Jan 14, 2018 / Uncategorized

Jon Del Arroz’s History of Trolling and Harassing

4/17/2018: Del Arroz has filed suit against Worldcon.

2/19/2018: Per author A. Merc Rustad, Del Arroz is now asking people to give him money so he can sue WorldCon, comparing his struggle to that of LGBT people seeking marriage equality. As is his pattern, he paints himself as the victim, and distorts or outright lies about events. (For example, he claims he’s suffered “having my young children harassed on the internet through people trying to harass me into silence.” This appears to refer to his made-up claim that someone doxxed his children, as discussed below.)

He also says, “Most of you know me from conventions, and also know that I’m a fun person to be around, who’s never caused a problem or even been accused of such.” This is another blatant lie. He might be fun to be around in certain circumstances, but for him to claim he’s never caused a problem? Never even been accused of causing a problem? That level of dishonesty would be laughable, if he wasn’t also hurting good people in the process.

I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect most competent lawyers would crush this nonsense pretty quickly. It still creates a headache for the volunteers doing their best to run WorldCon, and to create an event free of the harassment and bullying Del Arroz has engaged in for years. My sympathies to all those having to deal with JDA’s latest publicity stunt.

Author Jon Del Arroz recently had his attending membership to WorldCon revoked. This generated a lot of discussion. WorldCon stated that JDA was banned:

“…because he has made it clear that he fully intends to break our code of conduct. We take that seriously. Worldcon 76 strives to be an inclusive place in fandom, as difficult as that can be, and racist and bullying behavior is not acceptable at our Worldcon. This expulsion is one step towards eliminating such behavior and was not taken lightly.”

A Facebook thread suggests they also received complaints from victims of Del Arroz’s harassment.

Del Arroz, unsurprisingly, disagrees:

“With Worldcon’s statements about ‘intent’ to violate their rules, and failure to specify rules, this is a clear targeting over my politics because I’m a vocal Christian and Hispanic Trump supporter.”

This seems odd, given that nobody else has been banned for being vocal Christian or Trump supporters. One of WorldCon’s guests of honor is Hispanic, so I’m not sure where he sees race is a factor here. But rather than debate this particular incident, I want to focus on some of the discussion that followed.

Del Arroz’s defenders claim he’s a nice guy, and accusations that he harasses or trolls people are absurd. Del Arroz told me on Facebook that he doesn’t “escalate feuds.” He claims he’s just the victim of blackballing, harassment, threats, and so on.

I’m not saying nobody has ever given Del Arroz shit online. He alleges that people once doxxed his children and sent a glitterbomb to his house. Both were done anonymously. I have no problem condemning both incidents, whoever was responsible. I’ve also heard that people mocked him for his last name, which…yeah, that just seems racist to me.

ETA: It looks like the alleged doxxing was actually an individual referencing a fact about Del Arroz’s child that Del Arroz himself had shared on Periscope and in earlier tweets. (I’ve blacked out that fact in the screenshot, and would appreciate it not being brought up in the comments.)

But if you look through Jon Del Arroz’s interactions with others… Well, here’s a sampling of what people are talking about when they say Del Arroz harasses, insults, and trolls others, and distorts things for what someone once described as martyrbation. And, of course, for publicity and marketing…

My goal isn’t to trash Del Arroz, but to document a pattern of behavior.

Warning: there’s a lot of material here.

1. Autism Slur as Insult. One of the first times Jon Del Arroz came to my attention was when it was pointed out that he uses a slur about people with autism to insult/attack people he doesn’t like. I take this very personally. Trying to insult someone by accusing them of being autistic is asshole behavior. Using a slur about autism is doubly so. (ETA: Del Arroz defended this by saying, “Jim doesn’t understand humor.“)

2. BayCon. Before the WorldCon incident, Del Arroz claimed he was blackballed from BayCon in a “wanton act of discrimination.” BayCon had, in fact, not invited him to be on programming that year, but they did want him back the following year. This was part of BayCon’s policy of trying to rotate their panelists. Del Arroz was not the only one who was not invited. However, as far as I know, he’s the only one who tried to paint himself as a victim of discrimination and blackballing.

3. Codex. Del Arroz was kicked out of the Codex Writers Group last year. He claims it was because he dared to defend a conservative writer. He also says he was “hated out” because he’s a minority author. This is difficult to discuss, as one of the rules of Codex is that discussion within the group is private. I’m a member myself, and choose not to violate that rule. I’ll simply say Del Arroz was not kicked out for defending a conservative author, nor was his removal related to his being a minority. As I can’t/won’t provide screenshots, you’re welcome to believe him, me, or neither of us on this one.

4. Bigotry. Del Arroz frequently posts things many would consider prejudiced, bigoted, and/or hateful. Whether it’s proclaiming that American Muslims should be “forcibly converted to Christianity,” promoting homophobia, claiming asexuality doesn’t exist and is just an excuse for not having a girlfriend, explaining why racism isn’t sinful, laughing about how “weed is for f*gs” (4:23 in that video), or deliberately misgendering an author. (I included two Tweets in that last screenshot. For Adam-Troy Castro, Del Arroz doesn’t use gendered pronouns at all. When talking about a nonbinary author, Del Arroz misgenders then. Hard to see that as unintentional.) For someone so quick to accuse others of prejudice against him, he shows no reluctance in displaying his own.

5. Trolling. Then there’s the time he literally rallied his followers to troll SJW writers…

He also coyly suggested he was responsible for siccing 4chan on File770 to get the site taken down, though he never says this explicitly.

6. John Scalzi. I’m not sure where this all started, but long after Scalzi has blocked/muted Del Arroz and gotten on with his life, Del Arroz keeps randomly retweeting Scalzi and twisting what was said. Or accusing him of cultural appropriation over a burrito. Or taking random shots at Scalzi’s productivity. Or accusing him of hating Hispanics. Or just, you know, claiming Scalzi’s “side” defends pedophiles and destroys western civilization.

None of these were part of an ongoing conversation between Del Arroz and Scalzi. These were just examples of Del Arroz trying to stir shit. And when you have a pattern like this, with Del Arroz following Scalzi’s tweets and using them to insult Scalzi, and to stir up attacks on Scalzi from Del Arroz’s followers? That pattern of behavior becomes harassment.

Or if you’re Jon Del Arroz, I guess this is called “being nice.” (With an added accusation that your enemies are all mentally ill.)

7. Paul Weimer. Weimer is a reviewer, fan, and photographer who ended up on Jon Del Arroz’s Enemies List. As a result, just like we see with John Scalzi, we get Del Arroz randomly tagging and insulting Weimer again and again. This, despite the fact that Weimer has repeatedly asked to be left alone. He even apologized to Del Arroz. (Personally, I didn’t see anything he needed to apologize for. But Paul is a nicer person than I am.)

Del Arroz claims he’s only responding to Weimer’s attacks against him. Here’s a particularly interesting example of Del Arroz responding to one of those “attacks”:

And here’s the Tweet Del Arroz is describing as an “attack”:

Yes, this is the kind of thing Jon Del Arroz sees as an attack on him, justifying his bullying and harassment of others. (You can see the full exchange, with the insulting “translation” Del Arroz was retweeting, here.)

Del Arroz also tried to drag companies Weimer works with into the feud. A strange tactic for Del Arroz to adopt, considering he talked elsewhere about being scared his enemies would come for his job…

And remember, each time Del Arroz does this, he’s encouraging his followers to jump in with additional insults and attacks.

ETA: Two months later, Del Arroz is still at it.

8. Laurel Amberdine. Amberdine is one of the moderators at Codex. Given Del Arroz’s story about how he was kicked out for his race and politics, it’s no surprise he targeted her, accusing her of bullying and being part of the Mean Girls club. This continued for more than a week. He continued to claim all he said in Codex was don’t attack other authors. (This claim was made in the same tweet that he attacked Amberdine and one other author.) Then he apparently discovered Amberdine works for Locus, because just like with Weimer, he dragged her employer into it, claiming Amberdine advocated blackballing minority authors (an obvious lie).

Even if you believe his account about what happened at Codex, voting to remove one individual from a group =/= blackballing minority authors. But it’s his final Tweet in that sequence, the “I’m available for interviews,” that suggests the real motivation. The goal of his lies and harassment is publicity.

Weeks later, he was still at it. And months later…

Amberdine wasn’t talking about him or doing anything to engage. This was just another instance of Del Arroz distorting facts (his removal had nothing to do with race or his politics), then spending months pissing in his enemies’ Twitter streams in a way that encourages his followers to spread his unfounded accusations and join in the harassment.

9. Cat Rambo and SFWA. Rambo is the current president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Del Arroz appears to have problems with both Rambo and the organization. I’m sure he would argue that it’s Rambo and SFWA who have the problem, and he just wants to be friends. Yet, just like he does with others, Del Arroz continues to randomly insult, attack, and harass Rambo online, while distorting or lying about what she’s said.

One of his themes is to accuse Rambo of defending pedophilia. (An accusation he’s used on Scalzi as well.) In the same Tweet, he says Rambo works overtime to purge people from SFWA for their politics. Not sure where that comes from – the only person banned from SFWA was Vox Day, and that happened before Rambo was president. As for the pedophilia thing? Del Arroz’s basis for that appears to be this Tweet:

I believe the 20-year-old corpse refers to Marion Zimmer Bradley, who protected a known child rapist and molested her own child. Nowhere does Rambo defend pedophilia. She does point out the hypocrisy of denouncing an abuser who died twenty years ago while ignoring or defending living abusers.

You could argue that Rambo’s Tweet is in poor taste. You can’t argue she’s defending pedophilia. I mean, unless you’re Jon Del Arroz, looking for another way to talk shit about people and groups you don’t like.

Again and again, he tags and attacks, starting another round of him and his followers trolling and harassing Cat Rambo. It looks like he did something similar via email, to the point that Rambo told him to stop emailing her. I don’t know how many times Rambo told him to stop, but she eventually had to say any additional emails would be forwarded to her attorney.

Del Arroz posted it on Twitter and described it as “vitriol.”

He also accuses her of campaigning to force him out of the industry, and blackballing and running a whisper campaign against him. This is another big “Citation Needed” moment.

Related: Lou Berger asked Del Arroz for evidence of Rambo’s attacks against him, offering to take such evidence to the SFWA board. Del Arroz apparently failed to provide any. He did, however, jump into a related FB thread on Berger’s page to proclaim Berger a liar and a gaslighter. Others in the comments asked him for evidence about Rambo. He continued to call Berger a liar and accuse everyone of gaslighting him.

10. Shaun Duke. From what I can tell, Duke came to Del Arroz’s attention after Del Arroz posted the Happy Frogs slate for the Nebula awards. We had several years of ugliness and nastiness over slates in SF/F. Duke expressed the frustration and fatigue many of us felt at the idea of yet another round of award-slating bullshit. Basically, Duke’s message was to nominate what you love and don’t be an ass.

“Stop being an ass” became, in Del Arroz’s mind, “calling Del Arroz an asshole.” Following the same pattern we’ve seen, Del Arroz sicced his followers on Duke and began stalking Duke’s Twitter feed.

11. Setsu Uzume. Uzume is one of numerous friends Del Arroz has lost over the past year or two. He’s posted close to fifty Tweets about them, things like, “When you question the Mean Girls of SF publishing, they gaslight you, call you troll, talk shit behind your back.” As he’s done with others, he tags Uzume in these random and unwanted Tweets. In other words, Del Arroz is literally talking shit about Uzume and calling them names while accusing them of… Well, you get the idea.

12. Monica Valentinelli. Valentinelli had been scheduled to appear as a guest of honor at Odyssey Con. When she discovered she’d be working with a known sexual harasser, she contacted the convention with her concerns. After receiving a dismissive response, she withdrew from the convention. Del Arroz misrepresented this as a guest of honor “flaking out” with no notice, and tried to turn it into publicity and promotion for himself and his friends. He dismissed concerns as virtue signaling. Despite other claims from Del Arroz, it’s pretty clear he’s less concerned about fighting sexual harassment than he is about attention and publicity.

13. Other Miscellany. I’d intended to be done with this, but it looks like I need a section for updates. I’m not going to try to keep up with everything, but some stuff needs to have a light shone on it.

JDA tags the Secret Service because Chuck Wendig…posted about someone else ranting about Donald Trump.
- Multiple people pointed out that Del Arroz was completely misreading Wendig’s post, but he just doubled down.
JDA was apparently booted from the 2017 Hugo Award Livestream chat. I haven’t found a transcript of his comments on the livestream, so I can’t say what specifically he posted that led to this. (Note: Worldcon is run by a different group each year. The people who made this decision were not, to my knowledge, the same people who banned JDA from the 2018 Worldcon.)
Apparently, JDA is now claiming I manipulated the screenshots to attack an author I’d never interacted with. A simple Google search should pull up any he hasn’t deleted. As for never interacting with him before this post of January 14? Gosh, if only someone had a time-stamped screenshot showing this to be yet another lie… (A weird and pointless lie, at that.)
In April, one of JDA’s fans showed up at a John Scalzi event carrying one of Scalzi’s books…inscribed and signed by Del Arroz. The inscription: “Why would you call me a ‘2nd rate wannabe,’ when I would never call you an ‘over the hill hack’?” (If anyone has a link to where Scalzi actually called JDA this, please let me know. As far as I can tell, this is another example of JDA making stuff up. Happy to update if I’m wrong.) Anyway, the fan made a video of the encounter, which JDA used for a blog post to rant about Scalzi some more.
- When considering how JDA helped set up this encounter and used the resulting video to attack Scalzi, it’s worth keeping in mind JDA’s earlier plan to wear a bodycam and film things at Worldcon, particularly in the SFWA suite.

There’s a lot more out there. This isn’t close to a complete list of people Del Arroz has targeted. But hopefully it’s enough to provide context when people talk about his history of harassing and trolling others.

The standard Del Arroz refrain is that the SF/F establishment is out to get him because of his race and/or politics. I’m sure someone out there has attacked him for those particular reasons. But that’s not why he got himself kicked out of Codex. It’s not why he wasn’t invited to be a panelist at BayCon. It’s not why Worldcon revoked his membership. It’s not why people dismiss him as an asshole and block him.

I’m not saying Del Arroz is pure evil, or incapable of niceness. I know some people have had nothing but great experiences with him. One person I have a fair amount of respect for talked about how Del Arroz picked him up when he was stranded in the rain, and took him the rest of the way to a convention. That’s a cool thing to do. I’ve seen Del Arroz shut down one of his followers who suggested doxxing SJWs. Sure, not doxxing is a bare minimum of decency, but good on him for taking that stand.

But the fact that someone is nice to you doesn’t mean they’re not abusive to someone else.

Del Arroz frequently relies on the “But they started it!” defense. Someone else called him a name. Someone else got him blackballed. Someone else was passive-aggressively criticizing him — they didn’t name him, but he knows it was him. (In some cases, he’s probably right. In others…not so much.) But as we saw in his feud with Cat Rambo, if you try to find out what Del Arroz’s enemies actually did to start it, you generally discover…nothing.

Alternately, you find a pattern like this:

JDA: Harasses and trolls someone online for weeks or months.
Observer: Christ, what an asshole.
JDA: Did you see that? Another SJW out to get me! Why is this person I’ve never even met talking shit about me?
JDA: Starts harassing and trolling Observer…

Jon Del Arroz is responsible for his own choices and behaviors. He chooses to ignore people’s boundaries, and takes blocking and “Please stop” as a sign to double-down on his harassment. He chooses to incite others to join in his trolling. He chooses not to be accountable for his own actions, blaming anyone but himself for his ongoing harassment against “SJWs” or “Mean Girls” or whoever.

And that — not his politics or race or gender or anything else — is why so many people want nothing to do with him.

Postscript: I know this is going to blow up on me. Based on the history, I expect to be accused of hating on Jon Del Arroz for his politics or his race. I expect him to claim he’s been nothing but nice to me. (It’s true he hasn’t targeted me the way he has others…yet.) He said in a recent conversation that he’s always honest, so I’m sure he’ll take issue with me pointing out how often his accusations depart from reality.

ETA: On the “nothing but nice” bit, I was close. He did the “I just want to be friends” routine instead.

I expect many indignant tweets in which he tags me and calls me an intolerant bigot who hates minority authors. I expect his followers to join in. (I also expect my mute and block finger to get quite a workout.)

I expect Del Arroz to double down on his “they started it” defense.

That’s up to him. For myself, I’m not interested in name-calling comments, random trolls, or “But he’s always been nice to me.” If there are factual errors in my post, I welcome evidence-based corrections. I’ve tweaked the comment screening settings and will be moderating comments as needed, because I know this post is going to eat up a lot of time and energy, and I have a limited supply of both.

And Jon? I don’t hate you. I just hate the way you bully and harass people, and how you encourage others to do the same.

100 Comments

Paul Weimer
Jan 14, 2018 @ 13:08:23

Thank you for this.
clive tern
Jan 14, 2018 @ 13:14:57

Call it Jim.

And for whatever s*** comes at you, let it slide right by.
Mark
Jan 14, 2018 @ 13:27:27

Jim, thank you for your detailed work, and sorry in advance for the inevitable grief that will follow.
Martin
Jan 14, 2018 @ 13:27:39

As we have seen in the last years, “attention” has become a currency of it’s own. It can buy you things like the oval office. And just like with money, some people will do anything to get some.

What really hurts is the thought about the number of books that did not get written because of such people…

So, please don’t let such people distract you too much.
Judith Tarr
Jan 14, 2018 @ 13:37:01

“it’s Rambo and SFWA who have the problem, and he just wants to be friends.”

That’s how he’s been after me as well. He was blocked from comments on my Tor article on women in space opera for pulling this stunt. Still tries to get me to notice him and “be friends” despite being blocked (and of course he whines about how I’ve blocked him “but we see eye to eye on so much, I don’t understaaaannnnnd”). He also keeps trying to get me to read and promote his book, which, no.

I don’t engage energy creatures, and I’ve had a long lifetime of shutting down creepers, so he doesn’t bother me, but he certainly is a persistent little pest.
Doris V. Sutherland
Jan 14, 2018 @ 13:58:08

Just some context behind his scuffle with Cat Rambo – I’m pretty sure her tweet about the alt-right was a response to this tweet sent to her by an alt-righter calling himself Difster:

https://www.twitter.com/LibertyAlerts/status/941197673398497280

I thought that’d be worth mentioning, as I’ve seen people making some pretty big assumptions about exactly who she was referring to when she used the phrase “alt-right”.
Steven Poore
Jan 14, 2018 @ 14:00:34

As one of those Jon del Arroz labelled “sperg” when I came to the defence of the Escape Artists Podcasts (Jon has a problem with the Artemis Rising showcase, claiming it is discrimination against men and silencing male voices – insert eyeroll here) I have to note that I find it difficult to think of him as a Christian. At least, not the sort Christians should be proud of.
Darryl Mott
Jan 14, 2018 @ 14:22:28

He’s also known to do vanity searches on himself, particularly on social media of other writers, in order to “comment” and “defend himself” (read: harass and gaslight). He tries to play the word games that others do to attack and harass but with plausible deniability and dogwhistles…and he fails miserably at it because he’s just not any good at riding that fine line. Which, from my point of view, is why he’s the one who got banned because he’s too obvious about what he’s doing compared to others.
Douglas Berry
Jan 14, 2018 @ 14:30:20

Thank you for this detailed examination of JDA’s methods. I’ve been a part of Bay Area fandom and barely knew JDA existed until the BayCon mess. I’ve been a regular panelist for years and understood the need to rotate panelists.

After we did the very popular “Prominent Local Author” ribbons for that con, JDA attempted to friend me on Facebook multiple times and sent me multiple messages thanking me for the exposure. It was creepy.
Laurie Mann
Jan 14, 2018 @ 14:30:52

People like del Arroz are why the the block tool online is so powerful.
Aimee Ogden
Jan 14, 2018 @ 14:46:23

Thank you for your attention to detail in assembling all of this, Jim, and for putting yourself out there with it.
Patti
Jan 14, 2018 @ 15:33:06

Just a quick edit you may need:

2. BayCon. Before the WorldCon incident, Del Arroz claimed he was blackballed from BayCon in a “wanton act of discrimination.” BayCon had, in fact, not invited him to be on programming that year, but they did want him back the following year.

Should that be “but they did NOT want him back the following year”?
Jim C. Hines
Jan 14, 2018 @ 15:35:52

Patti – BayCon had specifically told him they wanted him to come back as a guest in 2018. See http://www.jimchines.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/BayCon2.jpg
Al Omega
Jan 14, 2018 @ 15:42:17

Nice to see someone writing a well balanced critique on a delicate situation. I hope all parties can come to some sort of equal resolution.
Adrian
Jan 14, 2018 @ 15:59:14

Asexuality doesn’t exist and is just an excuse for me to not have a girlfriend? Welp, since I’m fairly certain that Del Arroz would misgender my non-binary self as female, I guess that means he wants me to be a lesbian, which is the okay kind of gay to be… I think? I don’t know, it’s so hard to keep track of all these BS self-contradicting beliefs held by bigots.

Thank you for compiling all this. It was a worthwhile read.
Douglas Berry
Jan 14, 2018 @ 16:12:10

I missed the asexual comments. I’m an Ace and have been married for just shy of 27 years.
Carole-Ann Warburton
Jan 14, 2018 @ 16:23:50

**hugs** and whatever. Thank you for this
Chris Castro
Jan 14, 2018 @ 16:36:08

Thanks for putting this out there, Jim. I was chair of BayCon last year, and thought this over until Jon surfaced again to force Worldcon to ban him. The most laughable claim of his when the turmoil began was that he was being discriminated against because he is Hispanic. By myself and Susie Rodriguez, who are both also Hispanic. This guy will say anything to get attention, and most importantly, to get his book sales up.
Jo
Jan 14, 2018 @ 16:41:42

I don’t believe he should have been banned from Worldcon. It’s moral policing. I get that a lot of folks don’t personally like Jon, but using that as an excuse to ban him is cliquish behavior.

Jon didn’t get banned for anything he did at Worldcon. Depending on whom you talk to, he got banned for either:

1. what he was going to do… which is a little creepy in the Minority Report sense, or
2. what he’s already done… which clearly didn’t happen at Worldcon and just amounts to folks telling him he can’t eat lunch at the fan table.

Now, if he actually arrived at Worldcon and then violated the rules then Worldcon would have a leg to stand on. Until then, all of this looks and smells terrible.

While I get that folks don’t like Jon, I still accept and understand that Jon has a point. He’s vocal, as in loud, and persistent. He engages in the culture war, like many folks do. Saying that Jon is just harassing folks is entirely ignoring the polarized time we live in and pretending that the online culture war isn’t flaring up across servers every day. (I’ve personally seen some very harsh and even violent comments come from authors who are well regarded in the community. The target of those comments just happened to be okay targets, I guess.)

Also, for what it’s worth, I think it’s wrong to presume his motivations. A lot of folks, including this blog, have suggested that he acts the way he does to professionally promote himself. The implication is that he’s making a money grab, and I don’t think that’s necessarily fair. I believe that Jon is actually passionate about his political beliefs, and I believe his political beliefs motivate his actions.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 14, 2018 @ 16:48:49

Jo – The fact that some people don’t personally like Jon was not the reason or excuse for what happened with Worldcon.

Re: your reasons,

1. To be precise, it was what he *stated* he was going to do. Not Minority Report-type psychic mind-reading, but his own words.
2. Yes, what he’s already done was, I believe, part of the decision. I’m not sure why we should ignore a long and demonstrated pattern of harassment and abuse when making this sort of decision.

As for presuming his motivations, I’m going by the numerous times he’s boasted about how fighting with SJWs helps his book sales, and things like turning the Odyssey Con mess with a sexual harasser into another way to promote himself and his friends.

Lots of people live in these polarized times. Most manage to avoid spending so much time attacking and trolling people.

ETA: That said, I’d prefer not to re-argue the WorldCon stuff here, thank you. That conversation is happening plenty of other places, and wasn’t the focus of this post.
Michael A. Ventrella, Esq.
Jan 14, 2018 @ 16:49:03

Thanks for doing all this research, Jim. It’s always nice to have facts to point to, not that it ever convinces those sad puppies out there.
MM
Jan 14, 2018 @ 17:07:30

Thered are whispers, and outright proclamations on his social media, that he plans to show up at Worldcon anyways. With no pass, but to hang out in the lobby and hotel common area to “make his presence known to SJWs”.
That type of behavior is NOT normal.
Mark
Jan 14, 2018 @ 17:15:09

On Jon’s motivations: they aren’t an either/or proposition. He can be broadly genuine about his political beliefs, and *also* deploy them in an exaggerated manner in order to promote himself. It’s an “alt-marketing” tactic that a number of people in the vicinity of the alt-right have latched onto in the last few years and the pattern is fairly clear by now – identify a group that your target audience doesn’t like, claim to have been oppressed by them in some fashion, get support from people who are outraged on your behalf, rinse and repeat. As Jim says above, JDA openly acknowledges the promotional aspect of what he does.
KatG
Jan 14, 2018 @ 18:05:38

“As Jim says above, JDA openly acknowledges the promotional aspect of what he does.”

Yes, but it’s a very odd sort of promotion for fiction writing. It makes sense for political and cultural non-fiction where people are providing information, opinions and arguments that compete against one another, but not a lot of sense for the far more symbiotic fiction market, where people are selling creative stories that fans buy because they are interested in the stories (usually way more than they are in the authors who create the stories.) Having fans who won’t buy SFF fiction because they are interested in the stories, but can only be motivated as a token if the author appears to be continuously engaging in battles with “the liberals” etc., that may be a sufficient niche audience to sell enough fiction, given the small sizes of regular fiction reading audiences, but it’s not exactly a reliable audience for fiction long term. For every one far right/alt right buyer who will support the author for the crusade, there are probably about ten who won’t be real interested in trying fiction by an author who publicly online organizes harassment mobs and sends them at people. Or publicly hurls an autistic slur at people, etc.

Which is not to say that authors have to panic about being the middle of the road in their expressed personal views. But readers who buy fiction on the basis of Twitter mobbing and derogatory insults — we’ll have to see over the next several years if they really stick around and were worth the promotional harassments over other types of readers. It seems like a cut off your nose to spite your face sort of promotional strategy to me.
Gareth-Michael Skarka
Jan 14, 2018 @ 19:21:25

Just FYI: “Jo” has been going around and quasi-devils-advocate defending JDA in literally every blog where I’ve seen it discussed. (Notably, File770, for example).

In fact, I suspect that “Jo” is, in fact, Del Arroz himself.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 14, 2018 @ 19:33:55

Gareth-Michael – Without getting into details, the IP address suggests Jo is not Del Arroz. (Though it’s hard to be 100% certain about this sort of thing.)
Matt
Jan 14, 2018 @ 19:43:02

I’m from the BayArea, have been a panelist at BayCon, have worked “security” for BayCon with FLARE, and I know many of the people who were running BayCon that year. One of the main complaints about BayCon over the years is that it has been stagnating; SSDD essentially. The organizers at the time (and since) have been trying to improve the con and do what they can to bring in new blood with new views and ideas. I can say, 100%, that the account above about not inviting him one year but wanting him back the next is accurate. I know others who weren’t invited (and took the news more gracefully).
Paul Weimer
Jan 14, 2018 @ 19:49:12

@Jim There is/was a “Jo” who showed up at File 770 who explained at length what Mr. Del Arroz was doing was not trolling, or if it was, then the likes of me had to toughen up and just block him. I suspect its the same friend/ally to Mr. Del Arroz.
Sally
Jan 14, 2018 @ 19:51:46

Baycon changed a LOT of panelists this year. It was pretty neat to see all the new people. Had nothing to do with race or politics. He was told he wasn’t going to be on panels for one year, but was perfectly free to attend and do whatever. Told by a Castro and a Rodriguez.

Apparently, Jon didn’t make a big deal out of being Hispanic until he started on these tirades. Suddenly he’s all “leading Hispanic author” when he’s not even the leading Hispanic author a) at the con b) in his home town! Leading Hispanic SF author at this year’s BayCon was GoH Ty Franck, half of James SA Corey, and son and grandson of Mexican migrant farm workers. Could it be JDA wanted identity points and grievance “excuses”? Publicity!

Most of the people at Baycon area never heard of him till he started this poor-me crap. Did it help his name recognition? Sure, people now say “Oh, THAT a-hole.” Lots of people had never heard of him even after that and didn’t know what Douglas Berry’s ribbon was about. Heck, I didn’t at first; it was just a free ribbon! Yay free ribbons!

(Doug, BTW, is a guy who’s worked tirelessly for California cons for decades, and is a veteran and a man of honor; if he’s barely heard of you and didn’t mind not being on panels for a year, you are the problem there, Jon.)

One year Poul Anderson wasn’t on panels at Baycon, for… reasons I forget, it was in the 90s. Poul said that was fine, paid for his own membership and he and Karen attended the con anyway. He was his usual jovial self. He was one of the signers of the famous letter from SF writers in favor of the Vietnam War, a no-fooling conservative guy and still somehow liberals loved him. Of course, he was talented and polite — that probably helped.

Jon also tends to be CERTAIN!!! of identifying pseudonymous people online as his “enemies”. He’s always wrong about it. He was CERTAIN!!! some random woman was Susie Rodriguez. AFAIK, Susie doesn’t use ‘nyms, she’s very open. Which means, per #5-12, he’s liable to send his little trolling minions against people who don’t have anything to do with him.

I commend SJ Worldcon for keeping innocent people safe from someone who’s admitted he wants to harm others and had a plan on how to do it. By breaking the CoC. If someone says “Hey, I’m gonna rob your bank”, you don’t ask him in to poke around the vault.
James Palmer
Jan 14, 2018 @ 20:10:50

Thanks for this, Jim. This is a thorough summation of his activities. I have found him to be little more than a two-bit attention whore, and have told him so online. He certainly believes that any attention is good attention, but I think he is short-circuiting his career for no good reason. He’s currently claiming that there is a letter writing campaign to get his SFWA application denied, something he couldn’t possibly know.
Jo
Jan 14, 2018 @ 20:26:36

@Skarka — I am not Jon Del Arroz.

@Weimer — I am the same Jo, though your summation of my opinion is a bit shaky. That said, yes, I did think it was a bit odd/weak/brittle of you to suggest that some words on the internet hurt that much.

I am not Jon Del Arroz’s friend. I do not know Jon Del Arroz. However, I do believe folks live in a bubble, and I do believe that bias should be called out, even (especially) when so many others find it convenient to pretend the popular bandwagon isn’t running over a fan/creator for what obviously amounts to wrongthink.

This kind of stuff is dangerous and unnecessarily divisive. It only escalates, and yes, over time it goes both ways.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 14, 2018 @ 20:31:37

Jo – I agree with you that we all live in bubbles, to some extent. I’m not sure what you mean about things going both ways, but I’ve seen behavior like JDA’s from people who identify both as politically conservative and liberal.

That said, if you’re going to keep claiming this particular case is about Del Arroz’s “wrongthink,” as opposed to his demonstrated words and actions, I’ll need you to provide some sort of evidence supporting that. Thank you.
gwangung
Jan 14, 2018 @ 20:38:28

Jo: I do not find your posts credible at all. And your reasoning is suspect and based on incomplete facts.

Ergo, any danger and divisiveness is of your own doing.
Douglas Berry
Jan 14, 2018 @ 20:43:18

Jo,

OK, you don’t know JDA. Several people in these comments do know him and have been targeted by him. His own actions and words are what are being used to judge him. And, frankly, he is a bully. I know this from my personal interactions with him, how he has treated a friend who is also a veteran, and how he treated people I consider to be good friends.

Jon Del Arroz used to be a much nicer guy. I have no idea why he decided being a bully and a jerk was better promotion for his writing career, but he has made his own bed. Now he gets to lie in it. That means he has alienated most of the people who work and run conventions in the Bay Area.

There is no excuse for how he has treated women, veterans, and his fellow writers. None. His use of derogatory names for autistic people is also unforgivable. Mr. Hines has shown, in detail, why refusing JDA an attending membership at Worldcon 76 was probably the best move the committee could make.

I feel sorry for Jon. All he’s doing is making enemies. And as you said, you don’t know him, so please don’t those of us who have known him for years what his motivations are.

Disclaimer: I’m a regular panelist at Baycon and am working Publications for Worldcon76. Everything said here is my own opinion and not that of any convention I am associated with.
Gareth-Michael Skarka
Jan 14, 2018 @ 21:04:10

Jo is JDA, using a VPN to mask IP addresses.

The identical phrasing is a dead give-away.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 14, 2018 @ 21:07:14

Gareth-Michael – that’s certainly possible. But even if Jo is JDA, I’d recommend simply responding to the content of their comments. Otherwise we’re going to get bogged down in something unproveable.

ETA: Though a glance at Jo’s new Twitter account does add weight to your belief…
KMP
Jan 14, 2018 @ 21:37:43

Thank you. I’ve seen a lot of references to his patterns of behavior but this is the first time I’ve seen specifics laid out in detail for people (like me) who haven’t been paying attention.
Hurley
Jan 14, 2018 @ 22:25:34

While Jonathan DelArroz appears to be allergic to the truth he sometimes admits his motives:

Jon Del Arroz@jondelarroz
11 Oct 2017
Replying to @ZeithAlFresco

ignore it. Post exciting rhetoric that triggers their side or brings morale to our side and don’t spend the time. Example is all my tweets.
https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/918144701374459904

Jon Del Arroz@jondelarroz

Social media is for:
1. Attacking
2. Defending
3. Promotion

Nothing else. There’s no real discussion or real “concern” here.
https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/896093681614114816

To add to your twitter links above. For some the question is what changed to make him act like this, though I think it’s more likely he’s been acting like this on chan boards for some time and believe he had reach the right point in time to be more public with it.

He employs the idea of hurting and insulting others as a marketing technique, whether that’s harassment or using the latest white nationalist meme, while seeming to believe it’s ok because he’s doesn’t really mean some of it and if he thinks it’s fun. Sadism isn’t typically considered professional behavior though.
Aaron
Jan 14, 2018 @ 22:36:19

I am the same Jo, though your summation of my opinion is a bit shaky.

Paul’s summation of your comments is exactly dead accurate.

I would add that it is rare to find someone engage in as sleazy an attempt at rewriting history as you attempted to do over there (and appear to be trying to do in other places, including here).
M.M. Schill
Jan 14, 2018 @ 22:52:30

Jo IS so JDA.
This same “Jo” is on File770, defending JDA, as well. It didn’t take much digging on there to conclude that Jo is just Jon…spending wayyy more time on the Internet engaged in negative crap than any working writer would consider prudent. I’m consistently disturbed at how many hours he spends searching his own name, stalking profiles, opposed to just working.
M.M. Schill
Jan 14, 2018 @ 23:09:42

And still more of his followers trolling other writers for him…as of, like, a few minutes ago:
https://twitter.com/ComradeCthulhu2/status/952753849298833408
MIke Glyer
Jan 14, 2018 @ 23:19:09

As I said at File 770, I don’t believe Jo is JDA, because I have spent months reading JDA’s verbiage and he has never shown the emotional self-control or employed the concise sentence structure used by Jo. I don’t know why anyone is invested in insisting they are the same.
rochrist
Jan 14, 2018 @ 23:36:17

This is marketing, pure and simple. He’s not a good enough writer to succeed in a normal environment, so he’s shooting for the wingnut welfare gravy train. It seems to work reasonably well for some of them.
Sally
Jan 15, 2018 @ 00:07:43

Mike Glyer:
That’s praising with faint damns.

Jo is just a fellow-traveler of JDA’s, I guess. Certainly uses all the same buzzwords.

Hurley:
Funny, I thought social media was for being social, but I guess I’m only a girl who doesn’t have a sooper-genyus white supremacist ally brain, and doesn’t get off on hurting people.

Doug B:
You can’t expect these fragile, pathetic MRA righties to pick on anyone who could actually take ’em in a fight. Of course they’re going to go after disabled people and women. And they don’t have the guts, discipline, and altruism to serve in the military, so they have to be shitty to veterans to cover up their inadequacies there.

As to why he decided to openly be a bully, he thinks it’s fun — but pulling the wings off flies doesn’t get you egoboo from other fragile egotists. It’s easier for him to get sales and strokes that way than with talent and hard work, I guess?

Kat G:
It does limit your market, I think. When a lot of people (regardless of what “group” they’re from) think of you as “oh THAT asshole”, it can’t be good for mass sales.

Plus, what happens when they move onto the next flavor of the day in toxic masculinity and right-wing self-victimization? Eventually, someone new is going to repeat this bleating of “oh, teh librulz are mean to me just becuz I’m ~~conservative~~ a creepy predator” crap, and they’re going to buy a few of his badly-written screeds instead. They’ll have no money for Jonny D, giving it all to the hot new boy.

Or he’ll make some “mistake” and they’ll turn on him like Scar and the hyenas; see Steve Bannon for how the alt-right eats their own. Crabs in a bucket.

Alt-right behavior and insecurity: Sad!
Ravan Asteris
Jan 15, 2018 @ 00:38:58

Thanks for the compilation, Jim. It checks with what I’ve heard. In the SF Bay Area he’s really a nobody, except for his hostile and pathetic attempts at self promotion by antagonizing concoms, authors, and group organizers. He’s now a local joke. I guess no one ever taught him that you get more fans by being nice than by being a jackass.
KatG
Jan 15, 2018 @ 01:58:30

Sally: “It does limit your market, I think. When a lot of people (regardless of what “group” they’re from) think of you as “oh THAT asshole”, it can’t be good for mass sales.”

It works fairly well for types of non-fiction promotion. If this guy was also doing a video channel with screeds, selling essays and non-fiction books, speaking events, articles on far right media, etc., it might make sense as a strategy. The “feuds” and controversies keep interest in the info and opinions he wants to convey and away from other authors doing similar stuff if they think you’re cooler at it.

But for fiction, as you say, that’s not of interest to long term fiction buyers. Fiction authors help each other sell; they don’t directly compete with each other in the marketplace, and real insult battles between authors don’t move books, even military SF. And I can’t see how they’re going to sell books for long to those whose only real interest is in those insult and accusation battles between authors or others and not the stories. As you say, those folk will move on to the next new pundit of non-fiction right wingedness.

SFF has an enormous advantage in having an established specialized media and a convention system like none other and being able to tap into other more glamorous mediums of SFFH game/t.v./film/art connections through that system to let readers browse the authors gathered in one place and enjoy themselves. They had the World Wide Web before it electronically existed, essentially, and they still have it when other genres have much less in the way of it left. Authors don’t sell a lot of books at conventions, but it gets the most interested fans aware of them, some of them will try work out and then they hopefully spread word of mouth.

So here you have a guy who, because he’s local and new, gets to be on the programming of BayCon, which has developed a standard practice as a big con of rotating their panelists, while giving all authors attending opportunities to promote in the ways that fiction fans prefer — by hanging out. And they tell him, we’re rotating panelists and you can do 2018 and just be attending 2017 — just like dozens of other authors. That’s a good opportunity for a newer author building an audience. And he dumped it and scorched the earth. I mean, there are reasons to take cons to task — we’ve been dealing with that the last few years — but because they wouldn’t put you on a panel for one year when that’s something they do with nearly everybody? And you’re new? He basically told them that he doesn’t want them. Which is his right to do, but as a marketing strategy, doesn’t make a lot of sense.

So every time I hear about this guy or other alt right authors doing this stuff, I keep thinking that they must actually be trying to sell something else, stuff in the non-fiction area of life, and are just using these outbursts in the fiction marketplace as a way to market that stuff. Beale’s done that. But a lot of them just seem to have very weird ideas about fiction marketing, like it’s a war.
Laura Resnick
Jan 15, 2018 @ 02:22:30

Thanks for researching and writing such a detailed compilation, Jim. Especially when wading through JDA’s shit must have been about as enjoyable as… well, as physically wading through -actual- shit.
Justin McGuire
Jan 15, 2018 @ 03:52:13

Jim Hines spends 5,000+ words on explaining why “JDA is not worthy of any of our time or attention.”

Strange. I read this and all of the comments and all I hear is Brer Rabbit pleading not to be thrown into the Briar Patch.
JJ
Jan 15, 2018 @ 05:13:17

I note that Del Arroz also posted on several occasions, and provided to right-wing media, an e-mail exchange with Mike Glyer which he had doctored to make it look as though Mike was threatening him:
http://archive.is/4tYvJ
http://archive.is/HnaZK

What was actually said:
http://file770.com/?p=39769&cpage=2#comment-763494
Lisa Harrigan
Jan 15, 2018 @ 06:45:49

Thank you Jim for summing this up better than any other I’ve heard.
Jan Schroeder
Jan 15, 2018 @ 06:48:40

Jon’s been getting banned by writers for his behavior since at least 2012. First he turns the conversation around to being about him and about how he’s being persecuted and he refuses to drop the subject when asked repeatedly. He’s also told me many times that trolling is fun. The odd thing is that he really is open and friendly and personable in person at cons. Why he’s different online is a mystery.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 15, 2018 @ 12:09:22

JJ – I had an exchange with JDA about the timestamps a little while back. JDA posted screenshots from his gmail. Based on what he and Mike had both posted, here’s my long-winded conclusion.

The summary: We have several possibilities here.

1. Jon is faking his screenshots.
2. Mike is lying.
3. Jon’s Sent Mail shows a different Sent Time than the email(s) Mike received from him.

I’ve had #3 happen to me before, and that seems the simplest explanation.

Honestly, this seems to be a lot of empty noise at this point. I get that Jon wants to claim it’s all politically motivated hate and conspiracy. Look how many times he’s accused me of hating over political affiliation just in this thread.

But JDA’s emails prove is that he and Mike emailed about some things, and Mike walked away from the conversation. Without actual evidence or proof, “Goodbye Jon” is not a conspiracy.
mjfgates
Jan 15, 2018 @ 13:26:21

JDA is… impressive. In a way. I hope your plumbing is in good shape, because that was surely enough crap to have to deal with for one week.
Philip Weiss
Jan 15, 2018 @ 13:33:32

It’s not the timestamps. It’s the placing of the “Goodbye jon” response in his screenshots as if his response is to a different exchange than it is. That is either a faked cut and paste from Mike Glyer, or a faked screenshot from JDA. I’m not sure why the timestamps are important here.
Eric James Stone
Jan 15, 2018 @ 13:56:12

> One of WorldCon’s guests of honor is Hispanic, so I’m not sure
> where he sees race is a factor here.

Well, Hispanics can be of any race, so technically the factor would be ethnicity, not race.

But the answer is simple enough. A Hispanic Trump supporter (or Hispanic Republican or Hispanic conservative) is seen by some as a traitor to other Hispanics (or, alternatively, “not a real Hispanic”) and therefore possibly worse than a white Trump supporter.

(For the record, I do not know Jon del Arroz and I am not a Trump supporter, but I am a conservative, a Republican, and a Hispanic.)

BTW, thank you for pulling all of this information together in one place. I found it very helpful.
JJ
Jan 15, 2018 @ 16:21:24

Philip Weiss: “It’s not the timestamps. It’s the placing of the “Goodbye jon” response in his screenshots as if his response is to a different exchange than it is. That is either a faked cut and paste from Mike Glyer, or a faked screenshot from JDA. I’m not sure why the timestamps are important here.”

Exactly. The time stamps are irrelevant; what *is* relevant is that there’s an e-mail which has been snipped out of the e-mail trail.

If it were just an honest mistake, JDA would have:
1) removed all of the tweets which include the deceptive screenshot;
2) asked PJMedia to remove the screenshot from their “story” and post a correction;
3) posted an apology to Mike for the “misunderstanding”.

But JDA hasn’t done any of those things, so it’s clear that this is deliberate deception on his part.
Daniel Snider
Jan 15, 2018 @ 18:56:55

I don’t have really anything to do with all of this business, but I do note a few issues with your piece. Some of the claims you make are misrepresented a bit to make Arroz seem worse and sometimes, perhaps due to not looking deeply enough, overlook key bits of context.

On point one you say he uses an autism-based insult to “insult/attack people he doesn’t like” and that is a misrepresentation. Your own screenshot shows in one case he was insulting someone who called him a “liar and creep” so that was responding with an insult in kind. Two of others appeared to be a response to this person suggesting Arroz was a troll:

https://twitter.com/Spencimus/status/904896791157514241

For suggesting a men-only issue of a sci-fi podcast:

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/903990686864650241

I can understand people are not sympathetic to that idea, but it does tie into something else related to the incidents you mention.

Point three you acknowledge not being able to say everything due to the rule of the Codex group, but what he has said in longer explanations has been that he asked people not to attack Vox Day:

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/895048592431366144

He says those involved “flipped out” and began attacking him. Your assessment may be correct, but it seems perhaps misleading as it reads to me in his explanations as if what happened is after his comments people built a “case” against him based off other things and used that as a reason to remove him:

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/895741541527855104

While you say this related to point eight, it appears to also related to point 11 regarding his friend. Note in the tweet when he mentioned it concerned Vox Day that was on August 8 and that is when the comments were made by Uzume. All of this seems to go back to the Dragon Awards and people being upset about how those turned out and her comments relate to that as she claims he threw their friends under the bus for “award buzz” in reference to the Dragons.

Point Six about Scalzi apparently also relates to the Dragons as after Scalzi’s post about withdrawing Arroz apparently got in contact with him:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2017/08/07/withdrawing-from-the-dragon-awards-2017/

I guess Arroz may have suggested a way to undo the “us vs. them” mentality Scalzi was complaining about was to promote his work, which was one of the Dragon nominees, and Scalzi respond on Twitter with subtweets:

https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/894653529985560577

https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/894658732608638977

The reference of “trashing a friend” seems to have not been clear to Arroz:

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/894677319280754690

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/894674304712949760

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/894674168876105728

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/895001921639006208

Point seven ties into the OdysseyCon issue you mention in point twelve:

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/873601852071333888

Specifically, after his comments and posts advocating for OdysseyCon there was this insulting and denigrating series of subtweets:

https://twitter.com/D_Libris/status/857010375895678976

Another person sarcastically called Arroz a fine gentleman and he responded by treating it as a sincere compliment:

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/858406297422635008

She responded by insulting him:

https://twitter.com/eilatan/status/858531404396847104

After he joked they were “basically family” for both contributing to Hugo-nominated blogs she responded by insulting him further:

https://twitter.com/eilatan/status/858659579739222020

That is when Weimer got in and tried to rationalize her behavior.

Now to point nine, this gets back to the tweet I linked earlier where he talks about a men-only issue. Her made a big post on his blog going through a bunch of data on submissions to major SFF publications to show how women are disproportionately favored despite having a much lower rate of submissions to said publications:

http://delarroz.com/?p=1437

In addition, he talks further about the Codex incident where he states that he was deemed “hostile” for questioning their comments about Vox Day and this prompted them to “defame” him on the site. Overall, his data would appear to present a reasonable case that SFF publications have been biasing their results in favor of women despite higher rates of submissions from men. He notes some major publications have been fair and given proportionate representation based on number of submissions.

According to one piece written about his situation, this is what prompted the dispute with Rambo:

https://steemit.com/journalism/@cheah/the-whisper-campaign-against-jon-del-arroz

He states she used the SFWA account on Twitter to retweet a subtle swipe at his post:

http://delarroz.com/?p=1500

Here is the tweet in question:

https://twitter.com/Catrambo/status/905919887175847936

There are apparently more issues, such as stating she would comb through his Facebook to present evidence of him being bad or making a statement there attacking him:

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/910359370554277890

https://twitter.com/jondelarroz/status/910898825379770369

There is more than that, but it does seem to me with all this context that this post is unfairly demeaning to him and mispresents a lot of this behavior as unprovoked, when it was provoked. Even hard to determine it as in some cases, such as Scalzi, the comments about him are subtweets rather than anything mentioning him by name. I do think that tendency lends itself to his characterization of a whisper campaign, not including e-mails or Facebook comments, or private group comments.

A lot of the criticism that isn’t about him insulting people who previously insulted him and sometimes continued insulting him, is pretty mild or is something that I think is only likely to appeal to a certain small group. That group happens to consist of your peers so, no doubt, you will get lots of acclaim for it, but a lot of things aren’t going to bother average people outside your circle.

What it seems to me is that you didn’t take much care to really dig into the context and disputes involved and are more concerned with legitimizing what your circle already thinks of him. You may not like the insults he makes or that he insults people, even if it is provoked, but I see the key difference in that none of the people you portray as victims of his alleged harassment have been ostracized by the establishment in the field. He isn’t just being insulted and cursed by a bunch of different people, and apparently having people talk about his kid, but also being repeatedly met with bans or repudiation by large industry groups.

A lot of his hostility does seem to stem from that and I think all the actions taken against him and the attempt to defend or rationalize it as with this post do nothing but reinforce that perception for him. Particularly disingenuous for you to say to someone in the comment that you aren’t here to talk about the Worldcon ban when the very first thing you talk about is the Worldcon ban and your entire post is essentially about providing a retroactive defense for the ban. From what I understand, Worldcon never specified their reason and some reports suggest it was because he intended to bring a bodycam (apparently to document any possible confrontations for his own defense), which does not appear to violate any specific code of conduct:

http://fragsandbeer.com/author-jon-del-arroz-banned-worldcon/

Now, I don’t know if that was the real reason, though it appears to be the only kind of reason offered. If it was, then it is hard not to see this post as what I said: an attempt to retroactively legitimize a questionable ban. Given the lack of thorough research on this to present all sides and provide context, as well as some of the weaker points regarding his conduct, I think it is fair to call this a hit piece.
Rick Moen
Jan 15, 2018 @ 19:01:22

Jim:
I can only say thank you, for such a truly fine job of synthesising quite a lot of data concisely and dispassionately.

rochrist:
Précisément, Somehow, you managed to nail it, with laconic flair usually the monopoly of the formidable Laura Resnick (to whom /me waves).

Sally: I’ll never forget GoH Ty Franck’s expression at BayCon when someone mentioned del Arroz’s ‘leading Hispanic author’ claim. I think if there had been text supertitles, they would have said ‘¿Qué soy yo, hígado picado?’ (What am I, chopped liver?)

One thing that keeps surprising me about the current crop of resentment-junkies claiming to be conservatives (while holding views no historical conservative would recognise) is their zeal for theatrically contrived martyrdom: All the real political/social conservatives I’ve known would never stoop so low, but the del Arrozes of this world seem unaware of the implicit loss of dignity.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 15, 2018 @ 20:03:30

Daniel,

Are you really trying to defend Jon Del Arroz’s use of a slur about autism to attack people?

Re: Codex, you said, “He says those involved “flipped out” and began attacking him.”

This, along with his other Tweets about why he was kicked out of Codex, is untrue. What you choose to believe is up to you. As I said, I’m not going to violate the rules of the group to argue that particular case here.

Re: Scalzi, are you trying to justify Del Arroz’s ongoing attacks against Scalzi with two Tweets that don’t even name Del Arroz? If they are about Del Arroz, then Scalzi has a point. If not… Either way, how does this make all of JDA’s ongoing attacks okay?

Re: Cat Rambo, the Tweet from Cat Rambo that you’re talking about is one JDA responded to by saying, “Excellent,” and then thanking Rambo.

I haven’t gone through every single link you provided, but so far, none of this in any way justifies JDA’s ongoing harassment, abuse, and trolling.
JJ
Jan 15, 2018 @ 20:46:35

Daniel Snider: “I don’t have really anything to do with all of this business…
Specifically, after his comments and posts advocating for OdysseyCon there was this insulting and denigrating series of subtweets:”
https://twitter.com/D_Libris/status/857010375895678976

What you are calling an “insulting and denigrating series of subtweets” is actually a set of tweets accurately describing JDA’s behavior here:
http://archive.is/BCpeU

And yet I note that you have failed to include this link in your defense of JDA in that situation.

There are similar problems with other items in your comment, where you try to falsely portray JDA as the harassed, rather than the harasser, by omitting JDA’s provoking behavior (never mind your reprehensible defense of using autism as a slur).

Clearly you *do* have an agenda here, and are not a “neutral” observer as you are trying to pretend.
Daniel Snider
Jan 15, 2018 @ 20:51:03

My point on the autism insult is that his insults were not just because he didn’t like a person, but because they insulted him. Perhaps you think he should use a different kind of insult and if that is the case then you can say that without trying to make it sound as if he was just attacking someone for no reason other than not liking that person.

Obviously, I don’t know anything about what happened inside a private group and can only go by what has been said by others. Are you saying people from that group did not attack him prior to his removal from it? Perhaps you disagree with characterizing it as an “attack” and you think he was just being criticized, though I think that is a question of perspective. Unless the discussion about removing him was before the whole group or you took part in the discussion, then I don’t think you can say for certain exactly what caused it, but only what was said.

Far as I can tell, his comments to or about Scalzi are either the kind of heated political commentary I see a lot on the Internet from people of all belief systems (including plenty towards Arroz) or completely innocent. The burrito thing is a simple joke and one of the weak points of your argument. When I see something like that I get the impression you are just trying to throw as much as you can at the wall in the hope it sticks. Scalzi not mentioning Arroz by name doesn’t mean a lot as I am sure he and you understand that not everyone takes kindly to being trashed publicly in that way. There are some who consider it cowardly or underhanded.

With the Cat Rambo thing, I kind of get the impression that Arroz was being tongue-in-cheek in his response to her as he felt she was sort of throwing shade at him over his criticism of a perceived bias towards women in many SFF publications. Perhaps that was not her intent and he was wrong or maybe that was exactly her intent and that makes it a bit inappropriate to use an official account to retweet it if that is what she did.

I don’t think any of that justifies anything, because I don’t believe in that kind of reasoning. However, the issue isn’t whether his insulting or lightly mocking people who have wronged him in some way is justified or the right way to go about things. You call his actions harassment and abuse (I think the former is a matter of opinion and the latter hyperbole), while using this to try and provide a rationale for his ban from a key event. Nothing you presented seems to warrant a ban from Worldcon, especially not when it is all represented accurately and put in context.

I mention various people who, without being mentioned or contacted by Arroz, attacked or insulted him. You aren’t really addressing that and your post doesn’t mention it even when your evidence alludes to it. What you have shown is that Arroz can be mean to people sometimes online, particularly when they’ve been mean to him, and that he sometimes uses words that offend certain sensibilities. Nothing seems invasive or threatening, just mean or offensive and usually because someone was mean or offensive to him first.

It isn’t a justification, but it does provide context that might change people’s impression of his behavior. Maybe even with that context there will be people who agree with your assessment of him, especially those who were already convinced about him. At the same time, there is again nothing in your post that would suggest Worldcon’s ban was valid under the code of conduct.
Jayn
Jan 15, 2018 @ 21:20:58

@Daniel
“My point on the autism insult is that his insults were not just because he didn’t like a person, but because they insulted him. Perhaps you think he should use a different kind of insult and if that is the case then you can say that without trying to make it sound as if he was just attacking someone for no reason other than not liking that person.”

One can dislike a person for any number of reasons, including the fact that the person did in fact insult you. But using a slur against autistic people as an insult is a vile thing to do, regardless of what the person you’re insulting did to offend you…and so there was nothing inaccurate about Jim’s account.

Re: Worldcon, it’s not just that JdA was intending to wear a bodycam to Worldcon; he clearly tweeted on Dec 19th that he was planning to enter the SFWA suite wearing it. The suite is not open to the general public, and therefore it is clearly not part of the common areas that the Code of Conduct says are okay to film in. So yeah, he clearly stated an intention to violate the code of conduct. Couple that with his history of harassment and trolling, and the con had every justification to do what they did, IMO.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 15, 2018 @ 21:22:36

Daniel,

You’ve made your point. I get that you don’t feel anything here justifies his removal from Worldcon. That’s fine — I wasn’t trying to argue that, as I said from the start.

“…his comments to or about Scalzi are either the kind of heated political commentary I see a lot on the Internet from people of all belief systems (including plenty towards Arroz) or completely innocent.”

It’s weird. I’ve been in a number of heated political discussions, and rarely do I see people accusing the other of defending pedophilia.

You’re doing a lot of work to justify JDA’s actions. We get it. You think his behavior is acceptable. I disagree. I’m doubtful either of us will change the other’s mind at this point.

Have a good night.
KatG
Jan 15, 2018 @ 21:29:24

Threatening to harass and stalk people at WorldCon is not an insult, is not free speech, it is legally a crime. Threatening to illegally video people at WorldCon and disrupt the convention is not an insult, is not a defense, is not free speech, it is legally a crime. Harassing people with continual, unwanted and threatening contact through online platforms, email, paper mail, phone or text, plus publicly organizing mobs of others to also do so, is not simply insults, is not free speech, it is legally a crime. And there is ample public evidence of del Arroz stalking people. Why he decides to stalk and harass people — whether he thinks they’re insulting him, don’t like his politics, turning others against him, etc. — doesn’t change that he is committing a crime of harassment and stalking and threatening. He keeps it up, one of these days he’s going to get arrested. At the least there are probably going to be restraining orders.

WorldCon might have involved the cops but instead they just told him he couldn’t come to the event that he publicly threatened to ruin. “The other guy started it” is not considered a legal excuse for harassing and stalking people. That’s not trolling to have a debate, it’s not joking, it’s not being “mean,” and it’s not hijinks. It’s a crime. Anyone can call anyone a liar and a creep; insults are free. But continually trying to contact someone and threatening to stalk and harass them at a convention is a crime. And del Arroz has publicly done this several times, plus made harassment threats to do it at WorldCon.

“Here’s what I think del Arroz meant” doesn’t mean crap. He has regularly pursued and harassed people, some of whom had to threaten legal action to get him to leave them alone. And he threatened to do the same at WorldCon. He threatened to commit an additional crime of illegal taping at WorldCon. He does not seem to understand that the public threats he made are a crime in and of themselves, or maybe he’s just pretending he doesn’t get it.
Aaron
Jan 15, 2018 @ 21:49:34

I don’t think I have seen as large a collection of self-owns as the “examples” that Daniel provided in support of his claims that JdA’s behavior is justified.
Laura Resnick
Jan 15, 2018 @ 23:32:37

@ Rick Moen:

I think “laconic flair” might be my favorite compliment ever!

(If you did not mean it as a compliment… too late now.)
Hampus Eckerman
Jan 16, 2018 @ 00:36:41

Daniel Snider:

”He states she used the SFWA account on Twitter to retweet a subtle swipe at his post:

http://delarroz.com/?p=1500

Here is the tweet in question:

https://twitter.com/Catrambo/status/905919887175847936”

That is not the SFWA-account. That is her *own* account. The SWFA-account is named – surprise – @sfwa.

So you are using obvious lies in defense of del Arroz. Sad.
Daniel Snider
Jan 16, 2018 @ 01:00:46

Hampus Eckerman, I didn’t see your post when I was compiling mine above and I think it is important to point this out immediately lest you confuse people about this fact. The allegation is that she used the SFWA account to retweet something from her personal account and, if you look at the tweet in question, you can see the official SFWA account is one of the retweets. Only question would seem to be whether she personally used the SFWA account to retweet herself or if someone else did it. Either way it would certainly reinforce his feelings of being attacked by the SFF establishment.
Hampus Eckerman
Jan 16, 2018 @ 01:32:33

Daniel Snider: You alleged that she used the SFWA-account and as a proof, you entered a link to her *own* account. That is a lie. To find a fault in someone doing a retweet is something else.

Also, the only thing in that tweet was a link to the SFWA-page. Do you really see that as something unacceptable? Offensive? Something to be answered by trolling? The SFWA should not be allowed to retweet links to their own pages, because that would be a grave personal insult?

What is your argument?
JJ
Jan 16, 2018 @ 01:40:01

Daniel Snider: if you look at the tweet in question, you can see the official SFWA account is one of the retweets. Only question would seem to be whether she personally used the SFWA account to retweet herself or if someone else did it. Either way it would certainly reinforce his feelings of being attacked by the SFF establishment.”

Cat Rambo tweeted, and the SFWA account retweeted, an informational tweet *** listing SFWA-Qualified Markets *** — a list which JDA failed to include with his own tweet. That JDA, and you, are calling this an “attack” is precious beyond measure.

And I notice you’re failing to acknowledge the error in your previous comment, which I called out.
rochrist
Jan 16, 2018 @ 02:29:02

The sealion is strong in this one.
Daniel Snider
Jan 16, 2018 @ 03:14:34

JJ, just as Eckerman’s claim I told a lie is false your claim that there was an error is false, though I did address it. My comment where I addressed it appears to still be awaiting moderation, unfortunately.

As to the SFWA account, I believe the issue is the perceived insinuation behind “so peeps can sort it out.” That is, suggesting his conclusions were false and should be checked by others. He did a blog about that appears to indicate there was some private e-mails adding context to it:

http://delarroz.com/?p=1500

The relevant part being “When my article came out, I sent it to Ms. Rambo . . . Instead of having an honest dialogue, Ms. Rambo returned a comment trolling me by calling my extremely hard work “alt-numbers” via an email back. She wrote a second email a few minutes later saying she went through my twitter and is now dismissing ME as a troll . . .” After that is when she apparently tweeted that comment that was then retweeted by the SFWA account.
Hampus Eckerman
Jan 16, 2018 @ 03:29:56

Daniel Snider: You are sealioning again.

1) The tweet exchange starts with JDA slandering the SFWA.
2) The only thing Cat Rambo does is answer with a simple link.
3) You can’t in any way say what is bad with tweeting a link, giving everyone a possibility to create their own honest opinion.
4) You have no idea who managed the SFWA account, yet you say it was Cat Rambo.
5) You can’t say in what way it is bad to retweet a link to a SFWA infopage.

Again, what is your argument? Do you think giving a link to an info page for SFWA is enough reason to be trolled and stalked? Do you think that tweet is enough reason to accuse Cat Rambo of defending pedophilia? Do you think that link to an info page is reason enough to continue to slander Cat Rambo with continuing falsehoods?
JJ
Jan 16, 2018 @ 03:40:53

Daniel Snider: “As to the SFWA account, I believe the issue is the perceived insinuation behind “so peeps can sort it out.” That is, suggesting his conclusions were false and should be checked by others.”

No, it’s providing a specific list of SFWA-Qualified Markets, which JDA referenced, but failed to link, in his tweet.

Daniel Snider: “He did a blog about that appears to indicate there was some private e-mails adding context to it”

And yes, you’ve linked to that blog post of JDA’s a couple of times now, while apparently failing to note any of the misrepresentations in it:
http://archive.is/DItPE

What JDA claims: “SFWA President Cat Rambo threatening a lawsuit over my ask for her to appear as a guest on my youtube show.”
What actually happened: JDA continued to e-mail Rambo repeatedly, *** despite her asking him to stop *** (incidentally, the legal definition of this is “harassment”), until she finally told him that any further e-mails would be forwarded to her lawyer.

What JDA claims: ” Ms. Rambo returned a comment trolling me by calling my extremely hard work “alt-numbers””
What actually happened: That wasn’t “trolling”. It was a *** statement of fact ***. JDA himself admitted, in his so-called ” deep journalism” post, that he was *** excluding valid data which did not support his claims, in addition to COMPLETELY INVENTING data which he did not actually have ***. “alt-numbers” is certainly an accurate description for that.
http://archive.is/3Nvux

You don’t get to insist that her tweet linking to a list of SFWA-Qualified Markets was some sinister form of “attack” because of some imaginary “context” that you’ve confabulated.
Rick Moen
Jan 16, 2018 @ 08:02:07

Laura Resnick: I truly did mean exactly that compliment, having admired, among other examples, your recent wordsmithing elseblog but been unable to convey my respect before comments there closed.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 16, 2018 @ 08:18:51

Daniel – As I said, you’ve made your point. Repeatedly. You’re welcome to join JDA in interpreting things like “so peeps can sort it out” as some sort of personal attack on JDA, justifying all of the harassment that followed. Others aren’t buying it.

You keep coming back with comments like, “I believe the perceived insinuation…”

As I said in the post, I welcome evidence-based corrections to any factual errors. This is not what you’re providing. It’s time to be done.
Maximillian
Jan 16, 2018 @ 11:01:09

On the gripping hand, if claims like “harassment” doesn’t really exist” or “providing a link is a personal attack” are the best counters that Jo and Daniel can come up with, that seems to provide another level of assurance that Jim’s post is accurate.
Aaron
Jan 16, 2018 @ 11:15:36

Remember that Daniel showed up saying “I don’t really have anything to do with this” and then launched into a couple thousand words on the subject, complete with links that were supposedly “evidence” that del Arroz was somehow done wrong by the people he harassed.

So right off the bat you know Daniel is lying. No one who “doesn’t have anything to do with” someone has a post full of canned dishonest talking points ready to go like that.

It is clear that he expected that his attempt at deflection would be accepted uncritically, and since that didn’t happen, it has been interesting to see him try to defend his distortions and lies with increasingly lame rhetorical contortions.
Daniel Snider
Jan 16, 2018 @ 13:44:17

Eckerman, Arroz was not talking about the SFWA in his tweet, but about publications that are used to determine whether someone qualifies for membership in the organization. Also, I acknowledge I don’t know who may have used the SFWA account as that is what Arroz says, but it is something that should be addressed by the relevant parties. The perception he has of it is no doubt impacted by the exchange he states happened after his article and some of the other things he alleges Rambo did after his blog post. You are focusing on one thing, but I pointed out that as being among other things he says happened.

JJ, I’m not confabulating anything, but noting what Arroz states about his disagreement with the individuals Hines is claiming Arroz is harrassing. As far as the claim of “misrepresentations” I do not see why I have to address everything he says in the blog post in addition to addressing what Hines has stated. Even so, the misrepresentation you claim is based off private exchanges so I am not sure how you can accuse me of not addressing things I couldn’t know about, presuming your characterization is accurate and not misrepresented. With regards to the number in his post on publications, Arroz did estimate based off Submission Grinder in some cases, but he also mentions getting words from sources and one of the publications regarding their submission rates.

Every last bit of that data corroborates his position that women are published at a rate vastly disproportionate to the submission rates and one publisher apparently acknowledged this as fact. If his figures are badly wrong about some of the publications, then surely they can correct them. However, if his estimates are imprecise, but his general argument about the rate of publication for women compared to men is correct then I don’t see how that makes much difference and fussing over “alt-numbers” rather than addressing the central claim is certainly not constructive.

Hines, I have presented plenty of facts showing that many of the incidents you mention in your blog post began with that person attacking Arroz, including in one comment that is still awaiting moderation. For instance, you claim his feud with Rambo started with “nothing” yet I have already shown this is not really the case, even if you disagree with the interpretation. Some of it is based on private communications, but you also seem to just assume Rambo told him multiple times to stop e-mailing him without presenting evidence or apparently any knowledge of her communications, so I don’t think you can fairly argue it shouldn’t be included. However, you seem to be trying to pretend as if I am only talking about one thing with Rambo, even though the links I have presented talk about more than that and I have referenced other things in my comments.

Certainly think the things I have presented warrant updates to your blog post, another example is that I identify the apparent source of his disagreement with Scalzi that you stated you couldn’t find. You made a point of updating your blog to try and minimize the comments made about his son, so I think you can manage some updates based off my comments. Having seen the account responsible for the comments about Arroz’s son and its description of the comment left on his blog, it was definitely a very slimy thing to say and probably included undisclosed personal information about others and possible the son based off what I read. I think it easily outclasses every last thing you mention in your post and, I would note, this apparently happened shortly after his feud with Rambo started and he thinks this was a consequence of it.

Lastly, to Aaron, I am not lying. My points weren’t “ready to go” as I took the time to look into it after seeing this blog post. While I have read plenty about the situation in SFF in the past few years and I was aware of Jon del Arroz to some extent as well as the Worldcon ban, I’m not personally involved in the field or the related controversies. Don’t know Arroz and the only living person mentioned in the blog post that I recognize was Scalzi, because I have seen a lot of his comments related to the situation in SFF. I have been completely honest and have been trying to fairly present what I have found. My hope was that at least there would be some interest in fairness, but I guess even that was hoping for too much judging by the reaction.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 16, 2018 @ 13:57:15

Daniel,

Yes, it looks like one of your comments never made it out of moderation. Since you were mostly arguing about WorldCon stuff, and I’ve said that’s not the point of the post or conversation here, that comment’s gonna stay in moderation.

You’re repeating yourself, and doing little but acting as a mouthpiece for the same excuses JDA has made all along. You believe those excuses. That’s fine. Others clearly don’t believe those excuses justify his abuse.

Given your extensive writings on GamerGate, while you may not have had “ready to go” points about JDA in particular, I think it’s safe to say you’re not jumping into this argument as a completely fair and neutral party, either.

Regardless, it’s done. Your comments here are now longer than the original blog post, and that’s not even counting the screed that didn’t make it through moderation. Let your comments speak for themselves, and stop whining that others aren’t convinced.

Goodbye.
Aaron
Jan 16, 2018 @ 14:36:35

I am not lying

Yes, you are, and your denials are entirely unconvincing. It is obvious from the nature of your posts, it is obvious from the way the “evidence” you’ve proffered to support your defense of JdA diverges from what you claim it says. it is obvious from your attempts to deflect with irrelevancies. It is obvious from the fact that you have been caught lying by multiple people in this thread – and your response has been to stick out your lip and stay “I’m not lying” like the kid who tries to claim he didn’t eat the cookies with chocolate smeared all over his face.

You’re a liar. You know it. I know it. Everyone else in this thread knows it.
KatG
Jan 16, 2018 @ 15:22:34

So again, this is kind of fascinatingly weird. JDA makes a claim that SFWA qualifying markets are discriminatory against white men — a serious claim stated as a condemning insult. (So he’s identifying himself as a white Hispanic, which undercuts many of his claims against other people on racism rather than ethnicity.) The president of SFWA on her personal account supplies a link to the list of qualifying publications so that JDA and his friends can fully check his supposed data. (Of also use would be the data of current SFWA members which show no shortage of white men as new or old members, unlike JDA’s claim.) The person handling SFWA’s official account retweeted that to emphasize the link to the qualifying markets list, since JDA had raised the issue of who the qualifying markets were and their practices.

This would to 99% of the population be considered a perfectly logical response from an organization and its president, given that JDA had brought up a concern (in an attacking and accusatory manner.) Providing him links to more information is exactly what most organizations and companies would do. And yet JDA and his surrogates demand that we view the tweets not as helpful information provided regarding a claim about the organization, but rather a personal attack and somehow “abuse” of the SFWA account instead of them doing their job. Additionally, JDA continually emailed Rambo and harassed her, including publicly online — a crime again, with the justification seeming to be that A) she didn’t want to do an interview with him and B) she was mean to him. Again, JDA (and Dennis and Jo) seems not to understand that committing crimes against people for not liking you and insulting you — before or after you insult them — does not put you on secure legal ground. And in the case that Dennis sought to hash out, there wasn’t even any of that.

So what is the point of JDA’s harassment crusades against people who he feels don’t like him or he claims have said mean things? Beale attacked the SFWA because it helped in him writing articles for Breibart, being in with the alt right leadership as an agitator, various efforts amid the European right wing, etc. — he has non-fiction, real world political goals which trying to pick feuds with other SFFH writers, organizations and publishers supported. So is JDA trying to do something similar? Is he writing or trying to write non-fiction articles for far right media? He has a podcast — is he trying to monetize it as a far right pundit? Is he trying to take out the SFWA or various qualifying fiction publication markets in a culture war as a non-fiction activist, so that he can team up with far right organizations?

Because again none of this much helps sell fiction, except to a very narrow slice of irregular fiction buyers who are not known for their longevity of interest and are more dedicated to games and online activities. There should logically be some sort of endgame goal here. But unlike Beale and some others, it’s not very evident. So far it’s harass other authors so they won’t talk to him, and threaten to disrupt conventions so that they will stop wanting him to come and make a mess at their event. As a non-fiction goal, it might make sense. As a SFF fiction promotional strategy, it’s baffling.

Maybe it’s activism to try and get conventions to dump their Codes of Conduct? That would seem to be a useless endeavor, but it would have some logic to it.
rochrist
Jan 16, 2018 @ 15:35:42

I don’t know Kat. I usually think your analysis is spot on, but in this case, I think you’re underestimating the closed and incestuous nature of, for want of a better term, the puppy community. I think they very much DO support each other. Obviously it’s self limiting, but if Arroz was struggling to sell anything at all, having a small guaranteed market is better than no market at all.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 16, 2018 @ 15:44:04

Daniel posted yet another comment. I don’t think I’m going to let it through. There’s nothing new (more claims that my post is intentionally inflammatory, I’m not interested in fair or honest discussion, etc.), and we’ve all spent more than enough time on that particular back-and-forth.

Moving on now…
Paul Weimer
Jan 16, 2018 @ 15:52:05

@KatG

If I take the content of his emails to me (before I had just had *enough* and told him not to email me anymore) as him speaking the truth, he expresses a large amount of pride in his fictional work (he tried to get me, for the Nth time, to read his book) and takes umbrage at any perception that he is not a good writer (I tried to suggest to him, in that email string that he should stop being a *** on twitter and write and get better at writing instead)–which got him angrily responding that he was an excellent writer, missing my point by a country mile)

So I believe, based on my interactions with him, he does want his fiction to do well and isn’t looking to be a far right pundit.

His “marketing strategy”, however, leaves very much to be desired.
Aaron
Jan 16, 2018 @ 15:58:36

I would think that one thing JdA should worry about quite a bit would be people making the harassing e-mails he has sent public. I can understand not wanting to do that, but given how he has behaved and the content of the one e-mail I got from him before I dumped him into my spam folder, he should live in fear of his e-mails being made public.
Jo
Jan 16, 2018 @ 17:44:21

@Aaron — you wrote, “Everyone else in this thread knows it.”

Nonsense. I believe you mean everyone you consider important. In my opinion, Daniel has a point, and he conveyed his message well enough. Further, I believe Daniel comes across as sincere and seems to mean well, though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Daniel is fed up with SJW behavior in general, but specifically in SF and gaming and probably comics as well.

In short, I believe Daniel has spoken truth to power.

@Jim — to paraphrase, you asked what I meant by stating that things go both ways.
In short, I’m referring to the inevitable pendulum. One month Obama is President.
The next Trump. One moment there’s an organized campaign to keep communists from working, the next there’s a movement to keep conservatives from having platforms. Look at Lindsay Shepherd. Look at allegations against Twitter shadowbanning accounts. Look at allegations against Google. Pay attention to universities and watch protests that shut down conservative speech. Goodness gracious, look at Kevin Sorbo.

Well, I hope that’s not the kind of thing you enjoy, but if it is enjoy it while it lasts. Because the pendulum will swing again, and I promise you that a lot of bad folks are waiting in the wings. I don’t want to give those really truly bad folks gasoline, but that’s exactly what all of this banning is doing. It’s next to impossible to have a conversation about it without weathering a waterfall of accusations. Troll. Sealioning, whatever the heck that is. Sleazy. Liar. Racist. Just insult and accusation after insult and accusation, all asserted with venom, and this is just what I get as a relatively polite individual trying to engage in a conversation under an appropriate topic thread.

Many conservatives have pointed out that it’s difficult to come out as conservative. This is a lived experience that can be ignored but not denied. There’s a McCarthyism feeling in the air, and it’s been hovering for a handful of years now. I personally started paying attention to all of this back when the Resnick & Malzberg article published in what I believe was Bulletin issue #202. (Correct me if I’m wrong about the issue number, please.) There was an outcry at the time about the phrase “lady editor” being used, and I recall that folks were upset. Suddenly a great line was drawn, or so it seemed to me, though it’s possible the line was already there and that was just the first moment I saw it deeply etched through the fanbase. Two sides had been delineated from one another. Two sides I can only refer to as the good thinkers and the bad thinkers.

This has only gotten worse.

You asked if I have proof. I’ve pointed out how I don’t believe any of the accusations against Jon Del Arroz warrant banning.

1. the bodycam comment. An appropriate response to this is to remind him that such is unallowed and to ban him if he does indeed try to record in areas where recording is not allowed.
2. his trolling behavior. None of this happened at Worldcon. None of this is in violation of Worldcon’s code of conduct, nor should it be as Worldcon is not in the business of policing actions outside of the convention.

My point here is simple. Jon Del Arroz’s trolling behavior is a byproduct of the political differences that have divided the community.

Now, it easy to say that Jon can hold his opinions quietly and still be admitted to Worldcon and to assert that such is proof that the opinions themselves are not the culprits. Rather, that argument would suggest, the obnoxious behavior is the culprit. But I don’t think that amounts to a sound argument. It’s basically an attempt to silence opposition. Jon has been singled out for his opinions, yes, but not just his opinions. He has been singled out for expressing his opinions.

To be fair, the next argument I’m sure to face in making this point is that Jon doesn’t have to be so downright mean about expressing his opinions. Jon can, someone might argue, limit his expression to blog posts rather than “at” someone in a tweet. But I just don’t think that’s realistic. Communicating via social media sometimes includes arguing from platform to platform. This is why the block feature is so great for those folks who don’t feel up to the challenge or the headache.

Basically, this is how the internet argues and debates in 2018.

One of the points I made in an earlier post was to point out how many terrible comments I’ve seen other well-regarded members of the community make. Do I need to provide examples of this, or does everyone just agree with the commonsense, yes, it happens. A lot of folks make a lot of mean comments online.

All I’m asking is that bias and double standards be acknowledged.

@KatG — you have continually mentioned that Jon Del Arroz has broken the law. Could you please reference the criminal statute in question?

In short, I don’t believe Jon Del Arroz has violated the law. I think you are painfully exaggerating the situation. That said, if Jon Del Arroz has broken the law, I believe you should certainly report him to authorities.
John From GR
Jan 16, 2018 @ 18:06:57

@Jo “Jon Del Arroz’s trolling behavior is a byproduct of the political differences that have divided the community.”

Um, no. Jon Del Arroz’s trolling behavior is a byproduct of Jon Del Arroz. Full stop.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 16, 2018 @ 18:22:24

Jo,

1. That is not an accurate summary of the SFWA Bulletin incident.

2. I’m glad that even though we disagree on some points, we are apparently in agreement that JDA’s behavior is trolling.

As for the rest, well, like Daniel, you’ve made your point. I find it willfully ignorant and unconvincing. But to each their own.
Hampus Eckerman
Jan 16, 2018 @ 18:23:58

There are a lot of conservatives at Worldcon. But most of them aren’t defenders of abusers and harassers. That seems to be something reserved for internet trolls who can only speak in ridiculous monologues.
Philip weiss
Jan 16, 2018 @ 18:32:29

Jon Del Arroz writes for the Federalist and claimed in a number of tweets that he’s a journalist. It does seem to me that he’s trying to be a pundit of a sort in addition to his writing career.
Jim C. Hines
Jan 16, 2018 @ 18:51:54

Folks, is there any good reason for me to continue to keep comments open here? This is mostly a selfish question, trying to free up the time I’m spending reading everything and occasionally responding. But after 90+ comments, it feels like most people have said their piece, and I don’t imagine any minds are likely to be changed at this point.
Jo
Jan 16, 2018 @ 18:55:22

Jim — while we certainly disagree, thank you for allowing me to make the above points here on your blog.
Douglas Berry
Jan 16, 2018 @ 19:08:02

At this point it’s just gear grinding. JDA’s defenders will never argue in good faith. They have their talking points, and no amount of facts will sway them. Sadly, this is a microcosm of American public discourse these days.

Your call, Mr. Hines, but I don’t see anything more coming from this thread.
KatG
Jan 16, 2018 @ 20:13:45

“@KatG — you have continually mentioned that Jon Del Arroz has broken the law. Could you please reference the criminal statute in question?

In short, I don’t believe Jon Del Arroz has violated the law. I think you are painfully exaggerating the situation. That said, if Jon Del Arroz has broken the law, I believe you should certainly report him to authorities.”

What you believe should be the law doesn’t change what the law actually is, and harassment and stalking are legally crimes, as I believe has been explained to you a number of times by others where you’ve popped up. Threatening to harass and stalk someone at an event is also a crime, considered a type of harassment. Now granted, a lot of online harassment doesn’t get prosecuted because it’s international and there are just too many of them, but it doesn’t change that it’s a crime and that if it gets aggressive enough, it can lead to legal action, cops and lawsuits. At a lower level, it can get you banned or suspended from some areas of the Web or organizations. And it can lead to the consequence that people won’t let you into an event you threatened to cause trouble at.

JDA isn’t anonymous. He has made threats publicly online. He has harassed and publicly organized harassment mobs to go after people online. He’s also harassed and stalked people, sending them dozens of emails when they told him to leave them alone, as has been well documented here and elsewhere. Doing that with emails is, legally, the same as making a barrage of phone calls or texts or sending a string of nasty letters in the paper mail. It’s harassment and stalking. He’s already been warned about facing lawyers at least once, sounds like more than once.

And he threatened to harass and stalk people at WorldCon, publicly called for people to come help him do hijinks to disrupt WorldCon, threatened to violate the code of conduct at WorldCon. WorldCon has legal liability for their event and here is an author threatening to do things that will possibly then end up bringing in the cops, having one of his victims sue them for letting him harass and/or tape them at the event, and so forth. He threatens to illegally tape others talking without their consent, which even in the more public areas of WorldCon is a California law no-no, and again a big lawsuit risk for them. But the main thing was that he was threatening to harass people at the event and seems to have also harassed some of the event’s staff.

You keep calling JDA a liar, Jo. You keep trying to claim that he didn’t mean his threats about what he would do at WorldCon. But WorldCon had a legal responsibility to take him at his word when he threatened harassment at the event, the threat itself is also harassment. They have legal liability to protect attending members from someone saying he’ll harass and bother them at their event.

“1. the bodycam comment. An appropriate response to this is to remind him that such is unallowed and to ban him if he does indeed try to record in areas where recording is not allowed.”

As I said on Scalzi’s blog, no, it’s not appropriate or required:

“When a person registers for a convention, they are responsible for reading the Code of Conduct and they are agreeing in registering to follow that Code. And the Code says that the convention staff can ban people they consider dangerous to their other attendees and who refuse to follow the Code of Conduct as this guy publicly claimed he would do. Bringing a video camera and filming in private areas and/or an individual at the event without their consent is explicitly not allowed in the Code of Conduct of WorldCon that it was the guy’s responsibility to read and follow. It is also illegal under California law, which means if the guy did it, that would make WorldCon legally vulnerable to legal action and lawsuits from the guy’s actions. It is the attendee’s responsibility and agreement on registering to know and follow the Code of Conduct and to know and follow the laws of the state in which the convention is held (and in which this guy apparently lives.) It is not WorldCon’s staff’s job or responsibility to “remind” an attendee about what is in the Code of Conduct they already received or to instruct them in state law. WorldCon staff is not this guy’s mommy.”

If JDA wanted to tape people without their knowledge and consent at WorldCon, it was his job to find out whether this was illegal or not, not WorldCon’s. He already knew it was against the Code of Conduct related to private areas because he got the Code when he registered. He just chose to ignore it, which is his responsibility and his threat.

“2. his trolling behavior. None of this happened at Worldcon. None of this is in violation of Worldcon’s code of conduct, nor should it be as Worldcon is not in the business of policing actions outside of the convention.”

Again, you keep calling JDA a liar. You keep saying that they should have not believed his threats (which again are harassment,) of the harassment he would do at WorldCon. But it’s their legal responsibility in holding the event to believe JDA’s threats are real. Again, as I said over at Scalzi’s:

“The idea that a guy who publicly threatens to commit a crime and harass people at an event has to be allowed into the event to see if he will actually do what he said he would, rather than banning him from the event so he can’t commit the crime and harassment he threatened to do, is ludicrous. If someone publicly threatens to come to your house and scream at you and chase you around with a video camera, you don’t tell the guy come on into my house and let’s see if you actually do it. You tell the person they can’t come into your house and you might tell the police the person has threatened you. WorldCon has absolutely no responsibility to believe that this guy won’t follow through on his public threats towards the convention. They took him at his word and banned him.

Claiming now that oh he’s harmless and just enthusiastic, WorldCon should have just patted him on the head and told him to be a good boy — that’s silly and it’s treatment that no one is obligated to provide him. If you don’t want to be banned from an event, don’t publicly threaten to break the event’s rules and state law. That’s your own responsibility, not the event’s. And if you don’t think you can abide by the Code of Conduct of a convention, then you don’t go to the convention. Because if you threaten to break the Code and film people illegally — whatever your motivation for it — people will take the threat seriously.”

And in addition, WorldCon had every reason to believe that JDA’s threats about WorldCon were really what he would do as he had a history of harassing and stalking people online, through emails, etc., such as Ms. Rambo and Paul. Those incidents, which were all fully documented, meant they had to take JDA’s threats of doing similar things at WorldCon as credibly what he would do. And thus it was their responsibility to take action to protect their event from that sort of disruption — that he publicly planned.

Again, JDA, you, this Dennis guy, etc., seem not to understand that harassing people with constant contact of emails, phone calls, organizing harassment mobs to stalk and harass people online, that is all illegal. And it doesn’t make people like you much either. I can understand that myopia, given the U.S.’ current president, etc. But it doesn’t change that it is. And threatening to harass people at an event, even if it doesn’t get you prosecuted — that still is ample legal grounds for an event to ban you from attending. Especially when they’ve already told you what sort of behavior is expected from you in attending the event in the code of conduct and you contractually agree to follow that code when you register. If you go back on your world and say you won’t do what you agreed but instead will cause trouble, that is a violation of your registration contract with the event and they can bounce you. They’re pretty much obliged to bounce you on the basis of liability issues.

JDA seems to feel that the rules and laws shouldn’t apply to him ever. You seem to feel that WorldCon should ignore his threats about what he’d do at the event or give him a break on them and teach him how to be a good boy, which they aren’t required to do. He has a job, as a professional author attending the event, to follow the rules he agreed to follow in his behavior at the event, stated clearly in the code of conduct, about which he could certainly have asked questions of them if he wanted. He instead threatened that he would not follow the rules, that he would put them in legal jeopardy and disrupt the event. He threatened to break California law as part of that. They are not contractually obligated — as he agreed in registering — to let him try that at their event.

Dennis advanced the argument that hey, JDA is just joking most of the time — i.e. again that JDA is lying in his threats. But sending people who don’t want contact constant emails is not a joke. It’s a threat. It’s harassment, stalking. It’s a crime. He’s been lucky. If he keeps doing it or escalates, his luck may run out. Because all those tweets, blog posts, and emails are written record, much of it public, of harassing and stalking. People don’t trust him because of his harassing behavior. WorldCon could not afford to ignore his threats about what he would do at WorldCon as fake lies, “mean things” or a joke.
KatG
Jan 16, 2018 @ 20:16:34

Oops, I’m sorry, Jim, I cross-posted. Forgot the last double-check. Delete my post if needed.

Phillip: “Jon Del Arroz writes for the Federalist and claimed in a number of tweets that he’s a journalist. It does seem to me that he’s trying to be a pundit of a sort in addition to his writing career.”

Ah, that would do it. Thanks! But he’s wasting his time going after SFF authors — there’s not much interest in them as targets.
Jo
Jan 16, 2018 @ 20:55:45

KatG — weird, I scanned your reply but didn’t notice a statute you thought he was guilty of.

Anyway, I think Jim wants to close the topic, and I agree with him that no minds are likely to be changed at this point. I’m sure neutral readers coming along can go over all this and decide which side sounds like it made sense and which side sounds batshit histrionic.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Sally
Jan 16, 2018 @ 21:05:59

@Rick Moen: Ty’s expression was amazing. I must have been standing near you then. (Vague memory… could have been?) I didn’t see subtitles, but a thought balloon containing “WTF?”

I wish someone had been filming at the time. I’m guessing nobody was or we’d have seen it by now — and of course since this is California, they’d have had to get his permission first. I don’t see JDA having a ridiculously successful book series that he then co-produces as a well-regarded TV show any time ever. Even Hollywood has a limit to how much asshole behavior they’ll put up with.

@Philip: Then he ought to stick with punditry. Like @KatG said, nobody gives enough of a damn about SF authors for him to make a name and amass a following over. I don’t see Fox and Friends, Trump, Rushbo, or any of them spending all their time and effort attacking genre writers. No one on any side of the punditsphere cares.

I don’t recall Jerry Pournelle going around being afraid of people at Worldcon, ever. He also managed to spend most of his life in the socialist hellhole of California. Heck, he was even GoH at Baycon at least once IIRC. (Poul Anderson always came.) Robert Silverberg’s a conservative (SWM wealthy version) who openly decries political correctness, and he’s been to every Hugo awards ceremony ever. So why is Jon such a fraidy-cat?

The sea lions don’t seem to know the first rule of holes, either. Or TL;DR.
Douglas Berry
Jan 16, 2018 @ 21:08:29

Jo – Look up 18 U.S. Code § 2261A – Stalking. Specifically section (B)(2)
Jim C. Hines
Jan 16, 2018 @ 21:50:36

And with another comment from Daniel popping into the moderation queue, I’m done. Everyone has had the chance to make their case. (Daniel more than most, with almost 3000 words of posted comments.)

Comments on this post are now closed, thank you.