Pixel Scroll 7/22/18 Insert Self-Referential Pixel Scroll Title Here

(1) THE BARD OF MARS. Tickets are on sale for “MARTIANS – An Evening With Ray Bradbury”, to be staged at the Whitefire Theater in Sherman Oaks, CA beginning September 7.

Ray Bradbury speaks directly to the audience weaving Martians stories both humorous and harrowing, bringing his characters to life on stage right before your eyes. Characters like Bob and Carrie, a young couple struggling to turn the cold, dead Mars into an Earthly garden. Theres Beck and Craig, two soliders of fortune searching for the legendary Blue Bottle of Mars! Father Nivens religious faith traps a shapeshifting Martian in the form of Christ! Emil Barton is the alst man on Mars with only recordings of his younger self to keep him company, or drive him mad!

As Ray creates his stories we come to know the mind and heart of the great writer who believes that humanity can only survive by carrying our culture out into the Universe!

Most of the text is taken from Rays own words, from interviews and books hes written on the art of writing, as well as adaptations of his Martian stories The Strawberry Window, The Blue Bottle, The Messiah and Night Call, Collect.

Ray Bradbury is played by co-creater Charlie Mount who played him in a production of The October Country and produced Rays Irish play Falling Upward with Pat Harrington, Jr, both staged at Theatre West in association with Rays Pandemonium Theatre Company…

(2) STEAMPOSIUM UP IN SMOKE. There will be no Alaska Steamposium this year. Its chair, Tess, announced on Facebook what the future holds:

We attempted to adapt, to go with the flow, and pull off a hail Mary. And I think our track record of hail Marys is pretty good. (Anyone remember the year we had more vendors and staff than attendees?) But the honest truth is, we don’t want to half ass it. We like to whole ass all of our endeavors.

There were many reasons we chose this as the best path, and a good portion of that was how to keep our booth spaces and ticket prices affordable for everyone. If anyone has paid money, it is being refunded as I type.

We’re going to take a year and reorganize, and restructure, and in general change the way we do things. We completely understand if we loose some of you to anger and frustration. But we hope with all our hearts that you stick with us. We have even greater hope that some of you will join our Staff. We have far too few people to run an event of this size. Dedicated, (A small portion of the reason for our postponement for a year)

Many, many of you have concerns, comments, and suggestions moving forward. Please post them here. As with all difficult decisions, the responsibility stops with me. I wear the big bustle. My staff has worked hard, tirelessly, and even spent their own money in an attempt to make this year possible. If you need somewhere to place blame or vent anger, you direct to toward me, and me alone….

(3) NOVIK PRAISED. Constance Grady reviews the new book for Vox: “With Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik cements her status as one of the great YA fantasy authors”.

Spinning Silver is a spiritual successor to Novik’s 2015 novel Uprooted, for which she won the Nebula for best science fiction and fantasy novel. While the books don’t take place in the same universe, they’re both set in fantasy lands with Eastern European influences, and they both play with fairy-tale tropes without becoming literal retellings. (Novik got her start in fanfiction, which means she comes by her ability to deconstruct tropes honestly.)

The novels also both revolve around the same romance trope, in which a feisty young girl is kidnapped by an immensely powerful older man whom she must change for the better. The power dynamics here are questionable, to say the least, but the way Novik insists on her heroine’s agency makes the story palatable, and the conclusion is undeniably satisfying. What makes the trope more or less work in the end is that Novik’s girls are not just heroines. They are also monsters, even if they have their reasons for what they do.

(4) LOOKING THROUGH THE LENDING WINDOW. John Scalzi, a flagship author at Tor, weighs in on “That Tor Library eBook Lending Thing”.

  1. Tor says that it is noting a general impact on ebook sales because of library lending (its initial statement was more adamant about it, it appears, than some followups). I haven’t seen anyone’s sales numbers but mine, but I do know Tor’s data game is pretty strong — we use it to maximize my own sales and we’ve done a pretty good job there. Its data-mining history has some credibility for me.
  2. Tor has not been a troglodyte either in how it proceeds with ebook tech (remember that it was one of the first major publishers to offer ebooks DRM-free) or in sales/marketing. It’s taken risks and done things other publishers didn’t/wouldn’t do, sometimes just to see what would happen. I have my own example of this: Tor’s ebook-first serialization publication of The Human Division and The End of All Things helped provide Tor with much of the data it used to build its successful Tor.com novella line.

So with all that noted, let’s go back to my first blush statement. I don’t think having day-and-date ebook library lending has had a detrimental effect on my own sales situation. I’m also aware I’m not in the same situation as most authors with regard to sales and attention. Tor has a financial and fiduciary duty to sell books, for itself and for its authors. If Tor wants to try a pilot program to window ebook library lending to find out what impact it has on its sales in general, as much as I don’t think it makes sense for me or my books, I also recognize I don’t see all the data Tor sees across its entire line. I’m also willing to believe, based on previous experience, that Tor is neither stupid, excessively greedy, nor unwilling to make changes if the data tells it something different than what it expects.

(5) ALDRIN FAMILY VALUES. Buzz Aldrin told Florida Today (“Buzz Aldrin explains why he was a no-show at Apollo gala”) why he stayed away from a gala at Kennedy Space Center “kicking off a yearlong celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, even though the event is an important fundraiser for his foundation and he typically is the star attraction.” It was due to a legal fight within his family and disagreements over the direction of Buzz Aldrin’s ShareSpace Foundation. His son, Dr. Andrew Aldrin, serves as the President of the Buzz Aldrin’s ShareSpace Foundation.

“I will not be attending the Gala tonight. While initially looking forward to it, due to the present course of events related to my space initiative, also current legal matters linked to the ShareSpace Foundation, I have decided not to attend at this time…

…the Foundation is, in my view, now being used to promote quite different objectives. I was recently advised by way of a letter from an attorney for my son, Andrew Aldrin, that I was not to hold myself as being part of the Foundation.”

The Orlando Sentinel reported on the suit when it was filed in June: “Buzz Aldrin sues 2 of his children, claiming slander over dementia”.

Aldrin’s lawsuit filed earlier this month in a Florida state court came a week after his children, Andrew and Janice, filed a petition claiming their father was suffering from memory loss, delusions, paranoia and confusion. They asked for the court to name them his legal guardians

KVEO’s article “Gala opens countdown to 50th anniversary of 1st moon landing” adds:

Andrew and Jan Aldrin, as well as business manager Christina Korp, are on the foundation’s board and attended the gala. Aldrin’s oldest son, James, isn’t involved in the legal fight.

Andrew Aldrin acknowledged his father’s absence during the gala.

“We’re sorry dad can’t be here, I know some of you are disappointed,” Aldrin said. “Ultimately, what we’re about is creating the first generation of Martians.”

(6) STARTING YOUNG. Kayla Randall has a profile in the Washington City Paper of Rebecca F. Kuang, whose first novel, The Poppy War, is out from Harper Voyager.  Kuang just graduated from Georgetown University this year. “How a Georgetown Student Published Her Epic Fantasy Debut—Before She Turned 22”

Kuang began writing the book when she was 19 and managed to start, finish, and publish the book all before turning 22. She graduated from Georgetown this spring and will enter Cambridge’s modern Chinese studies program in the fall.

“I never really thought about age being a barrier,” she says. She had read Eragon by Christopher Paolini, who started writing that book at the age of 15 and published it when he was 19. “It always seemed possible that you could write fantasy and get published at a ridiculously young age,” Kuang says.

A gap year between her sophomore and junior years allowed her to finish the book. She lived in Beijing and taught debate to high school students. Before she moved to China, she’d had very little contact with her grandparents but when she returned, she had long conversations with them and learned her family’s history in China. “I was steeped in that family legacy and decided I wanted to do something with it,” she says. The “something” evolved into the plot of The Poppy War, with some supplemental fantasy elements.

(7) FORTNITE ADDICTS. In the Washington Post, Sam Fortier says that many professional coaches are worried that athletes are spending so much time playing Fortnite that they’re not getting enough sleep and are doing a poor job at game time — “Are pro athletes playing too much Fortnite? Some teams are worried.”

The fear of the Capitals is that games such as Fortnite could erode a foundational practice of their developmental system: eight to 10 hours of sleep per night. Before last season, the Capitals instructed Olie Kolzig, the former Capitals goalie who is now a coach with their minor league affiliate in Hershey, Pa., to monitor players’ cellphone usage. The organization knew some junior-hockey players had “a problem” because looking at screens less than an hour before bed affected their sleep. This coming season, management trusts Kolzig’s players will know the same concern applies to Fortnite.

Yet Kolzig finds himself in the same predicament any parent faces because video games are integral to his players’ culture. So he will ask they discipline themselves to about an hour a day and not to play before bed.

“It’s a big issue, and it could affect performance,” Kolzig said. “But they’re grown men. .?.?. You can’t hold their hand and force-feed them [advice]….”

(8) BRAND MALFUNCTION. Inverse says “Stan Lee Did a Legitimate Cameo in a DC Movie”.

…Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance in pretty much every single Marvel movie, and for good reason, since the co-creator of Spider-Man, the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and more is in many ways Marvel’s public face. He never did any work for rival DC Comics, though, which explains why Lee has never made a cameo in a DC movie… until now.

Lee makes his DC debut in Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, which opens on July 27. The long-running Cartoon Network series’ first big-screen adventure is chock-full of meta-humor that puts Deadpool to shame, as it’s all about making a blockbuster superhero movie and skewering the entire industry/genre in the process….

(9) WENDEL OBIT. 3rd Rock from the Sun actress Elmarie Wendel has died. Syfy Wire posted a career retrospective.

Her other genre roles included: Fallout 4 (Video Game, 2015), The Lorax (2012), Rumpelstiltskin (1995), Weird Science (1994, 1 episode), Knight Rider (1982, 1 episode).

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Non Sequitur shows that, like Westworld, nothing can go wrong during a chat with Alexa….

(11) SIDESHOW. Gizmodo’s io9 takes you to the winner of the Franchise Wars at SDCC (“Taco Bell’s Demolition Man Restaurant Gave Us Nacho Fries, Happy Feelings, and Seashell Butts”). The pop-up “Taco Bell 2032” was something between a restaurant and an art installation set up near Comic-Con, though non-attendees were welcomed too. (One has a hard time imagining why any non attendee would have wanted to wait in the hours-long line.) The io9 writer was impressed with the effort put into the look and feel of the place, much evoking the Taco Bell featured in Demolition Man (Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock, Wesley Snipe). The food? Well, it certainly looks fancy and was said to taste pretty good, but it is a Taco Bell.

So, were the three seashells in the restroom? Yeah, looks like they were… but carefully sealed in a clear box with a scrolling electronic sign that seemed to read “out of order.” What people would have done with them had they been accessible does not bear close thought.

(12) DRAX DEFENDS JAMES GUNN. One of his actors spoke out in his defense: “Dave Bautista, Others Defend James Gunn: ‘I Am NOT OK With What’s Happening’” at Yahoo! Entertainment.

“Guardians of the Galaxy” actor Dave Bautista came out strongly in defense of James Gunn Friday after Disney fired him from his role as director of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.”

“I will have more to say but for right now I will say this,” Bautista, who plays Drax in both “Guardians” movies and in “Avengers: Infinity War,” wrote on Twitter. “James Gunn is one of the most loving, caring, good natured people I have ever met. He’s gentle and kind and cares deeply for people and animals. He’s made mistakes. We all have. I’m NOT ok with what’s happening to him.”

(13) PETITION TO BRING BACK GUNN. A Change.org petition calling for Marvel to Re-Hire James Gunn already has over 106,000 signatures. The petition’s author says —

I’m smart enough to know this most likely won’t change anything but hopefully, this could get Disney to realize the mistake they made and not do it again in the future.

I agree on the point that if people say a bunch of stupid shit while working for a studio, the studio has full right to fire him over the possible controversy. This situation is very different though as he made these jokes years before he was working for Disney and also the fact that they were jokes. I agree with most, including Gunn himself that the jokes were shitty and un-funny but they were still jokes, it wasn’t an opinion or a statement, it was just a bad attempt at being funny.

(14) WHAT WAS SO BAD? Not everyone has read examples of Gunn’s tasteless jokes? Bill linked to numerous samples in this comment – and be warned, a lot of it is quite foul.

(15) NO COMING BACK. The Washington Post’s Michael Cavna analyzes why “For James Gunn, there’s no return to being a major mainstream filmmaker”.

On Thursday, Gunn apologized in a series of tweets to his nearly half-million Twitter followers, trying to explain that he attempted such social-media “jokes” back when he viewed himself as “a provocateur” whose humor and horror movies alike were “outrageous and taboo.”

Joking in a taboo manner about such subjects as rape and pedophilia didn’t hurt Gunn’s filmmaking career back when he was a lesser-known indie director releasing such low-budget, industry-admired movies as “Slither.” But now that he is mainstream, there is, of course, no way a major studio creating all-ages entertainment can keep even a beloved franchise director in a leadership role.

Walt Disney chairman Alan Horn said Friday in a statement: “The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him.”

The irony here, of course, is that Disney simply had to know about Gunn’s history of offensive online remarks when they hired him for 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” – the first film in a franchise powered largely by Gunn’s bent sense of humor and love of classic rock songs.

(16) CERNOVICH. SFGate invites readers to “Meet Mike Cernovich, the Right-Wing Provocateur Who Got James Gunn Fired”.

Right-wing provocateur Mike Cernovich claimed another scalp online Friday when Disney fired James Gunn from its “Guardians of the Galaxy” series because of old tweets that Cernovich helped publicize.

(17) SKRUTSKIE NOVEL REVIEWED. NPR’s Caitlyn Paxson sees “Muscle And Bone Meet Machinery In ‘Hullmetal Girls'”:

Hullmetal Girls embraces teen angst in the form of bionic mech suits and the girls who meld with them to save humanity.

Aisha Un-Haad has been working hard as a janitor to take care of her two younger siblings, but when one of them falls ill with a deadly fever that’s sweeping through all the ships that make up the Fleet, she makes the decision to become Scela, a bionic super-soldier created to protect and serve the Fleet’s rulers. There’s no going back once her body is sliced and diced to make room for the mechanical parts that make up her new artificially intelligent “exo,” and her mind is welded permanently to its will and those of the other Scela in her squad. But it will all be worth it if she can advance far enough in the ranks to earn a salary that will keep her siblings safe….

(18) ONE WORD. NPR’s Korva Kolman looks at “Beowulf In The Suburbs? ‘The Mere Wife’ Is An Epic Retelling”:

There’s a vitally important word in the epic tale of Beowulf and, according to Maria Dahvana Headley, it’s been translated incorrectly for a very long time. The word is aglæca/æglæca — no one’s entirely sure how to pronounce it – and, as Headley explains, that same word is used to describe Beowulf and his three antagonists: Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon.

“In the early English translations it was translated for Beowulf as ‘hero’ and for Grendel as ‘monster,’ and for Grendel’s mother as ‘wretch of a woman’ or ‘hag,’ ” Headley says. “But it’s the same word.”

(19) ROBO FETCH. They’re going from viral video to market: “Boston Dynamics Is Gearing Up to Produce Thousands of Robot Dogs”.

Boston Dynamics, maker of uncannily agile robots, is poised to bring its first commercial product to market — a small, dog-like robot called the SpotMini.

The launch was announced in May, and founder Marc Raibert recently said that by July of next year, Boston Dynamics will be producing the SpotMini at the rate of around 1,000 units per year.

The broader goal, as reported by Inverse, is to create a flexible platform for a variety of applications. According to Raibert, SpotMini is currently being tested for use in construction, delivery, security, and home assistance applications.

The SpotMini moves with the same weirdly smooth confidence as previous experimental Boston Dynamics robots with names like Cheetah, BigDog, and Spot.

(20) BIG CONSTRUCTION. BBC covers “The mega-machines helping China link the world”. Includes an ordinary diagram, and animations of two extraordinary track layers.

China is creating a network of ambitious land- and sea-based transport links to connect its booming economy with those of Europe and Africa. And it’s wasting no time – designing incredible bespoke construction machines to get the job done fast.

President Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013, aims to connect two-thirds of the world’s population across 70 countries through a network of land links (the “belt”) and sea routes (the “road”).

Officials talk about lifetime investments worth trillions of dollars, sourced from banks, participating countries and the Chinese government.

The scheme is not without controversy. Critics point out that it burdens poor countries with billions of dollars of Chinese debt, and dismiss it as a projection of Chinese foreign policy…

(21) THE ORVILLE AT COMIC-CON. The Season 2 Trailer for The Orville debuted at Comic-Con.

The Orville: Follows the crew of the not-so-functional exploratory ship in the Earth’s interstellar fleet, 400 years in the future.

 

[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Carl Slaughter, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Brian Z., Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

118 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 7/22/18 Insert Self-Referential Pixel Scroll Title Here

  1. @Greg:

    Bogi has every right to say that this is the last straw and they’re sick and tired of being misgendered, particularly as an honoree at a prominent convention. Yes, it would have been polite to contact the con first – just as it would have been polite for the con to verify the bios before publishing them.

    Worldcon dropped the ball. The onus is on them to make it right, not on those affected to “suck it up” and endure the offense with a smile.

  2. Greg, Bogi addressed the question of why respond publicly in a later tweet (edited to add the URL, which I originally left out of this link):

    Why did I not just email them? (I do usually email people who get my pronouns wrong first.)

    Because they put up the bio without letting me know, either. Someone else who got the program before me linked me to it. It was already public.

    E also suggests in the original thread that e had been going through private channels to address a series of “many similarly exclusionary actions” on the part of the con, and that e considered this “the last straw.”

    Since eir thread seems to have been the impetus for a bunch of other nominees to share issues that had been causing them ongoing private distress in their communications with the con, I think eir decision to speak publicly about it was a good one with positive consequences.

  3. Heather Rose Jones: The deeper failure mode appears to have been failure to request participant-provided bios at all, resulting in an awkward scramble to put something together without direct input from the program participants. (Note to future programming staff: it’s easy to ask people to provide a bio when you ask them to fill out the programming interests questionnaire. And then you’ll have it ready without needing another round of correspondence.)

    That’s how I always dealt with it, when programming a con. It’s a win-win because (1) it delegates the work, (2) the participant will be more satisfied with the result even if I have to edit it for length, and (3) getting the bio from the person means I am getting the best, most current info and that it gives everything the proper emphasis, unlike what would happen if I went fishing for it on the internet and interpretation was subject to gaps in my knowledge.

  4. Lee: Worldcon’s response: “We didn’t write the bio.”

    I wish I had time to write the obvious filk to Bill Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire”…

  5. @avery: “Rev Bob – what you might be thinking of is the release of a hardback copy of a book previously only released in paperback if the series takes off (Freehold) – or in a special leather binding (Monster Hunter International).”

    No, I’m well aware of that practice. I rebought the early Honor Harrington books as cheap hardbacks after getting hooked on the series by the $1.99 paperback of On Basilisk Station – and when I first met Toni, back before Jim died, I made sure to tell her that the price promotion was responsible for hooking me on that series.

    The “Second Edition” ebooks are not that. To use your own example, compare the free Kindle edition at your link to the nonfree Second Edition one here:

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XLQ9PF6/

    Baen does not limit things in their free library to Amazon or other distributors. All of the distributers carry the Free Library book for a $0 download price.

    That may be the case now, but at the time of their initial negotiations to distribute their ebooks through Amazon rather than maintain the practice of being their own exclusive vendor, the situation was precisely as I described. Amazon had expressed concern about the BFL and did not want to carry free books. Baen responded by creating the “Second Edition” ebooks as nonfree versions of the ebooks that Amazon could sell, while Baen could keep the free version of the ebook in the BFL. The difference was not in the binding (hello, ebooks), but in the addition of an afterword, forward, or some other minor content.

    Have I made it explicit enough now that when I say “Second Edition” in this context, I am talking about ebooks and not alternative physical editions?

    Baen also routinely gives away free copies of books at Cons to people who are currently active duty military or police.

    Last time I checked, you could delete every word of that sentence after “Cons” and the sentence would be completely correct. (Source: I have occasionally been responsible for noticing that the freebie table was running low and unpacking another box of Baen paperbacks onto it.)

    I’ve never bought an eARC – but I’m willing to bet this post will be following up by lots of snarking about Baen’s editing.

    Well, I wasn’t going to mention it, but since you brought it up…

    I started reading my somewhat ancient ecopy of David Drake’s Lt. Leary, Commanding last night. Almost immediately, I noticed that the copyright page’s formatting was “off,” so I checked the preview on Amazon and noticed that it looked considerably better there. Thus, I went to Baen and redownloaded a fresh copy from my purchase library, which has the updates and looks considerably better. However, the first page of Chapter One still describes a docked spaceship as “lower[ing] above” the people talking about it.

    I’m about 99% sure that’s supposed to be “towered” instead of “lowered,” as the ship is docked and not in motion, vertically or otherwise…

  6. Just asking because sometimes I am dim and miss things.

    Is the “changed my name” part of bogiperson’s complaint because the text of the bio used “Takacs” instead of “Takács”?

  7. As I mentioned up stream, as a suggestion to Tor, I think that they should make their backlist available to libraries at a nominal price. Based on the Baen Free Library model and experience, this should result in new readers and sales for their backlist, especially the b-list authors who aren’t Scalzi or Weber.

    I’ve used BFL for years and years. I buy their eArcs. I consume books, but I acknowledge I am privileged to be able to indulge in my book habit without Public Libraries.

  8. I volunteered to be part of the programming for WorldCon, got a questionnaire that included space for a short bio. I honestly don’t remember if I was asked for a picture. I filled it out, and much to my surprise I have three panels.

    One was supposed to be with Bogi. Pity, as they sound like a fascinating person.

    But yeah, if an error is made contact the organization to fix it before going on a social media rant. I am so tired of everything being drama.

  9. @Douglas Berry: “I am so tired of everything being drama.”

    Meanwhile, I am tired of drama being the only effective solution to certain issues, particularly including minority and accessibility concerns. People who are not abled, famous, cisgender white men should not tolerate being treated as afterthoughts, if indeed they are considered at all.

    As Andy H. mentioned above, Bogi’s decision to “go public” has resulted in other issues coming to light so that they can be addressed, and that’s a good thing. The fact that the issues are so depressingly routine that they need to be addressed all over again at Every Single Event has to grind at a person, and it’s not unreasonable that someone would eventually shout “Enough!” Our irritation and outrage should be focused on the precipitating actions, not the manners of the person who was goaded into losing their temper over them.

  10. Well, I can’t find the program bios at the Worldcon page. They say they’re taking down the program listing so they can look at the bios again, so that might be it. Meanwhile, I’m a bit twitchy thinking about what they might have said about me. I did send them a bio when I filled out the questionnaire, but I thought it was just supposed to give the programming committee some idea of who I was and why they’d want to put me on a panel, so it was sort of breezy, not something I’d use officially.

    Their website also says they want to hear from Hugo nominees who haven’t been put on the program, so it looks like they’re trying to correct some of their mistakes. I have to give them points for trying, while still wondering why they originally decided not to put some Hugo nominees (!!!) on panels.

    Heather Rose Jones: It looks like we’re on a panel together. It’ll be great putting faces to some of the names here.

  11. @ Lisa Goldstein

    Yes, I saw that — the mythogenesis one! (I think we’ve met before, but my memory is so horrible with details I can’t always retrieve the difference between “know” and “know of”.)

    Re: Hugo nominees not on programming, I can think of lots of possible hypotheses (which should not be mistaken for evidence-based conclusions). If they were relying entirely on people self-nominating for programming, some nominees may not have done so for any number of reasons. If the person did fill out the programming questionnaire, it’s possible that the people doing panel assignments didn’t recognize the names of nominees or had no way of flagging them as “make sure this person gets programming.” And the tragedy is that the people most likely to be hesitant to volunteer for programming are also likely to feel most discouraged at not getting that sort of exposure.

  12. @ Greg Hullender

    A couple of clarifications:

    You noted: “Bogi should have given WorldCon a chance to fix their mistake before going public with a complaint.”

    In various parts of the online discussions, I’ve seen references to prior off-line discussions of issues of concern (by multiple people) that failed to get a productive response. So on a systemic level (though perhaps not on this specific data point) it appears that people have been giving them a chance to fix mistakes in private. Given the pervasive flaws in how they created participant bios, I don’t think anything short of the social media storm of yesterday would have addressed the problem in a systemic fashion. Individual people privately emailing to say “please use this bio instead of the one you invented” would have left many people out in the cold.

    You noted: “That is what they do. I got a request like that from them months ago and sent them the same photo and bio I sent to the Helsinki folks last year.”

    I did not receive any such request.

    You rephrase my theory: “I’m sure @Heather Rose Jones is right that the root cause of the problem with Bogi’s bio was that people often fill out the bio form in first person, creating work for a volunteer to convert it to third person and opening the possibility of making a mistake.”

    The field in the form that I mentioned was explicitly not for a bio. It was for a general explanation of the potential participant’s background and interests, including a discussion of what types of programming they weren’t interested in. That field doesn’t appear to be what was adapted for Bogi’s bio (which seems to have come from somewhere else online). I can only state with certainty that it’s what they adapted for my bio. I wasn’t creating extra work for someone in filling it out in the first person because there was absolutely no reason to suppose that they’d be using it in that fashion. I never received a request for a bio. I assume that’s the case for the other bios that the participants find unsatisfactory.

    The proximal cause of the problem was participants not receiving requests to provide a bio. (I phrase that very precisely, because the email I received with my programming made reference to general problems in earlier programming correspondence with emails failing to be delivered to earthlink and gmail addresses.) The proximal cause was definitely not people filling out an entirely unrelated field using normal first-person phrasing for self-description.

    As for a true root cause—I’d need to do a full root cause analysis investigation to be willing to propose one. Given what I currently know of the issues, I’d probably start with an Events and Causal Factors analysis, but it would require access to the personnel and systems involved and I think they’re busy at the moment trying to implement corrections.

  13. Douglas Berry:

    *Three* panels? Under the circs–given that people like N.K. Jemison ffs have withdrawn from Worldcon programming to make room for fresh voices–you might consider paring down your participation, too. Just in the spirit of fannish generosity. I’m not saying drop them completely, but dropping two or even just one may make a big difference for someone else.

  14. @Greg

    Given what Heather and others have said, and the threads mentioned here, I don’t think it’s clear to what extent Bogi had already engaged with worldcon but it’s at least implied that e had and I’m inclined to take eir word that this was a proportionate response. I’d bear in mind that different responses to different situations are valid – misspelling my home town might justify a private note and a patient attitude, while some unpleasant insult to me might justify a more immediate and public reaction. (See also Rev Bob’s comment along the same lines)
    Similarly, it seems unclear what bios has been requested of participants (see Douglas and Heather with different takes) and it may well be that that’s some inconsistency or confusion in who was asked for what so again I take Bogi’s word that e wasn’t asked for one.
    If the situation is otherwise then WorldCon will be in a position to clear it up. In the meantime I’d avoid jumping in to blame Bogi.

  15. @Doctor Science

    Sorry, but no. One is a veterans roundtable. I’m a veteran of the US Army. Another is about gaming and fandom, and I’ve been deeply involved in both for 40 years. The last one may not happen now, or it might get a few new panelists. We’ll see.

  16. Another is about gaming and fandom, and I’ve been deeply involved in both for 40 years.

    This is a great reason to think about stepping back and letting people who also care deeply but haven’t had as many opportunities to speak publicly yet come forward. Especially for an area like gaming & fandom, where the number and variety of people who are deeply involved has exploded in the last decade. Jemison and the Nielsen Haydens and Mary Robinette Kowal have been generous enough to step back so others can step forward, why shouldn’t you show a similar level of noblesse oblige?

  17. @Greg – no Bogi took the right approach. It was an issue wholly created at Worldcon’s end and the burden involved in avoiding it and fixing it shouldn’t have fallen on Bogi. Given the initial deflection as a response from the con (as opposed to a “Very sorry, we’ll fix it immediately”) there’s a good chance that going down the private message route would have been long-winded and frustrating, placing extra stress on Bogi.

  18. I propose a panel tax. Everyone who is on a panel pays 10% of the panel time in tax. We use this tax to create panels for the needy.

  19. Also, I do not think it is fair to put pressure on individuals to correct programming made by the convention.

  20. Rev Bob:

    Meanwhile, I am tired of drama being the only effective solution to certain issues, particularly including minority and accessibility concerns. People who are not abled, famous, cisgender white men should not tolerate being treated as afterthoughts, if indeed they are considered at all.

    This.

    But yay for Douglas getting all the programming they want through a process that totally worked for them. That single data point totally makes me reassess all the stories from my favourite Hugo nominated people and other amazing genre folk getting ignored or treated like difficult nobodies by the Worldcon organisers 😐 Oh hang on, turns out that’s not how it works. Never mind.

  21. Douglas Berry should be on as many panels as he likes, and the concom puts him on.
    Readercon got a lot of criticism recently for kicking out veteran writers to make room for newer ones. It looks like WorldCon is set to get a lot of criticism for telling newer ones they don’t have room for them. When there are a lot more people interested in being panelists than spots, there will always be upset groups, I don’t know what a solution would be. However, I’m pretty sure its not trying to pressure individuals who have been invited and are excited to be on panels to withdraw.

  22. @Doctor Science:

    As this is my first time ever as a panelist at a Worldcon, I shall cling to my panel slots.

    As for my sense of “noblesse oblige” I’m a bloody peasant storming the gates.

    I could go on at length about why being able to speak on panels at this convention is so important to me, but I don’t feel the need to justify myself and my placement to you or anyone. I’ve known Chris Doyle for years – she was my anesthesiologist for a procedure I had a few years ago, I asked for her because I trust her – and I trust her to put together a great program.

    I look forward to meeting some of you at the convention.

  23. This is a great reason to think about stepping back and letting people who also care deeply but haven’t had as many opportunities to speak publicly yet come forward.

    I think it’s in poor taste to tell Douglas Berry he should step aside and let other people be on panels in his place. He’s not a big name in SF like John Scalzi or N.K. Jemison. A panel invite likely means a lot more to him than it would to them, since they likely get far more invites than they can accept.

  24. While I appreciate being Football of the Day for you lovely Filers, I am going to withdraw from this thread. Please stop using me as an example.

    If you want the full story, find me at the con, buy me a non-alcoholic beer, and I’ll give the full details of why this is important to me.

    (Does being Football of the Day come with a trophy?)

  25. @Doug: Only if you flop for no reason like European players do. 🙂

    I didn’t know we could nominate ourselves for panels, or I would have told them. I’ve never been on a Worldcon panel before. I was once a planted stooge in the audience at a BoF in the 80s b/c Connie Willis needed someone to raise their hand and kick off the group discussion, but that’s as close as I’ve ever come. And other people had better stories, anyway.

    OTOH with my luck, they’d put me on one of the 10 AM panels and all I’d contribute would be zombie-like noises and maybe some snores.

  26. Lurkertype: OTOH with my luck, they’d put me on one of the 10 AM panels and all I’d contribute would be zombie-like noises and maybe some snores.

    They sent me a link to the programming questionnaire. I turned down the invitation because I’m too deaf to make a good panelist anymore — can’t always tell what the other people are saying. Or when they’ve stopped saying it, so I don’t talk over them….

  27. Douglas Berry: I could go on at length about why being able to speak on panels at this convention is so important to me, but I don’t feel the need to justify myself and my placement to you or anyone.

    You’ve already learned an important lesson about fandom — don’t wait for somebody’s permission to do what you think is right, because nobody’s going to give it.

  28. Lurkertype on July 23, 2018 at 3:01 pm said:
    @Doug: Only if you flop for no reason like European players do. ?

    I didn’t know we could nominate ourselves for panels, or I would have told them. I’ve never been on a Worldcon panel before. I was once a planted stooge in the audience at a BoF in the 80s b/c Connie Willis needed someone to raise their hand and kick off the group discussion, but that’s as close as I’ve ever come. And other people had better stories, anyway.

    I have repeatedly put myself on a panel, by the cunning expedient of going to the panel moderator or the head of programming and saying, “Hey, there is a panel on language use in Iain Banks and I translated several of this books, do you think you could add me to that panel?” But I am a shameless presentialist with no fear, not everybody is like me. Also I tend to ask loud questions from the front row if they don’t put me on the panel, so I am feared.

  29. Thanks to everyone who provided additional information about programming communications. It sounds like there was a request for Photos and Bios, but that not everyone got it due to the vagaries of email, and that replacement bios were done as a scramble which makes it almost inevitable that there would be mistakes. It seems to me that the best thing that can come from this — since the damage has already been done this time — would be for future Worldcon’s to add Bio and Photo fields (and maybe a preferred pronouns field?) to the panellist questionnaire instead of having to ask after the fact. Hopefully that will happen.

    @Doctor Science

    I am shocked and dismayed that you would try to pressure an individual to drop out of their programming slots.

  30. Regarding going public: I occasionally come across this notion that a public harmful action should be handled privately and I always find it very confusing. Why should an injured party extend effort to save face for the source of their injury? Especially given some of the other stuff that’s coming out, which is making clear that private action was only preserving a missing stair.

    @Hampus Eckerman: Bogi uses Spivak pronouns. The structure is basically identical to ‘they’ with the ‘th’ removed (the Elverson variant from 1975 is that exactly; I believe Bogi uses the LambdaMOO version which has ‘e’ as the nominative form rather than ‘ey’).

  31. I think a lot of people aren’t aware that most conventions have mechanisms for volunteering to be on programming. Doesn’t always mean you’ll be offered any, but especially if you aren’t a Big Name, you can wait a very long time to get a personal invitation out of the blue. (Though I am on the side of those who think being a Hugo finalist is a good reason to get a personal invitation out of the blue for Worldcon programming.)

    This is, of course, one of the things that contributes to programming often being the same limited pool of people a lot of the time — they’re the people who know the various systems for getting on programming. So what are some of those systems?

    1. Check out the convention website and social media well in advance (and repeatedly) to look for announcements about programming questionnaires and the like. Put your name in and highlight one or two very specific topics or activities where you have expertise and can “put on a good show.”

    2. When you do so, think up entertaining and informative programming ideas and propose them. Conventions are always hungry for new and interesting programming ideas and sometimes they will explicitly prioritize giving programming slots to people who contribute to the process.

    3. Now we come to the “who you know” items. Be an interesting and articulate person in the company of people who are involved in coming up with programming ideas or proposing potential panelists. Engage in casual discussions about the topics of your interest and expertise. Tell people outright that you’d enjoy contributing to programming on a particular topic. One of those people you’re talking to may tell someone else, “Hey, you know who would be great on this panel? So-and-so!”

    4. I’m not going to lie. I got my start participating in convention programming at small conventions where the concom were personal friends of mine. I’m less fond of the notion of Worldcon programming being given out on the basis of “she’s a buddy of mine” but it’s a perfectly acceptable way to get a foot in the door at a local convention.

    5. Find ways of contributing to the convention experience that don’t have gatekeepers: interest groups, spontaneous activities. Be entertaining and informative and get along with people. They’ll remember you. And while I’m at it, never discount the advantages of volunteering at cons to get a chance to get to know people who might help open the door for you. (But be aware that people can tell when you’re trying to get to know them solely for this purpose.)

    6. Some of the avenues to program participation aren’t open to everyone. I believe that Westercon sends out a general programming invitation to SFWA members. There are some cons where I got a program participation invitation out of the blue that I think was based on SFWA membership. Dunno. But conventions who do that also have other ways to get on programming, so it’s not an exclusionary thing.

    7. If a programming topic excites you, follow up on it with other people (panelists or not) who were similarly excited about it. Discuss your ideas. extend the panel discussion (without cornering a program participant who needs to be elsewhere!). Suggest moving it to the bar or socializing-venue-of-your-choice. Be part of the conversation even if you aren’t behind the table with a microphone.

    Well, that moved away from “how do I get onto programming” a bit. But keep in mind that the officially scheduled programming is only one part of a convention. Be the programming you want to see in the world.

  32. So having programmed Douglas on several conventions, I’m going to point out that one reason some folks (including him) get what seems like an unfair number of panels is that they are known and trusted and serve a purpose.

    I use Douglas shamelessly both to generate good ideas and to ensure that a panel will be a success. I can count on him to keep things lively, to encourage quieter voices and to help smooth ruffled feathers when things get heated. Some panelists are there because in addition to being right for the panel, they serve as a back up for the programming staff who can’t be everywhere at once. I don’t have to check on panels certain people are on. I know they’ve got me covered. Douglas is one of those.

  33. Kiya Nicoll:

    “Bogi uses Spivak pronouns. The structure is basically identical to ‘they’ with the ‘th’ removed (the Elverson variant from 1975 is that exactly; I believe Bogi uses the LambdaMOO version which has ‘e’ as the nominative form rather than ‘ey’).”

    Yes, I learned that when I first heard their name a year ago or so. But it was the first time I heard of it and e is still the only person I know of that uses those pronouns. I’m not surprised if other people do not know of them.

    I’m still unsure of how to use them, so I’m mixing a bit. I hope I’m forgiven for that.

  34. @bookworm1398–

    Douglas Berry should be on as many panels as he likes, and the concom puts him on.

    Indeed. A number of very big names have dropped out specifically to make room for “lesser knowns”, but a)that has been their choice in every case, and b)I may be mistaken, and if so I apologize for my ignorance, but I don’t think Douglas Berry is that kind of Very Big Name that can embarrass this somewhat obtuse Worldcon into adding in the Hugo finalists.

    Which leads me to my next point…

    Readercon got a lot of criticism recently for kicking out veteran writers to make room for newer ones. It looks like WorldCon is set to get a lot of criticism for telling newer ones they don’t have room for them. When there are a lot more people interested in being panelists than spots, there will always be upset groups, I don’t know what a solution would be. However, I’m pretty sure its not trying to pressure individuals who have been invited and are excited to be on panels to withdraw.

    No, this Worldcon is getting flack for, specifically, telling Hugo finalists that Worldcon attendees have no idea who they are and wouldn’t be interested in seeing them on program.

    Which is both bizarre, and rude.

  35. There is the capability of editing your profile and picture on Grenadine. That should probably be included in any future contacts and I will suggest that. If you create an account (with the same email as your contact email in the system), you should be able to update it. Even if you aren’t a program participant, if you fill out your profile in Grenadine, assuming you make it public, as you select panels you want to see, you are visible to other attendees as interested in the panel. It doesn’t appear you can do that currently, but once it is back up, there will be that capability.

  36. Bogi uses Spivak pronouns. Until I read this, I had no idea these even existed. I doubt one person in ten thousand knows about this pronoun set.

    Here’s a trick I learned as a dispatcher*. If you use an unusual spelling or need special characters or anything that isn’t part of the common set of usual language rules, open with that. Because unless I know ahead of time that the bio in front of me uses Spivak pronouns, I’m just going to see a ton of typos.

    *When working for a limo service we almost lost a big account because a Turkish guest was incensed that his name on the driver’s welcome card didn’t have the correct characters. We had no clue because the name had come to us using straight Latin characters.

    Susie forgot to mention that I am one of the reasons she drinks.

  37. @Heather Rose Jones
    1. Check out the convention website and social media well in advance (and repeatedly) to look for announcements about programming questionnaires and the like. Put your name in and highlight one or two very specific topics or activities where you have expertise and can “put on a good show.”
    Volunteer for programming in Dublin — Worldcon 77

    2. When you do so, think up entertaining and informative programming ideas and propose them.
    Submit a programming idea for Dublin

  38. @Lis Carey

    Indeed, I’m a moderately-sized fish in a fairly small pond. Unless you are a regular at Baycon, really into the SFRPG Traveller, or went to Rocky Horror in Palo Alto in the late 80s-early 90s; odds are you have no clue who I am.

    And if you do know me from the Rocky days, you’d probably not recognize me with clothes on.

    But I am big on contributing and giving back to fandom. I’m working Publications, and having the chance to do a couple of panels is a nice surprise.

    Douglas Berry is my name
    And Terra is my nation
    Fandom is my family
    The stars our destination.

  39. “Bogi uses Spivak pronouns. Until I read this, I had no idea these even existed. I doubt one person in ten thousand knows about this pronoun set.”

    My guess is that it is even lower for a Worldcon where not all participants have English as their first language. I personally would have recommended them to use “they” (which Takács has named as acceptable), as it is the gender neutral pronoun that is understood by the international community. But I would have asked first.

  40. I had seen that set before, though I couldn’t have named it. But I go to WisCon, and I used to co-run Reg there, so I saw the piles of pronoun stickers, including many that are less commonly used.

    I expect if Bogi had known the “tell us about yourself” section was going to be used as a bio, e would have included the pronouns in it. Maybe e did – I certainly haven’t seen what e wrote.

  41. @Meredith

    Thanks to everyone who provided additional information about programming communications. It sounds like there was a request for Photos and Bios, but that not everyone got it due to the vagaries of email, and that replacement bios were done as a scramble which makes it almost inevitable that there would be mistakes. It seems to me that the best thing that can come from this — since the damage has already been done this time — would be for future Worldcon’s to add Bio and Photo fields (and maybe a preferred pronouns field?) to the panellist questionnaire instead of having to ask after the fact. Hopefully that will happen.

    Actually e-mail problems are very possible here. I’m a WorldCon 76 supporting member and I never get e-mails from them, not about the Hugos, the voter packet, the progress reports, etc…, because my e-mail provider apparently mistakes the WorldCon 76 e-mails for spam and occasionally even goes as far as blocking all foreign language e-mails containing links or attachments, which is just brilliant, when you’re a translator. I’m not the only person who never gets any e-mails from WorldCon 76 either, since I’ve heard from others who have the same problem. So it’s not a stretch to imagine that several e-mails just didn’t go through, including to program participants.

    That said, there is no excuse for excluding Hugo finalists as not well known enough. I’m a complete nobody and filled out the WorldCon 75 program participant questionnaire, because someone encouraged me to do it. I expected to get maybe one panel in a graveyard slot, if that. I ended up on four panels and moderated one (and coincidentally, volunteering to moderate is another great way to get put on panels). Though the respective con comms should probably publicise the existence of program participant questionnaires more. The only reason I knew about the questionnaire was because WorldCon 75 sent out an e-mail with the link to I assume all attending members.

    Just as there is no excuse for messing up bios, pronouns and name spellings. When in doubt, e.g. with non-anglophone or gender ambiguous names, Google is your friend. And Bogi has always been open about eir preferred pronouns.

    I also get the frustration about missing accents, umlaute and other special characters. Yes, I know special characters can be a pain with many keyboards and phones often don’t have them at all. Often, there are also workarounds for cases of “The computer system/keyboard cannot accomodate this character”. However, simply ignoring accents and umlaute or replacing a special character with the standard character that looks most like it (quite common with the German ß, which is often replaced with a B, even though it’s actually a sharp S sound and should be transcribed as ss) can be infuriating, because it shows that whoever wrote the thing just didn’t care. Accents, umlaute and special characters are never superfluous, because they affect pronounciation and sometimes meaning.

  42. @Douglas: “Here’s a trick I learned as a dispatcher*. If you use an unusual spelling or need special characters or anything that isn’t part of the common set of usual language rules, open with that. Because unless I know ahead of time that the bio in front of me uses Spivak pronouns, I’m just going to see a ton of typos.”

    The problem with that in this particular case is that reading the content of Bogi’s bio should serve as an enormous clue that unfamiliar or “nonstandard” pronouns may apply. Plus, just as a general practice, the presence of a nonbinary Finalist should mean that the staff – or at least the concom and department heads – get a heads-up that such pronouns exist.

    I realize that alternate pronoun sets are new to the general population, but they’ve been around for over forty years now. Yes, in my professional capacity, I wish there were more of a consensus on which set(s) to use… but bottom line, nobody who is so clueless about alternate pronouns that they could mistake them for typos should be put in the position of handling them. Either educate the staffer or give them a different task.

    We had no clue because the name had come to us using straight Latin characters.

    Web guys refer to this as an i18n problem – internationalization* – and it wasn’t very long ago that OGH had to deal with it right here, so I understand how that could happen. That does not make it less of a problem, and I hope that whatever step in the process caused that force-to-Latin reduction got fixed quickly.

    BTW, one of my high school friends did some playtesting for GURPS Traveller, and I was in charge of maintaining those web pages for several years. I only had a limited connection to JTAS, with my main correspondence with Loren being on other issues. About once or twice a year, I’d have to do a couple of little things to the JTAS site to keep the zine flowing, but that was it.

    * i18n is short for “i, 18 letters, n.” I’m not sure whether it’s fairer to call that wry humor or just techspeak.

  43. Coincidentally, the presence of an umlaut (and since the person in question was Turkish, it probably was a missing umlaut) or accent doesn’t make a character any less Latin.

  44. Meredith:

    It seems to me that the best thing that can come from this — since the damage has already been done this time — would be for future Worldcon’s to add Bio and Photo fields (and maybe a preferred pronouns field?) to the panellist questionnaire instead of having to ask after the fact. Hopefully that will happen.

    Not sure that would work in this case, though I can only give my experience to explain why and other people’s may be different. The programming committee was using the questionnaire to decide who to put on panels, and they were very clear about the fact that there were limited spots and most people who filled out a questionnaire wouldn’t get one. So yeah, I was lazy and didn’t give them a good bio, but I didn’t see why I had to if I probably wouldn’t get on a panel at all.
    So I sent them something light and breezy, trying to convince them I’d be a fun and interesting person on a panel. I assumed that if they wanted me they’d ask for a more formal bio, but I haven’t heard anything yet even though they put me on a panel.

    Here’s an idea about getting more people on panels at WorldCon. If you’re on a panel with three or fewer people, just invite someone along, someone who’s not a straight white male and who can talk knowledgeably about the topic. I did that once and it worked out great. The one I’m on now already has five people or I’d do it again. What can they do to you, sue you?

  45. @Cora

    I’m not sure if I’m misunderstanding your ‘actually’ (which I tend to consider as a word used to indicate disagreement with what came before) or if I was very unclear (quite possible, the heatwave is doing one heck of a number on my ability to think) — I was trying to say that it sounded like email issues had contributed to the problem, so I think we agree?

    (Contributed to rather than were the whole of — there were certainly other factors.)

    The thing about excluding panelists seems very odd to me, and while — again — I am not super with it at the moment, it seemed to me that the statement in question was written in such a confusing way that I’m not entirely sure what they were trying to say. It seems totally illogical to suggest that finalists for the Hugo Awards shouldn’t be on programming; even if they weren’t well-known before that surely people would be curious at the convention. Even more so to say that there wasn’t an Own Voices panel because people weren’t familiar with the topic. Isn’t learning new things part of what people attend panels for?

    I spent quite a bit of time trying to get one of my previous Warcraft guild leaders (also from the UK) to use the correct characters for our various guildies whose names included an umlaut or accent (it was a European server so a good three quarters of our members were from continental Europe). I’m not sure I ever quite got it through to him that it was worth the extra key press.

    @Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

    That was very funny. 🙂

  46. @Meredith
    Yes, we agree. I probably phrased myself badly, because this heatwave is affecting my ability to think as well.

  47. @Lisa Goldstein

    I was imagining a new and separate box from the “tell us about you and what sort of things you’re good at talking about” one that was already part of the form — one which was explicitly “please enter a brief Bio that we can use for the program (we may edit for length depending on space)”. More efficient to get that information at the beginning rather than have to chase everyone for Bios once the schedule is set, and I wouldn’t want to replace the existing box since that sounds like an excellent way to get the information needed to put people on the right panels. An extra one seems simplest.

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