blahJohn
mock26, informed me last night that he had made a post on the gencon forums at some point and I got to come online today and see the spew it generated. I hadn't actually spent much time telling him about the recent crap concerning the cutout other than a quick summary right before I arrived here about the status of things. What's really sort of offensive to me about this whole thing is exactly that there is no inherent violation of any rules and instead, what we have is a group of people trying to pervert the process in order to bring about a result they personally desire. There are words for that sort of thing, and none of them are very pleasant.What's truly remarkable if you think about it is just how innoculous this whole thing was. No contraverial t-shirt, no obscene gestures, no anything I could think of that would have caused a ruckus. In fact, I was so certain that it was innoculous that I didn't even think much of the situation. It wasn't until talking with
sherilyn70 at origins that it even entered my mind that some people might be wankers about it. Up until that point, I coudln't conceive of problems of any sort. It was only after that chat with her that I decided to be a bit courteous about the whole thing and ask blackrider23 for his opinion about whether it violated any rules. I coudln't see how it could quite frankly, but I figured it would be a positive gesture to give him a heads up rather than just springing it. For some reason, I can't access my gmail right now so I can't paste the verbatim response, but I took away from it that he couldn't see any way it would violate the rules. It was always my opinion that BR23 was a fair arbitor and if he thought it would be kosher, I was good to go. I hadn't anticipated the shitstorm to come when others stuck their oars into the water.[18:59] black_rider23: Hey there
[18:59] black_rider23: I thought the whole thing over.
[19:00] black_rider23: Your right... it wouldnt violate any rules. And some may find it very funny...
[19:00] black_rider23: I would like to ask you personally to not do it though.
[19:00] black_rider23: I cant stop you really.
[19:01] black_rider23: But there are several things that I am afraid of. Including making sure your killer breakfast investment doesnt get damaged. (not that i think it would per say... but there is the potential anytime you cart that thing around)
In the last part of our conversation, he mentioned that he was worried there would be some violence as a result. The next time I saw him on, I of course inquired to clarify. I didn't think anyone could be stupid and insane enough to actually physically assault
jirel because of a cutout but it was something I had to make sure of. It was then I was told that CJ was making noise and said that he thought it could be a 'disruption' and thus violation of general gencon policy. It was only then that I asked for a clarification of what the policy actually would be in this situation from gencon event staff about the whole thing. I had no idea it would somehow turn into a Maven vote, which frankly dosen't make a lick of sense to me. To make things even better, I never did receive a response as to what the policy would be from a gencon administration point of view. Now, maybe it's sitting in my email's inbox right now which I can't access on this computer for the moment, but I doubt it. So after all this cloak and dagger crap, I still don't have any formal answer.To add to the sheer idiocy of the situation, in my conversations with BR23, I even floated the idea of maybe just having the cutout outside the stink room, thus avoiding any possible issues. After all, to my knowledge, I'm only barred from the event iself. Unless there's some provision I'm completely not aware of, I can be in the hallway before the event to meet and greet or whatever. Despite this, I was told that the cutout's presence might still be ruled as being a violation of policy even when my own isn't. How's that for batshit insane?
Anyway, I have no clue how any of this is going to pan out. The lessons to take away from this, however, are many and varied. 1) Never discount the influence of wankers, 2) Courteous gestures always end up biting you in the ass. The irony dosen't escape me that if I had just decided to not mention this to BR23, this whole thing probaly would have gone off without a hitch, without any problems. It's only now that it's had time to churn and percolate that the full shitstorm twister has formed.
Got access to email finally and pasted the relevant part in.
