Thorns

(I already posted these to sqbr if you follow me there)

Tumblr:

Trans woman gets sick of transphobia on tumblr, tumblr CEO is awful about it

Worldcon:

Report on the leaked emails where the English speaking side of the committee cheerfully created political dossiers of the nominated authors based on their own projected ideas of what censorship the Chinese government might want, without feeling the need to talk to the actual Chinese people on the committee, do any real research, actually read the relevant books etc. There's been some criticism of this report itself being biased/inaccurate but I don't know of anything better with the same info.

Mary Robinette Kowal talks about similar bad behaviour she had seen from Dave McCarthy previously

Results rigged to exclude Chinese authors. This really underlines how ridiculous it is to blame literally everything on Chinese government interference, as some people still insist on doing. In what universe would they exert pressure to have less Chinese authors win awards?

Tangential but feels broadly relevant: How creators and works from New Zealand/Aotearoa were more subtly excluded at the Wellington Worldcon. This isn't equivalent to the outright censorship of the Chengdu Hugos, but it's an example of how this culture of exclusion is not a new thing or just a reaction to a "bad" foreign country.

This was a very interesting panel, even just watching a recording, but I was SUPER tired so just let it wash over me.

The only note I took on the panel itself was: the panelists described how Americans see themselves as farmers and frontiersmen when this is blatantly untrue for most people. This reminded me of Australia.

Under the cut: links and book recs I copied from the discord chat. Mostly about the US, including some discussion of Covid. Pretty sure I missed some.
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For the Perth Gaming Festival this Saturday. I have a bunch of copanelists, so this is just points I want to hit, not a strict plan.

Description:
More people are playing and making games than ever before, and as the community has grown so too has the call for games that represent a wide range of human experience. This panel explores the importance of diversity in games, with discussion of ways developers can make more representative games, of how both players and game makers can be supportive of diverse voices, and will include examples of games featuring positive identity representations. Our panelists will speak from a wide range of perspectives, including disability, the LGBTIQ spectrum, and culturally diverse backgrounds.

My notes:
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Some interesting posts by other people about safe spaces and accessibility at Swancon:

• An open letter to the Australian SF community The post itself is about the lack of ramps at the awards ceremony, but there's more (sometimes frustrating) general discussion in the comments
  
• Swancon 2011 - Hyatt Mobility Issues firvulag has offered to help future committees with this stuff because he is awesome.
  
• In Which I Learn Things About Safe Spaces
  

Those not subscribed to alias_sqbr may be interested in my (not very good) panel notes.

• Disability and social media, AI and the human mind
  
• Great women in comics, New Who, This Spaceship has cooties (feminism and sff), Emotion and attachment in video games, Politics of fanworks, Conversation with Artists: Technique, Gynaecon discussion on accessibility, food and food ethics
  
• Galactic Suburbia podcast recording, How to write fight scenes, Religion Creation in fantasy, Classic Doctor Who, female characters in the background, 2012 launch, vidding
  
• Social media and science fiction fandom, Comics you should be reading, closing ceremony
  

This is a not a proper post, just stuff I will probably forget about by the time I get around to making an actual post unless I post it now.

Stargate Universe makes Dollhouse and Stargate Atlantis look unproblematic and awesome.

There have been several discussions about issues at Worldcon.

This has been making me think about Aussiecon. This post for example brings up the culture clash between American and Australian/British etc conceptions of race and how this can cause problems with stuff like a "People of Colour Meet & Greet" (beyond the problems they already have with this sort of thing in America(*))

It also made me seriously ponder getting a mobility scooter for Aussiecon. They sound convenient, and walking is hard!

An example of the way it's better to discuss this sort of thing in advance rather than just hoping things go ok is the fact that the location for Femmeconne, the local feminist con, is apparently full of stairs because it simply didn't occur to the organisers to ask about accessibility :/ (I don't do stairs, not unless it's a single flight I walk up once)

(*)I remember reading some posts about how white people got offended by and kept trying to invade the POC safe space at Wiscon but I can't find them now, closest I came was Wiscon Squee and Fail or Why I Still Don't Love Cons. But in Australia there's going to be all that plus cultural differences about what terms to use for POC/non-white people etc, plus the fact that afaict we're more inclined to ignore race as an Issue all together. I forsee Drama.

Right, and now some thoughts on the actual content of Admitting Impediments: Post-WisCon Posts, Part I, or, That Post I Never Made About RaceFail '09 and other related conversations, based largely on comments I left there and on my post Two Fandoms both alike in dignity... Since her terminology means something different in the context of local fandom I'm going to use "fanfic" and "old school" instead of her "media" and "book". They're still wrong, of course, but in a different way :)

Paradoxically, I think the fact that she has a point and tries to express it in an inclusive way has helped crystalise for me some of the ways fanfic meta tends to be seriously flawed and uninclusive. Normally I just roll my eyes and go "Yeah, yeah, more smug fanfic meta" and scroll by, but I don't let myself scroll by racism meta that makes me uncomfortable, so I really poked at my reactions (I REALLY hope I haven't ended up being all white person defensive about race in this post, but am open to the possibility that I may be). This post is more about the general arguments I have seen than any one post.

I'm not going to argue that fanfic fandom doesn't deal better with race, because afaict FOC (non-white fans) think it does and their opinion is the only one that counts. And given that this is the case, I think old school fandom should try and learn from fanfic fandom's example (see bottom of post).

But I'm sick of so many conversations being framed as "Why my form of fandom is Better and the True Form Of Fandom", so that even when it's true (in at least one respect) it's hard to engage with an open mind. I wrote up my general annoyance in What annoys me about fanfic meta.
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And some ways similar ideas will benefit those outside old school fandom (separated out because this is not the same as fighting racism):

• Be more open in general and acknowledge that not only has fandom changed, but that parts of fandom have been excluded for years. There needs to be a multiplicity of voices in fandom: fans of anime, fanfic, roleplaying, comics and webcomics, as well as people who interact online or in other places beyond Proper Cons. See these people as Real Fans, and take their opinions on fandom as seriously as anyone else's.
  
• Accept change. You personally do not have to start liking fanfic etc, but accept that other people have other tastes, and if the overall taste of fandom changes (which it has before, is now, and will again) then fandom and conventions (especially "comprehensive" ones like Wiscon or Worldcon or Natcon) need to change to respect that (luckily, by my first point, it should still make space for your tastes too, even if they end up being a minority)
  

What we should NOT do is dismiss this all as "Some bunch of (American) fanfic writers complaining about nothing". Because fanfic writers are fans too, and because regardless of what social group they're in, when POC complain about racism and the only people who think it's not a big deal are white people, it's time to take a good hard look at yourself. And because there are FOC in "old school" fandom (including in Australia) and always have been, and because we are human beings in an unjust world and it's the right thing to do.

(nb comments screened since I used all the spoons I might use to answer comments to this post writing it! Will get to comments eventually. I will NOT leave anything which follows my commenting rules screened, even if it says I'm an idiot or whatever, I just want to make sure I'm in a state to deal with anything problematic before other people have to)