Forum - View topicThe SPJA Needs to Change Its Youth Protection Policy
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5823 Location: Virginia, United States |
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I have no problem with Anime Expo requiring background checks for paid staff, nor with unpaid volunteers (but AX should at least pay the costs for that, unless they want to lose a number of eager volunteers.) With how busy these conventions usually are, and most operate with not enough staff to begin with, I don't see the staff being the biggest problem. The biggest threat to con goers is con goers. Really with AX around 90,000 attendees last year; staff, volunteers, vendors, and artists are really only a drop of water into the ocean. Nothing AX can do will change that. They want to improve safety, pay for police officers and ensure there are no accessible empty areas at the convention center. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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You don't believe security in general is effective? |
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Jariten
Company Representative
 Posts: 179 Location: Here and there |
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This is actually tied to one of my original points: people rarely, if ever, look into the background of the conventions they attend. Most don't know if their con is for profit or not, what the proper procedures are for reporting an incident, and most don't look up the information about con organizers that you found in your own searches. In short: we yelp our restaurants, check for reviews on movies and books we are thinking of buying, and do research before buying a car or renting a home. Fans must, must, MUST start doing this for the conventions they attend. To be honest, there needs to be a nationwide database that the staff (or at least the ConCom) of conventions, regardless of their filing status with the IRS, can access to report (or blacklist) troublesome congoers, report incidents with shady vendors, and so forth. If executed properly, with a system for appeals and proper oversight, such a program could help mitigate a lot of the problems that these events have. That's what we need. The SPJA policy, which penalizes everyone unevenly, forces exorbitant costs on vendors when most of them are already financially invested in the event, and doesn't even account for misbehavior among attendees, is not. |
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fryguy81
 Posts: 29 |
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There is no such thing as security. Nobody is truly safe. But nobody likes to think about it either. |
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5823 Location: Virginia, United States |
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If your goal is seriously to protect the children, then you don't ignore 90,000+ people to only enforce more draconian measures and costs onto the 'relatively' handful of people (vendors, artists, and guests) who help make the convention a fun and interesting place to attend. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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What about when the police catch criminals and weapons ARE found during scans and checks? There is no such thing as perfect security, but I would prefer imperfect security over no security at all. No security can catch every wrong-doer, but most security can catch some wrong-doers.
I'm not referring to Anime Expo's security, but the concept of security. |
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fryguy81
Posts: 29 |
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I'd say that isn't security, that's criminal justice. But I did say "But really my only issue here is the forcing vendors and guests to do this. Background checks on AX Personnel is fine. Heck is understand the bag checks and metal detectors as deterrents despite my belief that security is an illusion." |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I see, you distinguish between the two of them, whereas I consider both as "security."
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DoctorScorpio
Posts: 15 |
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I dont know if youve ever been through "AX security" because its a joke. It is clearly window dressing and to give an illusion of actual security. Anyone wanting to sneak in anything can do so easily. I do not believe security in general at AX is effective. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Justice, by definition, generally takes place after harm is done. Security are measures to prevent harm from occurring. Anytime authorities weed out weapons and people with intent to harm from a private event is a successful application of security measures. Of course, security can be overbearing and ineffective (such as forcing everyone to toss out their water bottles at the airport), but saying they are always ineffective is like saying that people in cars should forego seatbelts and airbags since some people are going to die in auto accidents despite those measures. But I definitely agree with your second point. |
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1746 |
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People already Yelp cons. Search for Anime Expo under Yelp. There are plenty of reviews.
Who is going to fund this database? The government? The attendees? The cons themselves? Good luck trying to get either party to fund this project. Who is going to secure the data in said database? Unless you're going to demand that all staff, guests and attendees are biometically enrolled, how are you going to prevent system oversight in the event an attendee changes their name or provides a fake ID? And more importantly, who decides what attendees are "bad" and what that criteria is? You're clearly not thinking about the implications of the "solutions" you're suggesting. It seems obvious to me that you're arguing the new SPJA policy based on your feelings and not on actual logic. |
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Jariten
Company Representative
Posts: 179 Location: Here and there |
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Having worked for numerous non-profits and four different anime conventions over a twenty year career, I assure you such a solution is not nearly as impossible as it seems. I've been part of it myself. Threats against attendees are nothing new. I remember when four girls (two of whom are close friends of mine) at a convention I was part of received death threats and hateful e-mails for committing the sin of hosting a yaoi panel. I remember their friends, the convention staff people, and everyone working on a solution together. I was one of the people who helped guard that panel room when it happened. I was one of the people who ensured the police were aware of what was going on. The convention community worked together, and made other area conventions aware of what happened. Convention staff care about this stuff, my friend. They'll definitely work together to put something like this together. I know because I've been part of the process. Can you say the same?
Why yes, I am. My friends were threatened with death for liking yaoi. It was one of the most terrifying, worrying feelings I've ever felt in my life. For your sake, I certainly hope you never have to experience anything like it. |
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DoctorScorpio
Posts: 15 |
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@Jariten
Strange, your anecdotal examples dont reference any of the con staff making the threats yet your solution appears to be a nationwide database of con staff. You also dont actually directly respond to Cutiebunny's quesitons about how it is funded and maintained other then a vague "it can be done...really!" You reference emotional experiences which (from what I can tell) would not be prevented by the very database you endorse. I'm all for protecting people with policies that have a chance of WORKING. If you truly want to "protect" people you would have to background check everyone, not just 5% of the people at the con. Background checking staff, vendors and guests is just window dressing. It does nothing. |
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5823 Location: Virginia, United States |
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As the above poster has said, you have failed to address the more practical points about your plan. Most anime conventions are individual affairs. Otakon has nothing to do with Anime Expo, and Anime Expo really has nothing to do, with any other anime convention in the United States. They have no real reason to be sharing their staff's personal information with other conventions throughout the United States. Not only that, there might be liability problems if that personnel information is leaked or hacked outside of the control of the pertaining convention. As has been said before, convention staff, dealers, artists, guests, and volunteers are not the problem. It is the paying con goers who make up 95% of the total capacity of the convention who are the problem and the greatest threat. As to your personal anecdote, sounds more like that threat came from con goers, or even from anime fans from outside the convention itself. |
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Caloris
Posts: 33 |
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The only thing that allowed 9/11 to happen was the fact that flight deck doors were not required to be secured and the belief that any hijackers just wanted to divert the flight somewhere and issue demands. The standard at the time was, if hijacked, do what they want. That ended on 9/11 - within 2 hours of the attacks starting (thus UA93 ending up in a field in PA and not a building in DC). Nothing TSA has done has improved security in any way whatsoever. Richard Reid was blocked by security at Paris. After an investigation by the French Police, he was allowed to fly the next day. On board when he attempted to light his shoe, he was stopped by other passengers. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was known to US intelligence and his own father reported that something was being planned to US officials. He was still allowed to board. He was also stopped by other passengers. Both of these people were flying into the US and had no contact with TSA. Yet TSA then overreacts and adds requirements to security within the US to "prevent" the last "attack" that won't happen again. The body scanners that were rolled out "because" of the underwear bomb aren't even capable of detecting such an item. The liquid limits came about because of something that never even got past planning stages and is scientifically impossible to ever happen. TSA spends so much time looking for things that are not threats (eg, water, money), that they miss things that are. Thus their 95% failure rate. The current issue with delays at TSA checkpoints is because they want more money out of Congress. They have more then enough staff and funding already. They don't use their staff well with many of them standing around doing nothing. What TSA is doing now, creates security problems. The long lines at the checkpoints are the targets. Anyone willing to attack an anime con simply has to go to one of the larger events that have bag checks at the doors, such as Anime Boston or AX, and hit the lines outside the building. People appear to have misunderstood what Jariten posted about a con incident reporting database. It wouldn't be a database of con staff. It's a database of anyone attending an event that con staff can update and access. Vendor x was found to be selling bootlegs at con y? con staff log that vendor in a database. an attendee was found to be harassing guests? that attendee is logged etc The issue would be creating and managing such a database. Perhaps cons can sign up for the database for a small fee (fees just to break even on costs) to get access. The more cons that sign up, the smaller the fees are for each con. As for the YPP, it is stupid, to wide reaching and doesn't address the real problem. The biggest problem is a small subset of attendees are immature brats that for some reason regress to a mental age of 2 when at conventions. They cause damage to the venue, harass guests and other attendees and just otherwise run around being morons. In some cases, the harassment can be quite severe. The issue is, that when an attendee is subject to this harassment, they don't know where to report it so many don't until it is too late to do anything about it. If they do report it, the con staff they reported it to either don't know what to do or don't care. The con needs to let attendees know how and where to report issues, and the staff needs to know how to deal with the issues brought to them. This requires notices on the con website, program guide and some posters around the con to advise attendees what to do, and it requires con staff be trained in how to handle the problems - at the very least, staff and volunteers on the "floor" need to be able to direct the attendee on where to go, and/or have some of contacting staff who do know how to handle the issue. |
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