On Welcoming

[mrissa]

We have been talking a lot, around my house, about welcoming, about conventions and communities and welcoming people into them. I keep saying a thing that sounds tautological and yet strikes me as important, which is: if you don’t welcome people, they will not feel welcome. Welcoming is a thing that someone has to do. It does not spring up of

Comments

[laurel]

Lots of good stuff here. I find the welcoming thing is especially tricky at SF cons because so many fans are introverts and socially awkward in fundamental ways. I think the "Minicon 101" sort of document I made a few years back mentioned this and how most fans at the con are genuinely happy to have new people show up, just kinda suck at showing it because they're shy. Dunno if that helped or was stating the obvious, but I felt a written welcome sort of thing might work better for fans (even if it was something of a pre-emptive apology too).

I think I included a list of suggested places I found as good places to hang out if you were new, too. Because I know some people just show up primarily for programming and are at loose ends between panels or just don't know where tables and chairs and such things are. A map in the program book or pocket program only goes so far, after all.

[mrissa]

I think that knowing that it's not you, it's them helps...but only a little bit. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if you have no one to talk to at an event despite making strong efforts because the established people there are all shy, it still is not really the point of going to a large gathering.

[laurel]

Oh sure. I oversimplified here, my document also encouraged folks who've been around awhile to be more welcoming and ways they might do so and so on. I think. I may be remembering wrong I've written so many "Con 101" sorts of things as well as "can't we all get along" things and "we should be more welcoming" things

[rosefox]

I find the welcoming thing is especially tricky at SF cons because so many fans are introverts and socially awkward in fundamental ways.

I find this belief kind of inherently unwelcoming.

[laurel]

Well, that stings.

I oversimplified here because I know Mrissa and know she knows that I don't mean those things as negative. And she knows that I know mileage varies and fans are a diverse lot. For that matter, some cons and fan communities have larger percentages of extroverts and folks with really good social skills.

I've been working on the "being more welcoming" thing with a particular fan group and a particular con for more than twenty years now. I get frustrated.

I guess when commenting on public posts I should be clearer. Or I just shouldn't comment.

[rosefox]

I certainly sympathize with con burnout and frustration. And I'm glad you're aware that people are diverse.

I actually was more put off by your suggestion that introverts and socially awkward people (two distinct groups, I note) are inherently harder to welcome into established spaces. That notion leads people who might otherwise focus efforts on being welcoming to give up before they even start, especially when it's tied to the "most fans have no idea how to talk to other human beings" stereotype. If most people are unwelcomable, why bother trying? In many cases, if you give up on them, they'll give up on themselves, and then they feel distressed and you miss out on what they would have brought to the community.

I think it makes more practical sense to target those two groups of proto-fans with welcoming efforts, because they're the ones who would benefit the most from them. Welcoming activities that create introvert-friendly social spaces like small-group non-competitive games and reading lunches, and that provide structure and

[laurel]

I meant that those who are introverts and those who are socially awkward and those who are both are often not good at being welcoming; I was thinking of it from that angle.

Of course one should welcome those people and I have in the past focused my own efforts on the introverts and the awkward.