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Potlatch, Saturday - Scalzi Rule panel
src's notes are much funnier.
(I missed the beginning of panel)
(I'm sorry I don't always catch people's names)
Panelists can answer or respond to a statement as well as a question
"Any problem can be solved given a large enough plastic bag" - Tom Stoppard
Bald dude - I am a teacher and that can happen... a good moderator can deal with that. I fin it funny that a proclaimed libertarian can promote something so tyrannical. It
Dude with brown hair - in defense of the Scalzi rule I think that the spirit rather than the letter is to keep audience members from grandstanding. Scalzi is one of the more successful authors in the genre right now and when he's on a panel there's 200 people in the room. this room right here is already pushing the limit of how many people can have a meaningful conversation. so his rule is based o the sheer size of the room and it's not effective, it would be chaos, you can't carry a line of conversaion with that may people in the room. The larger the group is the more relevant the rule.
Bill - the thing that cause the SR to resonate with me was the That Guy problem. Damian Conway perl programmer. It's a problem we have in fandom we have That Guy. The person who will get up and make those long winded statements and then people who might have spoken up don't. panel organizers can't teach someone mindfulness. but we need that. Jeeez we're in this room full of people who are somewhat ill socialized and I'm just sick of it and I'm going to smack you down
Woman with long white hair - that's not very mindful and compassionate!
Bill: no it's not mindful and compassionate but you can't just raise your hand every 5 seconds
Debbie: I have answers to that but I'm not going to give them.
Woman with long white hair: (something I missed)
Debbie - we're going to pass out handouts afterwards with the history
Dude with black hair and glasses - Scalzi's a blogger, he can say whatever he wants on his blog space. he'll try to listen if you say whatever you want but he can stop you if you go into idiocy. If a simple topic goes viral and nasty and then he gets to go, "what's wrong with you people?" This rule is an extension of that. He has 40,000 readers a day. if he's on the stage he gets the stage. He gets to control it and we should respect that.
Debbie - so you're saying it's an extension of an internet culture into a live space. Or some corner of internet culture.
Woman in purple shirt - I didn't come in to this with a strong opinion. The people who say we're not on the right track, we're not addressing the right problem. In the spirit of brainstorming. when a panel is listed in the convention program, have an explicit something that says this is a panel where the panelists ahve control vs. This is a panel that invites wide disucssion. Another problem for That Guy problem, institute a custom, that if a person starts to grandstand, if 3 people in the audience stand up, the speaker has to sit down.
*everyone laughs and goes woooo*
Trob: I tried to articulate why sf was part of my life, what appealed to me about it. counter to so much of commercialized culture, it broke down the power between author and audience, it took that apart. when I saw that it was appropriate for some contexts rather than other, maybe big cons vs. small cons. maybe for cons produced as a commercial enterprise, it is appropriate but for fan run cons it is not.
Leeanne - people who are experts. well the problem is people who THINK tey are experts and they wish to be on the panel but maybe they weren't because they are not experts . then they respond inappropriately. The social consiousness of knowing when to sit down and shut up is lost on some people. So it's a way to take it out of the realm of social conscience that is beyond some of fandom and make it a simple rule. I also think it's a problem at big and small cons alike.
Debbie" I'm going to call on 3 people and then say something.
Lisa: the person in aud with chip on shoulder or can't sut up. moderator should say at beginning, we want to hear from more people maximum amt of peope here. That means it will not be strange for them to interrupt a person Strong moderator should be willing to cut someone off. With 3 people standing up, I see conspiracies to shut someone up, it's going a direction , I want people with unpopular opinions to be able to talk without being shut up by a rule like that.
Jeanne. my feeling about panelist has to do with are they prepared vs. are they experts. If a panelists are prepared they should get a chance to show us their work. that respect is cahllenged by people in the audience but also sometimes by people on the panel. WisCon we have a panel on making peace, plots about peace rather than war. laurie marks. the moderator obviously hadn't read her books. and laurie being very polite waiting for her chance to speak, the moderator opened up the discussion to the audience before she had a chance to speak. this panel was aimed at laurie, she's not even getting a chance to talk. So as a staff member I was commenting this person should not be allowed to be a moderator ever again. But the audience feedback was great and said best moderator ever because they opened up the discussison to the audience. the moderator should protect the panelists who in theory have prepared. If the scalzi rule supports repsecting the panelists then use it.
Alan b. Respons to bperson who has left room who said you can't have a reasonable conversation with a large amount of people This is not true. I have participated in intense challenging difficult conversations with 700 pople or more. It takes intense faciliation but it can be done. I'm dead set against the Scalzi rule . I don't like the 4th wall . The panle has prepared AND we respect them AND we also get to talk.
Neil. The rule is over general. There are a lot of different ways of doing a panel. The rule applies well to one end of the spectrum. (Long anecdote, I spaced out)
Debbie: To Leanne: I don't think even me and my three closest friends can agree on when that point is when there is a social nuance to shut up and sit down. We need to be aware there is not consensus on when that point is.
Leanne: So some of the panel I've done lately have been on how to be a good audience panel.
Debbie: Mary Kay is online with John Scalzi during this panel. *everyone cracks up*
Mary Kay: He wanted to know what the heck the Scalzi Rule was. Then he said that (statement that I missed...)
Someone: Could you ask him to rephrase that as a question?
Lenny: if you have someone who is a known expert or author who almost never appears then maybe. But I would be opposed to the idea that we purchased tickets to hear the holy experts instead of participating. The idea of the rule might be just to spark conversation and get people conscious of social interaction.
Lise E: I've been a moderator and I've been that guy though never at the same time I can all by myself be 6 people going oo ooo I have an idea. I keep accumulating comments over time. The benefit of having to wait while people are called is that there are many people who are just as briliant as you. Amazing Magazine has a letter column and the fans cut the magazine out of the equatin and started just talking directly to each other. we're here to talk to one another. that said some panels do't even take participation. In a real world non fannish example, if you listen to NPR but are not new yorkers, On the Mdiea syndicated. In NY it was entirely different show. It was a 2 hour live phone in show that talked about news topics. The people who called in and talked were worldwide active journalists who said yeah when I was
Liz Maybe someone said this in the beginning which I missed. It is a gatekeeping mechanism that favors people who have good control of rhetoric. They can still grandstand while asking a question if they have rhetorical skill.
Debbie: We did pretty much talk about it but not quite phrased that way, thanks.
Woman with short red hair: professional conferences, stick mic in middle of room, people get up and go to middle of room and they're timed. That's one way to hear from lots when ther'es 500 people in the room. I haven't seen a class for moderators. To practice moderator skills. truly cut them off eloquently.
Alan: There are different panels for different purposes. If I want to listen to an author reading their works, or there are times when an author comes out and things are set up as an interview. That limits audience participation, but the person who is the subject of the panel gets center stage but there can be some aud participation
Fred - To extend on previous comments. If you think of business meetings they often have a facilitator. These are trained people. That analogy can work for a panel if you have a moderator who is not part of the discussion but is only there to facilitate. If there were a process to identify people who were truly good at that... To have moderators who are not panelists at the same time.
Strata - 45 minutes of bullet points. condensed riff. I have done extensive convention work in IT. how many people here are IT (over half the room raises hands and laughs) What are tools that can be used to create and maintina a cinsciously ... convention space? facilited a panel eric someone, russell qmail, sendmail, and (guy who wrote postfix). Of the 1300 people in the room, half had come to see a jello wrestling cage match, a third were there to get information about each kind of architecture. There is a meta information conversation about types of panel to have here.
red shirt - watch good moderators. debbie, or laurie edison or suzette haden elgin teaches you a lot. my moderating style is not completely like your moderating style. but it is informed by it)
woman with white hair: programming committee has a responsibility to the moderators, if you design a program item to showcase a particular person, tell the moderator, don't expect them to figure it out. Including written instructions. 3% of pepe will read them.... The other thing we did that seemed to work really well, we didn't attempt to use every room all the time. so the moderators could choose to end the program after 15 min or continue it.
Kate: harking back to jeanne's anecdone about laurie marks. woudl it work, is it a complete breach of all fannish social ettiquette. to jump in and say there's a panelist we haven't heard from. We as audienc members need to take some responsiblity for heping an inadquate moderator
Alan - I'm a trained facilitator. (Lots of stuff but I missed it) Yes.
Liz: Yes we should jump in. But my point is, do your homework on the panelists, look them up, know their areas of expertist, you are like an interviewer to draw them out, draw out the best in them. You also can ask some questions, show of hands, from audience, get an idea of who you're speaking to, what might bring out the best from them.
Debbie: laurie marks taught me, ask the audience a question first to be thinking about, then it frames the way they might start talking later on.
Mary kay: I just twittered to myself
Brad: you twitter yourself?!
Debbie: that's a whole other panel
Lenny: That's a whole other question what does the panel hoep to accomplish. one of the puprposes of this conference, separate truth from myth, it is possible for a large group to have good conversation. if you are a con runner, consider it is maybe possible for a large group.
Lee: the panel isn't a pop quiz on the moderator, multiple reduncancy is good. tell the moderator of someone's an expert.
Gayle - panel prep. audience also. setting audience expectation, some people who set up programming for certain cons, encourage the panelists to get together by email and discuss the topic and sort of come to a consensus, this can help the moderator to prepare the audience to know what to expect the panel to be about.
Richard D: Struck by laurie's statement about learning from other moderators. my experience with the greens. watching 700 people in a room talk with great facilitation. poeple learn how to participate in large groups or small greoups. This is a social experiment for all of us. people who are beyond the pale are people who have not learned yet or who are resistant to learning. But there are real skills to facilitation and they are reified skills for social conversations. Scalzi rule looks to set up a paprticular evnriontment, we prefer another form of society, IT or fannish. To do that we have to prepare by training ourselves, or our fellows.
Laurie: if they are willing to be trained.
Richard: this goes back to hunting groups - and some of those solutions are hammers to the head.
Debbie: Anyone who is shy to speak and hasn't spoken, and then we're done
Brad: I'm so shy. Boy, is programming sometimes suckily done. Panelists who wonder why they're on the panel. I've been a moderator at Worldcon. Good to open things up to audience by saying, "Are there any long polemics phrased and disguised as a question?" This warns the audience not to do it. Kathreine suggests egg timer is good.
Lise E.: Then hand out eggs. (everyone laughs)
Katherine: I am Kathrine and I am shy. I knew I would have someone in audience who was strongly opinionated and it felt rude to tell them but I had to, you have to wait 6 other people to talk before you ask a new question. And that worked out really well. (Gotta say it, Brad interrupted Katherine at least 4 times while she said this. LOL Brad!)
Michele: Contrary to my behavior in this panel I tend to be very verbal. I tend to have a lot of questions. you guys saved me from having to do that by asking them all for me. It took me a long time to learn in regular life that you dnot have to always jump in. wait a little hwile before you jump in and ansewr. because someone else might have that same answer, give it more time. In my teens and 20s that was information I needed.
(I missed the beginning of panel)
(I'm sorry I don't always catch people's names)
Panelists can answer or respond to a statement as well as a question
"Any problem can be solved given a large enough plastic bag" - Tom Stoppard
Bald dude - I am a teacher and that can happen... a good moderator can deal with that. I fin it funny that a proclaimed libertarian can promote something so tyrannical. It
Dude with brown hair - in defense of the Scalzi rule I think that the spirit rather than the letter is to keep audience members from grandstanding. Scalzi is one of the more successful authors in the genre right now and when he's on a panel there's 200 people in the room. this room right here is already pushing the limit of how many people can have a meaningful conversation. so his rule is based o the sheer size of the room and it's not effective, it would be chaos, you can't carry a line of conversaion with that may people in the room. The larger the group is the more relevant the rule.
Bill - the thing that cause the SR to resonate with me was the That Guy problem. Damian Conway perl programmer. It's a problem we have in fandom we have That Guy. The person who will get up and make those long winded statements and then people who might have spoken up don't. panel organizers can't teach someone mindfulness. but we need that. Jeeez we're in this room full of people who are somewhat ill socialized and I'm just sick of it and I'm going to smack you down
Woman with long white hair - that's not very mindful and compassionate!
Bill: no it's not mindful and compassionate but you can't just raise your hand every 5 seconds
Debbie: I have answers to that but I'm not going to give them.
Woman with long white hair: (something I missed)
Debbie - we're going to pass out handouts afterwards with the history
Dude with black hair and glasses - Scalzi's a blogger, he can say whatever he wants on his blog space. he'll try to listen if you say whatever you want but he can stop you if you go into idiocy. If a simple topic goes viral and nasty and then he gets to go, "what's wrong with you people?" This rule is an extension of that. He has 40,000 readers a day. if he's on the stage he gets the stage. He gets to control it and we should respect that.
Debbie - so you're saying it's an extension of an internet culture into a live space. Or some corner of internet culture.
Woman in purple shirt - I didn't come in to this with a strong opinion. The people who say we're not on the right track, we're not addressing the right problem. In the spirit of brainstorming. when a panel is listed in the convention program, have an explicit something that says this is a panel where the panelists ahve control vs. This is a panel that invites wide disucssion. Another problem for That Guy problem, institute a custom, that if a person starts to grandstand, if 3 people in the audience stand up, the speaker has to sit down.
*everyone laughs and goes woooo*
Trob: I tried to articulate why sf was part of my life, what appealed to me about it. counter to so much of commercialized culture, it broke down the power between author and audience, it took that apart. when I saw that it was appropriate for some contexts rather than other, maybe big cons vs. small cons. maybe for cons produced as a commercial enterprise, it is appropriate but for fan run cons it is not.
Leeanne - people who are experts. well the problem is people who THINK tey are experts and they wish to be on the panel but maybe they weren't because they are not experts . then they respond inappropriately. The social consiousness of knowing when to sit down and shut up is lost on some people. So it's a way to take it out of the realm of social conscience that is beyond some of fandom and make it a simple rule. I also think it's a problem at big and small cons alike.
Debbie" I'm going to call on 3 people and then say something.
Lisa: the person in aud with chip on shoulder or can't sut up. moderator should say at beginning, we want to hear from more people maximum amt of peope here. That means it will not be strange for them to interrupt a person Strong moderator should be willing to cut someone off. With 3 people standing up, I see conspiracies to shut someone up, it's going a direction , I want people with unpopular opinions to be able to talk without being shut up by a rule like that.
Jeanne. my feeling about panelist has to do with are they prepared vs. are they experts. If a panelists are prepared they should get a chance to show us their work. that respect is cahllenged by people in the audience but also sometimes by people on the panel. WisCon we have a panel on making peace, plots about peace rather than war. laurie marks. the moderator obviously hadn't read her books. and laurie being very polite waiting for her chance to speak, the moderator opened up the discussion to the audience before she had a chance to speak. this panel was aimed at laurie, she's not even getting a chance to talk. So as a staff member I was commenting this person should not be allowed to be a moderator ever again. But the audience feedback was great and said best moderator ever because they opened up the discussison to the audience. the moderator should protect the panelists who in theory have prepared. If the scalzi rule supports repsecting the panelists then use it.
Alan b. Respons to bperson who has left room who said you can't have a reasonable conversation with a large amount of people This is not true. I have participated in intense challenging difficult conversations with 700 pople or more. It takes intense faciliation but it can be done. I'm dead set against the Scalzi rule . I don't like the 4th wall . The panle has prepared AND we respect them AND we also get to talk.
Neil. The rule is over general. There are a lot of different ways of doing a panel. The rule applies well to one end of the spectrum. (Long anecdote, I spaced out)
Debbie: To Leanne: I don't think even me and my three closest friends can agree on when that point is when there is a social nuance to shut up and sit down. We need to be aware there is not consensus on when that point is.
Leanne: So some of the panel I've done lately have been on how to be a good audience panel.
Debbie: Mary Kay is online with John Scalzi during this panel. *everyone cracks up*
Mary Kay: He wanted to know what the heck the Scalzi Rule was. Then he said that (statement that I missed...)
Someone: Could you ask him to rephrase that as a question?
Lenny: if you have someone who is a known expert or author who almost never appears then maybe. But I would be opposed to the idea that we purchased tickets to hear the holy experts instead of participating. The idea of the rule might be just to spark conversation and get people conscious of social interaction.
Lise E: I've been a moderator and I've been that guy though never at the same time I can all by myself be 6 people going oo ooo I have an idea. I keep accumulating comments over time. The benefit of having to wait while people are called is that there are many people who are just as briliant as you. Amazing Magazine has a letter column and the fans cut the magazine out of the equatin and started just talking directly to each other. we're here to talk to one another. that said some panels do't even take participation. In a real world non fannish example, if you listen to NPR but are not new yorkers, On the Mdiea syndicated. In NY it was entirely different show. It was a 2 hour live phone in show that talked about news topics. The people who called in and talked were worldwide active journalists who said yeah when I was
Liz Maybe someone said this in the beginning which I missed. It is a gatekeeping mechanism that favors people who have good control of rhetoric. They can still grandstand while asking a question if they have rhetorical skill.
Debbie: We did pretty much talk about it but not quite phrased that way, thanks.
Woman with short red hair: professional conferences, stick mic in middle of room, people get up and go to middle of room and they're timed. That's one way to hear from lots when ther'es 500 people in the room. I haven't seen a class for moderators. To practice moderator skills. truly cut them off eloquently.
Alan: There are different panels for different purposes. If I want to listen to an author reading their works, or there are times when an author comes out and things are set up as an interview. That limits audience participation, but the person who is the subject of the panel gets center stage but there can be some aud participation
Fred - To extend on previous comments. If you think of business meetings they often have a facilitator. These are trained people. That analogy can work for a panel if you have a moderator who is not part of the discussion but is only there to facilitate. If there were a process to identify people who were truly good at that... To have moderators who are not panelists at the same time.
Strata - 45 minutes of bullet points. condensed riff. I have done extensive convention work in IT. how many people here are IT (over half the room raises hands and laughs) What are tools that can be used to create and maintina a cinsciously ... convention space? facilited a panel eric someone, russell qmail, sendmail, and (guy who wrote postfix). Of the 1300 people in the room, half had come to see a jello wrestling cage match, a third were there to get information about each kind of architecture. There is a meta information conversation about types of panel to have here.
red shirt - watch good moderators. debbie, or laurie edison or suzette haden elgin teaches you a lot. my moderating style is not completely like your moderating style. but it is informed by it)
woman with white hair: programming committee has a responsibility to the moderators, if you design a program item to showcase a particular person, tell the moderator, don't expect them to figure it out. Including written instructions. 3% of pepe will read them.... The other thing we did that seemed to work really well, we didn't attempt to use every room all the time. so the moderators could choose to end the program after 15 min or continue it.
Kate: harking back to jeanne's anecdone about laurie marks. woudl it work, is it a complete breach of all fannish social ettiquette. to jump in and say there's a panelist we haven't heard from. We as audienc members need to take some responsiblity for heping an inadquate moderator
Alan - I'm a trained facilitator. (Lots of stuff but I missed it) Yes.
Liz: Yes we should jump in. But my point is, do your homework on the panelists, look them up, know their areas of expertist, you are like an interviewer to draw them out, draw out the best in them. You also can ask some questions, show of hands, from audience, get an idea of who you're speaking to, what might bring out the best from them.
Debbie: laurie marks taught me, ask the audience a question first to be thinking about, then it frames the way they might start talking later on.
Mary kay: I just twittered to myself
Brad: you twitter yourself?!
Debbie: that's a whole other panel
Lenny: That's a whole other question what does the panel hoep to accomplish. one of the puprposes of this conference, separate truth from myth, it is possible for a large group to have good conversation. if you are a con runner, consider it is maybe possible for a large group.
Lee: the panel isn't a pop quiz on the moderator, multiple reduncancy is good. tell the moderator of someone's an expert.
Gayle - panel prep. audience also. setting audience expectation, some people who set up programming for certain cons, encourage the panelists to get together by email and discuss the topic and sort of come to a consensus, this can help the moderator to prepare the audience to know what to expect the panel to be about.
Richard D: Struck by laurie's statement about learning from other moderators. my experience with the greens. watching 700 people in a room talk with great facilitation. poeple learn how to participate in large groups or small greoups. This is a social experiment for all of us. people who are beyond the pale are people who have not learned yet or who are resistant to learning. But there are real skills to facilitation and they are reified skills for social conversations. Scalzi rule looks to set up a paprticular evnriontment, we prefer another form of society, IT or fannish. To do that we have to prepare by training ourselves, or our fellows.
Laurie: if they are willing to be trained.
Richard: this goes back to hunting groups - and some of those solutions are hammers to the head.
Debbie: Anyone who is shy to speak and hasn't spoken, and then we're done
Brad: I'm so shy. Boy, is programming sometimes suckily done. Panelists who wonder why they're on the panel. I've been a moderator at Worldcon. Good to open things up to audience by saying, "Are there any long polemics phrased and disguised as a question?" This warns the audience not to do it. Kathreine suggests egg timer is good.
Lise E.: Then hand out eggs. (everyone laughs)
Katherine: I am Kathrine and I am shy. I knew I would have someone in audience who was strongly opinionated and it felt rude to tell them but I had to, you have to wait 6 other people to talk before you ask a new question. And that worked out really well. (Gotta say it, Brad interrupted Katherine at least 4 times while she said this. LOL Brad!)
Michele: Contrary to my behavior in this panel I tend to be very verbal. I tend to have a lot of questions. you guys saved me from having to do that by asking them all for me. It took me a long time to learn in regular life that you dnot have to always jump in. wait a little hwile before you jump in and ansewr. because someone else might have that same answer, give it more time. In my teens and 20s that was information I needed.
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Yoruba did not come to the U.S. in any significant numbers at all. I can go into the historical reasons for this for an entire book length, but I'll leave it at this: the U.S. abolished the Atlantic slave trade in 1808 as protectionism for the U.S. interstate slave trade because untrained fresh slaves were so much cheaper than native born slaves -- and there was this enormous territory of the Lousisiana Purchase -- made by Jefferson, who made all his cash from selling into the interstate slave trade -- that had come open for vast agricultural enterprise. The Yoruba people were not on the market as slaves until the fall of the Oyó Kingdom at the end of the 18th Century. The Yoruba went to CUBA, which had not had a sugar industry until relatively late in the 18th century, and to the Bahia region of Brasil. But they did not come here in any numbers at all.
Nor did they migrate out of Egypt to West Africa.
Sheesh. There is more bs put out about the Yoruba than any other group of Africans other than the Pharaonic Egyptians. The Yoruba themselve, as they will tell you, will help you believe any bs about themselves, as well as maybe even believe it themselves.
Love, C.
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Love, C.
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