Readercon report

[kate_nepveu]

I treated Readercon as a vacation, meaning I came out Thursday, went to only the panels I really wanted to, and generally was not in the mood to deal with annoying things because hey, vacation.

As other people have said, the programming seemed to assume that everyone was treating it like a vacation, scheduling a ton of stuff on Friday (including no dinner break) and much more lightly on the actual weekend days. Since this was not a long weekend, this seemed peculiarly suboptimal. The programming content also seemed to have some peculiarities (well-qualified people who asked to be on relevant panels not put on panels in favor of people who seemed much less well qualified; highly gendered assignments on two of the panels I attended, and possibly more I didn't).

As for the venue, the panel rooms were indeed freezing cold, and I seem to have been the only person who had no trouble with the hotel wireless.

I went to six program items: three panels, two talks, and one reading. Notes on the first two sets forthcoming or already posted. The reading was David Anthony Durham's; he read the Prologue from The Other Lands, the sequel to Acacia (which I am almost done reviewing, honest!), which was from the point-of-view of one of the children taken in the Quota. Also an unofficial item, readings from recent issues of Sybil's Garage, which prompted me to buy issue no. 6; though, looking at the tables of contents, I should also have bought issue no. 5 since I was very impressed with Veronica Schanoes's ferocious reading of her story "Lost in the Supermarket" (which quite dissuaded me from the idea of mentioning that my favorite version of that is the Afghan Whigs' cover, or that I think someone should vid Harry Potter to it (probably the original version, there)).

I had lovely conversations with lots of people I'd met before (including one blast from my early Internet past) and some I hadn't; I'm not going to do the namecheck thing because I find that awkward, but if we talked and I might not know how to find you now, feel free to leave your LJ name or blog address in comments. I also was patronized by a white man old enough to be my father and had a younger white man hit two race-discussion bingo squares in two sentences; but since that last came after I'd brought up racism in fandom at a talk and the other people who spoke to me about it were positive, well, it could be worse. (More on that later. And sexism too, whee!)

Alas, the flyer for next year's Readercon is deeply unpromising: no guests of honor, single-track programming, and a tagline: "This IS your father's Readercon." Apparently Readercon has no qualms about the graying of fandom or excluding women for the sake of a punchline! And I am very dubious about the idea of single-track programming a con of several hundred people, full of people who desparately want to be on programming: to paraphrase someone else, it seems likely that the loudest and most institutional people will end up on panels. I'd be tempted to just take advantage of the con rate for the hotel and camp out in the lobby to see people, but you know, the hotel is not actually that nice or convenient. Stop me before I volunteer to run a counter-con (Arisia for the vanilla!), because I so do not have time.

ETA: ericmvan has now called the tagline a mistake; further information may be found scattered through those comments, though a clear statement of intentions for next year has been strongly urged.

Link roundups will be over at readercon as usual; also I'm taking suggestions on what I should do about all the Twitter posts about the con.

Comments

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

It's not even any statement I can put my finger on, although I thought what he said to tn_tiger was breathtakingly rude (and considering she is one of the people square in the RC demographic, a bad business decision too). I think it's just his tone.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

It is that he has blamed every poster he's responded to for misunderstanding or misrepresenting the 2010 Readercon situation, when the large number of people responding in the same way indicates that the problem is with the poor way the flyer was expressed and with the audience's lack of enthusiasm for the current state of planning, rather than with their lack of understanding. And even if it were lack of understanding, Readercon is the entity responsible for putting out clear information -- so many people troubled by the current setup indicates the problem with is with the transmitter, not the receiver.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Why, yes, that is it. It exactly.

His unpardonable rudeness to Cat in her next successive post after the one where he was rude to tn_tiger caused me to tell him directly Readercon was no longer on my list of possibles despite all the nice things people have said about it. Because "I hope you feel like crap now" is not professional communication.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I am still stuck in eye roll on the GRE scores being trotted out. Oh, dude. Oh, DUDE. You did NOT.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was also some dickery, but my eyes were glazing.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

That rather struck me, too. It's been many a long year since I've seen someone do that.

[kate_nepveu]

Uh what?

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/502718.html?thread=12244158#t12244158

Eric Van is demonstrating most of the problems with the con in many of the comments he's making on the post.

[kate_nepveu]

Wow, I skimmed right past that one in marveling at some of his other comments.

Wow.

For the record? Those comments are very much not making me want to get involved with Readercon.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Yes, likewise.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Whoa! If I wave my GRE scores around, too, can I qualify to speak?

Damn. You're way low on accomplishments if you're over 30 (being charitable) and you still cherish your scores on standardized tests.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm wondering if LSAT scores get me more or less cred. Probably less--it's on a weird scale.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Definitely less. LSAT = a professional degree. GRE = Pure Academia.

(I may add, parenthetically, that if you're waving around your GRE scores, it does rather suggest that you wanted to be an academic but didn't. Otherwise you'd be waving around the degree.)

[kate_nepveu]

Oh but a degree isn't _quantifiable_.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Based on my somewhat vague recollections of the tests (or at least what the tests were like back in 1990-1), I would say that the LSAT is a harder test than the GRE Analytic section. So I would give it more credit, if I gave a toss about standardized test scores.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm impressed at your memory--I have thoroughly purged mine of all recollection of what it was like to take the LSAT, and that was only ten years ago . . .

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I have a good memory for useless things.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

He is *terrible* at communicating via the internet.

He is somewhat better in person.

Also check him in RaceFail09
http://oyceter.livejournal.com/819945.html?thread=8965097#t8965097


EPIC

[kate_nepveu]

Oh geez, I hurt my eyes rolling just remembering it.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

o_O

He's quite the little martyr, isn't he? And oh dear, that wife-murderer analogy is one of the more unfortunate I've seen this week.

I've already told his ass in the other CMV post that his behavior reached a level of rudeness and unprofessionalism that meant I wouldn't be attending his con, so long as he ran it or was its titular head. Because, no. I don't make a habit of going out of my way and spending my money to enrich the projects of people who are rude and condescending and outright hateful to my friends, who are also their colleagues. In other words "NO ONE PUTS CAT VALENTE IN THE CORNER."