If you know of a convention that needs to be added to the list or have updated your own convention's policy, you can fill out the form here. What do attendees do if a staff member isn't close by? What about people with mobility issues who may not be able to easily reach ConOps? There should be a phone number or email listed in the policy-and preferably on every badge and posted throughout the venue-so attendees can use their phone to reach someone for help. Is there a contact listed so people know who to reach out to if they are harassed? A policy that says "find staff" is not acceptable. Not every case of harassment needs police intervention, and people may be too frightened to call law enforcement. A policy that just says "call the police" isn't acceptable. The policy needs to indicate to attendees who they can contact if they have a conflict with staff-hotel staff, outside security, etc. Good policies should clearly list possible consequences, such as confiscation of a badge, removal from the event, and/or being banned from any future events.ĭoes the policy explain what to do if con staff are the ones engaging in harassment? Nobody wants to believe someone in their organization could do such a thing, but just pretending like it won't happen isn't a solution. If someone is being harassed, they don't have time to waste clicking all over a page trying to locate information they need.ĭoes the policy actually define harassment? Does it list examples of behaviors that are unacceptable, while specifying that such a list is not all-inclusive? Simply saying, "Cosplay is NOT Consent" is not enough the term is too vague and fails to cover attendees who may not be in cosplay.ĭoes the policy explain what the consequences of harassment will be? Often policies just assure you that staff will "deal with" a situation. It shouldn't take more than three (3) mouse clicks to get there. It should not be only in an "attendees" section, or labeled as "attendee rules." This implies that staff, vendors, and volunteers don't have to comply with it. If they do have a policy listed on their site, is it easy to find? The policy should be either directly linked on the home page or found in a place that intuitively makes sense, such as under general policies, event information, or FAQs. We can't rate a policy that does not exist at the time of review. Lastly, conventions need to have their policies up on their website year-round, not just before the event or intermittently throughout the year, because our ratings come from publicly available information. Discord servers do not count as a website and any information about a harassment policy located solely on a Discord server cannot be counted as "publicly available" information. Such a policy needs to explicitly mention harassment it's not enough to just say "if it's illegal, don't do it." Some conventions will have paragraph after paragraph about prop and weapon guidelines, but a code of conduct that consists of little more than "be nice and don't ruin other people's experience." A policy that specifically shows the word "harassment" but is limited to "no harassment," "harassment will not be tolerated," or "we have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment" with no further explanation, resources, or consequences can only receive an asterisk. Every convention should have this on their webpage-no exceptions. We also have a pamphlet on what constitutes a good policy and how to contact conventions to ask them to improve it that can be downloaded here.įor starters, do they even have a policy? You would assume all conventions do at this point, but there are still some that do not have a policy posted on their website. If you run a convention and you're looking to see a sample harassment policy, we've put one together here. If you run a convention and you've changed your policy to make it better, let us know and we'll update accordingly! Disappointed in their score? You can contact them-or ask us to-and request they add to their policy. If you're thinking of attending a convention, you can check out its "report card" to see how they stack up. Conventions listed here are rated on various criteria that we look for in a quality harassment policy.
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