Fannish Inquisition Videos from SMOFCon

I gave up on trying to edit the Fannish Inquisition videos from the Toronto SMOFCon. (I'd hoped to be able to edit out the waffling around with tech and similar wasted time.) It not only was going to take so much time that I would never get around to it, but MovieMaker crashed (twice) while trying to digest the two halves of the Future SMOFCons material. Note to future moderators: It would help me a great deal if you would give me some sort of high sign meaning "I'm ready to start the next segment," then wait three seconds to let me turn the camera on, then actually start. As it was, I was left guessing a lot, and as a consequence you have stretched where nothing is actually happening.

Anyway, here are the videos:

Seated Worldcons and NASFiC Presentations and Q&A

• LoneStarCon 3 (2013 Worldcon, San Antonio)


• Loncon 3 (2014 Worldcon, London)


• Sasquan (2015 Worldcon, Spokane)


• Detcon 1 (2014 NASFiC, Detroit)

Future SMOFCons

• SMOFCons after 2014 Expressions of Interest


• SMOFCon 2014 Presentations and Site Selection

Future Worldcons

• 2016 Worldcon Bid Presentations


• 2017 Worldcon Bid Presentations


• 2018 Worldcon Bid Presentations


• 2019 Worldcon Bid Presentations


• 2020 Worldcon Bid Presentations


• Worldcon Bid Expressions of Interest for Years after 2020


• Combined Worldcon Bids Q&A Panel

All of these videos have creative-commons licenses on them. You are free to link to, redistribute, repost, or otherwise reuse these videos. They are not secret. (Remember, the real secret of the Secret Masters of Fandom is that they aren't actually secret.)

I'm sorry the video quality is so poor. The room was kept deliberately dark for the benefit of people making presentations on the projector. I was given few cues as to when things were starting, which means that some of these videos start a few seconds after the sections in question started. I had no control over how people used (or misused) the microphone. Hint: Anyone who says, "I don't need the microphone" needs the microphone.

For anyone coming across this posting without much context:

"SMOF" means "Secret Masters of Fandom," a self-deprecating term for those people who organize science fiction and fantasy genre conventions. They aren't really secret. If you think they are, you're not paying very close attention.

"SMOFCon" is an annual convention about organizing SF/F genre conventions, usually with an emphasis on the World Science Fiction Convention due to the most common experience of most of the attendees. (A significant proportion if not the majority of the attendees are involved with running Worldcons.) The convention is hosted by different groups of fans in different cities each year; this year it was in Toronto. It usually is held the first or second weekend of December, and in recent years attendance has been between 100-150 people or so. It is not actually a science fiction convention; I usually describe it as a specialized meeting-planner conference.

The "Fannish Inquisition" is the traditional centerpiece of SMOFCon, held after dinner on the middle night of the conference, where seated Worldcons and NASFiCs, and bids for future such conventions, make presentations and take questions. (Sometimes, like this year, presentations and the selection of the following year's SMOFCon is included.) Conrunners facing the Fannish Inquisition had better bring their "A" game, because the audience in that room consists of around 100 or so of the most important fannish opinion-leaders when it comes to getting elected to host a Worldcon or NASFiC. It's not that they're the ones actually making the decisions; it's that most of them are voters themselves (which means a really large percentage of the total electorate is in one place) and that other likely voters tend to listen to them.

Christmas Feast in Sparks

After spending several hours setting up the Fannish Inquisition videos to upload, Lisa and I headed for the Sparks Nugget for Christmas dinner at Orozko. Naturally, because we had a reservation, this time we didn't need one, as they were not backed up. In any event, it was an excellent meal, including some of the nicest roast lamb I've ever had. (I should not be surprised that a Basque-themed restaurant has good lamb, of course.) One of the managers spotted us, recognized us — travelswithkuma is memorable — and said that she had hoped to see us and thanked us for coming.

The purchase of the Nugget by Eastern Interests from the Ascuaga family has not initially adversely affected the quality of the food or other amenities, but it's early days yet. We've got our fingers crossed that they are able to remodel and refresh the place without ruining the things we liked about it.

We walked around the hotel for a while to try and work off some of the huge meal. (To my astonishment, even after having sugary desserts, my blood sugar was (barely) normal an hour after dinner.) We also briefly played the slots, quitting while we were a couple of dollars ahead and going home.

To my surprise, the Inquisition videos were still uploading when we got home. I left them to percolate overnight and went to bed early. Someday when we've accomplished a lot more with this house, we may have the local cable company put in a separate high-speed connection that possibly has better upload speed than the AT&T DSL that is optimized for downloads because of course nobody actually produces anything; everyone consumes content generated by Large Entertainment Corporation. (When we've talked to AT&T about this, we've been told "the upload speed cannot be changed" and "if you want faster uploads, you need a Commercial account, which will cost vastly more than your residential service," depending upon to whom we are talking.) In any event, getting internet from two different providers, despite the double cost, is probably in the long-term cards on account of how critical it is for my job that I always have an internet connection.