{"id":748,"date":"2015-11-24T20:21:55","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T04:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/?p=748"},"modified":"2015-11-24T20:21:55","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T04:21:55","slug":"how-to-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/how-to-con\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Con"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend I went to a science fiction\/fantasy con that left me with a sour taste in my mouth &#8211; and heart. Rather than pick on this particular con, I&#8217;m going to just do a write up of things that I think make cons great and welcoming. Mostly I&#8217;m going to focus on programming and panels, because this is what I focus on when I go to cons. If you have suggestions for cosplay, gaming, dealers rooms, music\/dances, or other events, I would love to hear them. There&#8217;s quite a bit available about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/diversity-link-roundup\/\">diversity and inclusivity<\/a>, and recently there have been discussions about <a href=\"http:\/\/maryrobinettekowal.com\/journal\/sff-convention-accessibility-pledge\/\">making cons more accessible<\/a>. There&#8217;s also information about harassment policies, which I&#8217;m not going to talk about here either.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jillbertini\/15331639456\/in\/photolist-pmNEgj-6sgsdG\" title=\"elevator panel\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2950\/15331639456_20cbaa4450_n.jpg\" width=\"239\" height=\"320\" alt=\"elevator panel\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Panels<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Panels are either created by a centralized group who then assigns various attendees to each topic, or they are proposed by participants and then selected by a committee. Either way, here are my recommendations:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moderators<\/strong>: have &#8217;em. <\/p>\n<p>Since you are going to have a moderator, have them develop questions before the con.<br \/>\nAt a bare minimum, have the moderator send their questions to the other panelists before the con, to give everyone time to think about them.<br \/>\nSince your panel is moderated, that means the discussion will be dominated by the panelists, but make sure to leave time at the end for questions front the audience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Diversity on the panel:<\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s easy to default to asking people you know to do things for you, especially when they aren&#8217;t being compensated. Try not to go with the default, which will likely be people who look a lot like you. Stretch yourself. Try to see who you can find that *isn&#8217;t* like you: be it gender, sexuality, race, ability, religion, hair color, preference in sushi, etc. I wouldn&#8217;t recommend asking someone just for the sake of diversity, which ends up tokenizing, but stretch a little beyond the first people who come to mind (unless of course you are already so awesome and have cultivated these connections already).<\/p>\n<p>I say these things because I have had some <em>great<\/em> experiences at cons, and I know what&#8217;s possible. I want that for everyone. When I look around and see a bunch of people who look like one another and they don&#8217;t look like me, I don&#8217;t necessarily feel excluded, but I don&#8217;t quite feel <em>included<\/em> either.<\/p>\n<p>In conclusion, spend a little bit of time and effort thinking about the programming and provide guidelines (at a bare minimum &#8211; it would be delightful if they were requirements) for the panelists. Cons can be for everyone!<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/button100x23.png\" style=\"border:0px; width:100; height: 23; \" alt=\"Share Button\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Reddit\",\"Print\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"How%20to%20Con\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend I went to a science fiction\/fantasy con that left me with a sour taste in my mouth &#8211; and heart. Rather than pick on this particular con, I&#8217;m going to just do a write up of things that I think make cons great and welcoming. Mostly I&#8217;m going to focus on programming and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/button100x23.png\" style=\"border:0px; width:100; height: 23; \" alt=\"Share Button\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Reddit\",\"Print\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"How%20to%20Con\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[166,169,155,168],"class_list":["post-748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geekery","tag-cons","tag-conventions","tag-diversity","tag-geekery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":753,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions\/753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}