Well, I guess being a gay netrunner player has its perks…
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While safety should be a priority, the way this is written is potentially abusable. Microaggressions, by definition, are performed unintentionally and to have ejection at the default response for accidental behaviour is extreme. From a clarity-of-wording perspective, it’s also bad because one sentence contradicts the other and doesn’t mention that regional presidents can also apply remedies. Suggest something like:
TOs and regional presidents have a range of remedies at their discretion, from education and a warning, immediate ejection, through to ejection and a ban from future events. However, unreceptive behaviour after a warning will never be tolerated.
I think is the best way to deal with the first instance of problematic behaviour is set out below. It was written by a woman who has been involved in the open source community for a number of years (source):
If someone of any gender does something that violates my boundaries, I assume it was a misunderstanding. I calmly and specifically explain what bothered me and how to avoid crossing that boundary, making it a point to let the person know that I am not upset with them, I just want to make sure they’re aware so it doesn’t happen again. This is what adults do, and it works.
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This thread and every post in it makes me incredibly proud to be part of the netrunner community.
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This definitely sounds like the most sensible approach to me. I am quite wary about having a clause in which can cause someone to be ejected for a first time offence of which they might not even be aware is considered as such - after all, while certain behaviours (say, unwanted physical contact) surely could mandate direct eviction, there will at least as surely also be a range where the pragmatic advice from the quote above will be by far the best approach (in a tournament/gameplay setting as well as in general), simply due to different people, after all, having different opinions on what constitute reasonable ways to interact with each other.
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Would you consider uploading the final (or current) version somewhere? I wrote something similar a little while ago (also stressing the ‘if you see it, say something’ aspect) but I feel your version is more complete and has the benefit of all the other Stimhackers going over it. We’re running a tournament in Scotland in September and I’d like to get something like this up for people to see!
As a female Netrunner player I have thankfully never had a negative experience with other players, based on my gender or otherwise. The Netrunner players I have encountered to date have all been polite and respectful towards me and never have I felt uncomfortable or unwelcome at game nights or tournaments. This a testament to the ANR community and I’m super proud to be reading this discussion on Stimhack; I am glad the major players in the scene take these issues seriously and actively ensure their local communities are welcoming and inclusive for all.
Women face a lot of sexism and harassment on a daily basis, probably more than most men realise (not your fault, it’s hard to spot if it’s not directed at you!) so entering a heavily male dominated games shop can be intimidating, and a woman is unlikely to want to take up a hobby that would expose her to even more unwanted attention and discomfort. The more people are aware of these issues and take them seriously, the more likely it is that ANR will attract and retain female players, and generally just continue to be an awesome community!
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Agreed. Removing someone from an event should be avoided if possible, and in a lot of cases likely can be avoided by a talk. Clearly extreme cases do not apply.
Something to remember, is that as TOs and community organizers we only have the power to remove someone from the tournament, not the store (in most cases). Stores are always going to be quite hesitant at kicking someone out who has not done something extreme (like breaking the law). So removing somebody from the event that does not get removed from the store, can cause things to escalate in a way that is far worse than the initial scenario.
To be clear, I am not defending offenders, nor am I saying “People need to put up with a certain amount of abuse” but it is something to be cognizant of. The goal should be to maintain a safe play space for everyone, and I firmly believe in most cases this starts with a talk to the person that may be unintentionally making somebody uncomfortable.
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Right, so again I said I was cool with talking it out for things like microaggressions. When you talk about the code of conduct being abusable or assume all first time offenses are teachable moments, please think about this from the perspective of people who have each experienced abuse or harassment.
Who wants to abuse a Code of Conduct? When you’re a lady in a game shop, you already don’t want to draw attention to yourself. You also don’t want bans typically, but if you don’t feel safe then you want to know the community will have your back. That’s all I’m saying. I agree, with most interactions, it can probably be resolved amicably, but let’s not get so carried away in thinking were so upstanding that we won’t ever have to remove someone. This CoC can’t be written to protect our own feelings. Again, think about who this is for.
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I think we have the same sentiment, I’m just not as eloquent. Yes, there are certainly going to be cases where removing a player will be warranted, and likely the only solution. I do believe the Netrunner community is better than most, but no community made up of humans is going to be perfect.
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Yup! We good. I mostly wanted to address those concerned with abusing the CoC.
Gonna second this.
The point isn’t to kick everyone out willy-nilly at the sign of an infraction, but to understand that action will be taken and the priority is making sure the target feels safe, not the education of the transgressor.
One of the things that can happen is that people can expect the victim to be able to eloquently and convincing explain why what happened was wrong, and if they can’t that their complaint was invalid. This is a trap, as it requires someone to be eloquently able to form an argument on the fly in order for them to be treated as human. Which some people can’t put into good words why something made them uncomfortable, or can’t fully explain it
When a complaint comes up, the first order of business needs to be the TO or Judge or whoever is in charge saying, “Hey, your behavior [explain behavior] is making person feel uncomfortable, you need to stop”. Ideally, the person will be like, oh, I didn’t realize this, I will stop. If the TO desires, this can go into lengthier teaching or discussion, but the core should be to prevent this behavior from happening. The victim should not be expected to explain to the abuser why what they were doing was wrong.
One of the things this means is that TO’s should probably have some sort of crash course document on common behavioral no-no’s and why they’re a problem. Stuff like this exists, and it shouldn’t be too challenging to find something not too long that we can use or adapt.
Just some thoughts.
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Writing a policy it isn’t just about incentivising the behaviours you want (and disincentivising the ones you don’t), it’s about the other behaviours that might be (dis)incentivised. (See also: cobra effect.) This CoC isn’t just about gender. This policy is being written to protect people regardless of (quote) “gender, gender identity, age, sexual origin, disability, appearance, body size, race, ethnicity or religion”. Microaggressions against any of those classes could include:
- People making Jesus Howard jokes when they shuffle 3 cards into R&D (microaggression against christians)
- People talking about going to church and assuming that everyone does it (microaggression against atheists)
- People not stowing bags under tables (microaggression against larger people)
Anyone could make an issue out of feeling unsafe at a critical moment in a tournament, to disrupt an opponent’s mental state or even have them removed from the tournament entirely. We live in a world where the overreaction to an off-colour joke between Justine Sacco and her <200 twitter followers blew up and the internet hate machine got her fired, piled on the threats and forced her into hiding for a year or so. I don’t want to see zero-to-nuclear responses become codified practice in this scene. Remove the people who are unwilling/unable to correct their behaviour, sure, but most people are capable of behaving themselves.
Yes! Exactly. But this is not what the policy, as written, sets out. It starts with expulsion and maaaybe winds back from there.
I think there is an accidental motte-and-bailey going on here. People engaging in massively anti-social behaviour, inappropriate touching, sexual comments and other grossly inappropriate actions will obviously need to be dealt with more harshly. I don’t dispute that. People who accidentally stuff up (the definition of microaggression includes accidental behaviour, and expulsion is in the CoC as the default response for all harassment, macro- or micro-) should be dealt with at an appropriate level.
I am. It’s for everyone: women, men, gay, straight, cis, trans, white, black, large, small, christian, muslim, sikh, buddhist, hindu, atheist and more that I haven’t listed. Everyone.
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Very well put and I wholeheartedly agree.
You appear to have no concept of privilege.
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I just wanted to pitch in here. I’m in the same gaming group as the original poster, and the individual in question is very much in the “inadvertently inappropriate” rather than the “intentionally sexually aggressive” type. I can see how it made the op’s partner uncomfortable, it was unfortunate, but he isn’t a monster that needs to be expelled from the store or anything like that.
For one thing, he wasn’t trying to “pry” when he asked her about her work etc He had realized that his joke hadn’t gone over well and was trying to naturalize the situation.
Not that it excuses making her feel uncomfortable, I’m just saying this is an issue that needs education and correction, not punitive counterstrikes.
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I’m at work so I can’t respond to this in full, but I think there are a couple of very important points to make on this.
- Justine’s case is a complete non sequitur (the reaction of an anonymous public mob has nothing to do with official accountable community standards). You should think about why you posted it.
- Yes, while the above document will effect and apply to everyone, it is about creating an environment where traditionally marginalized groups (primarily women, poc, non-heterosexual persons) can feel safe and welcome.
- I’m not opposed to changing the CoC to less drastic first steps, but simply statin some problems and suggestions for how to structure nonexpulsion first step and what the priorities should be.
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Do you expect any of these instances to come up?
I think if we agree that the alienating environment gaming has created for minorities and women in particular is a real and present problem, then it seems silly to worry about these frankly ridiculous edge cases (I’m and atheist and I’ve never in my whole life heard of another atheist being offended by someone who assumes everyone goes to Church) and let that neuter our response to a clear and existing problem by having us bend over backwards to make offenders sure that they’re allowed a few strikes before they’re out.
These policies won’t be enforced by robots applying the maximum penalty in cases where it’s clearly inappropriate. They’re designed to empower victims and organizers to deal with situations as they see fit, including expelling someone for (yes) microagressions.
If you’re in a tournament and you say “I’ll hit Kati for three” and the person you’re playing calls a judge because they feel it’s inappropriate wording, do you honestly think that if you say “Oh, I’m sorry! I hang around a lot of magic players and picked up the term ‘hit’ from them to indicate using a card that can be charged up. I totally didn’t intend to make light of violence against women and I’m sorry that I made you uncomfortable. Will it work if I say ‘click Kati’ from here on out?” you’ll be expelled from the tournament? I know that by the rules of the policy you could get expelled, but do you think either the offended party or the judge are going to see your genuine contrition and say “Nope, you’re gone”? If that starts happening, then we should look at protecting these policies from abuse.
Much more likely, I think, would be a scenario where a highly competitive player sees an opportunity to try and tilt their opponent by walking right up to the edge of the rules and harassing them from there, either by making comments about “How’s your boyfriend doing in the tournament so far” without knowing beforehand their opponent has one, or just staring weirdly or any number of passive-aggressive behaviors. Judges and victims should be empowered in these cases that could incite argument to go with their gut and eject players. After all, no one’s losing their job here and the worst (and I mean worst) case scenario here is that a player who’s normally awesome makes a faux pas without noticing it and is banned from attending future events in the ANRPC. I mean, that sucks, but… ok? If it happened to me and it was the price for making the community safer for women, that’s fine with me; I’ll settle for the other billion places I can play netrunner (OCTGN, Jinteki.net, FFG OP, league night). Furthermore, if I’m actually not part of the problem and it was all a misunderstanding, I think it’s highly likely that someone would notice and I’d probably get the ban lifted.
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I like @mediohxcore’s CoC policy. The only concern I have is that having such a policy suggests we need one. Which, so far as I’m aware, we typically don’t. I think that’s a small price to pay. That said, I’m a white heterosexual male, which puts me squarely in the dominant demographic. I may not be aware of marginalising behaviour.
I don’t think it exists where I am.
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That’s a common notion folks have, but in my experience it’s not a convincing one to marginalized communities. If I said to my wife “We’ve got no problems at our store. You’ve got nothing to worry about” she might be encouraged that we’re better than most, but I doubt she would come in expecting no strife. It’s everywhere and you only really notice it if it bops you on the nose (or if someone helps you see it), and having a policy in place to deal with it lets people know that we recognize that it’s an issue and we’ve got structures in place to help victims navigate it so, unlike so often in life, they’re not on their own.
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I think having a playmat or making comments about a religious figure or institution could be off-putting to many people. If you’re going to ban playmats because they are “too sexual”, I don’t see how you could allow playmats which mock religious figure or institutions. As such, wouldn’t “Jesus Howard” comments fall under the policy? As would the playmat depicted above.
You can’t selectively enforce a policy.
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