When Convention Committees Go Nuclear

[major_clanger]

If you read nwhyte's journal (and is there anyone left who doesn't?) you'll be aware from this post that Irish fan slovobooks has been banned at short notice from attending Octocon this weekend, seemingly on the basis of unspecified conduct or comments relating to his criticism of the current committee.

Can they do this? More importantly, should they?

Comments

[secretrebel]

This thread is really interesting. I don't know any of the people involved but the committee don't appear to be covering themselves in glory with their bizarre insistence that slovobooks should absolutely under no circumstances whatsoever contact them to discuss this while declaring it's outrageous that he didn't contact them to discuss this privately.

[swisstone]

Yes, James Brophy does seem to be in some bizarre sort of denial.

[gmh]

Quite apart from all else, he makes a great point of insisting that he knows the REAL slovobooks better than a lot of us, and that we're just ignorant of his dark side (a nice way to address your audience!).

If he knows him so well, then why didn't he forsee that slovobooks would make the news public; and why didn't he see that this would cause a major fanstorm?

I mean, if you really believe that someone will play to the gallery at any opportunity, and you want to discredit their opinion, the very last thing you should give them is an opportunity like this one; it's a major tactical blunder.

[swisstone]

One of the Octocon co-chairs has now basically disowned anything James Brophy has said. Which is all very well, but now leaves Padraig in the position that the Octocon committee won't tell him why he's been banned, and he can't assume that it's for any of the reasons that James says (though it may be).

[gmh]

I've called her on it. If you're going to ban someone, do them the courtesy of letting them know why.