A Case Example of American Privilege

[kevin_standlee]

daveon comments on the latest complaints from the poster child for American entitlement culture within SF fandom.

It would appear that Jo has decided to improve the Worldcon experience for the rest of the members. Anyone want to pick up a Worldcon membership for $160 should go here. (If you need help moving currency between GBP and USD, contact me; the Bank of Morgan Standlee will help you.) Alas, the well-intentioned fjm has inadvertently fed into his paranoid fantasy that the room booking is rigged in favor of "insiders." And now that he's read that one message, he'll doubtless use it to deny the truth of any other facts, including those from other convention committee members actually involved in dealing with room bookings.

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the "walkable" comment. I just don't. The furthest you'd walk is the Crowne Plaza which is roughly 900-1000 meters. Which isn't exactly a marathon and if that's hard you're going to die getting from Heathrow.

Frankly the con is better off without him.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

If you read the rest of his comments, you find what his criteria is. You're supposed to be able to go from programming to your hotel room and to the next program item within the break between items. At the very most, it should not take more than the length of one program item to get from Programming to your room and back. You should be able to scale up the small convention experience so that the big conventions are exactly the same, totally.

The 500m between the main hotel at ConJosé and the San Jose Convention Center was declared to be impossibly difficult and a horrible imposition by some attendees. (The I-5 in '05 bid set up a "rest area" halfway between the two buildings, handing out bottled water. I gave them Hero of the Con ribbons for creativity.) My comment about nothing should be more than 50m from the function space isn't really an exaggeration for people like him.

I agree with you. I only want other people who come across his rants to discover what his act is. I used to work hard to try and help him. But now it's clear that he's convinced that there are SMOFs getting "insider" special treatment and he's demanding to also get this hypothetical special treatment. As I said directly to him, if there are Special Insider SMOFs being given the star treatment, shouldn't a couple of former Worldcon chairs count toward that Special Insider SMOF cabal that actually runs things and keeps out the Real Fans? And yet, neither I nor filkerdave are getting the Star Treatment. I'm at the Crowne Plaza myself. I've been offered some at-convention storage space for my stuff so I'm less likely to have to slog back and forth during the day (notably the camera equipment and tripod for recording the Business Meeting); however, that's not free, and I'll be working for it by reporting for the Newsletter. TANSTAAFL.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Where in the hell can you have that? Even the Chicon hotel wasn't actually that convenient. The Glasgow SEC wasn't.... Montreal wasn't. Reno really wasn't.

God help him if he ever goes to ComicCon or similar.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I spoke too soon. Apparently he think was Montreal was under 1,000 meters from the hotel. I don't think he and I use the same meters.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Apparently I'm banned from his LJ. Probably a good thing.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised you've joined the Legion of the Banned. After all, confirmation bias is his modus operandi. BTW, he's not banned from here. I'm not afraid of the actual truth, as opposed to his twisted conspiracy theory-colored version of the truth.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

No. I don't think I'll ban him. I think only Jordan B and one of his mates have had that so far.

Madness though. I wonder how some of these people function.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

You'll possibly note that I brought the community moderator hammer down on it and ordered him to stop deleting members' comments. That won't stop him from deleting his own post and taking all of the comments with it (which would be consistent with his behavior), of course.

And naturally, because The Lurkers Support Him in E-Mail, and "thousands" of people have confirmed the issues he's reporting, it's all part of the Great Conspiracy.

You know, it's going to be amazing if anyone at all attends Loncon. After all, not one person has a hotel room, and there are no hotels available, and the committee is actively conspiring to keep everyone away: "The place is so crowded, nobody goes there."

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I did suspect as much.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I actually hadn't seen his other thread until now. Wow that was *special*...

His core problem is lots of people on the West Coast booked, actually I know of at least one person who booked on the 3rd... Plus I know people who still haven't booked but who are assuming they'll find something else in East London.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you're a past Worlcon chair! Me, not so much :)

I'm kind of amused that he thinks I said you could get to your room and not miss a program item.

Of course you're going to miss program items. It's Worldcon.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Funny. I typically judge how good a con it is by how little of the actual program I got to. If I get home and find things I missed because I was doing other stuff

[nojay.livejournal.com]

It may be that "membership" thing Worldcons (and regular conventions) do versus being an "attendee" at a media event like a Comicon. Pay lots of money for a ticket, extra for priority seating and autographs and you get pissed if you miss something although as far as I know jorhett has been to lots of regular conventions and knows the difference.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I think he kicked up a storm hoping to fix the mess he'd made of his hotel booking and now can't back down. He's now trying to fix a problem with the convention.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's about my reaction. I do go to some program items though. Usually ,it's the ones that I'm on

[daveon.livejournal.com]

This sounds strangely familiar.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Even more amusingly apparently I'm you because we use the same attack lines and say the same things....

Seriously I do wish people would understand what an Ad Hominem attack is.

You're an idiot... Therefore everything you say is wrong is an Ad Hominem.

What you are saying is obviously and factually wrong and stupid. Is not.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The 500m between the main hotel at ConJosé and the San Jose Convention Center was declared to be impossibly difficult and a horrible imposition by some attendees.

You mean the Fairmont? Then they should have stayed at the Hilton. I did. Of course, that meant I was even farther from the parties, but I decided I'd rather be closer to programming than to the parties; I was more likely to want to go back & forth to my room between panels than between parties.

You pays your money and you takes your choice. Also, there were still rooms in the Hilton even after the Fairmont was booked up.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

My comments on daveon ' s posting were -
I have a supporting membership on Loncon. Never even planned to go, the travel is too expensive and flying is hard on the husband's health. But when we went to Scotland, we budgeted for Years ahead of time and thus had a nice tidy sum to enjoy the entire, once in a lifetime trip to England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.
But we have had money problems that have caused problems getting to the US Based Worldcons. Some times things just don't fall into place and the con must be missed. *sigh*
Hopefully he will quit his complaining soon and we can get on with Fandom.
What do you think should be nominated for the Hugos?

Frankly, I can't get everything I want from the cons either. And yes, I will complain for a while. Who doesn't? But I don't make it a capital case. Just keep plugging away.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Amusingly I had a look around hotels on the DLR or within easy Taxi range of the Excel and finding alternatives that aren't horrific shouldn't be a problem. Go google. Rah! Rah!

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

"the Bank of Morgan Standlee"

That never fails to greatly amuse me. (And I rarely fail to say so, sorry.)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Thank you! We accept US Dollars, Australian Dollars, British Pounds, and Euros. Oh, and Bristol Pounds.