An uproar over sexual harassment charges against one of the cofounders of the ScienceOnline meeting has so far not affected this year's attendance, one of the meeting's founders and organizers said in a telephone interview yesterday.
"We filled the registration within an hour, and we filled the remaining spots from a lottery," said Karyn Traphagen, the meeting's executive director, said. "Typically, we have 7-10 percent of attendees who cancel each year. This year, we have about 3 percent, but we have another seven weeks to go…We're moving ahead like we normally do." The meeting will be held Feb. 27-March 1 in Raleigh, N.C.
Only three of those who canceled said they were doing so because of the controversy over sexual harassment allegations leveled against Bora Zivkovic, another one of the meeting's founders and, until recently, the public face of ScienceOnline. Zivkovic admitted that he had been guilty of sexual harassment, resigned from the board of ScienceOnline, and resigned as the blogs editor at Scientific American. ScienceOnline later announced that Zivkovic "will not attend any ScienceOnline events in 2014 and is not involved in any of the programming decisions. He is no longer involved in the organization’s leadership or activities."
More recently, opinions seemed divided on Twitter over whether people would or should attend ScienceOnline 2014, raising questions about the meeting's future.
The controversy was revived on Jan. 1 when Zivkovic suddenly appeared on Twitter, after a six-week absence, tweeting "Happy New Year!" and linking to a long blog post by his friend and the third of the ScienceOnline co-founders, Anton Zuiker, in which Zuiker asked the ScienceOnline community, in so many words (more than 5,00o of them!), to forgive and forget. Zivkovic resumed tweeting regularly, without any direct reference to the controversy. Zuiker was widely criticized on Twitter, too, by many who reminded him that they were still very angry about what had happened.
By Jan. 3, Zivkovic had once again disappeared from Twitter, and the ScienceOnline board asked Zuiker "to refrain from any public communication about Bora and that all official communications from ScienceOnline come from the entire board or its Executive Director, Karyn Traphagen."
Traphagen said she had no prior knowledge that Zivkovic would reappear on Twitter or that Zuiker would publish his lengthy apologia. Traphagen said she has seen Zivkovic only once–in passing–since the controversy erupted, and that members of the board were "frustrated that the events of Jan. 1 gathered the attention online."
"There is nothing more I can do about Bora," she told me. "I have done everything I can. He's gone. He's not a part of ScienceOnline. I have to focus on ScienceOnline."
-Paul Raeburn
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