Aegis Initiative:About
What is Aegis Initiative?
Aegis Initiative is an all-volunteer information-sharing collective that serves all conventions, expos, their staff and their attendees. We mainly focus on Anime, Gaming, and general fandom conventions. We put heavy emphasis on assisting in the safe, sustainable, and responsible running and facilitation of adult-oriented convention programming and entertainment. Put simply: We collect and share verified info on those individuals who make the convention experience extremely unpleasant and in some cases, downright unsafe. We ensure that conventions and convention party groups have the resources to police themselves. Additionally, we seek to educate and inform conventions and their security staff on better practices and procedures which promote improved security without being intrusive and without creating toxic ”buzzkill” staffers.
How Do We Do This (Accountability)?
Aegis Initiative collects information on the people/incidents/entities we discuss through many different methods, too many to properly list.
The Heat Map
We do not come to the conclusions we make arbitrarily. We have created a “Heat Map” which we use to decide how we classify a Known Person/Threat. The “X” axis is the Motives, while the “Y” axis is the “Methodology.” Where the data-points intersect gives us our Tier designation. We also use this method internally to decide whether or not to take interest in the issue communicated to us. We intend to create an formalized way of submitting complaints to us which will plug directly into this map. Our goal is to move beyond the fallible judgement of individual humans and into professional investigation and risk assessment. No “I know it when I see it”. A page which contains definitions explaining the individual words and phrases we use on the X and Y axis will be available soon.
OSINT & Confirming Sources
Most of what we find is publicly available. We investigate all information to confirm what is told to us confidentially. Contact us if you have questions about our investigation process.
Understanding Threat Levels
Known Personal Threat (KPT), is what we call a verified problem is based on a 4-tiered system of risk levels.
Tier 1/White
Inactive or otherwise persona-non-grata at the events they usually attend for a significant period of time, but their deeds are heinous enough that Aegis Initiative believes they are worth noting for posterity. Persons issued a “Burn Notice” but who are not an active KPT will also be listed here. More on that further down.
Tier 2/Green
KPT’s at this level are generally a minor nuisance on a large scale. This includes Minor Theft, or other basic scams. This tier of KPT includes people like aggressive scalpers, bootleg merch sellers, hotel room scams, or other types of aggression involving monetary risk. Annoying on a large scale, generally toxic, but not believed to be a genuine threat in a physical sense. Not a large risk of violence. We generally do not bother with KPT’s we classify as Tier-2 unless their toxicity is massive in scale. Usually this means that a convention must contact us directly for assistance.
Tier 3/Amber
KPT’s at this level are a moderate risk and/or actively problematic. This includes harassment, verbal or sexual. Your garden variety non-consensual perv. Anyone actively harming or threatening to harm others on an individual basis. Especially with those capable of following through on said threats. These KPT’s can be a danger to others, but their behavior is semi-manageable if convention and venue security follow basic safety & security protocols. We tend to keep KPT’s here if they’re problematic enough that we need to discuss them while in the processes of investigation.
Tier 4/Red
KPT’s at this level are to be considered the worst of the worst. If a KPT ends up here, pay attention. A KPT on this tier is someone who Aegis Initiative believes is an imminent hazard to you, the attendees, the convention, guests and staff, sometimes all of the above. Offenders in this tier have made numerous, plausible threats in public spaces, not limited to but including social media. They may have extensive criminal backgrounds pertaining to violence, or pertaining to any sort of sexual misconduct. Any instance of misconduct involving minors or violent sexual harassment will automatically mean that said KPT is classified as Tier 4/Red (Unless certain conditions are met, see the last tier). Anyone who Aegis Initiative finds to be coming to the defense of any Tier 4 offenders will also be themselves labeled as such. It is the experience of Aegis Initiative that a Tier 4 KPT’s circle of “White Knights” will also be awful in some way. Unless we have significant information on said “White Knight”, we will just list their name and a photo and a little blurb on them within their friend’s page.
KPT Infobox
At the top of the page you’ll see an infobox which contains an image of the person’s face and some basic info, if what is discussed is not an individual person, then we will display some logo that represents it or something similar.
Sources
We will try to provide sources on where our information comes from, but given the sensitive nature of our work, we will often censor the names of the innocent.
Burn Notice
Keeping people honest is among our top priorities. As such, we tend to be extremely picky in what we will involve ourselves with. But being picky doesn’t always keep everyone safe from misinformation or maliciously bad information, hence the “Burn Notice”.
Burn Notices are an actual thing in the Intelligence world, and not just a snarky TV show. They are used as a formal way to disavow an agent of an organization that is now considered a liability. More commonly, to warn other organizations of a source of intel that routinely gives an organization bad, intentionally misleading or maliciously incorrect information. Whenever we believe a person to be untrustworthy or maliciously spreading disinformation or even false accusations, we will issue a “burn notice”. This will consist of all the information we usually display in a KPT post, as well as a sanitized version of the information they are trying to pass along, and maybe even some reasons why they would want to do that. We believe that this aspect of our work is just as important as keeping tabs on predators, because the nature of convention security is far more complicated than one would initially think. Because of a number of factors that are far beyond the scope of our control and concern, it is very common for drama between regular convention attendees to take on an extremely vengeful and petty bent.
The following are examples of disinformation, false reporting, and misusing security for malicious intent:
- Didn’t get invited to that hotel party at the suite down the hall? Call hotel security, say you smell weed.
- That guy from convention security you don’t like pass by you in the hotel lobby, and you thought you heard him talking shit? Call the cops, claim he pointed a gun at you.
- Did someone not let you into their private facebook group? Accuse the group of being convicted criminals in a bigger private group while impersonating an executive staff member of the local anime con.
These three examples all have actually happened.
You can now see why being able to tell if someone is lying or not, and hold them to account if they are, is extremely important. Fear not, everyone makes mistakes, so we generally follow a “three strikes a year” rule. You give us 3 pieces of bad info, in one year, we consider you untrustworthy, and issue a “burn notice”. If you pass along information and are particularly demanding that we act on it, to the point where you make threats, we may make an exception. Additionally, disinformation is also where we run into much of the cases of “abuse of authority” within the convention community. Therefore, when a “burn notice” is posted to the site, we have already contacted any conventions involved with the person or persons mentioned. FINALLY, anyone who already has been identified by Aegis Initiative as a KPT regardless of tier is automatically considered “Burned”. We may make individual exceptions, and this concept will never be considered retroactive. If someone sends a message saying something illegal, it goes to the cops or legal counsel. We will never take information in exchange for leniency or deleting the page about you, ever, don’t try it. We’ll make a note of it and add that to your page.
Attacks on the Initiative
So what happens when Aegis Initiative gets attacked directly (Rules of Engagement)? Attacks on us can get rather extreme, up to and including SWATting, malicious impersonation, criminal slander/libel, physical assault. We’re well aware that we’re not the cops, so we are restrained and prudent in how we handle these incidents. Since our primary focus is on collecting and disseminating information, we tend to just record whatever information we can on the incident and add it to the pile of whatever we have on that person. However, especially in the case of physical confrontations or incidents, we have specific set of rules we follow. Our first and most common strategy for dealing with attacks aside from mere observation is to make it irrelevant. We CAN promise you, as stated in our rules, we will always handle these incidents in the most open, prudent and legally appropriate manner. Understand that our goal in these situations is to make the attack stop, not to resolve conflict or de-escalate. If you are attacking us in any way, we consider that something that is beyond the pale and must be dealt with in the immediate. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about Aegis Initiative, or even this specific section of the website, please contact us at (Insert Contact Page) or through Social Media.
Legal Disclaimers
Anyone mentioned on this site is never an invitation to visit violence upon the person/convention/entity. We are not affiliated with any convention or entity. We attempt to keep information as truthful and honest as possible, but we are fallible as anyone else and can be prone to error. If you believe some information is incorrect, please contact us with sources we ourselves can verify.