The PodTales Organizing Team would like to announce the results of an investigation conducted by our Ombudsperson Committee, following anonymous feedback we received and passed on concerning behavior by committee members in our Discord server during the month of our event in November 2020. We would like to take this opportunity to detail the behavior described in this feedback, and outline steps concerning our accountability for these actions, and what this means for the future of PodTales.
PodTales attendees who submitted this feedback felt that lead Discord Moderator T.H. Ponders had an overwhelming presence in the PodTales 2020 Discord, especially compared to other Organizing Committee moderators, members and staff. The feedback cited incidents when Ponders, acting as moderator, shut down and spoke over important conversations that came up in the Discord, including conversations involving disabled people and people of color. Finally, feedback suggested Ponders received a disproportionate amount of praise from other Organizing committee members compared to other members of the team.
The decision to appoint Ponders the lead Discord moderator was made collectively by the PodTales Organizing Committee. However, we recognize that the roles of moderators, staff, and committee members were unbalanced and at times undefined. Some members of our Organizing Committee took on too much work, including Ponders. We now recognize that this served to enhance a power imbalance in our Discord and elsewhere, especially considering that moderators, staff, and Organizing Committee members were acting in our Discord as “equals” with PodTales attendees and participants. We should have split the work more evenly, we should have had more defined roles, we should have hired more staff to ensure manageable workloads, and we should have been careful to not allow any one member of our committee to have a disproportionate presence in our Discord. We also should have hired more people of color and disabled people as part of our general Discord staff who would be better equipped to moderate some conversations requiring more context and nuance. The PodTales Organizing Committee sincerely apologizes for these errors which created an unsafe environment and vows to do better.
To explain in more detail the nature of some of these complaints, we offer this context. During the last days of our virtual 2020 event in November, the Organizing Committee collectively decided that all Discord messages sent during the event (meaning throughout all of November) would be archived after the month was over, and that a new PodTales Discord would take its place, tied to a Patreon reward structure. We should have announced this earlier. Some Discord feedback following this announcement from PodTales 2020 participants questioned this, arguing that using a paywall structure to remain a member of the Discord set a bad precedent. In response, Ponders cited our 8th PodTales Discord rule which reinforced that moderators had final word in such matters, using the following specific language, “my word is final.”
The PodTales 2020 Organizing Committee approved the rules of the Discord as a group, and the rule in question specifically stated, “The word of the mods, staff, and admins are final. Arguing with them will result in an immediate, permanent ban.” This exchange was not conducted in an appropriate manner, and furthermore, the rule it was based on could not help achieve a balanced and safe environment.
Directors of the PodTales 2020 Organizing Committee (Alexander Danner and Jeff Van Dreason) apologize and take full responsibility for allowing the power imbalances in our Discord to exist in these multiple forms detailed above. While Ponders was acting on behalf of the committee, the situation created the appearance that Ponders was acting alone or with a christened sense of power, and their choice of words in this instance added to that impression.
The Organizing Committee also apologizes for expressing our appreciation of our staff unevenly. It was our intention to consistently highlight and thank all of our organizers, in addition to volunteers, and some of that appreciation happened on other platforms (i.e., Twitter). Ponders may have been heavily thanked on Discord because we recognized they were leading the work there, but as discussed previously, that was also part of the problem, and we are extremely sorry for all of these missteps.
Acting on the advice of our Ombudsperson Committee, with consideration of all of the above in mind, we are taking the following actions for the future of PodTales.
- We will have a clearer distinction between staff and mod roles, including their limits and responsibilities.
- If we manage another Discord in future events, we will ensure the work is split equally amongst PodTales staff and moderators, including Discord announcements, either with a combination of moderators and bots, or several different moderators.
- We will ask people in decision-making positions within the PodTales Organizing Committee to understand their role as a ‘participant’ is not possible due to the inherent power imbalance.
- We will hire and include more people of color in the staff and mod teams, including the Organizing Committee.
- As much as we can with our resources, we will hire several accessibility and racial equity consultants to guide the Organizing Committee in design and decision-making for future PodTales events, both in-person and virtual.
- With their help, we will put into place procedures dedicated for all staff and attendees to provide feedback about the event and the Organizing Committee without fear of reprisal, and we will rewrite the rules and guidelines for behavior in physical and digital spaces
- As much as we can with our resources, we will avoid concentrating several jobs/positions with one staff member, (such as: announcing, moderating, being present on panels/moderating panels, etc).
- We will explicitly communicate at the beginning of the convention whether the Discord channel will be shutting down for the public at the end of the month.
- We will detail a more thorough process and reporting path for Ombudsperson Committee sign-ups, responsibilities, investigations.
- On specific advice from the Ombudsperson Committee, if a Discord is included in future PodTales events, TH Ponders will not serve as an administrator or moderator and their involvement in PodTales will be scaled back appropriately and proportionately alongside other members of the Organizing Committee.
- Finally, some members of the PodTales Organizing Committee will step down to make room for a more diverse team, including more people of color.
As we work through these important changes, we will also put PodTales on an indefinite hiatus so we can properly reassess and decide what’s best for the future. Patreon supporters will be reimbursed for the month of January and the Patreon will be paused until further notice.
Everyone in the PodTales Organizing Committee is committed to doing everything we can to make these events safe and enjoyable for everyone in the audio fiction community and beyond. We want to take this opportunity to thank our Ombudsperson Committee for taking their roles so seriously, and for their volunteership and exhaustive investigation.