only thing in question and has strawmanned from there repeatedly. Please do not assume that my writings in any way represent anything other than my own partial understandings.
@Ogvorbis
That must be about the tenth time you’ve called me a liar. Do you even know what our disagreement is about at this point?
In itself, no. In the context of the support Skepchicks (whom Amy was representing) have given TAM and JREF, and in the context of what has happened in the last 12 months since Rebecca said “Guys’ don’t do that” and more recently since anti-harassment policies were suggested, and given the other crap Amy was having to take, then yes, it was harassment.
I think it was unkind and shitty and stupid, and could contribute to a hostile environment. It wasn’t harassment by itself.
@skeptifem
That was not the angle the conversation started with, but since reasonabel kept bringing up the fucking t-shirt, commenters had to address that.
I think it’s harassment in that it creates a hostile environment, it focuses negative attention on Amy, it attempts to invalidate Skepchick ..you name it.
It’s a really bad, mean-spirited thing to do. I am not surprised when dudebros or chill girls wear t-shirts with shitty messages, but a fellow feminist and skeptic?
At a fucking skeptic conference that you knew was going to have in attendance the person the t-shirt is targeting?
That’s just inexcusable.
I’m sure they came with the best of references. “Able to reduce reported harassment by 100%” and things like that.
Harassment is partly in the eye of the beholder. I can certainly see how the shirt might be viewed as harassment. Personally I would like to stick with “a pretty shitty thing to do” and “something a good host would’ve handled in a graceful manner”. Harassment carries with it a certain intent, and if I take the secondhand account of Hall’s intent at face value that wasn’t a factor here. Still a bad though.
Let me see. You have claimed that a secret policy is better ’cause we can catch the bad guys. You have claimed it was all about the shirt. You have claimed that losing one’s temper means one has lost. You have claimed that harassment is only actionable when it is physical harassment. You have misrepresented case law regarding harassment and free speech. You are now claiming I have called you a liar ten times – you do realize that I am not the only one who has called out your dishonesty, right? Don’t believe me? Look up^.
Since when did harassment have to be prolonged ?
Going up to a women (in the context of an event like TAM) and asking her for a fuck is harassment the first time it happens. Simply trying to engage in conversation would not be, unless there was several attempts and the recipient clearly did not want to be so engaged.
@ reasonabel
I have another question for you, since you did such a wonderful job of answering the other two.
What do you still want on this thread?
Matt:
That is reasonabel’s definition of harassment and reasonabel’s is the only one that counts.
Yep, your failure to look at evidence instead of just mouthing off. That was easy to see. Don’t confuse you with evidence seemed your avoidance method.
On the first day? Perhaps not. By the third day? Yeah, probably.
Silly me!
Especially given Hall knew at the end of the first day Amy found the t-shirt upsetting. It is hard to come to any other conclusion than that Hall wore the t-shirt for two more days in order to deliberately upset Amy.
Troll pretends it is right, dispite reality to the contrary. That is a form of lying, and it knows that.
@reasonabel
I see your still stuck at the T-shirt you don’t give a shit about that you’re giving shit about. And not giving us any convincing and/or compelling reasons as to why.
So I must ask, is this an exercise to claiming bragging rights to your friends that you are attempting get your name onto PZ’s Dungeon list? You sure are going the right way about doing that, I’ll give you that. Keep up the good work? Lol.
Thanks for all the support, everyone.
I would like to clarify that they have been taking my report of the original harassment incident very seriously. It was quite minor (a man I didn’t know tried to hug me without warning and I had to actively back up and put my hand out to stop it from happening). However, the security consultants made it clear that any unwanted touching is considered assault and they considered me a victim and would investigate the incident fully. Now, honestly “assault” seems like a strong word for what happened, but it’s clear that they are taking it seriously. They have been going over security footage and have inquired about witnesses. They made it clear they’re going to try to identify the man involved.
If anything, they are going a bit overboard. Their treatment of me has been disrespectful, but saying that, they are clearly taking reports, even minor ones, very seriously and following up and investigating. They also have made it clear that I did nothing wrong and was right in reporting it. They never made me feel like I was being blamed for the harassment.
It’s the stressful way they dealt with me that I’m still pretty upset with, not the handling of the case.
@Ogvorbis
No, I said that there could be an argument for a secret policy but on balance I thought it would be better if it was published.
No I have claimed that the shirt is all that we have to go on at this point. At least, regarding the event itself.
No, I have claimed that in my eyes losing one’s temper means one has lost and refused to acknowledge further posts from Nerd Of Redhead, as I don’t think they’re worth reading.
No, I have asked you whether you think that this would fall foul in a court as a hypothetical. You haven’t answered that. I have been consistently open to the discussion that the venue/convention should be able to set its own standards.
You have repeatedly called me a liar (though 10 times might be a slight over or under-exaggeration) never once using an argument or evidence to back up your claims. You also didn’t answer my question.
I find this particularly ironic being as you could have looked up and read my previous posts which are quite clearly not what you are making them out to be. You calling my arguing technique dishonest is rich.
Surely you do not dispute you have less than honest when commenting here. I know you are an idiot and all, but please, retain some dignity and ability to admit what you are and what you have done.
@ reasonabel
Those 2 statements, yours and Ogvorbis’, are THE SAME! There is no difference.
The only dishonest interlocutor here is you. Ogvorbis has been patient enough to wade through your shit and refute each ones of your lies.
Also, that last sentence is a tu quoque fallacy. Just because you think someone is doing something bad does not mean you get to get away with doing the exact same thing.
What do you still want reasonabel?
So the incident involved somebody trying to hug somebody else without consent. And just two days ago we were being lectured about how that doesn’t happen and we don’t need policies to prevent it.
Maybe JREF could have tried making this clear to attendees beforehand.
Actually they aren’t because Ogvorbis was asking for evidential proof as if the statement was presented as fact rather than subjective opinion.
Since it is evidenceless, it is dishonest by definition. Evidence makes one honest, and thereby ones arguments. Otherwise, your OPINION isn’t based on facts, and can and probably is factually dishonest, making your technique dishonest.
Reasonabel: Using invective means you don’t have any arguments! And besides, I’m just going to ignore them!
reasonable is a known dishonest twit
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/17/navy-youve-got-a-nasty-little-worm-in-the-works/comment-page-1/#comment-401870
Both left and right use a tactics, evidence Stalin which is just like the left!
So Reasonable.
Are policies just like Stalinism?
@ reasonabel
No, Ogvorbis was showing your dishonesty, and how you perpetually changed the focus of the conversation in an attempt to avoid addressing any of the points made by commenters.
No one is under any delusion that your posts are anything but unsubstantiated opinions. But guess what, if you don’t want to be considered a dishonest interlocutor, you have to provide evidence for your opinions.
You still think, in spite of there being no evidence, that people who get angry automatically lose the argument. You then use that opinion to try to silence other commenters, and dismiss their points out of hand.
That is dishonest. Address the arguments or go away.
What do you still want reasonabel?
It really doesn’t surprise me that you’re talking about Stalin. When I was talking about the east european soviet bloc. In case you don’t know your history, and you’ve so far shown zero evidence that you do, some of these states persisted until the late 80s and early 90s.
In any case you can look at the second to last comment in that thread to find a clearer post of what I what I actually meant and was saying.
It’s about you lying.
And again it seems reasonabel are the only one on their side. What a surprise.
Wow, have I been out of the loop the past few weeks. I didn’t go to TAM this year and by reading a large number of the above comments I’ve caught up with all the hoo-ha over TAM’s harassment policy, Dr Hall’s T-Shirt and Amy’s leaving TAM early. I don’t know if my thoughts are that original or interesting but I feel compelled to say something anyway. Dr Hall is an acquaintance and fellow Washingtonian who I have been quite impressed with and respected for many years. Dr Hall has now lost a great deal of my respect as well as putting the brakes on my plan to ask my local Skeptic’s in the Pub group to organize a talk by Dr Hall in my small city not that far from where she lives. I’ve really enjoyed attending the four TAM’s prior to this years; but after conversations with DJ last year where he obtusely couldn’t understand my concern about JREF having as a speaker a certain physicist with a very supportive relationship with a wealthy convicted rapist I was definitely less interested in attending this year. And when DJ’s remarks about Rebecca, Skepchicks, acts of harassment and harassment policy became public before TAM this year I was not surprised; however my disappointment with DJ has now become a broader disappointment with JREF and some leaders in the skeptical movement. I count Amy as a friend who I will go out of my way to see at any local conference she sets up shop at. And I respect Amy as a reasonable and caring person, so I’m completely confused and frustrated at how Amy appears to have been treated. And perhaps above all else I’m amazed at how lacking those in leadership roles in the skeptical movement seem to be when it comes to the reasonableness, rationality and maturity that should be the hallmarks of a movement based on science and skepticism.
From the Butterflies and wheels thread about the fucking t-shirt, from the commenter Sastra, who talked to Harriet Hall:
Exactly. When you know the shit that has been going on with Skepchick and harassment policies and TAM, you don’t pull this stunt. [ I bolded the last sentences]
Apparently Harriet went to a skeptic convention expecting everyone to be a fucking telepath.
And Surly Amy’s comment at #398 at the same thread at Butterflies and Wheels:
In general do you think that more popular opinions are the right ones? I mean, you do know thats a fallacy.
I’m leaning now to the hypothesis that the JREF is in full-on paranoid defensiveness mode. I think they’ve bought in to the notion that there are Enemies Of The JREF, and that these enemies were looking to bombard the JREF with false or petty reports of harassment at TAM, or worse yet, to blog about them after the event.
It would explain a lot:
— the hiring of security consultants and the additional training, supposedly to address a problem that the JREF has been insisting doesn’t exist;
— the obsession with having eyes, ears, and/or cameras everywhere: all the better to catch the Enemies in their lies!
— the otherwise incongruous (in light of these security measures) refusal to have a published policy: this way, no one can accuse you of not enforcing your policy
Taken together, these are a strategy not for genuinely dealing with the problem of harassment, nor (as some of us feared) for ignoring the problem entirely. It’s not even a strategy for covering the JREF’s ass from a legal liability standpoint (that would be focused more on prevention, or at least the appearance of being so focused). Instead, it’s a strategy for avoiding negative publicity. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to work.
It’s a good thing that Pamela Gay clarified that she had not been harassed at TAM (only by people who were at TAM), else she would have gotten the interrogation as well I guess.
@Reasonabel
Just like Stalin
Or that neither Hall nor the people who put the transfer on the t-shirt never made grammatical error.
I think the sole holder of a view better make their case pretty damn good. Their odds aren’t good. JAQ’ing is not the best way of making a good case BTW. Just for the record. Neither is baseless assertion.
In other words, yes you should have known better.
Just like Stalin
I don’t get this. Has it broken into non-sequitur-trolling? Or is there some obvious meaning that eludes me?
It has been playing with non-sequiturs all day, so no, I doubt there is any meaning, obvious or otherwise, that aludes you.
@ Ing
Hey,this could become a new meme around here.
Trivia time: Stalin was really afraid of his mother. He was supposed to become a priest before he turned all revolutionary. He had a defect at one of his hands, which was always hidden in official photos. He was quite attractive looking before he went all evil moustache of killing millions.
People were so afraid of him that they didn’t actually go to check in on him in his office when he failed to turn up, and some say they could have saved his life if someone had intervened sooner.
His own daughter defected the Soviet Union.
I wonder how many of those things, culled from articles on the net, are actually myths. They do make for a cool story.
He was still a murderous scumbag.
“We totally have a Policy! We watch you through hidden cameras and via plainclothes security guards & we release the hounds if anyone violates The Policy.”
“So, instead of making public a simple policy containing a clear code of conduct and information about what to do if you experience unacceptable or unwanted attention (templates for which exist in abundance and can be easily modified to fit a particular context – as countless conferences, schools, businesses and organisations do every fucking day in the interests of fairness, safety and covering their arses legally) you’ve enacted … covert surveillance.”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone know about this?”
“Wouldn’t be covert if they did. Duh.”
“I can’t help but wonder how kindly the rash of libertarians who seem implacably opposed to the very concept of a harassment policy would take to being spied upon from above and from within by the conference organisers. What about teh freedomz?”
“Oh, I’m sure they’d appreciate our infiltration and surveillance – it’s for their safety and comfort and welcome-ness.”
“You’re an ignorant, naive douche.”
“BULLY! RELEASE THE HOOOOOUNDS!”
Also, from comments at B&W, our dear friend Thunderfoot has taken to annoying Amy on Twitter, at the encouragement of known idjit Justincar. Perhaps someone with a Twitter account might want to provide some much needed back up.
The meaning is that I don’t buy this shift into “you’d better make a damn good argument then” claim. If you think i’m making bad arguments you can try to show me how. Bearing in mind i’ve been dismantling bad arguments here for a long time now.
Your “oh you need a good argument” implies that people here are willing to listen to reason. Your fallacy betrayed your thought-process. You still think I must be wrong because the majority disagree.
@ reasonabel
[Dies laughing] Oh, wait, you’re serious?
Ok, show us you’re an honest interlocutor. Give us one example where you dismantled a bad argument…with relevant quotes, not paraphrasing, please.
Go ahead, I’ll wait.
unreasonable
If you gave evidence for your bullshit then it wouldn’t be bullshit. No evidence = bullshit.
Anything else you’d like explained, fuckwit?
I have no intention of letting your inability to grok basic human interaction become my problem.
I have no intention of letting your inability to grok basic human interaction become my problem.
I have no intention of letting you…
Ok, that one actually gave me a laugh. Congratulations! The first bit of semi-decent trolling you’ve been able to do (though several points deducted for an extremely long and tedious set-up).
Run back to the slimepit to brag little troll. You’ve managed to score a point! Not as good as a ban, but it’s something at least. I’m sure Justicar and the others will be very proud of your fledgeling moves.
Oh fuck, there’s another one.
reasonable apparently has written lucidly on the cetaceans
The collective intellect of a group of individuals always exceeds that of an individual (the groupthink myth is just that, a myth, and indeed the drawbacks of groupthink are all the result of when a group gives up its natural advantage and starts to behave instead more like an individual).
Both are fallible, but on average the individual is significantly more fallible than the group. The times when the lone individual has been right and the group wrong are rare enough that they are notable and often historic. The times when the group is right and the lone individual wrong are so commonplace that they are not even noted.
So a priori, on parsimony alone, it is scientific to start by trusting the popular opinion more, unless the proponents of the unpopular opinion succeed in providing compelling evidence for their side sufficient to overrule the concerns of parsimony.
The onus is on the minority view to demonstrate its correctness.
Read this thread and people’s statements and arguments made to you.
This time without colon-obscured vision.
(Assuming you not actually just, you know, a fucking liar.)
You know I have, you were agreeing and joking with me at one point.
@ Setár
Um, that horrible situation has already been linked at # 171.
And somewhere up thread there’s another clarification.
You mean by making bullshit assertions, having the fact that your assertion is bullshit pointed out to you, retreating to “it’s just my opinion” as though opinions can’t be wrong, and continuing to act as though it’s right?
Unless you have been doing so under another name, that simply ain’t true.
I though you said you have been honest here ?
Any non-evidential based argument is bad. For example, definition of sexual harassment gives a widely accepted definition from the UN. Not some self-serving definition made up by a liar and bullshitter like yourself.
No, you have NOT dismantled any arguments. This is only done by “you are wrong by this evidence (link to evidence)”. Since you supply no evidence, your word doesn’t refute anything. Your word is trash until evidence backs it up. And you are scared to death of supplying evidence, because you know you lie and bullshit.
Joking along with me? A known Stalinist? You should be ashamed reasonable!
I have made more than adequate efforts so far to demonstrate its correctness. Still not enough? I’ve also put up with a major derail and numerous posters calling me a liar, a dipshit, stupid etc etc. If someone puts across a point like skepchick did, I respond and don’t hear from them again. Then the insults, de-rails and general nastiness then start to pile back up.
@Ing: Gerund of Death
I said the left wasn’t perfect or immune to that kind of argument. Thats not the same as calling you a stalinist. Do you need a chart?
@Reasonabel
The only example you gave was Stalin!
Do you need a clue!?
And no, I am not going to ever let that go!
@ reasonabel
Your first post on the thread about the asshole using a Navy IP address:
Dishonest and making jokes about an asshole spewing violent threatening messages.
The example I gave was of the eastern european communist governments. Where blaming a segment of the population for difficulties in the system happened. They were left wing governments, Stalin had been dead for 40 years.
You can not understand that or “not let that go” all you want, but it leads me to the conclusion that you think an argument should not be examined when its coming from the left.
NOPE. Citation to a third party, preferably the academic literature, the law, or something other than OPINION from another bullshitter. Welcome to science, where you must show yourself right with either new evidence, or by citing the old. You present neither.
That doesn’t fucking change the point asshole.
It’s incredibly telling that you think that bolsters your point somehow.
@fluffy
Is that the best you can do? Me responding to an obvious religious bullshitter with science and a little joke about whales. Yes, you’ve really brought up some troubling aspects of my character there. If I should be ashamed about that then perhaps PZ Myers should be ashamed for writing this blog.
@ reasonabel
Examples please. With quoting relevant exchanges on this thread. So far you have proven shit. And you are the only one who considers his efforts adequate. You need the feedback of other people to let you know if you provided enough evidence. If you think you don’t require that feedback, then you are talking to yourself.
The derail was caused by YOU shifting the focus of the argument and commenters answering your claims.
The insults you refer to did not appear in a vacuum. They were a direct result of people getting tired of your bullshit and calling you out on it. Don’t try to play the victim card. This is the second time you’re trying this, although you denied it in the previous situation – but you are still doing it.
Don’t like how people respond to you – change your tune or go away.
What skepchick? There’s no commenter here that uses that nym. What are you talking about?
@reasonabel
I’d like you to meet my friend Mr Point…oh wait sorry you just missed him, looks like he had to hope his train!
Who appointed you master of this thread? We didn’t. You aren’t and never were. Ego problem have you???? You control nothing except you. Believing you control anyone else, the thread, or the content therein is an ego problem of the first order. Which you need to repair before any discussion can take place. Discussion requires the possibility you can be wrong. Otherwise, you don’t discuss, you preach, preacher.
“both sides do it…conservatives in America do it and…communists did it. Not that I think the Left are communists or as bad. But that’s still an example that proves both sides do it”
Fucking bullshitter.
Derail? DERAIL?
You arrogant fuckwit… the fact that everyone else in the thread does not want to let YOU dictate the topic of the thread (shifting it at will when anyone addresses it) is NOT a derail.
The people reading this are not idiots.
This thread is 398 comments long and the people reading it are NOT, as you seem to think, incapable of seeing you constantly misrepresent others’ words, change topics, goalposts and deliberately ignore every reply that addresses your bullshit concerns.
They can see that you are completely full of shit very clearly.
They can see that you are a fucking liar who deliberately demands evidence and then ignores it, repeatedly lies about it, who gets upset when others suggest YOU provide evidence for YOUR thoroughly debunked claims.
There’s a reason you’re treated with contempt – you’ve more than earned it.
What is your purpose here? To defend JREF?
Fine. Add one to the tally of habitually lying, incoherent, derailing, minimizing, arrogant, belittling, see-no-evidence, hear-no-evidence “skeptics” that like TAM just the way it is.
Great PR. You’re sure to win many over to your side.
Asshat.
You ought to be ashamed.
@fluffy
I meant skeptifem. You can’t argue, or even think through your position at this point it seems. Apparently I should do all your work? No, I don’t think i’ll be re-reading this thread and packaging it up for you.
Keep going though, it is amusing.
Obvious troll
Like I said, I think we have another merit badge
reasonabel, wanna admit that your “opinion” that people who use angry invective don’t have reasoned arguments is incorrect?
@ reasonabel
Your attempt to bait me is noted. The burden to prove you have dismantled claims is still on you.
That was not a joke about whales. That was an insult directed towards fat people. Insults are not humour.
I quoted your previous contribution on the other thread because you were saying, in connection to Ing that
Finding one point of agreement about whales proves shit. It definitely does not prove you’re an honest interlocutor.
Insulting fat people for being fat, and comparing them to animals is troubling. Funny you should not think so.
False equivalence and total non sequitur.
One more post from you and I’ll probably get BINGO on my Logical fallacies’ bingo card.
@Cipher
No because its a subjective opinion and my prerogative. If they have them they should use them. Did you really go and bang your head against a table or are you a dirty rotten liar?
Typical troll, attempting to insult us, but needing to hold up the mirror and check its behavior first. Like its fuckwitted definition of sexual harassment as assault versus that used by national and international agencies which includes verbal, etc., all short of assault. We must correct the errors made by an egotistical and fuckwitted fool who can’t think. Otherwise, it could provide evidence to back up its bullshit.
Probably meant me. its similar enough.
reasonabel- the thing is that the posters here aren’t making points that are much different than the ones I would have, they are just speaking in a way that is the norm for pharyngula. It can be hard to deal with sometimes and there may be better places for you to discuss these issues (including other blogs at FTB) if you don’t want to deal with rudeness.
No, actually, it’s not a subjective question whether people who use angry invective have reasoned arguments.
@ reasonabel
The first part is a lie. You say you have dismantled arguments, the burden of proof is on you. Examples and quotes please.
Ogvorbis and myself, to give just 2 examples, have re-read your shit,and quoted it, and said why it was wrong, but you can’t be bothered to do the same?
THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON YOU. YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR OWN WORK. Otherwise you are a dishonest interlocutor.
Your attempt to turn people on this thread into objects for your amusement has been noted. Rest assured that you are an object of derision.
Yep, those are definitely the only two choices there! Figurative speech totally isn’t a real thing.
@skeptifem
I’d actually prefer it if we could continue our conversation from where we left off. I’m not that worried about the insults from other posters. I was just making the point that it only works to discredit themselves and their points easier to miss. Also I do have the right to ignore people like that should I wish. It started as an aside funnily enough.
I see the fuckwit can’t put up or shut the fuck up. Prima facie evidence, provided by it, that it is a liar and bullshitter.
You see fuckwit, if you had evidence you would present it. If you didn’t have the evidence, but were honest and had integrity, you would shut the fuck up.
Now, think about who can’t put up, and can’t shut up, must be. People without honesty and integrity, which means they lie and bullshit. QED.
Aside from all the sexism, personal nastiness, condescension, etc., I am struck by the complete lack of professionalism of Ms. Hall and of the TAM organizers.
If I went as a personal representative of an organization to a conference of which I was a sponsor, and another conference member wore, held, or disseminated a written insult to/about my organization, I’d have the insult removed, or the person spreading the insult removed. As a sponsor of a conference, I wouldn’t be putting my time, money, and energy into a segregated, non-public venue to be insulted.
In this case, atheists not only look petty and backbiting, they look (pause, consider whether CAPS are warranted) UNPROFESSIONAL, DISORGANIZED, AND IRRELEVANT. Any marginally-competent PR hack would tell you that.
Boy this is weird. Has TAM been at this venue before?
Maybe the PR nightmare is partly incidental to some weirdness about where its being held. Like, they don’t have “trouble” there and keep everything really really quiet.
What a fucking smug asshole.
Your inability, reasonabel, to admit that you were wrong on the relatively minor point you made about anger makes it very obvious that you’re not really worth engaging with on any more significant topic.
It would be kind of tedious for me to put the responses of others through a translator to further conversation. I also have stuff to take care of IRL soon.
@ reasonabel
This is a public forum of discussion. If you want to have one-on-one conversations, you have to go elsewhere.
Using your unsubstantiated opinion that people who get angry lose the argument does not make you right. You are the only one who discredited himself by being dishonest.
If you want to ignore people, what the fuck are you doing on a public forum?
Also, saying you want to ignore people, while at the same time baiting people with your bullshit is dishonest.
The best way to ignore us is to go the fuck away.
@skeptifem
You don’t need to, I was interested in our conversation. If you have IRL stuff then fair enough.
@ reasonabel
Look at you, all gracious and well mannered. You know this is a controlling technique, right? Being an asshole to some people, and being extra nice with just one person, to attempt to create dissent among the group?
Also, your attempt to assume a superior stance towards the rest of the commenters and your attempt to control the conversation have been noted.
@Fluffy
I’m being nice to a person who has so far treated me with some level of respect. You have not done the same, so I treat you differently. Do I really need to explain this concept of basic interaction.
See skeptifem if you feed it you;ll never get rid of it
@ reasonabel
How about you treat all the commenters here with the same level of honesty we have treated you?
Also, where exactly did I not treat you with respect? Does that mean you’re getting angry at me? ‘Cause you know what that means.
Do I really need to explain what being an honest interlocutor is?
I think you are both incapable of refuting my dissection of your posts, and too lazy to do it.
You’re slipping. You’re supposed to come of as a nitwit who doesn’t understand a thing about human interaction, remember?
I’m afraid I have to deduct the trolling-point I awarded you earlier.
[meta]
The specimen using the label ‘reasonabel’ is indistinguishable from a troll.
(No substance, either)
Lurkers, this is more prima facie evidence that the troll is a liar and bullshitter. Trying to control the thread. But for folks like me, it will only be believed when it stops talking and points to real evidence from the academic literature. Say evidence that well written and consistently enforced sexual harassment policies don’t work to reduce the incidence of to the recipients thereof, and especially from the perps who are disciplined.
The thread is waiting fuckitted egotistical jerk…
(Possibly triggering snark)
Let’s just hope it doesn’t follow her home. *shudders*
@Fluffy
Where did you not treat me with respect? You have to be trolling. I’m not angry with you fluffy I just wish you’d engage the arguments rather than lowering yourself to this.
FluffyTheTerrible #431
Unreasonabel has taken over the conversation. Instead of a discussion about TAM’s harassment policy, the thread has become about unreasonabel’s favorite topic of conversation, hirself.
You would first have to show even the slightest indication that you understand it yourself or have any willingness to do so honestly.
You’ve done the opposite.
Since it has done that, it has shown it hasn’t any interest in providing any evidence to back up its claims. Which means everything it says is lies and bullshit. Makes it easy to decipher the fuckwittery, and makes it sound like a liberturd with arrogance, ignorance, and more arrogance and ignorance thrown in for good measure. Professional bullshitter, starting with lying to itself…
Yes, Fluffy, you should show the high standards of engagement that reasonabel has in this thread! Like, if you’re wrong, you should either just ignore the posts that show you’re wrong because you don’t think they’re being nice™ enough to you, or you should throw up your hands, say “It’s my opinion and my prerogative,” declare everything subjective, and ignore any further posts on the subject. What were you thinking?
Well, I didn’t want to be the first to hurl the filthy “L” word, but now that it’s out…
…fucking libertarians.
Oh and associate people with Communists.
If your idea of regular human interaction is to fly off the handle and call the other person stupid and a liar 40 times then I feel sorry for you. I’ve remained calm here and attempted to engage posters with interesting points of view, while putting across my own.
Now the topic seems to have shifted again to my not wanting to engage certain people. I suppose it must be easier to deal with than my position on the thread topic.
@
Provide evidence that
* I did not treat you with respect
* I am trolling
* I am not engaging your arguments
*I am lowering myself.
Your attempt to insult me has been noted. Your non sequitur about my trolling has been noted. Your failure to prove one shred of evidence for any of your claims, the ones quoted in this post included, has been noted.
You are a dishonest interlocutor. The entire thread is evidence of that.
@ Cipher
I am so sorry, Cipher. I guess I wasn’t thinking. Bad Fluffy. Bad! No cookie for me.
Nobody here has flown off the handle. The reason why you’re called stupid and a liar is because you’re not too swift in the thinking department and you tell untruths.
Care to try again?
QFMFT
Evidenced by the lack of even one citation to third party evidence by the obvious troll unreasoning.
@Fluffy
You do realise that you actually went back through another thread. Picked comments of mine out of context, that weren’t really bad, and tried to respond in bold type without really saying how they were wrong. Or did somebody else have access to your computer?
Liar.
See, I have this thing where I feel that it’s OK and not at all unreasonable to call obvious liars liars.
I don’t fly off the handle, I wait until its obvious. And I even often provide quotes to show that the person is lying, as I did with you once or twice.
Don’t like being called a fucking liar? There’s a simple solution.
Stop being a fucking liar.
See? Dishonest.
Can’t admit xe made the stupid claims in the first place (let’s review: “” “” ““) now that they’ve been shown to be bullshit, has to pretend it’s about hir Very! Important! Right! to not engage certain people.
See reasonable thing that it’s ok to dismiss people who are angry and call names. I think that’s ok to dismiss people who make false equivalencies and are jerks
Somebody disagreeing with you on certain points doesn’t make them a liar. This has now devolved into an obvious attempt to get me to defend against that ridiculous slur because seriously engaging with it is almost as good as an admission of guilt, isn’t it?
You mean other than the egregious fat-shaming?
@ing
Then you should do that.
@ reasonabel
People have flown off the handle as a direct result of your dishonesty. Your attempt to claim superiority towards Jafafa Hots has been noted.
This is the third time you have painted your position as reasonable and hollier than thou. Hint: you need consensus from other posters on this thread to validate that opinion of yours, otherwise it’s just bullshit.
The topic has shifted because YOU shifted the goalposts again. If you had addressed commenters instead of hiding behind I don’t have to answer to you if you were mean and use swear words stance, this thread would be fine and people wouldn’t accuse you of dishonesty.
Fucking fantastic! State your position on the thread topic and we’ll discuss it.
@Cipher
and Liberals==Communists
What?
That’s not why we’re calling you a liar. We call you a liar because you lie. This is a perfect example of why people also call you stupid because you don’t understand this simple concept.
@Cipher
What was the quote again. “Think of them (whales) as fatsos who never left the pool” in response to “whales scare me, to be honest”. The previous comments being that I really like whales. Just a small joke as far as I can see, with no malicious intent. If this is the best you’ve got maybe you should give it up.
For the off chance that you’re not a troll, you need to sit down and think seriously about this: What it is that makes several people, independently of each other, think that you are a dishonest troll who’s set out to get himself intentionally banned from Pharyngula so he can wear the fact as a badge among his troll friends?
It’s not like anyone has come to your defence in any way. Usually that happens if people are too trigger-happy around these parts.
Intent! As usual, fucking Magic!
LOL.
Yes, it’s not like you’ve done anything else idiotic here. Certainly not like I’ve posted about it several times just now.
You’re like a whale! But I like whales…fatty!
btw, you’re like a weasel covered in skunk shit….but don’t worry I like weasels.
Exactly.
Them LYING shows them to be a liar.
As you have done, evidence of which has been amply provided and which has been deliberately ignored by you along with any evidence for other statements people have made that you disagree with.
Which of course is another form of lying and thus more evidence of you being a fucking liar.
This thread didn’t devolve when people pointed out that you’re a fucking liar.
It devolved when you came into it and started lying.
Pointing out that you’re a liar is an attempt to fix that. NOT by others to get you to defend yourself against charges of lying, but rather by pointing out what you actualy have already made plainly obvious.
That you’re a fucking liar.
You will be called a liar as long you fuckwittedly think you OPINION is evidence. It isn’t. Try google scholar for evidence you need to be considered anything other than a liar and bullshitter, after you shut the fuck up and point for all day and night.
@Gnumann
Independently of each other is pushing it. People now, like fluffy, don’t even know what the original point was. They’re piling on because there’s a perceived enemy in the midsts.
I think thats part of it anyway, but there have been people who were willing to respond and not call me a dishonest troll for my opinion.
@ reasonabel
I went back on another thread after you claimed that agreeing with Ing somehow magically made everything ok. I decided to revisit the contributions you made, in order to get a better idea of your character as can be guessed at based on your posts.
I did not pick comments out of context, since I always included the quote you were answering to. The bolded text – my comments – were just that: comments on your previous contribution. Where I thought you were wrong – like the fat -shaming part – I called you out on it.
I don’t engage in dishonest tactics, and I own up to the things I say. Your attempt to paint me as dishonest has been noted.
You still have not provided evidence that:
* I did not treat you with respect
* I am trolling
* I am not engaging your arguments
*I am lowering myself.
Going through your posts is not evidence of disrespect. If you think otherwise, say why.
I also want a retraction on the whole fatso joke. Apologize and show us you are an honest, compassionate person.
Protip: If you want people to get your point don’t make it a moving target.
Quite a defense mechanism
@ reasonabel
Provide evidence you can read my mind so as to determine I don’t know what the point was or don’t use me as an example to bolster your claims.
People can revisit the entire thread. You are not fooling anyone.
Hey Fluffy! Did you know you don’t know what the original point was?
Fluffy, you’ve asked me what my original point (on topic) was despite there being probably 20/30 comments containing it.
Oh, I see. We’re all just the nasty hivemind jumping on the innocent.
That raises one question though: Why the fuck do you want to be here?
And don’t give me SWOTI as an excuse. There are plenty of wrong people elsewhere. I know people are wrong on Stormfront, Gates of Vienna and creationist forums, but I don’t seek out these places because I know there’s no fucking chance of meaningful dialogue.
I think we’re supposed to wait until reasonabel tells us what the original point now is (and what our opinions of it are supposed to be.)
It’s his comments thread, after all.
@ reasonabel
You are comparing fat people with animals in a world that shames fat people and treats them as less than human? If you want to be successful in your humour, you have to punch up, not down. Don’t pick on people who are already treated like shit for no good reason.
Your attempt to assume superiority has been noted.
Apologise for dehumanizing fat people. Insults are not humour. That was not a joke, it was an insult.
(incidentally, I’ve used “his” because something from yesterday made me think reasonabel self-identified as male. If I’m wrong about that, my apologies.)
reasonabel, you’re overestimating the clarity and consistency with which you’ve stated your original point.
@ reasonabel
As Ogvorbis proved in a previous comment, you kept shifting the goalposts in those 20/30 comments, so it is impossible to tell what YOU consider to be the original point.
Prove you are an honest interlocutor and reiterate for us.
Also apologise for your insult toward fat people.
And admit that your “opinion” that anger means you don’t have reasoned opinions is bullshit!
@Gnumann
We actually agree on a lot, and i’m interested in atheism and science. I’m holding out some hope that people can calm down and deal with the points where we disagree in a calm manner. Or just ignore them.
You are a.) very stupid or b.) apparently lost.
For reference my correction was that we should consider whales as aquatic Brian Blesseds
And the idiocy of conflating liberals with communists as a false equivalency!
No, we don’t. Don’t co-opt me into your sick little world you disgusting little fuck!
It won’t happen unless you change your game significantly. The first thing you need to do is stop whining about tone.
I see. You’re waiting for us to either agree with your points, disagree in a nice sweet way despite your spending two days trolling and ignoring any evidence that disputes your claims, or we should just STFU.
How patient of you.
You clearly are a nice reasonable civil person.
It kind of also helps to actually have a coherent point to start out with.
@ reasonabel
Please give examples of what you and posters here agree on.
You are still dismissing people’s arguments because you don’t like their tone. Dishonest interlocutors do that, dismissing substance in favour of tone.
Also, what is this substance you are referring to? What is your point?
Finally, your attempt to show superiority by claiming ability to ignore us has been noted.
Apologise for the fat-shaming “joke”.
You know, reasonabel,
just because we’re angry doesn’t mean we’re wrong.
Now stop tone trolling.
And Strawvulcanism and false equivalency.
There are plenty of different reasons and comments to show what an awful person reasonabel is. These are the two that stick out the most to me.
#53 (the one that kicked it off in this thread)
To “reasonabel” it’ only physical harassment that matters.
455
Slur? Do you know what a slur is?
This has been pointed out to you, yet you keep saying we are using slurs against you.
This is proof of your lying and dishonesty
This is all I really need to know about reasonabel. What a fucking jackass. Anyone check the slimpit to see if there’s someone looking for their badge and bragging about this and wanting their badge?
We agree that god probably doesn’t exist. We agree that rational enquiry is the best method for arriving at truth. We agree that harassment policies at conventions are generally a good thing. We agree that these policies should probably be published to be more effective.
Or am I really lost, and you (you personally, not attempting speaking on behalf of everyone else) disagree with me about any of that?
@5 Beatrice
It’s still only a T shirt. If that’s one of the most hurtful things that Surly Amy experienced at TAM, well I would like to know what else occured cause really this is pretty lame and if you start with the water works over a shirt you disagree with than I think there is something wrong that requires some self analysis. Still maybe other things occured to push her to tears, at this point all I know is her comment reproduced in the different blogs including here: http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2012/07/18/tams-harassment-policy-was-secret-why/
PZ had mentionned some sort of harassment occuring at TAM 2012 without naming names (which I thought he was in favor of..) I would hope (well that’s probably not the right word) that it wasn’t just an offending tshirt….
@8 sisu
If nobody knows about it than it does not for all intent exist. If the staff knows about it and not the attendees you can still get some good, maybe not the optimal amount though.
They should have probably just stolen CFI’s policy word for word it is clear enough and doesn’t go into the vaudevillian style like the american atheist one (which might have been a joke… I wasn’t sure when I read it).
I’m sure you (and most descent folks) don’t really need a policy to know how to act descently to fellow human beings.
@10 Jasper of Maine
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/07/in-your-face/#comment-223155
It is very not so remotely like that.
@45 mythbri
Do you really need something in writing so that you stop groping women or stalk them when they tell you to leave them alone? That’s pretty much what these policies will spell out, it’s pretty self evident to most of civilized society.
@59 Jason Thibeault
Complete and utter bullshit. A victim of harassment probably just wants it to stop and if somebody can make it stop quickly and effectively, what the fuck is so terribly wrong with that?
Ing:
That’s an awesome term! I’ll try to remember it. Has it been around and I missed it or did you come up this now?
Oh, jacklewis is posting.
Yay.
JAL, go here!
@ JAL
Yes, he is on the slimepit forum boasting about his adventures here:
He was conversing with Tigzy, another well known slimepiter, who says:
Another post by reasonabel there:
See? He’s frustrated! That means he’s angry. That means he lost the argument.
And this is the warm welcome he received:
reasonabel has been dishonest since post 1 here.
How about it reasonabel? Evidence above of your dishonesty and evidence of your anger, meaning – according to you – that you have lost the argument.
Oh joy. More of our personal troll collective.
Fair enough, but we also probably agree on the fact that Niburu doesn’t exist, that there are no fairies and that the sun’s going to rise tomorrow.
There are several problems with this. One is that your words are not mirrored by your previous actions. Another is that my concept of “truth” is a wee bit more complex than a reified destination one can “arrive at”. So no, most likely we do not agree here, and again the bits we agree on is very trivial.
If you really think this you’ve done a spectacularly bad job at communicating this in this thread.
Because the way TAM did it, shamed and made the victim feel more unsafe and wanting to run away from the security. What’s the point of having policies and security when all they do is shame and alienate the victim? They are suppose to help. That just defeats the purpose. Just like our rape laws. Oh yes, rapists go to prison but with people treating the victims like shit (esp. law enforcement) that drives victims away. So in the end all you get is lower rate of rape being reported but not actually helping lower rape.
That seems to be what TAM wants. They claim to have an “official” way to report harassment but nobody attending knows about it. They have secret security patrolling so if they see harassment they can hush it up by focusing on the victim and telling them not talk about it. They get win-win, no reports of harassment so they can claim it’s safe and they can claim they were right about harassment policies, all while not giving a fuck about the victims and the consequences.
Even if I could go to TAM I sure as fuck wouldn’t with their track record on this subject. I hope people stop supporting this event. I don’t see it being salvaged with the current management.
Jacklewis:
Yes, it’s to make it clear to everyone in bullet points what is and is not tolerated. An awful lot of stuff would slip through the cracks without a policy. Some people do need the reminder.
For some, a SWAT team may be harrassing. Being singled out like that was very disconcerting for Surly Amy.
And note that a written policy can protect EVERYONE, not just one person, and has less manpower needs.
@ reasonabel
I have shown your dishonesty at #498. You have zero credibility here. Why do you need to post here in order to gain cred on the slimepit forum? Surely you don’t need us to bolster your claims of what a great commenter you are!
Since people are very welcoming at the slimepit, stay there.