Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 21:26:36 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Re: WFC Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> wrote: > How should the second person prove he/she is who they claim to be? By showing ID or being vouched for by someone known to the committee. Yes, that would exclude neos who didn't have ID. But only if someone else was pretending to be them. That's preferable to excluding *every* neo who doesn't have ID. > Boskone asks that when you come to con reg that you bring the last > mailing, which has your address on it. A good system, for those who > remember to bring it. Yes. Torcon did the same. Which didn't work very well, since for most people the mailing arrived after they were already en route to the con. > . . . & even a ghostly party . . . Since that party wasn't part of the con, people who attended it weren't ghosting the con. > So he wasn't a member of the convention? Right. He just walked into the banquet with no con badge, no con membership, no hotel key, and no banquet ticket, while wearing an impossible-to-ignore cheerleader costume. He's annoyed that hotel security escorted him away. > There were comments by some folks during the con about being unable > to repack their bags as received. Perhaps they got one of the few I packed. My understanding was that one of everything on the round table was to go into each bag. I *was* able to get everything to fit, but only just barely, and only after several minutes of fiddling with each bag. When I was done, there wasn't enough air in the bag to keep a mosquito alive. I didn't pack bags for long, since others were able to do so much faster. So I switched to shuttling the bags to registration. > There were also these comments upon being presented with the overly > stuffed bags: > "Where's my sherpa?" > "I'm going to need a truss." > "I'm going to sue you for dislocating my shoulder." I guess lots of fans are out of shape. I had no problem carrying my bag to the Metro, and then a mile and a half home from the Metro. I could have carried something twice as heavy twice as far. (But probably not three times as heavy three times as far. That's what I have a hand truck for.) N Lynch <sfbookfan at yahoo.com> wrote: > We only did what we were told to do! When I got there, nine > hardbacks and 5 paperbacks were stuffed into the bags, which > I had no problem doing. My bag, an average Thursday bag, contained six hardbacks, four trade paperbacks, five mass market paperbacks, the souvenir book, the program booklet, a CD-ROM, two magazines, a catalog, a field guide, a sampler, and some fliers. At home, after the con, I had no problem repacking it into less space. In fact, I can easily fit everything I bought or picked up at the con or on the way to it, into the remaining space. (On the way to? Yes. Saturday morning as I was walking back to the Metro from my apartment, I saw a yard sale, and stopped and bought a couple books. I also picked up a City Paper and a Northern Virginia Journal at the Metro.) "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL> wrote: > Keith Lynch objects to being required to show ID for many purposes > and suggests that only the second person claiming to be Person X be > required to show ID. In the best case, this merely transfers the > burden of showing ID from the first person to the second person. 99% of the time there won't *be* two people claiming to be the same person. I don't think we should hassle a person unless there are. > At the typical con, this rule would certainly benefit "morning > people" at the expense of "evening people." Only if the imposter and the genuine person arrive on the same day. And if that day is the first day of the con, registration probably isn't open until evening anyhow. And even if the genuine person was beaten to the con by an imposter, the burden I propose is the same thing that's already being imposed on *everyone*, morning or evening, whether they have a doppelganger or not. > Moreover, the proposed rule imposes a requirement on the register > to realize that Person "2" is claiming a duplicate identity and > challenge "2" instead of all, so the proposed rule increases the > burden on the community. This is more than made up for by their not needing to check the ID of the other 99% of members. At WFC, badges were placed in envelopes, both having the same name. The member got the badge, and the con kept the envelope. This would make it easy to implement my proposal: When the second person claiming to be you shows up, the registrar will find an empty envelope, and will know that someone claiming to be you already picked up your badge. At that point, you would be asked to prove you're you, either via photo ID, or being vouched for by someone known to the committee. If you can do neither, you'll be shown the door. Otherwise, a new badge will be printed for you on colored stock, and staff members would be told to keep an eye out for anyone wearing a badge with your name on it in white stock. > Further, the proposed rule does not actually bar undesirable persons > (e.g. freeriders at cons, potential terrorists at airports) from the > function in question. Unscrupulous people would quickly learn to be > the first in line at the expense of legitimate attendees. Cons and airports are very different situations. At a con, we don't care who they really are, only that they paid for a membership. At WFC I saw plenty of people wearing badges with obviously fake names. At airports, security people seem to think we should care who everyone is. I disagree. We should care whether they're going to hijack the plane. If they do hijack the plane and crash it into a building, our knowing the real name of the hijacker is the booby prize. > I think that a vigorous outreach program to recruit proto-fans from > the general community is more practical. What ever happened to the > WSFA Outreach Committee? Should we increase our outreach efforts? > Or is this a solution looking for a problem? I'm not sure. Certainly we'd like to get more Capclave members, but our meeting places are already fairly crowded. I'm not sure what we'd do if the number of people who wanted to attend each meeting were to double. I do send directions to anyone who asks for them. This time, I warned people that this Friday's meeting is likely to be unusually long and unusually crowded, since it's the first meeting after WFC and the last meeting before Capclave. (The Third Friday meeting will be at Capclave, and Sam says it will be open only to Capclave members.) I do hope that you will resume coming to meetings. You've missed the past seven. "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> wrote: > My own feelings regarding the subject is that if we want to get > readers to CapClave then we should go where the readers get their > fixes: bookstores & libraries. I slipped fliers into the two William Tenn books at the Arlington Central Library. Unfortunately there aren't any William Tenn books at any other library or bookstore I've been to. Next year's Capclave will be right across the street from the new gigantic Borders Books at Tysons. (Not to be confused with the old smaller Borders Books at Tysons that closed this summer.) We should do something with this. -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.