This year, there have already been a couple of high-profile issues – and that’s not mentioning what happened to be (see a previous post). In all the cases, it appears to have been overreactions to off-handed comments.
I’m going to ignore the possibility in one case that someone on the religious right could have weaponized the codes, and focus on a couple of other possibilities that no one seems to considered: class, and the population of fandom.
The first… it seems to me that the expression of humor, or opinion, is different. Working class (and please note that I consider myself working class, though now being a writer, I have have strayed into lower middle class) and lower middle class is frequently emphatic, sometimes crude, and rarely deferential. That may come from social roles – you don’t have to defer to the boss, and you’re certainly not going to out of his (usually) hearing. There is also the expectation that you’re “old enough to laugh, without taking offense”.
Higher up, socially, from work you sometimes can push something, but you will defer to the boss (or quit). In social situation, if you say the wrong thing, it isn’t just offensive, you will be punished, socially or economically. On top of that… apologies are rarely genuinely accepted. How you are treated will continue to come back – nothing’s good enough for not being perfect, or shutting up.
Most older fen came from a working class background. Many of us were the first generation to get to college. On the other hand, many younger fen do consider themselves middle class… and seem to me to have assimilated that privilege.
In the case of Mercedes Lackey, that of Stephanie Burke, and myself, what I see is that last – that you’re not some definition of “perfect”. There’s no recognition of the difference between an occasional instance versus a pattern of such.
And that’s a really serious problem, because of the latter issue. Fandom is a self-selected society of loners, people who didn’t fit into the “popular” kids. Most of us have always been, and probably will be*, awkward in social situations, except where we are among those we consider our peers.
In the context of the codes of conduct, there is no concept of taking someone aside and explaining a problem, or politely correcting someone (“did you mean…?”); instead, there is what appears to those accused of imperfection a sudden and total overwhelming personal attack, and shunning.
I’m not going to suggest I have all the answers, but perhaps codes of conduct need a three strikes rule, or maybe even an explicit due process, such as taking someone aside privately and having a talk by someone not personally involved, to prevent it appearing to the suspect as an attack.
All of this seriously matters in a society of ugly ducklings.