Blackmoor Vituperative

Friday night’s programming is complete, and I think it went pretty well. For those who came in late, I scheduled programming for RavenCon 2011. This included coming up with panel ideas, contacting guests to ask them to volunteer for panels or suggest new ones, and scheduling the panels so that the whole schedule would be full for people who pay to come to the con.

It’s only Friday, but so far it’s gone really well. Nearly all of our guests responding to my emails in a timely manner, and all but one eventually responded with the names of panels they would like to participate in. As far as guest response goes, it’s gone better than I expected.

As a lark, I participated in a riff of Star Crash, Mystery Science Theater style, with Rob Floyd of Team Fantasmo. I had fun doing it, we had a pretty good crowd, and they seemed to have fun, too. That pleased me.

There has really only been one blemish on the weekend so far, and that’s the aforementioned guest who never replied to any of the nine or so emails I sent them. I still have not heard from this person, but two other people have come to me all aflutter asking why that person is not on more panels. Well, the fact is that person is on four panels (suggested by other guests who said they would be sharing the panel with this noncommunicative guest: the artist who did his book covers, for example). They are also featured in an interview (which was my idea), making five.

So: five panels, which is 20% more than the minimum I aimed for. If this guest wanted to be on more panels, they would have said so. Frankly, I have little sympathy for anyone who complains to me about it. If they want to complain, they should go complain to the person who never responded to their email.

Other than this extremely minor hiccup, Friday went really well. One or two panels had an excessive number of panelists, and one panel had no one in the audience, but this sort of thing is bound to happen. I learned a lot from this year, and next year will have fewer occurrences like this.

I consider Friday a success.

A friend took me to see Sucker Punch this evening. I do not think it is a bad movie. I think it is a sad movie, and that the middle hour or so is empty and pointless (literally, sound and fury signifying nothing). Fun to look at, but lacking any meaning or purpose, on any level.

I think Sucker Punch had one layer too many fantasy worlds. I would have liked it better had the movie been without the “asylum” reality or without the “bordello/prison” reality. The thing is, I think a movie that took place in the asylum would have been more interesting than the movie that took place in the bordello/prison.

So basically it starts like A Series Of Unfortunate Events, fills up the middle with the most expensive (and meaningless) parts of the Matrix sequels, and then ends like One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

You might consider that a spoiler, but it isn’t. The ending of the movie is shown very plainly about ten minutes in. Everything in between is just killing time.

In the context of people using fantasy to escape a horrible situation, I think Brazil is better (and has a less obvious ending).

So: bad? No. But not great, and not memorable. I liked the soundtrack, though.

Back in 2006, I gave up editing Wikipedia, primarily because it was just too frustrating fighting the lunatic fringe. At the time, I was dealing with nutcases who simply kept putting their nutcase fantasies into articles, and I was just exhausted dealing with them. However, that isn’t the only problem with Wikipedia. Another problem with Wikipedia is that there is a small minority of editors who take it as their mission to eviscerate Wikipedia and make it as small as possible.

I simply do not understand this type of editor. I never have. I have encountered them, and it’s equal parts baffling and saddening. These are people who either just don’t get Wikipedia, or are actively trying to destroy it.

Rob Balder, of Erfworld fame, recently brought to light a recent example of this phenomenon.