Eurofurence Community > General Discussion
Official Statement Regarding the Policy Debate on Twitter
Cheetah:
--- Quote from: Ralphie Raccoon on 10.06.2015, 18:52:07 ---
* Are you allowed to wear a sleeper (sometimes called a onesie) in the public area of the convention (including ones with "babyish" designs)?
* Are you allowed to suck on a pacifier in a public area of the convention?
* Are you allowed to display a clip-on pacifier on apparel in a public area of the convention?
--- End quote ---
Yes, I understand perfectly what you are suggesting.
Dhary Montecore:
--- Quote from: Ralphie Raccoon on 10.06.2015, 13:24:35 ---Of course there is a difference between the statement and the application of the rules.
From my experience at ConFuzzled, I've seen a few attendees in the past wearing sleepers and pacifiers with no problem (walking around in an exposed diaper would probably be frowned upon though). And the wording in their CoC is exactly the same.
--- End quote ---
As Chief of Security for ConFuzlled I have to state that this is NOT true and IF it ever happened it was overlooked by my team by accident.
--- Quote from: Ralphie Raccoon on 10.06.2015, 14:25:57 ---I would cite the example of the Cfz weapons policy as an example where a rule revision really helped. As it was a Medieval theme, the staff anticipated many people would want to bring imitation weapons. As a result, they revised the rules on them to make them more specific and clear, and people were generally happy about it.
--- End quote ---
Yes, It was me who wrote the weapons guide and I introduced it 1:1 at EF and CFz. It is a GUIDELINE, not a change in rules. All weapons have to be checked in with the security upon arrival as all the years before. BUT I do get your point. It might be a good idea to make such a guideline on fetish gear in public areas as well, just as a courtesy and service to our attendees. Thank you for that suggestion! :3
AliothFox:
I have been very public on Twitter in my responses to this drama. Let me explain my take on the matter.
I think the main reason the drama spiraled out of control is because of the things that a few of the staff members said, "in the heat of the moment," as Cheetah said. However, the one thing that caught my attention is when he said, "On twitter, single tweets are often taken out of context and being passed around with comments making them appear to be a huge thing that they really weren't. A lot of very wrong things have been said by various people in the heat of the moment, and that was certainly a mistake - but in many cases, these tweets look a lot less political and more like the actual personal emotional response they were in the original context of an ongoing personal argument between a few very agitated private parties."
The tweet in question said, "Go suffocate yourself with a diaper," followed by epithets that I won't repeat here out of politeness. Now, I think (I HOPE) everyone here can agree that there is no possible context that would make such a statement acceptable, under any circumstances. That is where the line was crossed, and the initial post of this thread really doesn't seem to respond to that. It says, in essence, "Our staff acted wrongly, but you should have known better than to provoke them." At the risk of using political buzzwords, that sounds a lot like victim-blaming. No matter what was said to the staff member in question, his response - whether on an official EF channel or on his own channel - was completely over the line. When he wished death on his critic, it moved beyond merely heated - and even, I'll admit, verbally abusive - dialogue. The babyfur community is not blameless in this, but it was the Eurofurence staff who allowed what should have been a simple matter of clarification to turn into an ugly brawl that resulted in the tweet in question.
And the reason it turned into the public frenzy is because those concerns have not been substantially addressed. You said, "We're very sorry." Great! You should be. It got out of hand, and it's good that you recognize that. But what is being done to correct it? The official response is very vague. Re-writing social media guidelines and re-assigning responsibilities are not particularly clear. You said you were "re-assigning responsibilities." Can you clarify what this means?
Now, the other matter that I'm concerned about is the fact that EF seems to have taken the position of, "We can only address the issues that happened on EF's official channel." Perhaps not in those exact words, but that seems to be the general attitude. And that is part of the problem. The tweet that was mentioned previously is a prime example of that - and Eurofurence has not done anything to address how WRONG that tweet was. It did not happen on EF's official channel, but it did happen, it directly concerns EF's staff in relation to EF, and it was very public. There are numerous screenshots on Twitter reflecting this.
This was a public mistake, and it deserves a public apology with no strings attached. Let me say this very plainly so that there is no mistaking or word-twisting: The rules and policies may have been what started this scandal, but they are not the main issue. You've clarified the rules. You have settled a lot of those questions. What you have not done is made any admission that the staff acted inappropriately. It was a "sorry, not sorry" response. Have the responsible parties been relieved of their duties? Will they be personally made to apologize for the tweets in question? This cannot be handled "behind the scenes" because that's not where the tweets occurred. At this point, the damage is done, and you have lost what will likely be a substantial number of attendees - continuing to take the, "Those tweets were inappropriate, but it's your fault for provoking them" position is not going to be helpful. A sincere apology, however - with no strings attached, and with a clear, detailed (not vague, as this one is) plan of what will be done both to prevent this from happening in the future and to redress the specific grievance in question may do something to help you recover the tarnished reputation.
Tsanawo:
Just to be clear, these views are my stance and my stance only, I do not speak for any other staff members nor EuroFurence in general.
--- Quote ---Will they be personally made to apologize for the tweets in question?
--- End quote ---
I certainly hope not, the moment I will be forced to apologize for anything I wrote in my personal Twitter timeline, how outrageous it might be, is the moment I resign from staff.
Dhary Montecore:
--- Quote from: Tsanawo on 10.06.2015, 22:54:32 ---Just to be clear, these views are my stance and my stance only, I do not speak for any other staff members nor EuroFurence in general.
--- Quote ---Will they be personally made to apologize for the tweets in question?
--- End quote ---
I certainly hope not, the moment I will be forced to apologize for anything I wrote in my personal Twitter timeline, how outrageous it might be, is the moment I resign from staff.
--- End quote ---
I absolutely agree. I saw the tweet-conversation in question and I agree it was completely out of line, but so has been the entire conversation. This entire convention is based on the countless hours of VOLUNTEER work. Even if we wanted to we couldn't force PRIVATE people to apologise (or to anything for that matter) for what they have said on their PRIVATE twitter. The moment we would do that we would lose our staff and the con would be over for far more than 2000 people that have nothing to do nor care about this twitter drama.
You might overestimate the amount of support the agitators in this drama have amongst our attendees.
The consequences taken are clear and stated in the public statement: We WILL make sure that no offensive tweets/answers will be posted on our official twitter account again and we will establish a purely professional PR system to avoid such escalations in future.
Again, we are very sorry for the emotionally stained tweets that have been made in response to some of the tweets thrown at EF.
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