if I were going to Worldcon...

[redbird]

This would have been my program participant schedule:

• Saturda 11.50 A Blog Has Eaten My Fanzine (1.5 hrs)


• Saturda 16.00 RASFF: The Room Party of Usenet (1.5 hrs)


• Saturda 17.50 I'm Not Here with My Boyfriend (1.5 hrs)


• Sunday 10.00 Fanzines vs. Online - What's Happening? (1.5 hrs)


• Sunday 13.00 Blogology Recapitulates Mimeography (1.5 hrs)

First, I'm flattered to have been put on that many. Second, 90 minutes per item, plus the breaks between them? 75 minutes often feels like a lot, at Wiscon. Third, if I had it to do over, I'd probably have said no to the whole idea of 10 a.m. Sunday--nobody's going to be awake for that, probably including the panelists.

The planning aspects of this are moot, except that Kathryn Daugherty thanked me for letting her know I won't be there before the pocket program went to press. I have a buyer for my membership; no word from ConJose on what information they want on the transfer, or whether we can do it online. (That's not on the Web page, so I've emailed them.)

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Ninty minutes is too long for a panel; I don't know whose idea that was.

I, too, was put on way too many things. I said no to half of them.

B

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

The panels are actually 75 minutes in 90 minute slots.

[redbird]

Then what's the other 20 minutes for? It's 16:00 (90 minutes), next item 17:50. Wiscon uses that 75/90 schedule, with items at (if I recall the start time correctly) 10:00 (lunch break) 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 5:30.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Looks like someone was trying to be clever... it's a dot, not a colon, so 17.50 = 5:30, not 5:50.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

That's not what clever looks like. That's what annoyingly idiotic looks like.

B

[redbird]

Rather.

Metric time, in the middle of a Worldcon, when everyone's sense of time has gone off to Elf Hill?

Suddenly I mind less that I can't afford to go to Worldcon.

Yes, it's a dot, not a colon. When did the British stop using 10.5 to mean five minutes after ten? (I know that one from Dorothy Sayers, novels written in the 1930s.)

don't worry

[webbob.livejournal.com]

On Decimalized Worldcon Time, a day will be either ten hours or twenty-five hours long, as decided (including retroactively) by the business meeting. Since nobody has any idea when Sunday morning will be, the Secretary will make all the decisions and make up the minutes (as usual).

Since it will be impossible to know when anything actually starts and finishes, nobody will be late or early for any panel. The overall scene will be well described by the Jack Vance story, The Men Return. The Worldcon will end when the Earth passes out of the Cloud of Non-Causality it is passing through.

None of the attendees will notice all this, and they will be asking questions for years about why people call the convention "Con Hoser, Eh?"

Re:

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

I said they tried. I didn't say they succeeded!

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Depends rather on the 'shape' of the panel. Its definitely too long to have
four talking heads doing their stuff, but for a participatory item with a lot of audience input, it can work very well.

90 mins would be fine for something like 'Tall Technical Tales' which is both episodic and very participatory, for example.

At least IMHO!

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

For a participitory panel with lots of audience input, twenty minutes is too long.

Outside of SF cons, panels are about more than the wonders of hearing yourself talk.

B

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Hummm...

Guess I didn't get on any panels this time 'round (or, if so, I've not been emailed a schedule)

Ah well, can't hurt to actually SEE a Worldcon this year :)