Second Day of Worldcon 75

BARBARIANS AT THE GATES

OVERCROWDING

JJ sent a link with this comment:

Lots of complaints on Twitter again today of people not getting to see panels… long queues (in one case, 400 for a room holding 60); people are required to vacate the room after each panel, so no chance of getting back into the same room or most any other room, either; some people are reporting only getting a panel every other session, spending the alternate sessions standing in a queue for an hour; some people report not being able to get into ANY of the panels they want to see.

They have made arrangements with Messekeskus to move some of the programming to larger rooms.

I suppose if you’re a Lego astronaut, it’s easy to find space.

PROGRAM

CLIPPING

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN SIGNING

Today I cueued for 90 minutes for the privilege to talk to GRRM for a few moments.

Me: “Did you already read Tad Williams’ new Osten Ard novels?”

GRRM: “No but I intend to. Are they as good as the old ones? I love the old ones.”

Me: “For me they are.”

GRRM: “Great to hear.”

 

RIBBONS

I RECOGNIZE THEM

VOLUNTEERS

ROBERT SILVERBERG HAS ATTENDED EVERY HUGO AWARDS CEREMONY

PARTIES

IMPATIENCE

MULTI-TASKER

SARTORIAL SPLENDOR

COMING ATTRACTIONS

DIGEST FORM

WORLDCON 75 PROGRAM ON YOUTUBE

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT_U7RhKFr-If4pusZY6g8A/videos

22 thoughts on “Second Day of Worldcon 75

  1. Also glad to see Silverbob looking well. It’s not a Hugos without him.

    Ooo, they recorded the Female Gaze panel. Excellent.

    Can’t make out Brother Guy’s t-shirt, but it looks very fannish.

    Isn’t that Flash Kevin? And shouldn’t he also be tagged Worldcon 76?

  2. ETA: whoops, duplicate info, ignore the deleted part. 🙂

    @lurkertype: I was also surprised Kevin didn’t get dual tags. (Though I’m not sure how widely used the 76 tag is at this point.)

  3. And was the LARP actually making fun of dementia? I know there’s a Scandinavian LARP tradition of serious themes and psychodrama, so it’s not a given.

  4. Business meeting in progress (streaming):
    * Best Series debate postponed until after the Award ceremonies actually happen (tomorrow).
    * December is Good Enough passes with little dissent.
    * Two Years are Enough gets a serpentine vote, passes 45-41.

  5. YA Award (nameless) passed 65-27.

    Naming the YA Award the “Lodestar” passed subject to ratification next year.

    There was also a ruling that the name cannot be retroactive.

  6. Ghostbird: And was the LARP actually making fun of dementia? I know there’s a Scandinavian LARP tradition of serious themes and psychodrama, so it’s not a given.

    Even if it wasn’t, this is one of the reasons why most Worldcon concoms have members from more than one country on them: because it’s a Worldcon, and it thus has a responsibility to be sensitive to cultural norms in numerous countries.

    That panel summary should never have been approved — because even if the LARP doesn’t make fun of people with dementia, the summary certainly reads as though it does.

    U.S. Worldcons have been (rightly) criticized for similar gaffes. Just because this Worldcon is in Finland, it doesn’t mean that it should be exempt from the expectation of cultural sensitivity (and I will point out that its concom includes people from several different countries, so they had the ability to do cross-cultural sensitivity checking).

    I saw a tweet from a Finn responding to the linked tweet (and I’m sure by now you can guess who the author was) which said “I think you’re taking it a bit too seriously.” — which is absolutely an unacceptable response to a legitimate concern.

  7. @JJ Even if it wasn’t, this is one of the reasons why most Worldcon concoms have members from more than one country on them: because it’s a Worldcon, and it thus has a responsibility to be sensitive to cultural norms in numerous countries.

    That’s a fair point.

  8. For next year will we have to carefully refer to the YA award as “not-a-lodestar” then?

  9. We can call the award whatever we want, in our capacity as private citizens. WSFS won’t be able to use that as an official name until it’s official.

    (To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why ConJosé can’t ratify the name first and then use it at their award ceremony once it’s been ratified. But then, I don’t claim to be a procedural wonk.)

  10. @JJ: please parse for me how the printed description is offensive; it seems neutral to me, although if I were a LARPer I might want more info on how they would effect dementia.

  11. Xtifr: (To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why ConJosé can’t ratify the name first and then use it at their award ceremony once it’s been ratified. But then, I don’t claim to be a procedural wonk.)

    Ratified rules changes take effect after the end of the convention.

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