I read it on her site and was a little flabbergasted. I know that I would never open up someone else's room as a con-wide party. But then, I have enough social anxiety, that I wait for explicit invitations to bring myself.

And I can understand her concern for the security of her things, having people going through what was out, having to clean up after the party, and possibly having to pay for damages.

Not sure if it's overreacting, but I can see being concerned.

My gut just sides with she-whose-boundaries-feel-violated, I guess.

I would, too. 100%.

quite aside from how she did or didn't handle things and with whom and when

Right; I think it could have been handled better, but that's a separate thing from feeling your boundaries were violated by what happened. She gets to have those boundaries, and she gets to have those feelings.

But I'm friends with the blogger in question and she saw the trackback here and asked me to check in.

I think I was vaguely aware of the connection, Sox--I generally quite enjoy her weekly links posts.

I wasn't intending to cast doubt on her feelings or her rights to them at all--even if she had agreed to everything to start with (which I'm not saying she did), she'd be perfectly within her rights to be upset later. And I certainly don't know any of the people involved. It was more of a question of "I go to a lot of conventions, and could totally see myself being any of the people in this situation" (person with room, since I'm often the one with a decent credit limit, roommate, person inviting myself to a "makeup party", person getting invited to said party by someone who isn't actually paying for the room, etc) and wasn't sure if my reactions in this situation would be something totally considered inappropriate by most/many/all people? The calling out by name was a bit startling as well--had she written a post being like "I did X, someone else did Y, and I feel Z about that, people should be aware that this sort of situation can engender those feelings" I'd still have the same question about if that was a common feeling, but be less taken aback by the whole post?

I think it probably has to be looked at in the context of recent drama in the sf/f fandom. There's been a lot of discussion and problems with harassment at cons, and how cons should respond to them, so that's probably contributing a vibe to the whole thing.

Meara, I hear you and understand - thanks for saying.

sj, I'm so sorry. Much peace and strength to your family.

I get why she's upset; I would be too, but the initial invite/discussion to the make-up party happened in a public online space. The time was then to say, "Uh no, I'm sorry, this is invite-only." Even better would have been to take it off-line completely.

I also think it's unfair not to have approached the individual directly before putting this out there. It creates drama that's completely unnecessary.

Her boundaries are hers to enforce, and she has the right to feel however she wants. I'm not of the opinion that the aftermath has been handled the best way possible.

I would be upset. However, I would have to take some responsibility for what happened. The party concept was public... And needed to be shut down

Yay, Jilli-dad!

Another academic job search question -- one of the people who wrote a recommendation letter for me last year said that she can't do it this year. So, I need one more teaching reference. Is it OK to ask a colleague, or does it have to be a supervisor? One of my colleagues has been running a weekly teaching discussion group that I've been a part of, and I can ask him to observe my class one day so that he'll have that to put in the letter.

No idea, Hil, in your world.

Being upset about the lack of clean up is totally legit. The rest? Eh.