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Official Announcements

Adjust your dials

WisCon is embracing the blogging life and moving from our old Blogspot digs to a shiny new blog hosted on the WisCon webserver.  Please adjust your receiver to tune in our new RSS frequency.

We’ve also changed the name of our blog to clearly differentiate it from the at-con newsletter, which has long been called “A Momentary Taste of WisCon.”  Our new blog is “WisCon, WisCon, do you read?” — a title, like Momentary Taste, taken from a James Tiptree, Jr., story.

Stay tuned this week and next while we break in the new blog with updates from the concom as we begin work on WisCon 39.

WISCON OVER AND OUT

Official Announcements

Jeanne Gomoll leaves the concom

Jeanne Gomoll has announced her resignation from the WisCon concom:

I resigned from the WisCon planning committee and from the SF3 Board on October 5, 2014. To put it mildly, this has been a momentous decision for me.

You can read the full text below or on Facebook. If you’re on Facebook and would like to leave a note for Jeanne, you can navigate from that link to the version of the announcement she posted on her personal page.

Jeanne has done an absolutely tremendous amount of work on WisCon over the years. It’s hard to imagine we would have reached 38 WisCons without her. We are deeply grateful for her continued support.

My resignation from the concom does not affect my support of WisCon. I will be forever proud of my work on WisCon and for the space it offers the feminist science fiction community and its allies. I count myself lucky to have worked on WisCon for as long as I have, and hope that it continues for many more years. I plan to attend WisCon 39 in 2015 and many future WisCons.

Continue reading Jeanne Gomoll leaves the concom →

Official Announcements

Piglet recuses herself from harassment process

From the SF3 board (WisCon’s parent organization):

In response to member concerns, Piglet Evans has stated that she will not volunteer for Safety positions at WisCon in the future, and will recuse herself from handling reports of harassment or related matters in any other ConCom position. We further guarantee that she will be held to this. We thank Piglet for her cooperation, and for her years of service in many capacities.

Comments can be sent to SF3’s Corresponding Secretary: info@sf3.org

Official Announcements, SF3

An apology from SF3

The board of SF3, WisCon’s parent organization, has posted the following apology on their blog:

An Apology

The SF3 Board extends heartfelt apologies to those who have been harassed at WisCon, to those who feel unsafe at WisCon, to the ConCom, and to our wider community, for letting you down. We regret allowing Rose Lemberg’s report to languish. We are writing this statement as prompted by Rose Lemberg’s liaisons, Saira Ali and Alex Dally MacFarlane (link: . While this statement is being written per their request, the SF3 board would like to emphasize that it is genuinely sorry for Rose Lemberg’s pain being perpetuated by a seemingly unending tangle of bureaucratic lapses. WisCon co-chairs change from year to year, as do department heads such as Safety, but the makeup of the SF3 Executive Board is more static, as the turnover is staggered. Our board is organized so as to provide continuity and stability, and we recognize that our positions make us uniquely culpable for having failed to monitor and intervene in the communications with individuals who reported harassment at WisCon.

We failed to see that our process was a flawed and porous system that allowed reports to get misplaced. Since the SF3 Board officially appoints the chair(s) of WisCon, which in turn is technically a committee within the larger organization of SF3, the board acknowledges that it is ultimately our responsibility to oversee issues of safety that affect all WisCon attendees.

We will focus on our accountability and responsibilities as an institution and be vigilant in the future to try and prevent such events from happening again.

A number of valued concom members have chosen to resign over the summer, including several past WisCon chairs. In addition, several other former chairs have decided to significantly reduce their work on WisCon. We recognize that chairing Wiscon is a difficult task, even with co-chairs, and that the responsibilities of chair and other high-responsibility positions need to be rethought. The concom is currently examining itself, and has begun work to replenish committee positions and to provide training or apprenticeships for prospective chairs.

You may leave comments on SF3’s blog post or send them via email to the SF3 Corresponding Secretary.

Official Announcements

Subcommittee requests additional information

As one of the concerns brought up regarding the Frenkel decision was that all available reports were not considered, the subcommittee convened to consider Rose Lemberg’s report would like to ask if anyone has additional information about the events publicly discussed by Rose Lemberg [http://rose-lemberg.livejournal.com/354919.html] and Saira Ali and Alex Dally MacFarlane [http://sairaali.livejournal.com/201577.html] that they would like to make WisCon aware of at this time.

We do have Rose Lemberg’s report, Saira Ali and Alex Dally MacFarlane’s open letter to WisCon, and WisCon’s other correspondence with Rose Lemberg, FJ Bergmann, Saira Ali, Alex Dally MacFarlane, and other witnesses. If you have additional statements or information, please email it to safety@wiscon.net by Monday, October 6.

Thank you.

Official Announcements

Update from subcommittee

The subcommittee reviewing Rose Lemberg’s report of harassment by FJ Bergmann is continuing its deliberations, while being mindful of the ways in which the first subcommittee’s process was flawed. We believe that WisCon owes all involved parties, and the WisCon community, a resolution to this matter sooner rather than later, given how long this situation was neglected by WisCon. All subcommittee members will be involved in deciding what information should be reviewed, we will be very mindful of WisCon’s Statement of Principles and our commitment to member safety, and the WisCon concom will be reviewing our recommendations for action before the decision is finalized.

Official Announcements

Concom decision on Jim Frenkel

The WisCon 37 and WisCon 38 concom members jointly reviewed the Frenkel subcommittee’s recommendation, and, after extensive discussion and consideration of additional evidence, voted whether to clarify or strengthen the existing ban, or to make the ban permanent. By an overwhelming majority, the decision is for a permanent ban. This decision cannot be appealed. Jim Frenkel will not be allowed to return to any future WisCon conventions.

Official Announcements

State of the Concom, July 30th — vote commencing

The WisCon concom has begun the voting process in its appeal of the subcommittee’s decision on Jim Frenkel. In addition to reviewing the subcommittee’s decision, the concom is also considering information that has been brought to its attention in the weeks since the July 18th announcement from the subcommittee. Voting will close over the weekend. The concom’s decision will be announced Monday afternoon (Seattle time).

Official Announcements

Concom update for July 26th

We have several announcements to make as updates to our previous post:

1) In light of the intense community response to the Frenkel subcommittee’s decision, and the concom’s own concern about the “provisional ban,” the WisCon concom is itself currently appealing the subcommittee’s decision and will vote on the matter this week.

2) Debbie Notkin has resigned as Member Advocate, effective immediately.

3) The Bergmann subcommittee is assessing if they can continue given the valid concerns about Wiscon’s existing process.

4) Regarding refunds of registrations for WisCon 39, we received this question via Twitter: “Will there be a policy for refunds for those of us who are against the con’s current harassment actions?”

WisCon has traditionally had a fairly free refund policy for any registered members who are unable to attend. Anyone who has registered for WisCon 39 and would like a refund for any reason can request one by emailing registration@wiscon.net.

Official Announcements

forthcoming update

[The following was posted in the WisCon Dreamwidth and LiveJournal communities last night:]

1) The update I promised in our previous update will be posted tomorrow (Saturday late afternoon / early evening Seattle time). While I hate posting on a Friday or over the weekend, I didn’t quite have all the information I needed to post yesterday. Apologies!

2) On a purely administrative note, social media postings are currently being handled by Chris (“wordnerdlabs” on Twitter).

Official Announcements

Update From the Concom

Over the weekend, the WisCon Concom has spent much time reading and discussing the responses to the Friday announcement of the subcommittee’s decision on Jim Frenkel. We heartily thank the community for all of your insightful commentary and critique. We are grateful to you for holding us accountable to our feminist principles.

Currently, the concom is looking at all aspects of this process and decision.  You have brought us your questions; we have questions of our own.  We are actively working on answers to them.  Answers may not come immediately, but we will keep you updated.  If possible, we’ll post again before the end of the week with information about where our discussion is taking us.

We apologize again to Elise and Lauren.  Not only were you hurt by harassment at WisCon, but you have been hurt again and again by this process over the past year.  We are deeply sorry for our repeated failures.

We apologize to Mikki Kendall, whose information on a previous incident was not made properly significant in the process.

We apologize to the WisCon community.  You have been hurt by this process as well and left feeling unsafe at WisCon.  Thank you for your anger and criticism — it’s informing our discussion and moving us forward.

Moving WisCon forward from these repeated failures is hard work.  We on the concom are willing and determined to be engaged in this, although as individuals engaged in such hard work it can prove extremely difficult to not add to the ongoing harm.  We apologize for our part in causing harm, and thank you for patience that is not always so well deserved.

The concom continues to invite and value your feedback.  Comments made on this post (as well as tweets made using either @WisConSF3 or #WisCon) will be sent to the entire concom.