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For those of you who were watching science fiction closely, this year's World Science Fiction convention (Worldcon 76 in San Jose) had a programming meltdown. Hugo winners and nominees weren't on the program while relatively obscure folks were all over it. Now, speaking as a truly obscure person who got on programming at two Worldcons, I'm eternally grateful for what I got. However, people (including Yours Truly) come to these things to see People They Know and People They Want to Know. (The later are "people we nominated for an award.")
Granted, there is no way everybody who wants to be on programming can be. There's simply not enough time. Having said that, I would have been upset if my being on programming locked out some of these folks. Fortunately, the powers that be at Worldcon have recognized the errors of their ways and are trying to fix it.
Since I'm not attending, I can perhaps be a bit more philosophical about this, but the downside of the way we do Worldcons is that we'll always have some kind of malfunction like this. Simply put, creating a new committee from scratch for a new venue means there's some lack of institutional learning. We literally are re-inventing the wheel every year. This isn't a justification for the current snafu, merely an explanation.
Granted, there is no way everybody who wants to be on programming can be. There's simply not enough time. Having said that, I would have been upset if my being on programming locked out some of these folks. Fortunately, the powers that be at Worldcon have recognized the errors of their ways and are trying to fix it.
Since I'm not attending, I can perhaps be a bit more philosophical about this, but the downside of the way we do Worldcons is that we'll always have some kind of malfunction like this. Simply put, creating a new committee from scratch for a new venue means there's some lack of institutional learning. We literally are re-inventing the wheel every year. This isn't a justification for the current snafu, merely an explanation.
