I think we are going to get this worked out.
Just got our Fencon programming…
by CJ | Sep 13, 2012 | Journal | 23 comments
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Is that like the doctor’s nurse setting up my appointment for 7:40AM the morning after I dragged home from ChiCon to find a very sick kitteh on my living room floor? Thank you for asking me what time would be convenient, and for totally ignoring the appointment that I had already set up for the same reason you scheduled me.
I hope you can get the programming worked out. I’m sure that it’s no fun having to be two places at once.
We are now working it out. SHould be good. WE just weren’t finding ourselves on any programming, but they’re getting that fixed tonight—so, yes, we will have programming! Yay!
this is the one in Dallas, isn’t it? You’re the GOH!!!!
Yes. Well, originally we had a panel apiece besides functions, but apparently as it turns out that wasn’t the final form of it, which we hope to have in hand rsn. It’s always exciting, planning things long distance…but I think we’re going to end up with about 3 panels a day, which is a good load. It’s just scary when we have to launch ourselves toward some far point with what we’re supposed to do all still up in the air, so we get nervous. The con still has a few days before they start, but we have to leave to get there… There are so many, many, many moving parts here. I’ve got the autotopoff unit repaired (wire spliced), got the ro/di filter changed out, an hour’s job; I’ve got the pond in good shape. I HOPE I dare leave that filter engaged, but I have to guess on that one; it’s just all chaos in motion. Laundry? Maybe tomorrow.
They’re going to give me my genealogy panel. This is going to be fun. I’m hoping we can talk about techniques, to help people who’d love to get started with their own family records, and talk about the use it is for really understanding history.
There’ll be something on linguistics.
I keep throwing out the notion that there should be a panel on governments…and I never get any takers. But the difference in function between, say, an empire and a republic and a democracy and an oligarchy is really quite interesting if you can keep it to what they are and why they are and keep current politics out of it. Cyteen’s government and the Alliance work very differently, and neither is imperial: Cyteen could be argued to be a democratic oligarchy and the other could be argued as an oligarchic democracy. The role of communications is interesting in that light. A time-delayed voting system, because of the light barrier. Etc. There’s a LOT to say in sf about governmental systems and what could work. Decision-making on a space station. etc. These are good topics. But I think concoms are nervous about having people breaking up the hotel furniture if things go wrong.
The problem I suspect the organizers are worried about, especially in an election year, is when people start to mistake fictional governments for real ones. Letting real world politics creep into a panel that’s supposed to be about theoretical governmental forms may lead to shouting and chair throwing, if your moderator doesn’t rule with an iron fist. Are Maalox, ice packs, and bandages provided by the con?
Lol, but I’ve been suggesting the same panel since 1983.
With all of the different forms of government, especially when you consider the A/U universe, and include Earth, as well as Mallory’s ship, the Mazianni ships, such as Africa, and each planet and each station. I think it would be fascinating, things like why did Herbert use a feudal form of government for Dune, or any other writer use an oligarchy, a corporate ladder, or utter chaos? Would you want it to ask the “why” question, or perhaps how would people live under such governments? How would the government evolve or devolve from its current form?
I don’t care to get current politics into the discussion, except to illustrate a parallel, but even then, you risk having someone who is on the opposite side of the aisle rise to a rebuttal, which snowballs into some form of scene that chondrite is describing.
That’s where you simply need a strong moderator. I don’t think people should be deprived of a discussion that might give them new concepts and ideas by the presence or pressure of a person who’s lost his self-control. I won’t say that if we can’t hold a theoretical political discussion in this country we’re doomed, but the last time we were this polarized and violent was over the election of Abraham Lincoln, and you recall how that turned out.
I’m still an optimist. I believe fen CAN do this without carnage, and that a polite remonstrance that it is a theoretical discussion would be sufficient for fen in general.
While they’re starting a family tree or expanding one, it would be a great time to add demographic information for future generations with health info. Birth weight and length. Adult height and build. Any health issues. No wondering in the future where did the macular degenration come from, or the diabetes, etc. (A half-brother has the eye problem.) While some may pooh pooh this as a hobby, it can be very important in a closed community. And, while talking to older relatives, add names to all of those photos! (Sorry, I go off on tangents easily at times.)
Governments would be fascinating if you had some strong personalities that would keep the panel on track with ancient and future examples only. Clearly stating if they wish to discuss current politics they can take it to the con suite.
One of the benefits of Ancestry is that such info is getting attached…birth and death certificates are part of the documentation, and you can ‘attach’ these to the record so that they become available. It is a very good thing.
OTOH, my attempts to try to figure out the general life expectancy in my family lines was sadly derailed by the number of women who died in childbirth (on a subsequent child) and the number of men who died by murder, war, or execution (losing political party in England).
I can hold ANY panel down if I’m the moderator: I’ve sat between people throwing punches at each other on panels where I wasn’t. This year was a first: Jane and I got up and walked out on one, and that wasn’t even politics or religion.
Good grief! Actually walked out one one! It must have been bad.
It was gruesome beyond belief. The moderator verbally abused a member of the audience and told other panelists to shut up.
I hope the organizers got word of that and “uninvited” that “immoderator” to future panels.
Shall we say I have a few, count them on one hand, people I will not share a panel with, and that person heads the list. People on my bad list have always done something to put them there personally, and the offenses include people who act like snots to other people while making nice-nice to me. That’ll get me teed off real fast.
Worst thing I ever got involved in—was an Opening Ceremonies in Texas, where the convention organizers got all the guests into one large room and in folksy looooooooooong intros to each one, introduced all of them—but there were no con-goers in the room, just the concom and the guests. We all already knew everybody of the guest list we cared to know, we didn’t have the least interest in hearing the two chairs give long anecdotes about their conversations with these people. It was raining, storming out. The hotel’s skylight seal, elsewhere, had given way. Water was pouring into the lobby, and panels were due to start, people were in the panel rooms, but the guests were all trapped in this giant room, with the tables edge to edge so there was no walking room, no way to get up and leave. Three hours, with no refreshmets and no break, this went on. Finally we saw the door open and close. NO one visible. Happened again. We saw a guy slip low in his chair, and below the table edge, and then, a while later, the door open and close. We got the idea. I and another person slipped down in our chairs while the monologue at the front continued, and we crawled under the tables and out the door, into the chaos of a flooded hotel. I sternly reprimanded a neofan teen who was brandishing live steel about at friends, then went on to a panel room, where the largest number of people were waiting. I explained the regular panelists were trapped, still, but might be along, and what was the panel on? I adlibbed. Eventually other escaped pros showed up. We weren’t the assigned panel, but we paneled on…
Firetrucks came to assess the lobby.
The two con chairs and concom continued with a diminishing number of hostages in their power.
Shall we say the other situation with the same person named as immoderator—involved a similar incident, but with rudeness involved?
Ah Texas. I can’t go to Texas anymore. Every time I’ve ever gone there (and my mum was from there so I’ve been) I come home and I get sick. Not just the sniffles, but really really sick, so, no more Texas for me!
Texas gets the effluent from Mexico City smog now and again, and the air can be really really bad. One has to feel really, really sorry for Mexico City. I’ve run afoul of it a couple of times, and Jane and I have played loud music, sung along, and queried each other, “Are you OK?” about every three minutes for a couple of hours of driving until we get out of the miasma and smog.
We have noticed that the last several times, however, that the air has been much clearer, so either Mexico City has undertaken a remediation or the wind patterns have shifted. We hope the former is true.
The only thing missing from that last anecdote was the trip through the air ducts and the flatcats in the refreshments room….
Though I suppose you did best a would-be space pirate. (Awk, fan, please don’t brandish that about. Someone could get stuck with the pointy end.)
The last con I attended was great fun, with everyone from casual to costumed to newbie fans, and a nice young couple with their little girl, the three all wearing endangered wolf tee-shirts, to an old woman, likely also a fan or creator, to a couple of writers and scientists I met, unaware of who they were. Oh, also the nice lady in the dealer room doing crafts, who felt much more welcome after getting to know a few people. Hah, and seeing young fans, kids and teens, or adult newbies, getting their first taste of a con, finding out there really are other people like themselves who like science fiction and fantasy and aren’t ashamed of it…and what’s more, are generally friendly…just priceless.
Yeah, I missed attending the local con this summer. Must be sure I go next summer.
:: snickers again at the “duck and run, sneak out of the room” approach. also the ad-libbed panel work. thing is, that was likely great fun for the con-goers. ::
:: well, aside from the water leaking in through the bulkhead airlock um, sunroof. that, not so fun. ::
We had great fun after we escaped. Funny thing—most of us escapees spent the rest of the weekend dodging any hint of another such event. Nobody wanted to go to closing ceremonies.
I have noticed a couple of times in certain threads, that your reply does not have a link to make a reply to that particular entry. E.g., the entry you made at 7:37AM today, doesn’t have a means to reply to it. Is this a function of WordPress that only allows so many replies in a row, or is it the moderator of the site that when she feels that there is no further merit in belaboring a particular point, she can “stop” replies to those particular entries? I don’t mean the thread overall, just a particular set of comments and replies.
That’s Word Press. If I want to stop a discussion re a potential heat-up, I just close comment until the combatants back off. Usually however it’s the 3-deep chain permitted by WP.
“I believe fen CAN do this without carnage, and that a polite remonstrance that it is a theoretical discussion would be sufficient for fen in general.”
You mean they wouldn’t get bogged down with partisan bickering.
I apologize. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist an obvious pun.