Checking Pro Privilege
Pro Privilege is rearing its ugly head again.
In the world of science fiction and fantasy fandom, there is one long standing, basic, golden rule: those who do the work get to make the rules. And make no mistake, it's a lot of work. Modern Worldcons, in particular, are a species of miracle. The logistics, the finance planning, the web design, the program, the facility negotiations, all of them are as good as, and often significantly better than, what you can expect from an academic professional conference, and all happen for free -- that is, no one on the committee or staff is paid for the work they do. Thousands upon thousands of unpaid volunteer hours go into making a fan run convention happen.
A World Fantasy Con is not as big, but still a remarkable production of unpaid labor. And World Fantasy has always been an essentially exploitative affair. That is, unlike Worldcon, World Fantasy likes to regard itself as a strictly professional conference for working professionals in the field. Fans are not really welcome to attend or participate. And yet the labor to make this event happen has traditionally all been provided by fan organizations. Must be nice, huh?
Now Andy Duncan and a number of pros in the field are up in arms because they don't like the programming choices for the upcoming World Fantasy Con. They want the program head sacked, and a new program of their choice put in place. And they want new rules put in place so that future World Fantasy Cons are more like they would want. Notably, none of the people who are asking for this to happen are themselves volunteering to do the work.
Now, the changes they want may be perfectly reasonable, I'm not actually disputing that. What I am suggesting is that if fantasy authors want to be in charge of World Fantasy Con in every specific detail they should either a) volunteer, and do the work of running it themselves or b) hire paid professionals to do the work of running the event for them, which is what real professional conferences do.