Wiscon Update

[ashnistrike]

(Where the heck have the formatting buttons, and the "type everything in html" option, gone in my posting window?)

Wiscon has rescinded Elizabeth Moon's guest of honor invitation (link at http://sf3.org/2010/10/elizabeth-moon/). About damn time.

I warn anyone following the link that the comments are full of people crying "Censorship!", asking whether Moon will be sent to a reeducation camp, and vowing never to purchase Wiscon tickets ever again. Since they're also using phrases like "fascist liberal" and "politically correct jackbooted thugs," I sincerely doubt that any of them have ever come to Wiscon in the past. Please don't think they're actual members of our community. We may be whiffly sometimes, but we're not usually complete morons.

Comments

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I was honestly appalled by the amount of gong-banging going on in the comment thread. It's amazing how these situations consistently bring up the worst side-taking and blame-throwing behaviors.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

I think I'd rather read a random YouTube comment thread. I've been repeating to myself "Someone is wrong on the internet. Someone is wrong on the internet." But then I keep posting so that people don't assume everyone agrees with those yahoos.

[saganth.livejournal.com]

WOOOOOW... Amazing. I am absolutely flabbergasted. On the other hand, I do think the con committee finally did the appropriate thing.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think this may be the first time that a GOH invitation has ever been rescinded. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) But she certainly earned it.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

William Sanders was uninvited from the ICFA a few years ago after the Helix kerfuffle.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Oh my. I think I caught the edges of that a couple of years ago, but not the uninvite. A little Googling suddenly makes Moon's complete refusal to engage look slightly more classy.

[michaeldthomas.livejournal.com]

I would guess that most of them are Baen Barflys.

There are reasons to disagree with SF3's decision, censorship isn't one of them.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

I'm curious what you and Lynn think about the sausage-making end of this (which I assume is related to the reasons-to-disagree). I suspect that all the heel-dragging was to buy time while they figured out what the knock-on effects would be. So far as I know, this is unprecedented.

[michaeldthomas.livejournal.com]

Other than the ICFA decision above, this is pretty unprecedented.

If you're at WindyCon, we'd love to chat more about the sausage making. :-)

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

We will be--I just registered us yesterday!

[michaeldthomas.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

[redbird]

I looked at the comments at lunchtime, and they did a very good job of convincing me that SF3 was right, except that sooner would have been better.

However, at least one of the people who commented there has been to Wiscon: I remember talking to Will Shetterly in the Wiscon dealer's room, near elisem's table, some years ago (when he and Emma Bull were still living in Minneapolis). Will is wrong here (he's been good at being wrong, the last few years), but he isn't just a drive-by troll looking for an excuse to attack the feminists.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Oh, Shetterly's never a drive-by troll. :)

I never would have expected him to show up at Wiscon. That must have been... interesting.