Sunday at Chicon7
Sep. 9th, 2012 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderplanetOriginally posted at Livejournal.
A report on the second Sunday panel, and some of the rest of Sunday.
After the NASA panel was the panel that I had really wanted to see, a panel about Pseudo-Science. The moderator was one of the previous panelists, and had not seemed the least bit obnoxious, overbearing or bullying. It's amazing what a little bit of power can do for people.
Here's the program description:
Maybe Mary Turzillo is someone that you're a close, personal friend of. Maybe she's one of many people on my flist that I don't know personally. No matter what, she is the worst moderator I've ever seen for any panel discussion.
The panel began benignly enough, with a discussion of the definition of pseudo-science. The moderator asked a question, and each panelist was given a chance to speak. As the panel progressed, Ms. Turzillo's questions got weirder, less based in reality, and Ms. Turzillo became more aggressive. "What if it turns out that Astrology is true?" "What if reality has shifted and these things all used to be true?"... By about the middle of the panel, Ms. Turzillo was every other speaker. She would ask a question, allow one panelist to express part of a thought and then she herself would speak over the panelist. Eventually, she forcibly took the microphone away from another panelist as he was explaining how the Scientific Method works.
No discussion of the second sentence in the description topic was allowed.
Like I said, she seemed a good enough contributor when she wasn't allowed to bully the other panelists, but she should NEVER EVER EVER be allowed to moderate any panel anywhere ever again. I don't mean this to be a terrible thing said behind her back. Please feel free to tell Mary Turzillo that I said she was the worst moderator I've ever seen, and that I think that she should never be allowed to moderate a panel again.
I don't know how Chicon selected their moderators, but I do know that a strong case was made against allowing moderators to self select, or allowing moderators to go without vetting.
Later on that evening, the Hugo awards!
I was reluctant to see the awards in the presentation room because the idea of waiting in line for a long time to be crammed into a room with 5,000 people does not appeal to me. Because there was to be a live, streaming web feed, there was no hotel room broadcast, so I decided to bite the bullet.
I'm glad that I saw the awards in person. For one reason, the room was big enough to accommodate the very large number of people present. For another, The streaming feed was killed by bots.
The Hugo Awards will be rebroadcast tonight at 7:00PM Central Time at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hugo-awards
Here is a video of the Hugo awards audience. I did not take this video immediately before the ceremony started. It was probably taken about thirty minutes before everyone had gotten in. This is all the seats in the Grand Ballroom occupied, with standing room only at the back of the theater. The standing room area was eventually quite full.
John Scalzi was a funny, engaging presenter. He has a great feel for pacing and for tossing in quick jokes to keep the event flowing smoothly. I might very well watch the event again.
A report on the second Sunday panel, and some of the rest of Sunday.
After the NASA panel was the panel that I had really wanted to see, a panel about Pseudo-Science. The moderator was one of the previous panelists, and had not seemed the least bit obnoxious, overbearing or bullying. It's amazing what a little bit of power can do for people.
Here's the program description:
The Resurgence of Pseudo-Science in 21st Century America
From creationism/intelligent design to astrology, non-scientific
concepts seem to be capturing the population’s imagination once
again. What is causing this rise of anti-science and what, if anything
can be done to stop it?
Mary Turzillo (M), Kendall F.Morris, Richard Garfinkle, Matthew S.
Rotundo, James L. Cambias
Maybe Mary Turzillo is someone that you're a close, personal friend of. Maybe she's one of many people on my flist that I don't know personally. No matter what, she is the worst moderator I've ever seen for any panel discussion.
The panel began benignly enough, with a discussion of the definition of pseudo-science. The moderator asked a question, and each panelist was given a chance to speak. As the panel progressed, Ms. Turzillo's questions got weirder, less based in reality, and Ms. Turzillo became more aggressive. "What if it turns out that Astrology is true?" "What if reality has shifted and these things all used to be true?"... By about the middle of the panel, Ms. Turzillo was every other speaker. She would ask a question, allow one panelist to express part of a thought and then she herself would speak over the panelist. Eventually, she forcibly took the microphone away from another panelist as he was explaining how the Scientific Method works.
No discussion of the second sentence in the description topic was allowed.
Like I said, she seemed a good enough contributor when she wasn't allowed to bully the other panelists, but she should NEVER EVER EVER be allowed to moderate any panel anywhere ever again. I don't mean this to be a terrible thing said behind her back. Please feel free to tell Mary Turzillo that I said she was the worst moderator I've ever seen, and that I think that she should never be allowed to moderate a panel again.
I don't know how Chicon selected their moderators, but I do know that a strong case was made against allowing moderators to self select, or allowing moderators to go without vetting.
Later on that evening, the Hugo awards!
I was reluctant to see the awards in the presentation room because the idea of waiting in line for a long time to be crammed into a room with 5,000 people does not appeal to me. Because there was to be a live, streaming web feed, there was no hotel room broadcast, so I decided to bite the bullet.
I'm glad that I saw the awards in person. For one reason, the room was big enough to accommodate the very large number of people present. For another, The streaming feed was killed by bots.
The Hugo Awards will be rebroadcast tonight at 7:00PM Central Time at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hugo-awards
Here is a video of the Hugo awards audience. I did not take this video immediately before the ceremony started. It was probably taken about thirty minutes before everyone had gotten in. This is all the seats in the Grand Ballroom occupied, with standing room only at the back of the theater. The standing room area was eventually quite full.
John Scalzi was a funny, engaging presenter. He has a great feel for pacing and for tossing in quick jokes to keep the event flowing smoothly. I might very well watch the event again.
