![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Windycon Part 1 - Programming
Nov. 13th, 2006 04:35 pmAs promised, here’s the first of a series of posts on Windycon. I’m going to lead off with what I think is the most controversial of the series, my Sunday panel, “The Apocalypse Will Be Blogged.” Click here for a link to the list of scheduled attendees. Tobias Bucknell, professional blogger, was a late addition. I should warn you, this is a long post.
Windycon has a “tradition” (at least the last few years) of not formally designating a moderator for panels. So, the unwritten rule is “whoever sits in the middle” gets to be moderator. For this panel, that was Neil Rest. He’s a long-time computer type, but not a blogger. Leah Zeldes was also on the panel, and sat to his immediate left.
This panel very quickly got off to a bad start by getting into political blogging. About ten minutes in, we took a question from a guy wearing a T-shirt from a right-wing blog (my fault, actually) and he used the opportunity to flame a left-wing academic. This prompted one audience member to storm out, and really put us in a downhill spiral.
As near as I can tell, the panelists fell into one of three camps. (Any inaccuracies in this are my fault, and I apologize in advance.) Neil and Leah were generally against blogging. Both seemed to dislike the lack of editing, and felt that the anonymity of the Internet hurt credibility and ruined the sense of community. Leah went further, feeling that blogging “destroyed the very idea of getting paid for your writing.” (Our pro blogger Tobias felt that was ridiculous.) She felt that Craigslist and other venues would destroy the newspapers in our lifetimes.
Both Neil and Leah had issues with fanzines moving to the Internet. For some reason (I wasn’t able to ask why) Leah felt that without the hard work of physically printing something, editing would suffer. Personally, since most fanzines are now PDF downloads, I think all that the Internet has done is take the most time-consuming and expensive part of the fanzine equation out of play. I noted that Neil seemed upset that “anybody could see a fanzine” if they went to the Internet. Personally, I think that’s a benefit.
The other extreme was represented by Eric Coleman. He acknowledged that blogging was a way to put out opinions, not necessarily facts, but felt that unlimited expression was a good thing. I think he was trying to put a bit of a light spin on things, but the attempt (while noble) failed. Again, I apologize if I’m misquoting, and I hope Eric will correct me in his blog if I got this wrong.
I am somewhere in the middle. I think Tobias and Jim Hines agree with my view, but I should say Jim in particular had trouble getting a word in edgewise. Jim’s not that forceful a guy, and Neil didn’t (to me) do a good job of giving everybody an equal shot at the podium. At any rate, Jim and Tobias have their own blogs, so if I misquote them, I am sorry and hope they correct me.
Blogging is a tool, just like a hammer. It’s neither good nor bad. (You can use a hammer to build a house or break into one.) But there are three characteristics of this tool that are important to consider.
1) Blogging is inherently destabilizing. It’s like the printing press. When Gutenberg first cranked up his invention, all sorts of authority figures were upset. More modern communication inventions, like television, were de-facto stabilizing, since they re-concentrated information. This is neither go nor bad. Most of our modern freedoms resulted from this decentralization, but you can draw a direct line from Gutenberg to the Thirty Years War.
2) Blogging is not monolithic. There are left-, right- and center-wing bloggers, and all sorts of non-political bloggers as well.
3) Blogging can lead to an echo chamber effect. If all you read are people who agree with you, then it becomes easy to characterize those who disagree as fools, idiots or evil. Jim Hines especially made this point.
This was by far the most contentious panel I was on, and one of the most contentious I’ve ever seen. My next posts will be on the Writer’s Workshop (helpful as always) and after-hours activities.
Windycon has a “tradition” (at least the last few years) of not formally designating a moderator for panels. So, the unwritten rule is “whoever sits in the middle” gets to be moderator. For this panel, that was Neil Rest. He’s a long-time computer type, but not a blogger. Leah Zeldes was also on the panel, and sat to his immediate left.
This panel very quickly got off to a bad start by getting into political blogging. About ten minutes in, we took a question from a guy wearing a T-shirt from a right-wing blog (my fault, actually) and he used the opportunity to flame a left-wing academic. This prompted one audience member to storm out, and really put us in a downhill spiral.
As near as I can tell, the panelists fell into one of three camps. (Any inaccuracies in this are my fault, and I apologize in advance.) Neil and Leah were generally against blogging. Both seemed to dislike the lack of editing, and felt that the anonymity of the Internet hurt credibility and ruined the sense of community. Leah went further, feeling that blogging “destroyed the very idea of getting paid for your writing.” (Our pro blogger Tobias felt that was ridiculous.) She felt that Craigslist and other venues would destroy the newspapers in our lifetimes.
Both Neil and Leah had issues with fanzines moving to the Internet. For some reason (I wasn’t able to ask why) Leah felt that without the hard work of physically printing something, editing would suffer. Personally, since most fanzines are now PDF downloads, I think all that the Internet has done is take the most time-consuming and expensive part of the fanzine equation out of play. I noted that Neil seemed upset that “anybody could see a fanzine” if they went to the Internet. Personally, I think that’s a benefit.
The other extreme was represented by Eric Coleman. He acknowledged that blogging was a way to put out opinions, not necessarily facts, but felt that unlimited expression was a good thing. I think he was trying to put a bit of a light spin on things, but the attempt (while noble) failed. Again, I apologize if I’m misquoting, and I hope Eric will correct me in his blog if I got this wrong.
I am somewhere in the middle. I think Tobias and Jim Hines agree with my view, but I should say Jim in particular had trouble getting a word in edgewise. Jim’s not that forceful a guy, and Neil didn’t (to me) do a good job of giving everybody an equal shot at the podium. At any rate, Jim and Tobias have their own blogs, so if I misquote them, I am sorry and hope they correct me.
Blogging is a tool, just like a hammer. It’s neither good nor bad. (You can use a hammer to build a house or break into one.) But there are three characteristics of this tool that are important to consider.
1) Blogging is inherently destabilizing. It’s like the printing press. When Gutenberg first cranked up his invention, all sorts of authority figures were upset. More modern communication inventions, like television, were de-facto stabilizing, since they re-concentrated information. This is neither go nor bad. Most of our modern freedoms resulted from this decentralization, but you can draw a direct line from Gutenberg to the Thirty Years War.
2) Blogging is not monolithic. There are left-, right- and center-wing bloggers, and all sorts of non-political bloggers as well.
3) Blogging can lead to an echo chamber effect. If all you read are people who agree with you, then it becomes easy to characterize those who disagree as fools, idiots or evil. Jim Hines especially made this point.
This was by far the most contentious panel I was on, and one of the most contentious I’ve ever seen. My next posts will be on the Writer’s Workshop (helpful as always) and after-hours activities.
