You know me -- I love the panels. I love the feedback. I love participating, and sitting in, and all that stuff...

The thought that someone would walk out of a panel angry at being ignored, that makes me mad.

Thanks for the blow-by-blow. You've got me really looking forward to my next Cons (Fandemonium and Linucon).

--Howard

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I wasn't so much angry at being ignored as I was at the sense that I'd been ignored because of the disagreement the previous day. I understand running short on time, but that didn't feel like all of it.

vakkotaur has come to the conclusion that big cons - be they furry cons like Anthrocon, or SF cons like CONvergence - aren't as much fun because you don't get to spend a lot of time meeting people. I'm coming to agree. Penguicon was a lot of fun for that reason, and I'm sure Linucon will be as well. I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm going to have to get a picture with you while I'm in the TRON costume. I'm going to wear it Saturday for at least part of the day, although it will not be my entry in the masquerade.

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Clarification: Not mad at you. Mad at the panelists. Bozos.

And yeah, we'll get pix together. Who'd'a'thunk you were gonna be a CELEBRITY, that guy sitting in his TRON outfit during my panel. :-)

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Best Phosphorescence; they made an award just for you and your good work, how cool is that? :-D
I've never been to a CON of any sort (woe unto poor, poor me), though they sound interesting. :-)
I'm sorry your experience at this one hasn't been that great, but it's nice to hear it's picking up and you're starting to have a good time after all. :-)
Niven is responsible for you (he's one of my favs!), L'Engle is responsible for me. My first taste of SF at age 7, and I've been a hopeless addict ever since. Yay!

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Frankly, if I had been on the second panel, I would have ignored you too. There are few things worse than someone ruining a lj panel, and well....once bitten, twice shy. If someone who had managed to derail a panel the day before to the point where it had the entire con talking and rolling their eyes, I would never ever call on that person 24 hours later. Not because I would have had anything against that person, but because I'd be afraid for the greater good of the panel and the enjoyment of the other attendees.

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So, was I supposed to sit there and just let the idea that mocking people is an appropriate thing to do on the net go by unchallenged?

The whole thing - not only the events themselves, but the comments from CONvergence insiders - has soured me on that con. I promise you won't have to worry about my ruining any more panels there; I now feel sufficiently unwelcome that I won't be back.

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You can say whatever you want, just like everyone else on this planet.

All I was pointing out is that if it were my panel, I would have had you pegged as a smoking gun and wouldn't have called on you for the good of that panel either. I don't think it was that anyone "had it out" for you -- they simply didn't want to see a repeat and another panel ruined. I certainly would have made the same decision.

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If I was setting out to ruin another panel, would I have stuck my hand in the air and waited patiently to get recognized?

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I don't know you well enough to tell you that, and I don't know you well enough to take the chance, had it been my panel. Fair enough?

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Well, all I can say is that someone who was setting out to ruin a panel would have gone about far differently than I did - either time. That was not my intent Fiday, and I had hoped that we could put it behind ourselves and go on Saturday. I was disappointed, and angry that it didn't work out that way. My illusions of SF fandom took a severe beating because of it.

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Hmm. I guess I don't see it that way. I know a lot of sneaky assholes who would have done exactly that, and you can't tell the sneaks from the nonsneaks.

Perhaps the next time this occurs it would be a good idea to approach the panelists beforehand to clear things up instead of just assuming. Jen was quite taken aback from your vehemence on Friday, and that's where she was left -- feeling attacked and taken aback. There was no correction of that impression from that point onward, and she went into Saturday still feeling that way.

A peace offering might have gone a long way.

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Perhaps...assuming there is a next time, something which I doubt, at least as far as the Cities goes. At this point, I am left with the belief that the fan community in the Cities will never give me another chance, and so I'm not going to waste my time on trying at other cons.

My vehemence comes from the depths of my experiences. I wouldn't wish what happened to me on Slashdot and Fark on anyone. Not even an Internet troll. I truly believe my detractors from the con have no idea what I went through, and aren't interested in hearing about it.

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I do find that very saddening. One of the things I love about CONvergence is its open atmosphere and how friendly it's been to just about every group I've seen. It's one of the reasons I volunteer so heavily for it, and why the July 4th weekend is hands-down my favorite out of the year.

The choice is yours, but I do encourage you to give tc fandom another chance. Yeah, some stuff went down this year, but it's gone down with other people before. Last year an attendee got somethingawfuled a week before the convention and was getting threats online that they were going to come to CONvergence and beat her up. BEAT HER UP. Unacceptable. She is far from my bosom buddy, but that's just wrong, plain and simple. This year, there wasn't even a ripple in the water, and from what I heard she had a good convention, which makes me happy.

Don't let a few people ruin a whole wonderful city's worth of conventions for you. If you don't want to go, that's your choice, but the thought of ANYONE not wanting to go back because of an isolated incident saddens me.

And you did win a Masquerade award. We don't hate you.

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"You never get a second chance to make a good first impression." Yes, I know I made a lousy one. You know what? CONvergence made a lousy one on me, too. At this point, all I have to show for approximately $350 spent (two nights' hotel, two con memberships, and sundry other related expenses) is a nice medal, some nice memories, and some very bad ones. The bad ones came first. I don't mind at all spending money for nice memories. I do mind very much spending it to have a rotten time.

At this point, I'm reasonably certain that raptavio and a few other folks would make sure to belittle, ridicule, and/or ostracize me were I to show my face at another SF event in the Twin Cities. I've got far better things to do with my time and money than subject myself to more of that.

Perhaps it's open and friendly to those who don't piss off the wrong people. I doubt I'll ever get the opportunity to find out.

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I'd like to mention something about blaming the individuals against blaming the convention. Just because you feel one or two people wronged you doesn't mean that whole nameless convention is at fault.

I work very hard on it throughout the year, but I feel blamed under the "CONvergence umbrella" when I had zero interaction with you this weekend. I had anxiety attacks this year and I sacrificed hundreds of hours. I took off paid work hours so I could work on cvg projects. I, like all the other volunteers, do it because I love it.

My brother spends hours and hours serving free espresso in F2E2. The Cinema Rex boys...well gosh. I know you saw their Masquerade entry, and I hope you saw all those couches they've spent their free time rounding up.

I spend about $1k of my own money every year running a big room party. I've pulled countless volunteer shifts. And yet, the convention as a whole gets blamed for your bad experience. People who didn't have a THING to do with you get a finger pointed at them.

I don't get compensated for my time, except in warm fuzzies. Neither does my brother. We do, however, get people once in a while telling us that we "just didn't work hard enough" or that it's somehow our fault for everything and anything that went wrong. It sucks donkey balls.

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I know that a lot of folks put in a lot of hard work putting the con on. I've been there before, in a different field (ham radio). I know it's a thankless job.

My journal, ultimately, is about my experiences. My experience with CONvergence was, for reasons that have been debated to death, not as fun as other folks'. I know that's hard for you and others who have put their heart and soul into the con to hear, but I can't change it now. A little more tolerance - something the SF community is renowned for - would have gone a long way. A little less overreaction on my part would also have gone a long way.

As it stands, however, I look at the workmanship award with bittersweet thoughts. In the final analysis, I expected a fun weekend away from the problems and concerns of my everyday world, and that's not what I got.

I don't hold you responsible for the actions of a panelist, much less my own. I do hold others responsible for their own actions, which is why I am not interested in MarsCon as long as trollboy is in a position of responsibility there.

I also hold no illusions about my position, or lack thereof, in Twin Cities fandom. Saying "it's him or me" will only earn me a "don't let the door hit you on the way out". I'm the outsider. Right now, I'm feeling very definitely the outsider, as much as when we got to the door at the opening ceremonies and bounced. Everyone's too intent on telling me what an asshole I was to give me any sort of feeling that I might be welcomed at some future point. (There are exceptions, yours most specifically noted).

One suggestion I'll make, for what it's worth: The con can be overwhelming to someone who's never been there before. Other groups with large conventions include a session on "how to get the most out of" whatever, scheduled in prime time on the first day. New attendees are encouraged to go to that session, and helped to get the most out of the convention. CONvergence could use something like that, with details like "if you expect to see anything at the Masquerade, get there an hour before the start" and what you think are the highlights of the con not to be missed and ways for new folks to get connected with the community.

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The rest of this has been beaten to death, but I'd like to leave one last comment or two.

1) I don't come close to agreeing with your actions 100%, but nonetheless it does distress me that you feel unwelcome at future cvgs. It's your decision to come back or not at some future year, but I do want to reassure you that from my experience, there will be no black-ball society against you. No one will really care. If you choose to come back, it really will be fine, at least from the whole persecution complex thing. And if anyone does harass you, let us know. We take junk like that very seriously.

2) I'll bring your suggestion of a 'con orientation' up at the next meeting. I think sometimes we forget how large we're getting, and how quickly we're getting there. It might not be a bad idea at all to have a panel, or better yet, something in the program guide.

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It may not have been your intent, but you sure effectively managed it, and thus far entirely unapologetically, going so far as to cling tenaciously to untruths about the panelists to support your view. You extend no olive branch in the intervening time, and expect someone to put it behind her despite that? And are furious when she very understandably is gun-shy?

You're ridiculous. If your illusions of SF fandom involved the fandom revolving around you, or the notion that obnoxious, antisocial, melodramatic, self-involved, disruptive behavior is welcomed, then you deserved those illusions getting the beating they did.

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My illusions of SF fandom had to do with openness and acceptance. I saw none of that Friday night, even before the argument escalated.

I'm well past the point where I expect the world to revolve around me...unlike, apparently, you.

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See? There's another barb of hostility with no grounding in reality. (Well, okay. All stand up comics are attention whores, but still.) All I'm doing is calling a spade a spade - ie you being a socially maladapted instigator. That has nothing to do with self-involvement.

SF fandom has oodles of openness and acceptance. Somehow you managed to make the judgement it didn't within a couple hours of arrival at your first Convergence. What were you expecting? Were you expecting fangirls to hug you at the door? Were you expecting people to see you and go "Look, it's TRON man! You were awesome on Kimmel!" You had to say hi to people, talk, join conversations... use actual social skills.

Scifi fandom is a remarkably wonderful thing. It helped me come out of my shell when I became a part of it some 18 years ago as a teenager. And it's a wonderful thing for the 1500ish people who attend Convergence every year, the 800 people who attend MarsCon, the 90,000 people who'll be attending ComiCon in San Diego... yet you, in a couple hours, judge it to be bereft of these qualities.

How incredibly self-absorbed of you.

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What was I expecting?

Instead of "Mocking is appropriate", I was expecting "People shouldn't do it because there are real people on the other side of the screen, and those who do it are idiots and assholes."

Of course, I don't expect you - someone who brags about mocking and trolling in other communities, and therefore is guilty of far more, for far longer, than anything I have done - to understand that.

Perhaps one day someone will gore your ox, and you'll grok in fullness. Until then, I don't expect any more out of you than the hatred and inconsideration for others that your history shows you are quite good at. You see, I've spoke to the victims of your abuse. You write furries off as irrational perverts, while I know them as friends, even though I do not count myself among their numbers. When it comes right down to it, there's precious little difference between Anthrocon and CONvergence.

Not that I expect you to understand, or even make the attempt.

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See, you make too many assumptions.

A) My ox has been gored on the Net, believe me. Hell, it's been gored on single-line BBSes before there WAS a World Wide Web. When it happens, I suck it up and move on. That's life, and people who aren't brittle understand that someone saying mean things to you doesn't hurt you unless you choose to let it.

B) You're continuing to attack me. By your own hyperbole, you should be shot. By your own non-hyperbole, you should be removed from the Net.

C) I actually have friends in furry fandom, including some to whom I'm very close. The problem isn't that furries are all irrational perverts, the problem is that furry fandom is rife with tolerance for irrational people and they coddle people with emotional dysfunctions (many of which manifest in romantic involvement with animals or stuffed animals, or the idea of being not "truly" human spiritually) rather than encourage them to seek ways to heal their emotional problems. You are a fine example of the end result. Many in the fandom like my point of view - that furry fandom and SF fandom should not be places where fucked up people should be enabled to continue being fucked up. So though I would never call myself a furry, I do polarize people in the furry community by my contact with them. And that's fine.

D) You've said as bad about Michael Moore as I've said about you, and with about equal justification. Again, your hypocrisy shines.

E) I've hated precisely one person in my adult life. He's dead now, died of old age. He was an abuser, a molester, and I'm lucky I met him as an adult lest I have been one of his victims. You, like so many furries, confuse apathy with hatred. Oh, yes, I'm quite inconsiderate, mostly because I don't enable. I don't enable furries who use furry fandom as a crutch to not address their destructive social and emotional dysfunctions.

F) Mocking and trolling are, for the most part, quite harmless. Often they teach lessons. My favorite troll executed in a Wiccan newsgroup brought the anti-Christian hatred in the group to light, and showed them something they didn't like about themselves, that some chose to change. Having been on the ass end of many a flame myself (one cannot openly be a troll and not receive a ration of shit back.), I can tell you from experience that the only way one can be hurt by it is if one allows oneself to be hurt. Some people seek the victim status, crave it, want to be drama whores. You can usually identify them by either extremely excessive and public self-pitying or extremely excessive whining about being an innocent victim despite how obviously they instigated or perpetuated the conflict.

Many, many furries hate me however. If I had a dollar for every threat of violence and ten for every death threat I've received from furries, some of whom I've never spoken to online or off, I could put a down payment on a nice house.

See, that's another example of what's wrong with you. You assume I never had to deal with being on the receiving end of INTARWEB H8. Anyone threatened to kill you yet? Or your children? I've had both happen to me. And you know why you made that assumption? Because you cannot conceive of someone who had to deal with that shit and not agree with you. You cannot fathom someone with the same data as you reaching a different conclusion. It's another example of your social maladaption and your essential self-absorption.

And you think I'm telling you that because I hate you and I'm inconsiderate. Au contraire. I'm telling you in the hopes you'll wake up and make a change in your life for the better.

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I'm not going to spend the time it would take to refute your argument point-by-point. You're not worth it. However, I will say that mockers and trolls are nearly as destructive on the net as spammers: they destroy meaningful communication by being deliberately hurtful. You may think you're not hurting anyone who doesn't allow themselves to be hurt, but you're flat-out wrong.

I didn't do anything to rate the treatment I got from the Slashdot and Fark denizens. I shared my work, and got a huge ration of grief for it. Yes, I am a victim of that, and nothing you can say will change that.

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And you know what, you can believe that. Hell, your only crime was being too dumb to know what the result of posting your cameltoe self would be.

This does not in any way justify your behavior at the panel, your rage at the Saturday morning panel, or your aggressive attacks on the panelists in your LJ. and you have thus far failed to admit any wrongdoing other than letting an offhand remark at the LJ panel get to you as much as it did.

I'll even give you a miss for your repeated attacks upon me, after all, I'm being pretty confrontational with you too. I wonder if you consider yourself my victim... hmm!

As for your position about mockers and trolls... eh. Intelligent people have the right to disagree. They just shouldn't disrupt entire panels in so doing.

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I've already said that I let the comments at the panel get to me more than I should have. As for feeling rage at Saturday morning, I'm not going to apologize for it. I was ready to put Friday night behind me, but apparently nobody else was. (Yes, I should have made the attempt at a peace offering. I have no clue as to whether or not it would have been accepted. I didn't know that same moderator was on the Saturday morning panel until I walked in, shortly after the panel started - which I think even you will admit was not the time to be pulling her aside for a peace offering.)

What you term attacks on the panelists in my LJ was no such thing. I specifically did not mention anyone's name because I did not wish to attack them, only what went on. There's a difference.

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I disagree with you on that. Everyone who was at the panel and many who weren't knew exactly who you were referring to. This is a small fandom, and we know each other.

I also disagree with you about the rage thing. It was, as you admit it was on Friday, very inappropriate. Being ignored on Saturday was an entirely appropriate consequence for your actions on Friday, and you should accept that.

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Everyone who was at the panel and many who weren't knew exactly who you were referring to. This is a small fandom, and we know each other.
And how am I, a newcomer, supposed to know that? 2000 people at a con is, to me, a large crowd, not a small fandom.

If you feel that being ignored was an appropriate consequence for my actions on Friday, then you've confirmed that I have no need to appear at any further Twin Cities cons...for, by that standard, there's no reason to expect that I will ever not be ignored.

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There again you are wrong. Peace offerings and apologies are very routinely accepted in the fandom. But they must be made to be accepted.

I expect you'll withdraw anyway, that seems to be your way. You seem to have a long history of entering a fandom and quickly leaving. I wonder if you'll ever question that the problem lies with you, and not all those fandoms.

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Oh, I do have a long history, eh? For someone who only ever heard of me a week ago, you know one hell of a lot about me.

...and what you claim to know is wrong. No, I don't have a long history of backing out of fandoms. Just ask the folks who I had dinner with last night about that. They flew and drove up from Texas, and I drove up from Fairmont, to have dinner together. (Not solely, in their case, but we did make an effort to get together.) We've all known each other for more than 25 years, and have worked together in several related areas in that time. The same goes for more than a few other things I've been involved with.

In fact, I went to CONvergence fully expecting to find yet another group to spend too much time with. I was sadly disappointed. At this point, any group with which you are as closely associated as Twin Cities SF fandom appears to be is a group I want nothing to do with.

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Oh, and I forgot, I'm really, really not surprised you wouldn't go after my argument point by point. To acknowledge some of it would be to admit error on your part, and you just couldn't bring yourself to do that now could you.

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I've got better things to do with my time than spend an hour hand-crafting a reply to a troll.

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Gosh, and I did that in 20 minutes.

I see you pigeonholed me as nothing more a troll. It's nice to do that to people who say things you don't like, because that way you don't have to consider if what they're saying has any truth to it.

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By definition, a troll's arguments are not connected to what he believes. If you don't believe what you're saying, why should I take it seriously? How do I know you're not simply trolling me now?

I didn't pigeonhole you as nothing more than a troll. You did it yourself, by not only admitting it, but bragging about it.

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Sure I'm a troll. But I'm also a father, a comic, a computer geek, a scifi fan.

I'm not telling you what I don't believe. I'm more approaching this from the perspective that I'll tell you the unvarnished truth and you'll remain impervious to it.

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The unvarnished truth as you perceive it. As you have no doubt realized, I disagree with it.

I only hope you're not raising your kids to think that mocking and trolling is acceptable...for if you are, you're merely inflicting your damage on the next generation.

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I'm raising my children to be honest people, to tell the truth, rather than to lie and accept crap from others.

I'm also trying to teach them appropriate ways to deal with conflict so that they don't end up like you.

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Since you appear to believe trolling and mocking are appropriate ways to deal with conflict, I fear you are, indeed, inflicting your philosophy indirectly on future generations, and I'm sorry for your kids and those who they will victimize.

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Now, I wasn't there, but I know Jay moderately. I'm having trouble envisioning him doing something that would kill a panel.

Your presentation I find a bit off-putting. There are at least two sides to every issue. It almost sounds as if you didn't like hearing the other side. Add in that "Greater good" talk and frankly, it sounds at this end like a panel I'd like to miss.

It does happen. I recall a panel about "What to do with a time machine" that turned into an instant Bush and Christianity bashing panel. As I didn't vote for Bush and am not a Christian, I didn't have a dog in the fight, but I did have friends in the audience who are both, and they certainly felt offended.

Of course, I got the expected silence and completely ignored when I pointed out what everyone rational knows--the first use of a time machine should be to go back to 1932 and shoot that ratf@#k son of a bitch FDR.

And if in LJ, one should be prepared to dish it out and take it, I would assume panels are the same way...right?

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Way to drudge up old drama. Not interested, sorry.

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Of course not. You'd have to present a logical case to do so.

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