PAX Will "Roll For Diversity" Next Year

roseofbattle

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Apr 18, 2011
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PAX Will "Roll For Diversity" Next Year

PAX's "Roll for Diversity" will provide inclusive "diversity hubs" for minority groups including women, people of color, the disabled, LGBTQ communities, and people with mental illness.

There is no cookie cutter for people who play games; great differences exist from one person to the next. There are many groups within the gaming community that are silenced by the majority. Beginning next year PAX will incorporate "Diversity Hubs and Lounges" at PAX locations in Seattle, Boston, and Melbourne in a "Roll For Diversity" campaign. The hubs will be a safe space for minorities and be a resource for people, both industry professionals and fans, to learn about diversity, leaked documents provided to Indie Statik report. The PAX organizers confirmed the images detailing the plans to Kotaku.

"PAX has always strived to be a safe and welcoming environment for all gamers," one document states [http://indiestatik.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/page-0.jpg]. "Since its inception they have had a strict anti-booth babe policy, an extensive anti-harassment policy, and have been inclusive of panel content that covers a wide variety of topics including issues surrounding diversity in gaming."

Attendees will be able to obtain a resource guide with panel tracks that focus on diverse communities such as women, people of color, the disabled, LGBTQ communities, and people with mental illness. Tables in the hubs will have information about providing diversity in the games industry. Companies will be able to use table space to talk about their efforts to promote diversity. Enforcers will be present in this safe zone to answer questions and report any instances of harassment.

"Roll For Diversity" is step in the right direction to include minorities and encourage diverse representation; however, to be truly inclusive PAX should not designate these lounges as a separate space within each convention. They should be an inherent part of the convention - for everyone to feel safe everywhere at PAX. "Roll For Diversity" isn't bad. PAX organizers recognize that minority groups can get drowned out in the industry.

"Our goal was to highlight diverse groups (and organizations that represent diverse groups) in the industry that might not necessarily get exposure otherwise," Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade told Kotaku. "We have a limited number of slots, and the booths are free. In addition, since all of our content is spread out at the show rather than 'tracked,' the hub will also be a resource for people to find the diverse sessions, events, and exhibitions."

PAX's diversity hubs could lead to more companies and convention organizers to be aware that people who play games are more than just the majority, and these people deserve to have their voices heard.

Source: Kotaku [http://indiestatik.com/2013/12/17/pax-diversity-lounge/]


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Albino Boo

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Jun 14, 2010
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This sounds like horrible tokenism mixed with unpleasant authoritarianism at the same time. Its a very poor choice of words " Enforcers will be present in this safe zone to answer questions and report any instances of harassment." Makes the thing sound like some mafia operation, swapping enforcers for moderators would have been a better choice.
 

jackpipsam

SEGA fanboy
Jun 2, 2009
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This sounds terrible.
I mean what's the point of this segregation?

If the money is going towards this and not improving the event overall, I don't think I will bother with PAXAUS next year.
 

AldUK

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Oct 29, 2010
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This sounds like a pretty awful idea. But I don't blame PAX for it. Just look at the legions of folks on the internet who clamor and whine that their unique label they apply to themselves isn't being respected. Well this kind of thing is the end result of that. Enjoy the segregation.
 

saltyanon

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Sep 18, 2013
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This is going to be hilarious. On one hand, you've got people saying "Hey, we want to be recognized, distinguished, treated specially! We want people to know we exist!", on the other hand, you have people who don't want to be treated differently.

Ronack said:
Maybe next we'll put special sections in the back of the bus so that minorities will have a safe place to interact!
You're forgetting that already exists. See: Japan's Women-only train cars. No, I'm not saying they're a minority, before anyone gets any ideas.
 

JarinArenos

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Jan 31, 2012
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Yeah, still sounds like typical PA bullshit. Just a policy extension of their usual non-apology responses to all their other offenses.
AldUK said:
This sounds like a pretty awful idea. But I don't blame PAX for it. Just look at the legions of folks on the internet who clamor and whine that their unique label they apply to themselves isn't being respected. Well this kind of thing is the end result of that. Enjoy the segregation.
Oh yeah, self-applied unique labels. Like "female".
 

BrainWalker

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Aug 6, 2009
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saltyanon said:
Ronack said:
Maybe next we'll put special sections in the back of the bus so that minorities will have a safe place to interact!
You're forgetting that already exists. See: Japan's Women-only train cars. No, I'm not saying they're a minority, before anyone gets any ideas.
That's not really a fair comparison. Those exist so women can get on a train without being sexually assaulted, which is a pretty serious problem on Japanese mass transit. It is incredibly sad that such a measure became necessary, but it did.

I feel like this whole "safe space" thing is a difficult thing to pull off without being counter-intuitive. They aren't really selling me on it. I like Khoo's line about wanting to "highlight diverse groups." I think providing spaces where people can come together to actively discuss diversity issues rather than simply passively coexist with them is a good idea. A much better idea than suggesting certain groups of people need to be segregated in special locations where they can be "safe," implying that they wouldn't be safe everywhere at PAX. It kind of sounds like what they're trying to do is provide networking and discussion opportunities, which is great, but the language being used confuses the message.
 

Treaos Serrare

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Aug 19, 2009
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albino boo said:
This sounds like horrible tokenism mixed with unpleasant authoritarianism at the same time. Its a very poor choice of words " Enforcers will be present in this safe zone to answer questions and report any instances of harassment." Makes the thing sound like some mafia operation, swapping enforcers for moderators would have been a better choice.
except that the mostly volunteer group of people who do the internal security for PAX are called Enforcers, they "Enforce" the rules of the event so that assholes who start shit with other attendees get chucked out on their asses for it
 

MaximumTheHormone

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Jan 28, 2012
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Meh, if people want it why not?
And for those complaining, how would this in any way affect your convention experience?
+ 1 if they serve shoddily made pizza and someones mum brings in a curry to play up the ethnic diversity.
 

Duffy13

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May 18, 2009
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You guys should be ashamed of yourselves, you are so filled with hate and bile that you jump at anything that might be misconstrued as if it were intentionally malevolent. You didn't even read the dam pamphlet.

Based on what the pamphlet actually said and not on what has been attributed to it second hand:

1. The Diversity Hub is a place to find information about the topics in question, it does not state that anyone covered by the Diversity Hub should congregate there. It even specifically mentions that related panels and booths will be all over the convention and the Hub is a convenient way to find information/times/locations for said panels and booths.

2. The "Enforcers" are just the name for the people who help work the convention. According to the document they have been trained to make the ENTIRE convention a safe zone, not just the hub. Mentioning they will have a presence there is probably to insure that if an incident occurs there is a clear location to find them if needed.

3. It's a place for advocate groups to come together. Absolutely nowhere does it say anything about segregating related booths to this area, just that they made free booth space available for it. It's like they know that small booths that aren't 'mainstream' get lost on the giant floor. I wonder if that's why the Indie Megabooth was formed?

Many of you seem to advocate acceptance by ignorance or if you are aware, simply ignoring them. These issues exist, PAX is saying we want to help remove these issues by discussing and sharing about them. Come here to learn about how they pertain to your favorite hobby.

It's almost like someone related to PAX made a gaff because he was unaware of proper nomenclature, was raked through the coals about it, apologized and came up with a way to make sure other people didn't do the same thing. Apparently that makes you an awful person on the internet.
 

saltyanon

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Sep 18, 2013
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BrainWalker said:
saltyanon said:
Ronack said:
Maybe next we'll put special sections in the back of the bus so that minorities will have a safe place to interact!
You're forgetting that already exists. See: Japan's Women-only train cars. No, I'm not saying they're a minority, before anyone gets any ideas.
That's not really a fair comparison. Those exist so women can get on a train without being sexually assaulted, which is a pretty serious problem on Japanese mass transit. It is incredibly sad that such a measure became necessary, but it did.
So it's fundamentally a safe place for a group of people in a public transport so protect them from harassment. Basically what he described. My intent was to point out that segregation in public transport is already being used to protect groups of people and what he's suggesting isn't really that far from reality.
 

BrainWalker

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Aug 6, 2009
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Chaosritter said:
BrainWalker said:
It kind of sounds like what they're trying to do is provide networking and discussion opportunities, which is great, but the language being used confuses the message.
Really? To me it sounds more like they're providing safe havens for those threatened by the evil, white, healthy and heterosexual males. You know, the root of all evil and all...

Seriously, PAX seems to be nothing more than a parody of political correctness that really went out of hand these days. First the booth babe ban (espcially the Jessica Nigri incident) and now that. Just wait, next year they're going to ban republicans from participating because they oppose their politically correct ideals...
Sounds like you're bringing your own issues to this article. Being white doesn't make you evil, but being willfully ignorant... well, that brings you a lot closer to evil.
 

Andrew_C

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Mar 1, 2011
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Tenmar said:
Personally this is what happens when you get social justice warriors generalizing people who just enjoy the hobby of video games. They have done more damage to the hobby of video games than whatever the government( IE Hillary Clinton in the 1990's) and Jack Thompson could ever dream of doing.

This is also what happens when people give into social pressure as well. I remember these controversies and it was a group that decided to be offended and played the victim to penny arcade's dick wolves. Nevermind the insults that Gabe got from the people who are supposedly on that moral high ground yet have no problem being discriminatory.
Nooo, this is what happens when a couple of guys tell bad rape jokes, issue a non-apology, SELL MERCHANDISE BASED ON THE RAPE JOKE and then whine about being oppressed when there is a shit storm over the merchandise and they are forced to remove it.

You can understand why a lot of people would feel uneasy about attending a convention run by people who think its OK to sell rape-themed merchandise. But it's not the attendees of PAX who need to learn about diversity issues and general common sense, it's Gabe and Tycho.

EDIT Now you can argue that they only made the Dickwolves shirts and banners because people demanded them, but dammit, when people demand that sort of stuff, you don't make it, you make cartoons mocking the idiots who would actually want that.
 

MaximumTheHormone

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Jan 28, 2012
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Andrew_C said:
Nooo, this is what happens when a couple of guys tell bad rape jokes, issue a non-apology, SELL MERCHANDISE BASED ON THE RAPE JOKE and then whine about being oppressed when there is a shit storm over the merchandise and they are forced to remove it.
You say it like jokes that involve rape are inherently bad.
The joke mainly centered around the original dickwolf rather than the act of rape, the use of rape only came in when considering what possible assualts a dick wolf could afflict. It dosen't rationalize rape, its still portrayed as wrong
(even if its part of a comedic skit).
But sure people are entitled to their own opinion of anything and I understand the interpretation of the skit as quite offensive.

However the merchandise wasn't really referential to the skit.
The merchandise (or the one shirt that i found on google, i don't know if there was more) was more a mock of generic team T-Shirts more than anything. Its a particularly openly vulgar incarnation of the generic high school football team jersey.
The Dick Wolves were involved with the original offense, but the place they hold in the shirt is very different to that in the skit.
If the shirt said " we'll rape you to sleep" or even name dropped rape I would understand but as it didn't really have anything to do with Rape except for a character crossover.