More Badgering

I'm afraid that jorhett has written us off and has taken everything more personally than he should, which is unfortunate, but meanwhile the SMOFS e-mail list is merrily burbling away discussing the idea of photo-ID badges -- which nobody over there considers a good idea, either, it seems. Michael Walsh applied a bit of Google-fu, and found the following:

Evecon 4 badge
Evecon 5 badge
Evecon 6 badge
Evecon 7 badge

jorhett claims I'm misquoting him, which is certainly possible. Indeed, it's perfectly possible that what he said was not exactly what I heard. However, he has not responded to my offer to print a correction if he'd tell us what exactly he says he said, but has instead apparently stormed off in a huff. Possibly it surprises people that I don't claim to be infallible, it being oh-so-fannish to never admit being wrong and to assume that one's own experiences are the entire universe.

Seriously, I can state things pretty confidently sometimes. I'm perfectly aware that this comes across as arrogance to some people.

Dissenting Views

Some of you may recall that a couple of days ago I discussed Montreal's reminder to its pre-supporters that it's time to vote and how one person declared it spam. At that time, I wrote several replies to madfilkentist, who has seen fit to not unscreen or reply to two of them. Given that he has posted new entries since then, I can only assume that he has no plans to ever clear or reply to them. It has been three days, so I'm going to post my replies here so someone can actually see them, even if he doesn't want to acknowledge them.

( Reply #1 )

( Reply #2 )

The Inherent Complexity of Worldcons

A reminder from dinogrl last night that the Hugo voting deadline was at 2359 PDT yesterday led to a long series of follow ups where I attempt to explain the complexity of Worldcons, site selection, the Hugo Awards, and why it can be confusing and what can be done to explain it better.

I agree completely that there are things we can and should do to explain it better. But there are certain things we cannot do to simplify things without actually making fundamental changes to Worldcon and to the Hugo Awards.

To apply a bit of reductio ad absurdum, the Hugo Awards would be much simpler if we didn't let the members vote for them and allowed a Secret Committee of SMOFS to decide. Oh, that's right, some idiots fans think that's what we already do, because the awards don't reflect their personal opinions.

By the way, some of the complexity in the explanations at BASFA this past week were because we've just come out of a transition period between selecting Worldcon sites three years in advance and two years in advance. That means that there was a year where no Worldcon site selection election happened, thus:

( Worldcon site selection elections 2004-2007 )

The system we have is based on rules created and voted on, in large part, by people who attend every Worldcon, or most of them. For anyone who cares about how WSFS and Worldcon works, you're better off voting every single year, regardless of whether you actually attend or not. Think of it as paying $50 dues to the World Science Fiction Society to keep your annual membership active. If you vote every year, you're only paying once a year -- you're just doing so for the Worldcon two years hence. You paid for next year's convention last year, and you paid for this year's convention two years ago.

Drew Remenda Returns!

This will mean nothing to people who don't follow NHL hockey in the Bay Area, but I'm very pleased to hear that Former Sharks assistant coach and broadcaster Drew Remenda is returning to the Sharks organization as the team’s television color analyst.

The colorful Drew Remenda was one of the most entertaining things about Sharks hockey broadcasts, and I'll be glad to see him back. He knows the game well and he has a lot of fun explaining the game to others. In that sense, his relationship to Sharks hockey is like that of Mike Krukow to Giants baseball. The Sharks even commissioned animated commercials of the "Adventures of Sharkey and Drew," paring Remenda up with the Sharks' mascot for the club's kids programs.

( A Drew Remenda story that some of you may recall me telling before )

I'm glad to see Drew is coming back to the Sharks. I'll probably listen to more broadcasts just because of him.