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This is not a con.txt con report.
This is just me saying some things.
First and most important: at the dance on Friday, I was sitting around in the quiet area (and can I say how wonderful it was that the ballroom had a little area that was isolated enough from the music that you could hear yourself think, but close enough that you could feel like you were part of things, and had a conversation area? That was the best, and all dances should have it. The previous dance I went to I spent most of the time huddled in the cloakroom area.) Anyway, I was sitting there chatting with a bunch of people about Media Steve Rogers Would Have Been A Fan Of, and somebody said, "Steve would love the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow because he would be like, "Wow, somebody made a movie of -----"!"
Only I didn't catch the -----, and now I need to know what it was, for reasons. Reasons entirely unconnected to Steve Rogers. Anybody remember? Is the person who said that reading my journal, as an astonishing proportion of con.txt already is?
(people I am pretty sure were there, but I could be wrong, because I am terrible with names, and there were also others:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elspethdixon, holli, viklikesfic, my_daroga, ambyr, grey_bard, lettered...)
...and on that note, if I met you at con.txt, I would love to add you on DW, because pretty much everybody at con.txt is brilliant and wonderful and I have social-awkwardness-inducing levels of intellectual crush on you all, but if I did not already know you by your badge name chances are I will not remember it, so feel free to PM me and tell me we should add each other (or I should add you back.)
..umm let's see. There were panels. I paneled a lot. I am pretty sure I babbled and was terrible (and probably misgendered people, augh) at both of the ones I moderated, as well as many of the others, and nothing anybody says will convince me otherwise, sorry, but it was still incredibly fun and I learned a lot. Also the adrenaline rush of the babbling means I don't remember enough about them to do a proper report, but there will at least be "leave your comments and links here" posts going up on![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
con_txt in the next few days.
There were several people I noticed, however, complaining that too many of the panels had a long section that was mostly making a list of recs, etc., from audience suggestions - someone spoke up at Dead Duck, but I heard similar complaints earlier - and I recognized my own panels in that, and, yes, a lot of the others I attended.
So, okay, I get the complaint, especially if the panel description implies something else. But. Given the discussion at Dead Duck especially, about how maybe getting together to make the list ahead of time would be helpful, I think I want talk about this more.
The panel format that basically goes 'intro - generate list - discuss panel topic using list - conclusion' gets used a lot, and *not* because the mods need help generating the list, okay. Believe me, I could have generated topic lists much longer and more comprehensive than the ones that were collectively generated - in fact, I had them in my notebook right beside me.
But the list-making phase serves a bunch of functions: it gives the mods a survey of their audience's interests and background on the topic, what might need more or less time in the discussion. It makes the start of the panel very interactive, creates it as a dialog rather than the mods talking at you, from the very start. (And that is a particular panel style, I know a lot of people think of something that is much more giving a presentation, less round-table, but the wide-ranging discussion has always been the most common style at con-txt, a lot of people like it.) And it's a very good way to start that dialog - it works as an icebreaker, because people who might hesitate to contribute to a deep meta discussion will be willing to shout out the name of their favorite fandom, and once they're in, they're more likely to keep speaking up. It's also a more structured start to the discussion, which makes it much easier for the mods to enforce limits and establish their enforcement style, before more serious stuff starts. And, not to leave out, a lot of people come to the con because they want to talk about their own pet fandoms/tropes/pairings/etc.: putting a space for that into the panel is fun because it lets them do that, and it means that when you start deeper discussion, people are less likely to still be boiling over with their need to talk aboutknotting That One Thing, which makes the discussion go a lot better.
Also, I'll be honest, we had good intentions about coming in with something a little more structured, but a lot of the panel planning happened *very* late this year; there were some communication issues, some info going out late, and I wasn't entirely sure until I got to registration exactly how many panels I was doing. Which makes the informal round table *very* attractive as a panel plan.
I had a niggling dissatisfaction that was maybe related, though (and again, I am not the only one I heard expressing similar issues) nearly all the panels were the same kind of thing - just people sitting around and talking about fandom in a fairly unstructured way. Which is great, I am not dissing that, but there are lots of other things that could happen, even at such a small con -ellen_fremedon's Small Fandom Speed Dating was set up as a game show, and I heard a lot of people talking about how great it was (I only got there for the very end, but what I saw was really fun). And we had other stuff scheduled or proposed that was off-model - a write-in, yoga, massage, gaming, stitch-and-bitch, a fannish crafts show-and-tell - plus the annual post-vid-show competition. I heard other things proposed, too: dramatic readings of fic, collaborative writing exercises, space for filk, a vid show follow-up, etc.
The thing is, all of the non-discussion-panel-style things that ended up on the schedule, even the ones that were proposed as panels and voted in as panels, got scheduled either before 10 AM or after 10 PM when most of the con was either not entirely awake or off at room parties, etc. I suspect it was less an actual policy and more the concomm wanting to fit in as many discussion-type panels as they could, thus squeezing everything they could into other spaces, but the effect is that those non-discussion activities get low participation and low visibility, and the con gets even more meta-discussion-heavy.
...that was a lot of complaining. I loved the panels! Really I did! And whoever organized the panels on the concomm did a great job and a lot of hard work with people like me who are difficult to communicate with.
Other stuff: The Sufferer cosplay was a hit, even if there was less Homestuck familiarity among congoers than I expected. I was going to pick out the stitches and horns and return the cape to normal afterward, but it's so adorable that I'm tempted to just keep it that way. On Saturday I decided to go with "Dress as you and see how many people ask who you are," and I got three asks. (yes, I do dress that way in the Muggle world - especially the red fedora, I love that hat - which may have something to do with my inconsistent employment history, come to think of it.) On Sunday I chickened out on the antique dress because I wasn't sure what I'd be doing after the con, so I went with the less-authentic version that used a relatively modern jacket and long skirt and shirt, but everybody know who I was anyway. I think the magnifying glass helped.
The QUILTBAG sold at auction for a ridiculous amount of money! THANK YOU so much to everybody who bid on it, that was an amazing start to the last day of the con. That plus the other two things I had in the show that sold meant I covered all my food for the weekend + plus next time's pre-registration, without feeling guilty about frivolous spending, which is yay. I even remembered to take a picture of the bag five minutes before the auction started, so I have documentation that it existed, yay. (There should be an upcoming post on Stuff I Have Made Lately, pictures will be there.)
I meant to buy some raffle tickets, but never got around to it, ditto for the amazing orphan zine collection. But I pulled some fun stuff off the swap table, although nothing all that fannish (well, except the coloring book zine, because it's a coloring book!) The thing I'm most excited about is the purple wool roving, I've actually been doing some spinning and was on the verge of running out, so that was great. I didn't realize until after Dead Duck that not-taken stuff from the swap table just gets thrown out, though. I totally understand not wanting to deal with it, but if I'm commuting again next time, I might offer to take care of the swap leftovers myself - a lot of it probably was not worth doing anything else with, but the books could go to Book Thing, the new-in-box toys could go to a toy charity, the zines could surely go to a zine library or something, and a lot of the rest could be recycled.
What else, what else.
Oh! This was officially the con of people Reminding Me About All of My WIPs And How I Should Finish Them Already. I am not complaining - I don't mind people doing that politely, it is totally justified, and I will be honest with you about my plans if you do - however I still maintain that all my WIPs on the Dresden anon meme are anon, and whichever ones you might think are mine are totally some other unknown person's. PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY.
I'll also repeat what I said to somebody at the con, that the absolute best way to prod somebody you don't know very well about a possibly-abandoned WIP is to leave a comment on it (no more than every couple of months) saying, "Hey, I was just thinking about this fic again, and I still really like it!" If the author is still wanting to finish it, that by itself will be enough to prod their guilty conscience/reassure them that people still care about it. If the author is sick of it or anxious, that is least likely to poke a sore spot.
This is just me saying some things.
First and most important: at the dance on Friday, I was sitting around in the quiet area (and can I say how wonderful it was that the ballroom had a little area that was isolated enough from the music that you could hear yourself think, but close enough that you could feel like you were part of things, and had a conversation area? That was the best, and all dances should have it. The previous dance I went to I spent most of the time huddled in the cloakroom area.) Anyway, I was sitting there chatting with a bunch of people about Media Steve Rogers Would Have Been A Fan Of, and somebody said, "Steve would love the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow because he would be like, "Wow, somebody made a movie of -----"!"
Only I didn't catch the -----, and now I need to know what it was, for reasons. Reasons entirely unconnected to Steve Rogers. Anybody remember? Is the person who said that reading my journal, as an astonishing proportion of con.txt already is?
(people I am pretty sure were there, but I could be wrong, because I am terrible with names, and there were also others:
elspethdixon, holli, viklikesfic, my_daroga, ambyr, grey_bard, lettered...)...and on that note, if I met you at con.txt, I would love to add you on DW, because pretty much everybody at con.txt is brilliant and wonderful and I have social-awkwardness-inducing levels of intellectual crush on you all, but if I did not already know you by your badge name chances are I will not remember it, so feel free to PM me and tell me we should add each other (or I should add you back.)
..umm let's see. There were panels. I paneled a lot. I am pretty sure I babbled and was terrible (and probably misgendered people, augh) at both of the ones I moderated, as well as many of the others, and nothing anybody says will convince me otherwise, sorry, but it was still incredibly fun and I learned a lot. Also the adrenaline rush of the babbling means I don't remember enough about them to do a proper report, but there will at least be "leave your comments and links here" posts going up on
con_txt in the next few days.There were several people I noticed, however, complaining that too many of the panels had a long section that was mostly making a list of recs, etc., from audience suggestions - someone spoke up at Dead Duck, but I heard similar complaints earlier - and I recognized my own panels in that, and, yes, a lot of the others I attended.
So, okay, I get the complaint, especially if the panel description implies something else. But. Given the discussion at Dead Duck especially, about how maybe getting together to make the list ahead of time would be helpful, I think I want talk about this more.
The panel format that basically goes 'intro - generate list - discuss panel topic using list - conclusion' gets used a lot, and *not* because the mods need help generating the list, okay. Believe me, I could have generated topic lists much longer and more comprehensive than the ones that were collectively generated - in fact, I had them in my notebook right beside me.
But the list-making phase serves a bunch of functions: it gives the mods a survey of their audience's interests and background on the topic, what might need more or less time in the discussion. It makes the start of the panel very interactive, creates it as a dialog rather than the mods talking at you, from the very start. (And that is a particular panel style, I know a lot of people think of something that is much more giving a presentation, less round-table, but the wide-ranging discussion has always been the most common style at con-txt, a lot of people like it.) And it's a very good way to start that dialog - it works as an icebreaker, because people who might hesitate to contribute to a deep meta discussion will be willing to shout out the name of their favorite fandom, and once they're in, they're more likely to keep speaking up. It's also a more structured start to the discussion, which makes it much easier for the mods to enforce limits and establish their enforcement style, before more serious stuff starts. And, not to leave out, a lot of people come to the con because they want to talk about their own pet fandoms/tropes/pairings/etc.: putting a space for that into the panel is fun because it lets them do that, and it means that when you start deeper discussion, people are less likely to still be boiling over with their need to talk about
Also, I'll be honest, we had good intentions about coming in with something a little more structured, but a lot of the panel planning happened *very* late this year; there were some communication issues, some info going out late, and I wasn't entirely sure until I got to registration exactly how many panels I was doing. Which makes the informal round table *very* attractive as a panel plan.
I had a niggling dissatisfaction that was maybe related, though (and again, I am not the only one I heard expressing similar issues) nearly all the panels were the same kind of thing - just people sitting around and talking about fandom in a fairly unstructured way. Which is great, I am not dissing that, but there are lots of other things that could happen, even at such a small con -
ellen_fremedon's Small Fandom Speed Dating was set up as a game show, and I heard a lot of people talking about how great it was (I only got there for the very end, but what I saw was really fun). And we had other stuff scheduled or proposed that was off-model - a write-in, yoga, massage, gaming, stitch-and-bitch, a fannish crafts show-and-tell - plus the annual post-vid-show competition. I heard other things proposed, too: dramatic readings of fic, collaborative writing exercises, space for filk, a vid show follow-up, etc.The thing is, all of the non-discussion-panel-style things that ended up on the schedule, even the ones that were proposed as panels and voted in as panels, got scheduled either before 10 AM or after 10 PM when most of the con was either not entirely awake or off at room parties, etc. I suspect it was less an actual policy and more the concomm wanting to fit in as many discussion-type panels as they could, thus squeezing everything they could into other spaces, but the effect is that those non-discussion activities get low participation and low visibility, and the con gets even more meta-discussion-heavy.
...that was a lot of complaining. I loved the panels! Really I did! And whoever organized the panels on the concomm did a great job and a lot of hard work with people like me who are difficult to communicate with.
Other stuff: The Sufferer cosplay was a hit, even if there was less Homestuck familiarity among congoers than I expected. I was going to pick out the stitches and horns and return the cape to normal afterward, but it's so adorable that I'm tempted to just keep it that way. On Saturday I decided to go with "Dress as you and see how many people ask who you are," and I got three asks. (yes, I do dress that way in the Muggle world - especially the red fedora, I love that hat - which may have something to do with my inconsistent employment history, come to think of it.) On Sunday I chickened out on the antique dress because I wasn't sure what I'd be doing after the con, so I went with the less-authentic version that used a relatively modern jacket and long skirt and shirt, but everybody know who I was anyway. I think the magnifying glass helped.
The QUILTBAG sold at auction for a ridiculous amount of money! THANK YOU so much to everybody who bid on it, that was an amazing start to the last day of the con. That plus the other two things I had in the show that sold meant I covered all my food for the weekend + plus next time's pre-registration, without feeling guilty about frivolous spending, which is yay. I even remembered to take a picture of the bag five minutes before the auction started, so I have documentation that it existed, yay. (There should be an upcoming post on Stuff I Have Made Lately, pictures will be there.)
I meant to buy some raffle tickets, but never got around to it, ditto for the amazing orphan zine collection. But I pulled some fun stuff off the swap table, although nothing all that fannish (well, except the coloring book zine, because it's a coloring book!) The thing I'm most excited about is the purple wool roving, I've actually been doing some spinning and was on the verge of running out, so that was great. I didn't realize until after Dead Duck that not-taken stuff from the swap table just gets thrown out, though. I totally understand not wanting to deal with it, but if I'm commuting again next time, I might offer to take care of the swap leftovers myself - a lot of it probably was not worth doing anything else with, but the books could go to Book Thing, the new-in-box toys could go to a toy charity, the zines could surely go to a zine library or something, and a lot of the rest could be recycled.
What else, what else.
Oh! This was officially the con of people Reminding Me About All of My WIPs And How I Should Finish Them Already. I am not complaining - I don't mind people doing that politely, it is totally justified, and I will be honest with you about my plans if you do - however I still maintain that all my WIPs on the Dresden anon meme are anon, and whichever ones you might think are mine are totally some other unknown person's. PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY.
I'll also repeat what I said to somebody at the con, that the absolute best way to prod somebody you don't know very well about a possibly-abandoned WIP is to leave a comment on it (no more than every couple of months) saying, "Hey, I was just thinking about this fic again, and I still really like it!" If the author is still wanting to finish it, that by itself will be enough to prod their guilty conscience/reassure them that people still care about it. If the author is sick of it or anxious, that is least likely to poke a sore spot.
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After Dead Duck, we get about an hour to clear the consweet, and anything that's leaving -- including the AV equipment, which isn't picked up until Monday and takes up a lot of space -- needs to leave in someone's car. Even without clearing the swap table, I think we all left with packed cars, and we also filled a minivan that someone's spouse brought for that purpose.
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It's really too bad about the zines, since the zine preservation project would probably take them. If you guys ask me about it closer to the next con, I'd love to try to figure out some way to get the zines and flyers shipped out to Iowa, if they're still interested in that sort of thing.
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I don't think there were too many actual published zines thrown out, though - the majority of what was on the swap table was, I think, fic printed from the web and bound by the fan - if that makes you feel any better.
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It was a fun evening - I had a great time moving between that conversation and dancing for my favourite songs in between.
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And it was nice to finally meet you! I was surprised how many panels we had together-- seems I saw you around everywhere-- and you were always a delight. 8D
Congrats on the QUILTBAG quiltbag. I was there for the auction and was so thrilled when you made you announcement about the proceeds. That was tres excellent of you.
Anyway. Awesome to meet you!
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It was nice to finally meet you too! And for the record, I was just thinking about Matter of Chicago again, and I still really love that story. :D
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Oh, thank you! The con has actually been great for that! MoC's next chapter is about half done, so look for that soon. 83
Also, I had no idea you wrote anon fic on the DFKM. Understand if you don't wanna share, but any hints? 83
ETA: I use 83 too much.
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All of the DF stuff I've done that is finished is de-anoned on AO3, but I stopped following it late last year when my list of WIPs got too long and the accumulated guilt was giving me too much writer-stress. But of course none of the WIPs *you* want more of are mine! Those are someone else's, and therefore not my problem. :P (If you check my fandom:dresden tag actually I seem to have given most of them away at the end of a post I made in September, oops, although not all of those are from the meme.)
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You were very stylish every time I saw you. I did actually wonder if the red hat was supposed to indicate a character I didn't recognize, but it's even better that it's just you being you. :D
But the list-making phase serves a bunch of functions: it gives the mods a survey of their audience's interests and background on the topic, what might need more or less time in the discussion. It makes the start of the panel very interactive, creates it as a dialog rather than the mods talking at you, from the very start.
...
And, not to leave out, a lot of people come to the con because they want to talk about their own pet fandoms/tropes/pairings/etc.: putting a space for that into the panel is fun because it lets them do that, and it means that when you start deeper discussion, people are less likely to still be boiling over with their need to talk about
knottingThat One Thing, which makes the discussion go a lot better.This is exactly what I was thinking when that was brought up. People who attend a panel do so wanting to talk about the things they are interested in, not just the list of things the mods pre-assembled. I can see wanting the mods to limit the time spent or otherwise structure the brainstorming, but leaving it out would be a huge mistake, IMO. Con.txt is not a con based on expert/amateur or pro/fan distinctions, and that kind of con is where the "people at the front of the room talk at you" model works. We're a mob of fans who have SO MANY OPINIONS and SO MUCH SQUEE and I like it that way. ;)
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And GUESS WHAT. I found the missing library book I was telling you about! Sometime over the weekend, it *appeared* on a shelf I had already searched about a dozen times, after being missing since February (and I wasn't even looking for it when I checked the shelf.) Clearly this was your doing. Or else the universe itself really really wants me to finish that story. :P
And yeah! There have been panels at con.txt that were closer to the expert/students model before - there have been "how to vid" and "how to edit graphics" panels, for example - but none of the ones that really lend themselves to that got in this year.
(Also, it is entirely possible that part of the problem was that nearly all the panels this year were proposed by only three or four people, so they ended up being the kinds of panels those people would propose. We really need a wider pool of panel-proposers.)
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But personally, I like the list making. It tends to define the panel for me better (either because I wasn't sure of the topic going in, or because the participants veered it slightly off course.) And hopefully it limits the number of times people walk out of a panel and suddenly realize that nobody brought up X, Y or Z which merited some focused discussion.
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I agree about the "working" panels--I wish I'd gotten up in time for your morning "sit down and write" panel. I did love the panels I went to, though. And all the hilarious quotes.
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And don't worry about the morning sit down and write panel, *nobody* came to that one. :P I gave up and went back to the con suite after forty minutes and had some more breakfast, of which I approved.
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I don't know how to actually feel about what was said about the panels at Dead Duck. On the one hand, I love listing things--it's squeeful and interactive and means you're going to get to talk about what you want. OTOH, I do feel it reduces the more "meta" parts of the conversations significantly. And I don't think the meta parts need to be expert/amateur style--for instance, I actually thought the social justice panel was one of the best examples of fairly meaty conversations (meaty as you can get in that amount of time), and
Anywhoodle the whole thing was cool, and I'm glad I met you!
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And *somebody* must remember that comment, somebody must be the person who said it... I may have to ask on
I went to the trans characters panel modded by
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That was me, and the "____" was Blackhawk Squadron. It's a Golden Age comic about a team of international fighter pilots fighting the Nazis, and they have airplanes that can fly underwater, just like the planes do in the movie.
(It's technically still part of the DCU, and Zinda, one of the female characters from the original comic, was in Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey. She may or may not still exist in current DC, thanks to their reboot)
all of the non-discussion-panel-style things that ended up on the schedule, even the ones that were proposed as panels and voted in as panels, got scheduled either before 10 AM or after 10 PM when most of the con was either not entirely awake or off at room parties
I wasn't even aware that most of those things were going on, probably because of the scheduling, and ended up just going to meta panels and the Avengers room party. Part of that's likely my own fault, though, because I deliberately didn't look at the con schedule at all until I actually got there on Friday, because I wasn't sure what time I'd arrive at and figured I couldn't stress out about missing certain panels/getting there in time to go to the panel about X if I didn't know that panel existed.
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A lot of the people don't seem to know about those things, and the ones I was around got relatively little attendance (well, there were a dozen or so at the stitch-and-bitch). Heck, *I* would've been at the Avengers room party if I hadn't been assigned to modding one of them.