Worldcon final

[nwhyte]

We resume on Sunday afternoon, when I returned from lunch to find myself witnessing the official photograph of the official signing of the official contract for the new edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, by John Clute, Dave Langford and Peter Nicholls. I was pleased to learn later from Dave Langford that he is fairly optimistic it can

Comments

[cherylmorgan]

The panel description thing is a known problem. As far as the material in the schedule goes, we are always trading off the size of the con guide against the amount of information we provide. Budgets normally win.

A convention that prides itself on quality programming, such as Wiscon, will generally encourage panel members to talk amongst themselves by email before the con, and in the Green Room prior to the panel. Unfortunately Worldcon is so huge, and the scheduling problem so complex, that such a level of organisation is impossible.

[nwhyte]

Going by the photograph, I think that the panel that bothered me most was also the one that Elizabeth was criticising.

[bohemiancoast]

and the solution to this, as well as many of Interaction's other scheduling problems, would have been to approximately halve the size of the programme. I am aware that this is not straightforward.

[cherylmorgan]

It would certainly have solved a lot of problems, and of course created many others. Given that you were a programming area head, you probably got far more "there's not enough of type X programming" and "why am I not on programming" whines than I did. Worldcon is a Big Tent convention, and as such it has to provide 5-days of entertainment for every species of fan that attends. I'm already starting to see reports from anime fans who thought there wasn't much worth seeing.

And yes, you are right, it could decide not to be a Big Tent event. But then it would not be Worldcon.

[surliminal]

Nice to meet you :-)

[nwhyte]

Likewise!

ps

[surliminal]

Agree on the panel descriptions too. Those I looked at did strike me as extremely wide and rather comment-hook free. And yes, some ppts or audio would be nice sometimes..

Re: ps

[bohemiancoast]

The current set up of Worldcon Tech militates against this. Tech and IT were separate -- which meant that, for example, for items where we had to link up a playstation to both a data projector and a PA, there was a protracted period of crap getting it working. We longed for Martin Hoare's fire-and-forget PA system that we use at plokta.con; these were more complex and more finickety

Re: ps

[cherylmorgan]

It is also worth bearing in mind that in the SECC programming rooms all of the Tech was built in. We had to pay for it (whether we wanted it or not) and we were obliged to use it. I'm sure both Tech and IT would have loved to bring more of them own stuff.

As to the organizational issue, it is pretty much impossible. Kevin and Ian did a very good job of co-managing Tech so that Events and Programming didn't fight over them they way they did in Boston. But IT touches all aspects of the convention and pretty much has to be a central service.

Re: ps

[bohemiancoast]

actually, my issues weren't in SECC rooms -- they were in Moat House rooms. And had I remembered that Argyll 1 and 3 were the only programme rooms of any size that didn't have inbuilt tech, I might have argued harder for a 'box of tech in the back of the fan lounge' solution. Oh, well, never mind, nothing ran more than 10 minutes late I don't think.

[ephiriel]

Thanks for the commentary over the weekend. I have to say I enjoyed worldcon!

[bohemiancoast]

We have a lengthy rant about the Worldcon programming database, which is showing its age. It has many, many problems, but the particular one here is that it only has one field for programme description, which is supposed to be 60 words or less (to fit in the con guide). Therefore you have to seek out individual moderators and panel members and sell the full description of the item -- and they may forget, or many other problems may happen. What's needed is the 'public' description of the item (eg "The Future of Fandom -- as we move into the 21st century, we consider fandom's directions, and ask the critical question 'Where are the new young fans coming from?' ") and a separate 'for panellists' description (eg 'you could take this discussion in several different directions, but the key thing you need to know is that half an hour into the panel, YAFA will invade and you are required to fight back with water pistols before the panel descends into chaos

[cherylmorgan]

I agree with you 100% about the database. When Kevin and I talked Ian and Ruth into taking in programming we did discuss building a new one. But I guess when it came down to it there wasn't time. Given that the people who would be using the database all knew the old one, and that they had come in very late to save a division that was in crisis, they probably made the best of a bad job.

[bohemiancoast]

Oh, I know there wasn't time. It's just that it's clearly been crap for a very long time, and this is the perfect project to sort during the *first* year of a seated worldcon. anyway, I know now. If I get involved in worldcon programming again, a web-based database will be part of the landscape.

[cherylmorgan]

Yep, but you try telling a bunch of people who biggest con-running experience is an Eastercon that they need to start on a job 3 years out.

Actually the thing to do is to develop the database for a large regional and port it to a Worldcon. Wiscon has a very good one, and I think that might have been used as the basis for the one CascadiaCon is using. Jane Hawkins is the person to talk to.