Ten years after ... (longish)
Maureen Kincaid Speller
Ten years ago this morning (16/10/97) , at 3 a.m., I'd just got back
into bed after a trip to the bathroom, and closed my eyes, when I
became aware that the quality of the darkness had suddenly changed.
When I opened my eyes, I found that the display on the alarm clock had
gone dead, and the lights didn't work when I tried to switch them on.
Something was obviously wrong, but what? Wide awake by this time, I
went to look out of the window. I could white flashes of light in the
distance, and thought they must be lightning because of the storm
raging, although I couldn't hear any thunder. The wind was roaring,
the window frame was shaking like mad, and I became very scared
because I thought it might blow in (the frame was, I knew, becoming
rotten). The roof was also dodgy and I was worried about slates coming
down. Then came an ominous crash from further along the street. I woke
Paul up and eventually insisted that we go and spend the rest of the
night downstairs; someone had recently told me about what to do in
case of a hurricane, and I just thought it might be safer. I remember
saying, just before I drifted off to sleep, 'do you suppose a
hurricane would be like this?' and murmuring 'I expect so.'
Later, circa 7 a.m. we woke up again, to find that the wind was still
howling, though not as strongly and that the electricity was still
off. Luckily, I had a battery-operated radio so we were able to
discover that we had indeed just survived a hurricane, or something
pretty damn close to one. The flashing white lights in the distance
hadn't been lightning but the power cables arcing as they bounced off
one another, hence the electricity being out. There were no trains to
London because there were trees all over the line, and south-east
England was in complete chaos. Incredibly, we still had a working
telephone and people were already ringing to find how we were. Dazed
is probably the best description; it seemed unbelievable that we could
have got through this. We sat in front of the gas fire and toasted
bread on forks, drank milk and then decided to get dressed and go out
to look at the world, with the vague notion that people might want
help with clearing up.
The wind was still strong enough that I had to hang onto Paul or else
risk being blown over but we made reasonable progress along the
street. It was scattered with tiles, bricks, branches. A dormer window
had been peeled off a roof along the road and dumped on the path,
presumably the crash I'd heard. There was rubbish everywhere, with
bins scattered like toys.
We went down to the harbour because I wanted to see what the sea
looked like. (I had only been in Folkestone for a year and turbulent
seas fascinated me.) Every seafood stand on the quayside had been
destroyed, except for one whose owners had come and tied it down. Two
small fishing boats had gone down in the harbour. Water was streaming
through the sea wall. The customs post at the harbour proper didn't
exist any more, only the remains of a standpipe, gushing water, to
indicate where it had been. When we got to the clifftop, we met a
group of Sealink men who told us that the ferry had been taken out of
the harbour during the night, to stop it banging against the pier, and
had got caught in a cross current which had dumped it on the beach up
in the Warren.
We walked back through the more affluent end of town, which was now
covered in fallen trees. Huge chimneys had been ripped off roofs and
the first builders were getting the tarpaulins roped down. At the
vet's house two of the chimneys on the corners of the building had
been snapped off at their bases and now lay gently against the slope
of the roof. The most remarkable sight, though, was a car which had
been cut in two by a falling tree. We stopped at the mewsagent's for
some batteries for the torch and radio (and the local shops were
struggling because their tills were all electrically operated and they
couldn't get them open), and the car's owner was in there, in high
spirits. In fact, it was a company car so he didn't have to worry
about a thing. Back home I found a slate from our roof embedded in a
flower bed to a depth of six inches but otherwise we'd escaped.
Later in the morning we decided to go and find the beached ferry; it
wasn't that difficult, given that everyone else in Folkestone had
decided to do the same. There was a long line of people trudging along
the clifftop path to look at the ship, firmly wedged on the beach,
looking huge and incongruous.
My favourite stories, though, are of the police car overtaken by a
workman's hut in the outside lane, and the DJ who described coming
over the brow of a hill in his car, just as the electricity supply
failed and, as he put it, just watching half of Kent disappear.
Ten years on, it's difficult to believe it happened. I've been
listening to commemorative programme this week, describing some of the
extraordinary events that happened that night and it makes me realise
again just how lucky we were. I'm still nervous though when strong
winds hit Folkestone, as they often do. Once you've seen what can
happen, you can never quite convince yourself it might not happen
again.
Maureen
I
Maureen Kincaid Speller
m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk
Ulrika O'Brien for TAFF
Steve Brewster
Maureen Kincaid Speller (m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: Ten years ago this morning (16/10/97) , at 3 a.m., I'd just got back
: into bed after a trip to the bathroom, and closed my eyes, when I
Thanks for the memories. (I was in Leeds ten years ago; Leeds escaped
unscathed. I remember my amazement on getting to school and hearing
from my fellow fifth-formers - who had all seen the breakfast telly -
what had happened in the south during the night.)
Monday 19th October 1987, of course, was Black Monday. And shares
have been riding ridiculously high for a couple of months now...
time for another one, perhaps?
--
"Quaternions [...] have been an unmixed evil to | zeus.bris.ac.uk/~masjb
those who have touched them in any way."[Kelvin] |
David G. Bell
In article <EI5sK...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>
Steve.B...@Bristol.ac.uk "Steve Brewster" writes:
> Maureen Kincaid Speller (m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> : Ten years ago this morning (16/10/97) , at 3 a.m., I'd just got back
> : into bed after a trip to the bathroom, and closed my eyes, when I
>
> Thanks for the memories. (I was in Leeds ten years ago; Leeds escaped
> unscathed. I remember my amazement on getting to school and hearing
> from my fellow fifth-formers - who had all seen the breakfast telly -
> what had happened in the south during the night.)
>
> Monday 19th October 1987, of course, was Black Monday. And shares
> have been riding ridiculously high for a couple of months now...
> time for another one, perhaps?
Some of the current high value of sterling is really a low value for the
Franc and Deutschmark -- the value against the dollar isn't chaning
much.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, Furry, and Punslinger..
Morgan Gallagher
In article <3445e61a...@news.demon.co.uk>, Maureen Kincaid Speller
<m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk> writes
>Ten years ago this morning (16/10/97) , at 3 a.m., I'd just got back
>into bed after a trip to the bathroom, and closed my eyes, when I
>became aware that the quality of the darkness had suddenly changed.
I was between Richmond and Kingston-upon-Thames, at a small place called
Ham Common. I was staying at a therepuetic community sited in an old
mansion with grounds. The East Wing of the house had been destroyed by
a bomb during the Second world war, and wooden portacabins had strung
out along that edge of the house and grounds, growing over the years to
accomodate storerooms, a nursery school and various offices. Being
Britain, things planned to last ten years well still being used fifty
years later. I, along with two others, was in one of the main bedrooms
on that side of the house, just before we stopped being the mansion, and
became the wooden portacabins. Facing the front of the house, and the
grounds, not the back, and the 'entrance' from the road.
It was the sound of breaking glass as the wind punched through window
after window in the portacabins that woke me up. Knowing I was in a
building with upward of 50 people sleeping in it, as well as night staff
manning switchboards etc, it was eery awakening. Breaking glass didn't
make any sense at all. I lay there, wondering if anyone else in the
room was awake. Then the shrieking began, and I was in no doubt that
the entire room was awake.
Being old and grand, the windows of the house were lined with metal
fluting (it looked like copper) to allow smooth running of wood upon
wood as windows opened and closed. Normally, this was an
inconsequential detail. Given the open run up to the windows from the
grounds however, and the strength of direction of the wind, it became
the focus of all our attentions for quite some time. The wind was being
forced through the tiny gap between copper and wood, creating a high,
shrill, resonanting shrieking. It would have been bad enough on its
own, but as the windows were old and deformed, each seperate inch of
tracking had its own note and intensity. The noise was terrifying, no
matter what we did, we couldn't get rid of it. We resorted to stuffing
newspapers and towels into the cracks, vainly attempting silence. In
the dark, with the wind rising higher and higher, and the noise piling
on upon noise, I understood completely the legend of the Banshee. and
how one could go about sacrificing first born to the elements. I'd have
done just about anything to stop that noise.
Our stuffing attempts were halted when bits of the couple of hunderd
year old oak tree from mid way down the garden brushed dramatically
against the window above my bed. At that point, abandoning the room was
the only option. So, to the sound of breaking glass, mettalic howling
and horrendous wind, we made for a communal room. To sit in darkenss
and listen to the wind try to tear the building to bits. Taking care of
the hysterical children and babies more than filled the time adequently.
The main worry was the wooden portacabins, but the wind was pressing
over them, and away, not pushing anything towards us. The world always
looks so different in a darkened room, pierced by crossing rays of
torchlight.
Thankfully, before dawn, the intensity of the wind dropped, and the
windows ceased their screaming, and I at least, went back to bed.
Morning found a war zone, both in the grounds and in the tiny main
street of Ham itself. Cars couldn't get down the main road due to the
bricks and slates littering the area. It seemed as if dozens of
chimmneys had collapsed everywhere. On a couple of smaller parking
areas, whole walls of brick had caved over, damaging cars. Many
shopkeepers were personally hammering in the nails of the wooden boards
now fronting what was left of their windows. Glass was everywhere, as
where tree branches, leaves earth and torn roots.
It was the silence that impinged upon me the most, perhaps as a result
of the Banshee previously. Not precisley in London, Ham was a major
arterial route to and from the city and the south. I was used to the
background roar of the metropolis - cars, buses, trains off in the
distance, people moving to and fro, airplanes moving in and out of
Heathrow. At about 11.05 every morning, Concord would arch through the
sky and bank just above the gardens, and I'd look up and think of
whisking off to New York.
But this morning was so quiet. Truly the stuff of the Great British
Disaster Novel. John Wyndham would have been proud.
The scariest moment was discovering that it hadn't been a bit of the oak
tree that had brushed against my window, but the whole damned tree. It
had been felled in one, giant punch, torn onto its side, its roots
ripped into the air. Only its distance from the main house saving my
room. It seemed a miracle at the time, in face of the destructive force
of what had past, that the glass had held as the tips of the tree had
slid down over it on its crashing to ground. It didn't occur to me for
some time that I had been inches from it as it fell, and yet heard
nothing of its demise. The wind had deprived the tree even of that.
The saddest moment was taking a double decker bus past Kew Gardens the
next day, sitting on top, to look over the high wall. Staring open
mouthed at the wholesale destruction wrought there. Kew Gardens has
seemed so constant, particulalry the trees. When does a large tree not
seem constant? When visiting Avebury, ringed in one small quarter of
the outer circle by four or five massive oak trees, I always have
difficulty thinking of the trees as 'newcomers'. The Gardens were
devastated. Plastic sheeting covered the missing glass in the hot
houses. The Princess of Wales Conservatory looked like a masted sailing
ship. Everywhere, trees were scattered, as if their had been a riot in
the nursery and someone had thrown them around in a strop.
Funniest moment was desperately phoning Roy 'Oscar' Dalgliesh at 8 in
the morning to check he and Martin were safe. Chiswick, whence they
reside, was further North than I was, where winds could have picked up
even more. I woke them up. They were totally bemused that there was no
electricity, and that no alarm clock had woken them. I think it crossed
Roy's mind I was making it all up, before Martin had got the radio on to
confirm that something had indeed happened. They'd slept right through
it.
Tre had as well. She was in High Wycombe at the time, nestled at the
bottom of a deep valley, the hurricane had literally blown over their
heads.
Eeriest bit was later that day, during lunch. The dining room was a
long run of glass doors out into the grounds. Many of us had stood at
the windows in the morning, watching the wind play havoc with the debris
of the gardens. As lunch was called, a queue formed, and a sudden gust
of wind smashed through the glass, spraying us with fragments.
Thankfully, no one was hurt. But staring at the seven to eight inch
circle literally punched through the pane of glass, it was the
invisibility of the attack that was unsettling. You couldn't see what
had made that hole, but you could feel it. You suddenly realised how
vulnerable you were. How fragile. How powerful the forces around us.
I'd often thought of the city, of towns and buildings as invulnerable to
the elements. Sure, they could burn down, be knocked down, get blown
up. But those were things that people did. Standing in the dark,
listening to the wind ravish the earth, hearing the glass shatter,
trying to block out the shreiking, I'd become aware of how much we still
shared with our ancestors. How quickly the veneer of civilisation could
be swept aside, and basic survival against nature could become all that
there was.
And how quickly I'd have sacrificed anything to get that noise to stop!
It's a good job I don't live in California.
As an addendum, I can report that what was seen as a great tragedy in
terms of the tree population, particulalry at Kew, as since been
recognised as a blessing in disguise. Gardners who were in tears at the
destruction of carefully nurtured old age pensioners amongst trees, have
since realised that their instincts to keep everything 'old' alive at
all costs isn't particularly natural. Replanting and reshaping the
gardens has provided unexpected bounty, and the wood itself has gone on
to make the treasured antiques of tomorrow. I heard one gardner say the
wind had had the guts to what they never could have, and so doing,
cleared the ground for the new.
--
Morgan
"Nunc demum intellego," dixit Winnie ille Pu. "Stultus et
delusus fui," dixit "et ursus sine ullo cerebro sum."
Sandra Bond
In article <3445e61a...@news.demon.co.uk>
m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk "Maureen Kincaid Speller" writes:
> Ten years ago this morning (16/10/97) , at 3 a.m., I'd just got back
> into bed after a trip to the bathroom, and closed my eyes, when I
> became aware that the quality of the darkness had suddenly changed.
> When I opened my eyes, I found that the display on the alarm clock had
> gone dead, and the lights didn't work when I tried to switch them on.
[reluctant snip of an excellent article on the Great Storm of 87 -- if I
still edited a fanzine I'd be after Maureen for the reprint rights...]
I slept through the whole thing, woke up in the morning all psyched up
for my driving test, and looked out of the window to see Utter Chaos.
Amazingly I managed to get out of our culdesac, and all the way from Bagshot
to Farnborough, for the test. And the test centre was still open. And I
passed it. I did my three-point turn earlier than planned when the
test inspector's route took me into a road blocked by a tree, though.
[And if anyone does print Maureen's story as an article, they can have
that thrown in as a LoC...]
Sandra
--
# "He never ever learned to read or write so well, but he could #
# play a guitar just like ringing a bell..." -- Chuck Berry #
# "Pity he couldn't play it like a guitar..." -- Ian Gunn #
################# -- San...@ho-street.demon.co.uk -- #################
Jim Trash
> Gardners who were in tears at the
>destruction of carefully nurtured old age pensioners amongst trees, have
>since realised that their instincts to keep everything 'old' alive at
>all costs isn't particularly natural.
This made me think immediately of the oak tree in Sherwood forest.
I love old oak forests and that wonderful feeling of stretching far into
the past and off into the future when you stand amongst these beautiful
trees.
However
There's a huge oak in Sherwood forest which should have toppled over
many years ago. It's hundreds and hundreds of years old and is claimed
to be the tree Robin Hood would have hidden inside in the stories.
The poor thing is held up by scaffolding and desperately wants to
collapse. I can't see it without wanting to kick away the steel supports
and metal ropes to let the thing tumble to the ground as it should do.
Yes, its time is gone and another oak will provide the link to the
stories just as well.
http://www.scream.demon.co.uk Jim Trash
Janice Gelb
In article 1100...@news.demon.co.uk, m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk (Maureen Kincaid Speller) writes:
>Ten years ago this morning (16/10/97) , at 3 a.m., I'd just got back
>into bed after a trip to the bathroom, and closed my eyes, when I
>became aware that the quality of the darkness had suddenly changed.
>When I opened my eyes, I found that the display on the alarm clock had
>gone dead, and the lights didn't work when I tried to switch them on.
>Something was obviously wrong, but what? Wide awake by this time, I
>went to look out of the window. I could white flashes of light in the
>distance, and thought they must be lightning because of the storm
>raging, although I couldn't hear any thunder. The wind was roaring,
>the window frame was shaking like mad, and I became very scared
>because I thought it might blow in (the frame was, I knew, becoming
>rotten). The roof was also dodgy and I was worried about slates coming
>down. Then came an ominous crash from further along the street. I woke
>Paul up and eventually insisted that we go and spend the rest of the
>night downstairs; someone had recently told me about what to do in
>case of a hurricane, and I just thought it might be safer. I remember
>saying, just before I drifted off to sleep, 'do you suppose a
>hurricane would be like this?' and murmuring 'I expect so.'
>
>
>Ten years on, it's difficult to believe it happened. I've been
>listening to commemorative programme this week, describing some of the
>extraordinary events that happened that night and it makes me realise
>again just how lucky we were. I'm still nervous though when strong
>winds hit Folkestone, as they often do. Once you've seen what can
>happen, you can never quite convince yourself it might not happen
>again.
>
Odd to read this because we've been having anniversary stories of our
own in the paper this week: 8 years ago today (17/10/89) the Loma
Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area. I was one of the
lucky ones in that I was at the World Series game in Candlestick Park,
a concrete-reinforced structure in which we barely felt the initial
tremor, and all I lost were two (irreplaceable) framed pieces of art
and a spare television.
********************************************************************************
Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with this
janic...@eng.sun.com | message is the return address.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/index.html
"The first Halloween prank ever, played by a group of Druid teenagers,
was Stonehenge. (`HEY! You kids get those rocks OFF my LAWN!')"
-- Dave Barry
********************************************************************************
Maureen Kincaid Speller
On 17 Oct 1997 22:07:32 GMT, jan...@eng.sun.com (Janice Gelb) wrote:
<snip lengthy commemorative piece from me on the 1987 'Hurricane'
>
>Odd to read this because we've been having anniversary stories of our
>own in the paper this week: 8 years ago today (17/10/89) the Loma
>Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area. I was one of the
>lucky ones in that I was at the World Series game in Candlestick Park,
>a concrete-reinforced structure in which we barely felt the initial
>tremor, and all I lost were two (irreplaceable) framed pieces of art
>and a spare television.
>
>
I remember this very well; Paul and I were having kittens, trying to
work out who we knew in the area, watching the news and wondering what
the hell was going on, when the phone went and it was Allyn Cadogan,
ringing to let us know she was okay and could we pass the news on.
The world seemed very small and comforting that day.
Maureen
Dr Gafia
Way back, in article <871430...@bitch.demon.co.uk>,
Vacuou...@bitch.demon.co.uk (Pam Wells) wrote:
>In article <5sl6n8$8...@panix2.panix.com> gfa...@panix.com,
>"Gary Farber" replied:
>
>> Come to think of it, I *was* (still am) strongly opposed to
>> the elimination of the write-in option. ;-)
>
>Well, it was my amendment, and I'm proud of it. So there.
>
>Doubtless a campaign to the current administrators could get
>it reinstated, though, if you care about it that much.
Gee, I sure hope not.
For years the write-in vote was a perfectly harmless device,
serving without blemish at the altar of whimsy. If two of your
Good Friends happened to be running and you didn't want to vote
for one over the other, if you thought maybe you didn't know
enough about the candidates to vote, if you just felt someone
deserved a jolt of unexpected egoboo when the ballot count was
done, if you didn't want to vote "No Preference" or “Holdover
Funds,” if all the candidates seemed worthy and you couldn’t
decide who you felt was the >most< worthy, if you thought of
someone so sublimely silly that you felt it was nearly a Crime
Against Nature not to cast a write-in ballot for them, if you
wanted to contribute to TAFF anyway and not just "give up" your
vote like a wimp . . . in all of these cases, and others
besides, you could make use of the "write-in" option.
Unfortunately, this bit of fluff got used to justify launching
a semi-secret write-in _campaign_ during the second half of the
TAFF Wars, in what Andy Hooper has dubbed "l’affaire Beck" -- a
real shame, as Martha was apparently unaware of the hidden
agenda of some of her supporters and so doesn't deserve the
blame that might go with the association. Still, given what
took place, I, for one, was and am glad to see an end to the
write-in vote.
For those who are perhaps unaware of the details: When Martha
failed to get on the ballot (her platform and nomination
materials didn't reach the TAFF administrators on time), her
supporters went to local and regional midwestern cons to urge
attendees to cast write-in votes for Martha. The ballot _did_
say write-ins were "encouraged," and thus were they taken in.
If any of the attendees at those cons were at all knowledgeable
about TAFF or about fandom as we know it, they didn't bother to
speak up about it when Martha's supporters depicted TAFF as a
regional rivalry sort of thing, with Martha the de facto
midwestern candidate (opposing those who >were< on the ballot,
Rich Coad and Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who were living
on the left and right coasts, respectively). The attendees
were told a vote for the "midwest" candidate would "send a
message" to the Worldcon (!!) that the midwest was _not_ the
"wimpy" zone. If any of the attendees wanted to Strike A Blow
for Midwest Fandom, but had doubts about their eligibility to
vote in TAFF, they could always cite Bob Tucker as the person
to verify their fan activity, and most likely it would never be
checked.
Rather as Gary was doing here on rasff for on-line fans who
were wondering about their eligibility not all that long back,
in fact, in what I must suppose he regards as an effort to
"open up" TAFF to a larger audience, which is also an echo of
what Martha's supporters claimed when what they were doing was
discovered.
It seems no one attending those conventions knew enough about
TAFF to say that the Fund is not about regional rivalries and
really should _not_ be used as a "tool" to send "messages" to
the Worldcon that have absolutely nothing to do with TAFF. No
one knew enough about fandom to point out that, if TAFF >were<
about regional rivalries, then P&TNH would be the clear choice,
since they had previously fanned their shining axes in the
midwest, southwest >and< pacific northwest before moving to NYC
to officially "represent" The Elitist East.
I think even those among Martha's supporters who had been on
Bergeron's "side" in the first part of the TAFF Wars, opposite
P&TNH (among others), were sincere in their support of Martha's
candidacy. I just don't think they were totally blind to the
fact that, if Martha won, Patrick & Teresa would have had to
lose. Pure lagniappe, killing two birds with one stone.
What they _may_ have been totally blind to was the fact that,
for their plan to work, they had to totally disenfranchise the
UK vote. Sure, >everyone< who voted in the traditional manner
would've had their vote countered, but the Brits, as hosts, had
(at least in my estimation) greater reason to be ticked. Since
Martha's campaign was conducted exclusively in the US, if it
succeeded it would have meant that not a single UK vote would
have been cast for the winner. Not even a single _second-
place_ UK vote. All the UK voters who had cast ballots in that
race were pissing in the wind, since a mass of midwestern US
con fans with demonstrably little understanding or knowledge of
TAFF would have effectively taken the matter out of their hands
and determined, not for the first time, to force down their
collective throats someone most of them had never heard of
(except possibly as a mention in a con report), in lieu of the
fans whose talents they'd admired so much that they'd actually
_wanted_ to meet them.
And to add insult to this injury, this stranger was going to be
brought to the UK using, at least in part, the money the UK
voters had paid in good faith to cast their ballots in the
mistaken belief that they would get one of the candidates on
the ballot whom they'd had the privilege of voting for or
against.
When word got back to the Brits about what Martha's supporters
were doing, for once at least >some< of them began petitioning
their TAFF administrator to hold back those UK funds if Martha
won. I say "for once" because, for all that I believe we have
sent more "duds" as TAFF winners to them than they have sent to
us, most of the time when things like this occur they choose
not to make a "fuss" over it – to the detriment of TAFF, in my
opinion.
Fortunately, word of what was going on got back to the US
supporters of the fans on the ballot, and a huge mailing to US
fanzine fans explaining what was going on managed to turn the
tide, and Patrick & Teresa won instead.
But I don't think we need a repeat of that situation, and if it
means foregoing to fun we might otherwise have with write-in
ballots, I'm certainly in favor of that as an equitable trade-
off.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Richard Newsome
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>"Gary Farber" wrote:
>> Come to think of it, I *was* (still am) strongly opposed to
>> the elimination of the write-in option. ;-)
>
>For years the write-in vote was a perfectly harmless device,
>serving without blemish at the altar of whimsy.
The thrust of your argument seems to be that it is perfectly
alright to have write-in votes as long as there is no danger of
the write-in candidate winning. It's a Mexican election -- the
people are free to vote for whoever they want, as long as the
ruling party's candidate wins.
Richard Newsome
new...@panix.com
P Nielsen Hayden
In article <62hdvj$p...@panix2.panix.com>, new...@panix.com (Richard Newsome) wrote:
>drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>>"Gary Farber" wrote:
>>> the elimination of the write-in option. ;-)
>>
>>For years the write-in vote was a perfectly harmless device,
>>serving without blemish at the altar of whimsy.
>
>alright to have write-in votes as long as there is no danger of
>the write-in candidate winning. It's a Mexican election -- the
>people are free to vote for whoever they want, as long as the
>ruling party's candidate wins.
Quite so. Except that in Mexico these days, when the other parties win, by
and large, they take office.
I was not happy with the elimination of the write-in, and I'm still not, for
exactly the reason put forth by Richard Newsome.
-----
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Dr Gafia
>The thrust of your argument seems to be that it is perfectly
>alright to have write-in votes as long as there is no danger
>of the write-in candidate winning. It's a Mexican election --
>the people are free to vote for whoever they want, as long as
>the ruling party's candidate wins.
Richard, I could understand your self-righteousness a little
better if the TAFF winners were being "elected" to a position
where they might have some lasting impact on your life --
whether President of the US&A or a committee member of the
local PTA or even club or sf convention -- but it is absolute
nonsense here. TAFF is a mechanism set up to let active fans
on one Continent meet active fans who have impressed them from
another Continent; it's a popularity contest and an honor among
peers, not a lottery. The TAFF winner is not going to pass any
laws, with the possible exception of how TAFF is to be run; any
effect s/he has on your life is the effect you elect to let
them have, no more and no less.
And, *sigh*, which Ruling Party do you have in the mind--the
one that >has< a Secret Handshake or the one that doesn't?
=====
In article <62i0m1$4...@news1.panix.com>, p...@panix.com (P
Nielsen Hayden) writes in response to Richard Newsome's
remarks:
>Quite so. Except that in Mexico these days, when the other
>parties win, by and large, they take office.
>
>I was not happy with the elimination of the write-in, and I'm
>still not, for exactly the reason put forth by Richard
>Newsome.
It saddens me to hear you say so, Patrick.
You feel those convention fans who were so ignorant of TAFF
that they believed a vote for Martha was a vote for Midwest
fandom should have prevailed, then?
Explain this to me in terms I can understand. Please.
--rich brown
Gary Farber
In <19971021222...@ladder02.news.aol.com>
Dr Gafia <drg...@aol.com> wrote:
: In article <62hdvj$p...@panix2.panix.com>, new...@panix.com
: (Richard Newsome) writes:
: >The thrust of your argument seems to be that it is perfectly
: >alright to have write-in votes as long as there is no danger
: >of the write-in candidate winning. It's a Mexican election --
: >the people are free to vote for whoever they want, as long as
: >the ruling party's candidate wins.
: Richard, I could understand your self-righteousness a little
: better if the TAFF winners were being "elected" to a position
: where they might have some lasting impact on your life --
: whether President of the US&A or a committee member of the
: local PTA or even club or sf convention -- but it is absolute
: nonsense here. TAFF is a mechanism set up to let active fans
: on one Continent meet active fans who have impressed them from
: another Continent; it's a popularity contest and an honor among
: peers, not a lottery. The TAFF winner is not going to pass any
: laws, with the possible exception of how TAFF is to be run; any
: effect s/he has on your life is the effect you elect to let
: them have, no more and no less.
rich, if this precise paragraph were addressed to you, what would your
reply be? I ask because it seems even more appropriate to you than to
Richard. I mean, you *could* reply along the lines of "I care a lot about
TAFF, here's why," but I don't see why you shouldn't allow Richard similar
feelings.
[. . .]
: In article <62i0m1$4...@news1.panix.com>, p...@panix.com (P
: Nielsen Hayden) writes in response to Richard Newsome's
: remarks:
: >Quite so. Except that in Mexico these days, when the other
: >parties win, by and large, they take office.
: >
: >I was not happy with the elimination of the write-in, and I'm
: >still not, for exactly the reason put forth by Richard
: >Newsome.
: It saddens me to hear you say so, Patrick.
: You feel those convention fans who were so ignorant of TAFF
: that they believed a vote for Martha was a vote for Midwest
: fandom should have prevailed, then?
That's an entirely unnecessary leap.
: Explain this to me in terms I can understand. Please.
I tried in another post, but it's more or less what I said before, which
you didn't take to then.
--
--
Copyright 1997 by Gary Farber; Experienced Web Researcher; Nonfiction
Writer, Fiction and Nonfiction Editor; gfa...@panix.com; B'klyn, NYC
Dr Gafia
We have gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) wondering why I
"resurrected" a post he "made months ago", but who seems
willing enough to reiterate points he made then:
>I dislike rule changes made based on wildly unusual, to the
>point of being unique, circumstances, which is precisely what
>this was.
>The situation of a controversy over the write-in never arose
>before. It has never arisen again on the other fan funds.
>That says it all, right there, and I think is sufficient to
>demonstrate that the elimination of the write-in was an
>obvious, if perfectly understandable, over-reaction made in
>the heat of the moment.
Sorry, but your argument about its uniqueness is specious on
its face. >>Certainly<< it only happened that way one time--
the language which allowed "write-ins" was removed from the
ballot after it happened, since if you can't have write-ins,
you can't have write-in campaigns (and maroons won't be urged
to believe they're the same thing), and if you can't have
write-in campaigns, then you certainly can't have "secret"
write-in campaigns in which ignorant convention fans are lied
to and manipulated. It's amazing simple.
>It's mere gravy to make further observations: 1) I'm quite
>sure Patrick has not "forgotten" the circumstances of the
>controversy.
That's okay, I'm sure Rob hasn't forgotten them either--for
_precisely_ the same reason you're certain Patrick hasn't
forgotten them. I do get the impression that Patrick has
forgotten >something< fairly important here, for all that I'm
not certain whether I'll be able to put my finger on it. Or
whether I'll want to, if I can. But that's another matter.
>2) Laying aside the fact that I entirely agree that the
>circumstances of the Martha Beck write-in campaign were badly
>misused by some proponents, there was nothing per se wrong
>with using the write-in -- that's what it was *there* for....
Absolute utter nonsense. I am prepared to show you a dozen or
more instances of its use for one of the non-serious purposes I
outlined in what I wrote –- to give someone a little jolt of
egoboo when the ballots were counted, for just one of the
examples I cited.
But can you show me _>ONE<_ example, in the entire 40+-year
history of TAFF, where it was used in the manner you seem to
feel it was intended to be used? That's a purely rhetorical
question, I know, since it was, after all, >your< point that
there IS only one example, the Martha Beck write-in, and unless
you are lying in the paragraph above about your agreement,
given what has actually happened.
>[ . . . ] Indeed, one can imagine a reverse circumstance in
>which, say, Martha Beck was on the ballot, with another
>candidate unknown to and out of favor with British fandom,
>and, say, P&T had accidentally not gotten their paperwork in
>by the deadline due to happenstance (Post Office loss, say),
>and then we might have seen the existence of a fannish
>campaign to write-in Patrick and Teresa, and save TAFF from
>the terrible fate of fans unknown to British fandom being
>elected . . . .
[blah, blah, blah >snipped<]
Indeed, Mr. Farber, we commend you on your vivid imagination.
On behalf of myself and others here who shall be nameless, let
me say I think you might be well advised to consider a
"creative" career, perhaps associated in some way with the
fields of fantasy or science fiction. :>
If such a thing as you envision ever happened, I would no doubt
remark its uniqueness, but as it hasn't actually happened yet I
can't even do that. You appear to be saying that we should
bring back the write-in vote to be prepared for something that
has never happened, and never mind that it has been shown in
something that (however "unique" it might be) >did< happen that
it can be misused. I'm afraid I don't find this very
convincing. Sorry.
I think, in the scenario proposed by your lively imagination,
that I'd be more likely to vote for Martha than take part in a
write-in campaign for Patrick and Teresa. I would commiserate
with P&T over their fate but, after all, there's precedence for
this sort of thing (Ted White missed the deadline by a day when
he tried to run, e.g.); I'd pledge my support for when they
>did< get on the ballot and then vote for the best candidate
who was on the ballot or, if there was no one there I knew,
vote "no preference". I would no doubt grumble, in some
fanzine, about fanzine fandom not being able to Get It Up for
TAFF any more, since we couldn't even field a candidate.
I don't think TAFF can possibly benefit from setting up a
situation wherein some people are going to find they have been
buying a pig in a poke. Deception is not an option and should
not be encouraged. The inexperienced convention fans were not
the only ones who would have been deceived--the regular TAFF
voters voting in that election had every reasonable expectation
that their contributions would send either P&TNH or Rich Coad
to the UK. In your imaginary situation here, we are presuming
two or more convention fans are facing off against each other.
I don't think the fans who vote for them should be cheated out
of their contributions by an out-of-the-blue "write-in" vote
from a group of fans who couldn't even get one of their number
on the TAFF ballot that year. The ballot has options such as
"Hold Over Funds" in the event anyone thinks Martha and her
opponent(s) are beyond the pale.
You see, I believe TAFF's original purpose is still its
purpose. It was designed to recreate, to the extent possible,
the phenomenon which brought Walt Willis to the 1952 world
convention. TAFF is a mechanism intended to facilitate the
exchange between US and UK fandoms of our very best, most
fascinating and most talented fans. I accept that TAFF does
not always succeed in this aim, but I hold that it is TAFF's
aim nonetheless--and that it would reach this aim more often
than it does if we could rid ourselves of the notion that TAFF
should be conducted more like a lottery, in which the more
mundane and average and representative fan has a fair and
democratic chance to win, because they feel it is somehow
judgmental and elitist to reward the talented. I rather wish
these people would go establish their "lottery" fan fund and
leave TAFF the fuck alone.
It's a bit disconcerting to see some of the more talented fans
who have won TAFF and deserved it under that standard upholding
the egalitarian view. I'll give you that.
I don't think the phrase "write-ins are encouraged" was meant
to mean "write-in _campaigns_ are encouraged". I don't believe
you are dumb enough to think that that _was_ the intent. Come
on, now--if you're designing something to ensure the exchange,
on almost a yearly basis, of fandom's best and most talented
fans, are you going to encourage the 643 paid members of the
East Mashed Potato Falls, Idaho, Scientifictional, Fantasy,
Star Trek and D&D High School Society to "write in" their
club president's name? Gimme a break.
--rich brown aka DrGafia
David E Romm
In article <19971024031...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) wrote:
> I don't think the phrase "write-ins are encouraged" was meant
> to mean "write-in _campaigns_ are encouraged". I don't believe
> you are dumb enough to think that that _was_ the intent. Come
> on, now--if you're designing something to ensure the exchange,
> on almost a yearly basis, of fandom's best and most talented
> fans, are you going to encourage the 643 paid members of the
> East Mashed Potato Falls, Idaho, Scientifictional, Fantasy,
> Star Trek and D&D High School Society to "write in" their
> club president's name? Gimme a break.
*sigh* Another pretty good joke that got taken advantage of. I like the
idea of the randomness and safety valve of the write-in, and *never*
assumed anyone so voted-for would actually win. Some people just Take
Things Too Seriously.
Orinoco Womble for TAFF!
--
Shockwave radio: Science Fiction/Science Fact/Weirdness Unbound
http://www.visi.com/~romm
"There's an ancient Chinese proverb that they sing to the Yellow Seas: He who cleans the countryside deserves to be Chinese." -- "Ping-Pong Ball", the Wombles
Dr Gafia
In article <62q5dv$3pc...@filklore.demon.co.uk>,
mins...@filklore.demon.co.uk (Chris Malme) tells me:
>[ . . . ] And it is also amazingly simple to read and
>understand what Gary was saying. See above.
>
>You might try it sometime.
And it really >was< "above" folks, but I'm just going to quote
the part Chris chooses to emphasize for my eclaircisement:
>> >The situation of a controversy over the write-in never arose
>> >before. It has never arisen again on the other fan funds.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> >That says it all, right there, and I think is sufficient to
>> >demonstrate that the elimination of the write-in was an
>> >obvious, if perfectly understandable, over-reaction made in
>> >the heat of the moment.
I am not particularly moved by what happens in the other fan
funds; well, what happens in GUFF doesn't concern me at all,
for all that I contribute to it indirectly. I do contribute
more directly to DUFF, if only through participation in
TAFF/DUFF auctions. I very seldom vote in DUFF and even then
without a great deal of expectation and enthusiasm, as I do in
the case of TAFF.
I frankly don't really care whether or not the same thing has
or has not happened yet in DUFF or GUFF as happened in TAFF. I
suppose GUFF as well as DUFF allows write-ins, and I have not
heard that either of them has been harmed by continuing to
allow write-ins in their voting.
But so what?
I have no doubt that the vast majority of GUFF and DUFF voters
are aware of what happened in that TAFF race --after all,
they're frequently the same voters. Even where they're not,
they know how upset people were about it when it _did_ happen
in TAFF. And just in case you're wondering how upset they
were, they were so upset about it that, as impossible as it is
supposed to be to get a "change" in the fan funds, TAFF no
longer has the language on its ballot "encouraging" write-ins.
That's a fact.
--rich brown
Chris Malme
> I am not particularly moved by what happens in the other fan
> funds; well, what happens in GUFF doesn't concern me at all,
> for all that I contribute to it indirectly. I do contribute
> more directly to DUFF, if only through participation in
> TAFF/DUFF auctions. I very seldom vote in DUFF and even then
> without a great deal of expectation and enthusiasm, as I do in
> the case of TAFF.
That's all very well, if you don't think GUFF or DUFF is relevant, then all
you had to do was say so. However, your initial argument (which you
conveniently snipped) was:-
> > Sorry, but your argument about its uniqueness is specious on
> > its face. >>Certainly<< it only happened that way one time--
> > the language which allowed "write-ins" was removed from the
> > ballot after it happened, since if you can't have write-ins,
> > you can't have write-in campaigns (and maroons won't be urged
> > to believe they're the same thing), and if you can't have
> > write-in campaigns, then you certainly can't have "secret"
> > write-in campaigns in which ignorant convention fans are lied
> > to and manipulated. It's amazing simple.
You accused Gary of a specious argument in his statement that there had been
no similar abuse (in DUFF or GUFF) since. You justified your accusation by
ignoring his reference to DUFF and GUFF, and pretending he was only
referring to TAFF.
God knows why I am defending Gary here - he's big enough to stand up for
himself. However I find it so irritating that you clearly have a gift with
words, and the ability to argue a case coherently, but instead appear to
take delight in deliberately misunderstanding or misrepresenting what other
people have said.
In using such debating techniques, you belittle yourself unnecessarily.
Chris
FitchDonS
rich brown (drg...@aol.com), in message
<19971024031...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, Posted:
<much snipped>
>I don't think the phrase "write-ins are encouraged" was meant
>to mean "write-in _campaigns_ are encouraged". I don't believe
>you are dumb enough to think that that _was_ the intent.
The alternative would seem to be to believe that the "write-ins
are encouraged" provision was intended to be meaningless. Without
some sort of "campaign" _no_ write-in candidate would stand the
slightest chance of winning. Indeed, if I interpret the muffled
behind-the-scenes noises correctly, it seems sometimes necessary
to campaign to get one or more fans to stand as "regular"
candidates. And I suppose it won't be too long before we have a
TAFF race in which all the candidates are ConFans, MediaFans, or
FilkFans, with no FanzineFans represented; that'll be interesting.
ISTR that there's long (i.e., since the early '60s) been some low-
level (generally amicable) disagreement about how much importance
should be given to the concept of the TAFF Delegate being an
Ambassador. In its fullness, this would mean that each country's
fans would be saying "This person is our representative, someone
we believe you would enjoy and profit from meeting and associating
with". (The other country would have the chance to do the same
thing the next year.) I don't see any compelling reason to think
this idea is significantly inferior (or superior) to the one that
gives the recipient country a stronger say in who is selected.
I'm somewhat inclined to feel that it does people good to be
surprised, and to meet someone totally new, every once in a while,
but don't feel strongly enough about this to get all hot under the
collar about it, one way or the other. I do feel kinda strongly
that TAFF should not be a Reward for Past Services/Activities but
rather a gamble that the winner will be active in inter-national
fandom in the future, but that's something I think more
appropriate to influence by my vote than by setting up Rules.
Since one of my General Preferences In Life is to have and to
provide as many options as possible, I tended to support the
write-in provision, and rather regret the abolishment of it. But
then, I kinda think Martha Beck would've made a perfectly good
TAFF Delegate -- she'd probably have charmed and delighted
_different_ British fans than the actual winners that year did,
and the long-term effects on fandom probably wouldn't have been as
stimulating and beneficial, but neither do I think they'd have
been harmful, much less disastrous. And I think that's extremely
likely to be true of most write-in campaigns, successful or not.
TAFF's always a gamble, and it doesn't seem to me that the write-
in provision changes the odds enough to worry about, or spend much
time fretting over.
--
Don Fitch
<fitc...@aol.com>
Ulrika
In article <19971024031...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>Absolute utter nonsense. I am prepared to show you a dozen or
>more instances of its use for one of the non-serious purposes I
>outlined in what I wrote –- to give someone a little jolt of
>egoboo when the ballots were counted, for just one of the
>examples I cited.
>
>But can you show me _>ONE<_ example, in the entire 40+-year
>history of TAFF, where it was used in the manner you seem to
>feel it was intended to be used?
I am prepared to suggest the existence of billions of sperm
cells produced by celibate bachelors that never went to
serve the putative 'purpose' of successfully impregnating a
woman, and I bet you can't point to a single sperm cell of
a single celibate bachelor that went to impregnating a woman.
From this we conclude that there is no reason to suppose that
sperm are for impregnation.
Ulrika O'Brien, Philosopher Without Portfolio
***ulr...@aol.com***
Bridget Hardcastle
In article <19971020221...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) wrote:
> What they _may_ have been totally blind to was the fact that,
> for their plan to work, they had to totally disenfranchise the
> UK vote. Sure, >everyone< who voted in the traditional manner
> would've had their vote countered, but the Brits, as hosts, had
> (at least in my estimation) greater reason to be ticked. Since
> Martha's campaign was conducted exclusively in the US, if it
> succeeded it would have meant that not a single UK vote would
> have been cast for the winner. Not even a single _second-
> place_ UK vote.
Isn't there a rule that says the candidate has to acquire a certain
percentage of the "home" and "away" votes in order to win, to stop a
country being sent someone they'd never heard of?
Bug
Dr Gafia
In article memo.19971026...@bugshaw.compulink.co.uk>,
sch...@bugshaw.cix.co.uk (Bridget Hardcastle) writes:
>Isn't there a rule that says the candidate has to acquire a
>certain percentage of the "home" and "away" votes in order to
>win, to stop a country being sent someone they'd never heard
>of?
Yes, absolutely, you're certainly right.
As a _direct result_ of the Martha Beck write-in campaign,
which I happen to be citing here, one of the largest gatherings
of TAFF administrators and former TAFF administrators I have
ever been aware of got together and approved changes in the
TAFF rules to allow the incorporation of this phrase to the
TAFF ballot: "....In order to win, a candidate must receive at
least 20% of the first-ballot first-place votes on both sides
of the Atlantic, separately. Any candidate failing to receive
this minimum percentage on either side will be dropped, and the
second-place votes on their ballots counted as first-place
votes in the next ballot count. Thus candidates and their
supporters will need to canvass fans on both sides of the
pond."
Apparently the beginning phrase -- "The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund
was created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring
well-known and popular fans familiar to those on both sides of
the ocean across the Atlantic" wasn't sufficient to drive the
point home, as I believe it has appeared on the ballot that way
for the past 20 years and more.
--rich brown aka DrGafia
Dan Goodman
In article <EIo1n...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>,
Steve Brewster <Steve.B...@Bristol.ac.uk> wrote:
>What sorts of ballots in the US (apart from fan fund ones) have a
>'write-in' option? Is the 'write-in' option common?
>
>I only ask because I can't think, offhand, of any sort of ballot
>in Britain that has such an option. (I think its rarity in Britain
>was one of the reasons for its being dropped from the TAFF rules,
>wasn't it?)
It's usual in some states, may not be in others. Within a state which has
that option, it may or may not be available in a particular city, county,
town/township, village, borough, city-county, school district,
neighborhood association, etc.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604
From: dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
Date: 26 Oct 1997 16:44:53 GMT
In article <EIo1n...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>,
Steve Brewster <Steve.B...@Bristol.ac.uk> wrote:
>What sorts of ballots in the US (apart from fan fund ones) have a
>'write-in' option? Is the 'write-in' option common?
>
It's usual in some states, may not be in others. Within a state which has
that option, it may or may not be available in a particular city, county,
town/township, village, borough, city-county, school district,
neighborhood association, etc.
--
In California, write-in candidates have to qualify to be
valid. I don't recall what the qualifications are, though.
73, doug
John Dallman
In article <34591cb5...@news.demon.co.uk>, ans...@cix.co.uk (David
Langford) wrote:
> On 26 Oct 1997 08:13:18 GMT, sch...@bugshaw.cix.co.uk (Bridget
> Hardcastle) wrote:
> >Isn't there a rule that says the candidate has to acquire a certain
> >percentage of the "home" and "away" votes in order to win, to stop a
> >country being sent someone they'd never heard of?
>
> Yes, the "20% rule" ... but there wasn't such a rule at that time.
...
> The rule seems to work OK for typical two- or three-candidate races, but
> I've occasionally wondered about larger slates.
> I'm not sure either ... but, in general, that ad-hoc 20% seems harder
> and harder to achieve as additional (non-straw-fan) candidates are added
> to the race, and there may well be a case for reducing it as the slate
> grows. God knows what formula would be appropriate!
Hmm... How about:
20% for one, two or three candidates
15% for four
12.5% for five
10% for six or more.
Or, more complicated to evaluate, but possibly fairer:
20% of first-place votes for one, two or three candidates
20% of 1st + 2nd place votes for four or five candidates
20% of 1st + 2nd + 3rd place votes for six or more candidates.
---
John Dallman j...@cix.co.uk
Gary Farber
In <EIo1n...@fsa.bris.ac.uk> Steve Brewster <ma...@zeus.bris.ac.uk> wrote:
: What sorts of ballots in the US (apart from fan fund ones) have a
: 'write-in' option? Is the 'write-in' option common?
My best answer is "not in some places, but in others." Given that we have
fifty sets of state rules, and locales can produce others within those,
leading to tens of thousands of sets of rules.
: I only ask because I can't think, offhand, of any sort of ballot
: in Britain that has such an option. (I think its rarity in Britain
: was one of the reasons for its being dropped from the TAFF rules,
: wasn't it?)
No.
Kevin Standlee
ma...@zeus.bris.ac.uk (Steve Brewster) writes:
> What sorts of ballots in the US (apart from fan fund ones) have a
> 'write-in' option? Is the 'write-in' option common?
All "mundane" elections have write-ins allowed. (As I recall, write-in
candidates, in order to actually win the election, must file official
papers with the appropriate authority.)
In fandom, Westercon's site selection uses substantially the same rules
as Worldcon, which means that write-ins are allowed. Worldcon has gone
to some further enumeration of precise rules on write-in candidates, such
as specifying that they must file the same sort of filing papers as
candidates that appear on the ballot.
Note that the Hawaii in '93 Worldcon write-in bid came in _second_ to San
Francisco, with two other candidates (Zagreb, Phoenix) finishing behind
Hawaii. (Fortunately for San Francisco, about 3/4 of the people who
voted Phoenix in first place voted San Francisco second, so when Phoenix
dropped as the fourth-place candidate, those votes transferred to SF and
guaranteed the victory.)
The write-in bid for I-95 in '95 (NASFiC) was filed with less than one
second before the absolute final deadline, and came in -- I think --
second to Atlanta, with "None of the Above" and New York following in
third and fourth respectively. (I may have the order of finish between
RoadKillCon and NOTA reversed; I administered that election, but don't
have my records handy.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a thought from Kevin Standlee -> (stan...@LunaCity.com)
LunaCity BBS - Mountain View, CA - 650 968 8140
Gary Farber
In <q757ee...@LunaCity.com> Kevin Standlee <stan...@LunaCity.com> wrote:
: ma...@zeus.bris.ac.uk (Steve Brewster) writes:
: > What sorts of ballots in the US (apart from fan fund ones) have a
: > 'write-in' option? Is the 'write-in' option common?
: All "mundane" elections have write-ins allowed. (As I recall, write-in
: candidates, in order to actually win the election, must file official
: papers with the appropriate authority.)
Um, maybe in California, Kevin, but not in plenty of other states.
Certainly not in New York, for example.
[. . . .]
Gary Farber
In <19971020221...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Dr Gafia <drg...@aol.com> wrote:
[. . .[
: If any of the attendees wanted to Strike A Blow
: for Midwest Fandom, but had doubts about their eligibility to
: vote in TAFF, they could always cite Bob Tucker as the person
: to verify their fan activity, and most likely it would never be
: checked.
: Rather as Gary was doing here on rasff for on-line fans who
: were wondering about their eligibility not all that long back,
Wrong. Untrue.
I said that people whom I knew to be active in fandom for over two years,
who qualified to vote for TAFF, whose name Dan Steffan didn't know, could
use my name as their cite. I made no offer more sweeping than that, and I
would make no offer more sweeping than that. What I said was entirely
proper.
Your imputation that I was doing anything other, or in any way improper,
is absolutely false, and I'd ask that you withdraw it, please. I accept
that your memory has been unreliable here, and that you are not
intentionally distorting the truth, but I'd appreciate your correcting
your misstatement, please, and not repeating it.
: in fact, in what I must suppose he regards as an effort to
: "open up" TAFF to a larger audience, which is also an echo of
: what Martha's supporters claimed when what they were doing was
: discovered.
[. . . .]
Gary Farber
In <19971024031...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Dr Gafia <drg...@aol.com> wrote:
: gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) [said]
[. . .]
: >I dislike rule changes made based on wildly unusual, to the
: >point of being unique, circumstances, which is precisely what
: >this was.
: >The situation of a controversy over the write-in never arose
: >before. It has never arisen again on the other fan funds.
: >That says it all, right there, and I think is sufficient to
: >demonstrate that the elimination of the write-in was an
: >obvious, if perfectly understandable, over-reaction made in
: >the heat of the moment.
: Sorry, but your argument about its uniqueness is specious on
: its face. >>Certainly<< it only happened that way one time--
: the language which allowed "write-ins" was removed from the
: ballot after it happened, since if you can't have write-ins,
: you can't have write-in campaigns (and maroons won't be urged
: to believe they're the same thing), and if you can't have
: write-in campaigns, then you certainly can't have "secret"
: write-in campaigns in which ignorant convention fans are lied
: to and manipulated. It's amazing simple.
This fails to explain why this problem never arose before in thirty-odd
TAFF races, nor has ever arisen in twenty-odd DUFF races before or since,
nor in GUFF races.
When this was subsequently pointed out to you *again*, your response was
that you "didn't care." As an argument that my point is "specious," that
fails.
The problem in 1985 was unique.
It also was dealt with by the institution of the 20% rule. Moreover, it
was dealt with without any change at all, since Our Side won merely by
Getting Out The Vote. I'm happy with the 20% rule, nonetheless, because
notwithstanding the valid concerns that Dave Langford points out, I think
it's sound. I also don't think that the issue of the write-in is Terribly
Important one way or another, but it remains obvious that the events of
1985 were unique, and that to observe this is not "specious."
(By the way, if you genuinely believe that Martha Beck did nothing wrong,
it would be polite to quit dragging her name into your argument.)
: >It's mere gravy to make further observations: 1) I'm quite
: >sure Patrick has not "forgotten" the circumstances of the
: >controversy.
: That's okay, I'm sure Rob hasn't forgotten them either--for
: _precisely_ the same reason you're certain Patrick hasn't
: forgotten them. I do get the impression that Patrick has
: forgotten >something< fairly important here, for all that I'm
: not certain whether I'll be able to put my finger on it. Or
: whether I'll want to, if I can. But that's another matter.
This is an unpleasant form of unspecific slurring, by the way.
: >2) Laying aside the fact that I entirely agree that the
: >circumstances of the Martha Beck write-in campaign were badly
: >misused by some proponents, there was nothing per se wrong
: >with using the write-in -- that's what it was *there* for....
: Absolute utter nonsense. I am prepared to show you a dozen or
: more instances of its use for one of the non-serious purposes I
: outlined in what I wrote –- to give someone a little jolt of
: egoboo when the ballots were counted, for just one of the
: examples I cited.
: But can you show me _>ONE<_ example, in the entire 40+-year
: history of TAFF, where it was used in the manner you seem to
: feel it was intended to be used? That's a purely rhetorical
: question, I know, since it was, after all, >your< point that
: there IS only one example, the Martha Beck write-in, and unless
: you are lying in the paragraph above about your agreement,
: given what has actually happened.
I think it's clear that the write-in option was there to be used as fans
saw fit according to circumstances as they arise. Your contention that it
was never intended so serve as more than an object of frivolous amusement
seems unjustified. But if you have some evidence from the early days of
the fund where people said "of course, no one should ever actually be
allowed to *win* via a write-in; its purpose is purely as a medium for
jokes," by all means, reprint this for us.
If the intent had been to forbid anyone winning via a write-in, surely it
would have been disallowed?
I'm not aware that this is, in fact, the intent. It seems to me that you
are retroactively wishing this were so, which doesn't make it so. But if
you have evidence that you are right and I am wrong about this, I'm happy
to examine it, and determine the truth.
[. . .]
: [blah, blah, blah >snipped<]
Thank you for your respectful summary, which makes me ever so eager to
bother responding to your good faith response.
[. . .]
: I don't think TAFF can possibly benefit from setting up a
: situation wherein some people are going to find they have been
: buying a pig in a poke. Deception is not an option and should
: not be encouraged.
I agree, but I can't see that this would ever likely be the case. There
is no such thing as a "stealth" TAFF campaign: if a significant number of
write-ins started coming in for a fan, you can rest assured that the
administrators would make this known to fandom, of course. No?
The events of 1985 were not done in "stealth," and couldn't have been;
thus was the write-in campaign defeated. No one was "deceived," despite
the existence of the write-in option, any more than anyone has ever been
"deceived" in the seventy-odd cumulative races of fan funds with write-in
options.
In short, your above paragraph is one whopping big red herring, though I
accept that you don't consciously intend it as such. I think you're just
rather stuck on refighting The Battle Of Martha Beck as your only paradigm
for examining the pros and cons of the write-in option, so far as I can
see. Again, I'll be happy to be misjuding this.
: The inexperienced convention fans were not
: the only ones who would have been deceived--
This is the sort of thing that gives me the impression you are stuck on
arguing 1985. I'm talking general cases, you're arguing The Unique Case.
: the regular TAFF
: voters voting in that election had every reasonable expectation
: that their contributions would send either P&TNH or Rich Coad
: to the UK. In your imaginary situation here, we are presuming
: two or more convention fans are facing off against each other.
: I don't think the fans who vote for them should be cheated out
: of their contributions by an out-of-the-blue "write-in" vote
No write-in campaign can be successful with an "out-of-the-blue" or
"stealth" campaign. Such a campaign would need *more* publicity than a
normal campaign. Thus, no one is "cheated," and your argument fails: no
moral wrong is committed. Anyone running a write-in campaign is running
at a significant disadvantage, and I see no moral or ethical problem
involved.
A write-in campaign *must* have more publicity than any other in order to
win.
We're talking only about a difference arising from minor bureaucratic
problem of nominations not getting in on time, possibly by a single day,
after all.
In sum: Big Fucking Deal.
To win, you have to campaign, and be sufficiently popular. On the ballot,
or as a write-in.
That's all there is to it.
Not a moral issue. Not an ethical issue. It's just not.
: from a group of fans who couldn't even get one of their number
: on the TAFF ballot that year. The ballot has options such as
: "Hold Over Funds" in the event anyone thinks Martha and her
: opponent(s) are beyond the pale.
: You see, I believe TAFF's original purpose is still its
: purpose. It was designed to recreate, to the extent possible,
: the phenomenon which brought Walt Willis to the 1952 world
: convention.
I agree, though I point out that considering the words "to the extent
possible," that fandom is significantly different than it was in 1952 in a
number of ways.
: TAFF is a mechanism intended to facilitate the
: exchange between US and UK fandoms of our very best, most
: fascinating and most talented fans. I accept that TAFF does
: not always succeed in this aim, but I hold that it is TAFF's
: aim nonetheless--
I agree entirely. See, rich, that wasn't so hard?
: and that it would reach this aim more often
: than it does if we could rid ourselves of the notion that TAFF
: should be conducted more like a lottery, in which the more
: mundane and average and representative fan has a fair and
: democratic chance to win, because they feel it is somehow
: judgmental and elitist to reward the talented. I rather wish
: these people would go establish their "lottery" fan fund and
: leave TAFF the fuck alone.
Who are these people, rich? Name some. Name three. I don't know any.
Maybe I've just never run into them. Maybe I don't recognize them. But
I'm not aware of any. So far as I can see, you are hallucinating them out
of your typical tendency to See Vast Threats To Fandom Which You Must Lead
The Crusde Against.
Your tendency to be the Don Quixote of fandom, rich, would be more
amusing, and perhaps even noble, if only you didn't keep hitting real
people with your Lance of Sarcasm whom you are hallucinating are
villains.
No one, in fact, is campaigning to see TAFF made a lottery for the
mediocre, are they, rich?
: It's a bit disconcerting to see some of the more talented fans
: who have won TAFF and deserved it under that standard upholding
: the egalitarian view. I'll give you that.
Oh, bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Though I grant that you've managed to
convince yourself this is so by sufficient dint of misreading and leaping
to erroneous conclusions based upon erroneous assumptions.
: I don't think the phrase "write-ins are encouraged" was meant
: to mean "write-in _campaigns_ are encouraged". I don't believe
: you are dumb enough to think that that _was_ the intent. Come
: on, now--if you're designing something to ensure the exchange,
: on almost a yearly basis, of fandom's best and most talented
: fans, are you going to encourage the 643 paid members of the
: East Mashed Potato Falls, Idaho, Scientifictional, Fantasy,
: Star Trek and D&D High School Society to "write in" their
: club president's name? Gimme a break.
You're the one with this paranoia about Them Taking Over, rich. You're
the one convinced that Evil Fringe Media/Gaming/Whatever Fans are Out To
Steal Our Toys. It's just not true. As you point out, if two thousand
trekkies wanted to take over TAFF, they sorta could (even though "we"
could just form a New One).
They Don't Want To, rich. Relax. If you actually paid attention to these
other eddies of fandom, you might realize that They Couldn't Care Less.
At best, some of Them want nothing to do with what they perceive as a
bunch of unpleasant people into defining Us and Them. The rest just
couldn't care less, as TAFF is as completely irrelevant to their lives as
is a debate over whether the Death Star would beat the Enterprise is to
yours.
If East Mashed Potato Falls wants to campaign for TAFF, what earthly
difference does it make if they send in nominations on time and have their
candidate on the ballot, or not?
What does that have to do, inherently, with the write-in option?
Tim Illingworth
In article <34549607...@news.demon.co.uk>
r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk "Rob Hansen" writes:
>Hmm. I've been thinking about this and, so far as I can tell, it
>should achieve the same effect as the current interpretation of the
>rule while eliminating the hypothetical situation Dave was worried
>about. Can anyone number-crunch a situation where it breaks down, or
>does it in fact do what I think it does?
It breaks down if the vote is seriously unbalanced. Eg. 3 candidates,
receiving 40/30/10 votes one side, and 4/4/4 the other. The winner is
the 3rd candidate, as the only one to survive elimination.
This doesn't look like a serious problem for TAFF. It does, however,
lead to a situation where casting a vote for a candidate can get them
eliminated, which doesn't seem right.
Tim
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Illingworth t...@smof.demon.co.uk Go not to Usenet for advice, for
Chessington, tim...@cix.compulink.co.uk they will say both 'No' and 'Yes'
Surrey, UK 10014...@compuserve.com and 'Try Another Newsgroup'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Langford
>In article <19971020221...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) wrote:
>
>> What they _may_ have been totally blind to was the fact that,
>> for their plan to work, they had to totally disenfranchise the
>> UK vote. Sure, >everyone< who voted in the traditional manner
>> would've had their vote countered, but the Brits, as hosts, had
>> (at least in my estimation) greater reason to be ticked. Since
>> Martha's campaign was conducted exclusively in the US, if it
>> succeeded it would have meant that not a single UK vote would
>> have been cast for the winner. Not even a single _second-
>> place_ UK vote.
>
>Isn't there a rule that says the candidate has to acquire a certain
>percentage of the "home" and "away" votes in order to win, to stop a
>country being sent someone they'd never heard of?
Yes, the "20% rule" ... but there wasn't such a rule at that time. It was
inserted during Patrick's and Teresa's administration, precisely so that
the ballot rules would reflect this sense (checked by consulting as many
TAFF founders and past administrators as possible) that a candidate should
have some significant support from both host and destination countries.
Hence the requirement for candidates to win at least 20% of the first-place
votes from each side of the water.
The rule seems to work OK for typical two- or three-candidate races, but
I've occasionally wondered about larger slates.This leads me to quote
private e-mail -- my own, to Pam Wells earlier this year:
> I still have misgivings about [the rule's] insensitivity to the number of
> candidates in a race, and could easily fudge up a hypothetical example in
> which a strong slate of several well-liked fans might -- after the usual
> run-offs and recounts -- produce a clear winner acceptable on both sides
> of the water .. except that all the candidates are eliminated by the 20%
> rule! It also seems, although I haven't tried to construct a sample set
> of figures, that in a similar closely-contested race with a large slate,
> where two or more candidates are immediately dropped under the 20% rule,
> it is possible for one of these eliminatees to have been the clear and
> acceptable winner under the old system. Am just hoping that these are
> extreme and unlikely cases!
And Pam pointed out that the spread of first-place voting in a recent
four-candidate race led to Abigail Frost's immediate win, since the other
three candidates were instantly eliminated by applying the 20% rule in one
country or the other, while Abigail just scraped in. Now, as it turned out,
the same very narrow victory would have resulted if the 20% rule didn't
exist and the transferable-vote eliminations and calculations were made in
the old way. In this sense -- carefully avoiding the Blindlng Light of
Hindsight -- the short-cut victory was indeed "correct".
But what about the 20% rule in large-slate races with six or seven
candidates, as seen in the past? If four or five of them run close to each
other in popularity, it seems quite likely that even with a huge voting
turnout, every single one could be eliminated -- despite the possibility
that a candidate who is many fans' second choice would ultimately emerge
with a solid majority after eliminations. To put a sharper point on it, if
a race between fans A and B would lead to a popular victory for A, is it
entirely fair that the addition of fans C, D and E to the race could cause
A -- while remaining the victor under old-style balloting -- to be
eliminated like all the others under the 20% rule?
I'm not sure either ... but, in general, that ad-hoc 20% seems harder and
harder to achieve as additional (non-straw-fan) candidates are added to the
race, and there may well be a case for reducing it as the slate grows. God
knows what formula would be appropriate!
Dave
--
David Langford
ans...@cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/
Vicki Rosenzweig
In article <877908...@smof.demon.co.uk>, t...@smof.demon.co.uk wrote:
>In article <34549607...@news.demon.co.uk>
> r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk "Rob Hansen" writes:
>
>>Hmm. I've been thinking about this and, so far as I can tell, it
>>should achieve the same effect as the current interpretation of the
>>rule while eliminating the hypothetical situation Dave was worried
>>about. Can anyone number-crunch a situation where it breaks down, or
>>does it in fact do what I think it does?
>
>It breaks down if the vote is seriously unbalanced. Eg. 3 candidates,
>receiving 40/30/10 votes one side, and 4/4/4 the other. The winner is
>the 3rd candidate, as the only one to survive elimination.
>
>This doesn't look like a serious problem for TAFF. It does, however,
>lead to a situation where casting a vote for a candidate can get them
>eliminated, which doesn't seem right.
>
>Tim
>
might become a mathematician: Arrow's Theorem. Basically, what Arrow
did is state four apparently sensible axioms--the only one I remember
offhand is that if all the voters prefer candidate A to candidate B, B
should not be elected--and then proved that there was no way to
satisfy all four of them in a democracy. I think I'll do a Web search
later (I've had this phone line busy for about 4 hours now, mostly
not for the computer) unless someone digs it up before then.
In the meantime, we're not living in a mathematical abstraction: do
remember to send those TAFF ballots to the nearest administrator.
Vicki Rosenzweig
v...@interport.net | http://www.users.interport.net/~vr/
Typos are Coyote padding through the language, grinning.
--Susanna Sturgis
Jim Trash
>It's probably pointless of me to say this, but I can't make the slightest
>sense of what logical point you are attempting to make in this post, rich.
>
>Can anyone else understand what point rich is driving at?
The point that always leaps out at me whenever rich posts is that he's
badly in need of an editor.
http://www.scream.demon.co.uk Jim Trash
Alan Braggins
ulr...@aol.com (Ulrika) writes:
> I am prepared to suggest the existence of billions of sperm
> cells produced by celibate bachelors that never went to
> serve the putative 'purpose' of successfully impregnating a
> woman, and I bet you can't point to a single sperm cell of
> a single celibate bachelor that went to impregnating a woman.
Arguable. Celibacy and chastity are not the same thing. Being
unmarried certainly isn't incompatible with impregnation. Abstaining
from sexual intercourse isn't incompatible with being a sperm donor,
but I'll admit I can't actually point to such a sample.
From http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm
Main Entry: cel·i·bate
Pronunciation: 'se-l&-b&t
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin caelibatus, from caelib-, caelebs unmarried
Date: circa 1847
: a person who lives in celibacy
- celibate adjective
Main Entry: cel·i·ba·cy
Pronunciation: 'se-l&-b&-sE
Function: noun
Date: 1663
1 : the state of not being married
2 a : abstention from sexual intercourse
b : abstention by vow from marriage
Dr Gafia
In article <19971025145...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
fitc...@aol.com (FitchDonS) writes:
>rich brown (drg...@aol.com), in message
><19971024031...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, Posted:
>
><much snipped>
>>I don't think the phrase "write-ins are encouraged" was meant
>>to mean "write-in _campaigns_ are encouraged". I don't
>>believe you are dumb enough to think that that _was_ the
>>intent.
>
>The alternative would seem to be to believe that the "write-
>ins are encouraged" provision was intended to be meaningless.
>Without some sort of "campaign" _no_ write-in candidate would
>stand the slightest chance of winning.
I don't know whether to give the traditional "*s*i*g*h*" of
exasperation or to shout, "Jesus fucking Christ on a crutch!"
at the top of my lungs. Really.
Don, my entire argument here is that the phrase "write-ins are
encouraged" was >not< intended to provide an alternate avenue
for someone to "win" the TAFF race. Once you accept that, you
can accept that "write-ins are encouraged" did not mean "write-
in _campaigns_ are encouraged".
The fact that it wasn't intended to provide a means for anyone
to "win" the race doesn't render it "meaningless," either. It
would be "meaningless" ONLY if there were no other possible
motivation for urging, or casting, a write-in vote. That is
not the case. What it meant, since it seems to have escaped
your ready comprehension, was that if you didn't have a
preference but wanted to vote for someone else (as a way of
providing them with a little smidge of unexpected egoboo down
the line) or, even, your own self (as a way of providing
yourself a little smidge of expected egoboo down the line), so
long as you paid the minimum voting fee to do it, TAFF would be
(wink, wink) more than happy to take your money.
Now Don, if you care to go back and look at the reported
results of the voting in TAFF during most of the years the
phrase about encouraging write-ins was on the ballot, you will
discover a vote, here and there, for fans like Robert Bloch or
Dean Grennell or Harry Warner, Jr. or [fill in your own], and
it should be perfectly obvious to you -- particularly where any
of the above may have received such votes in a UK-to-US race --
that it was extremely unlikely that they were cast in any
genuine hope or belief that Bloch or Grennell or Warner or the
like would be the recipient of the Fund.
Just stop and think about it for a little while, Don, and
please, please, PLEASE, this time, use a little common sense.
Fan history has it that Don Ford called on Walt Willis, who in
turn called on others fans, to take some money which had been
collected by the Cincinnati fan group for a special fund that
hadn't, for one reason or another, been as successful as the
WAW With The Crew in '52 Campaign, and use it to set up a fund
that would come as close as possible to achieving essentially
the same aim as the WWTC52C had, but on an annual basis.
Now I ask you to take that and do a little scientifictional
extrapolation with it for the purpose of answering this
question as honestly as you can: Does it seem at all
reasonable or likely to you, Don, that after these fans set
up the best plan they could devise to get the finest, most
talented and most fascinating fans from one continent to the
other, they brought themselves up short and said, "Whoops!
Wait a minute there! We _almost_ forgot to include something
to provide the members of LASFS, or some other large fan club,
with the ability to bloc-vote a win in the race for any
complete stranger to international fandom they may choose!
We'd better hurry, now, and stick in something encouraging
write-in campaigns -- otherwise we're likely to have the kind
of fans winning TAFF that fans on the Other Side might actually
prefer to meet!"
Does this strike you as being even _remotely_ likely??
[I know you are probably aware of this, Don, but for those who
might not be, Laney's famous line, "Death will not release
you," was one he delivered in the late 1940s/early 1950s, not
long before TAFF got started, in response to a LASFS brag that
the club had well over 500 members. Laney knew this claim was
flawed –- that is, only true because LASFS policy at that time
was to never drop anyone from their rolls, even if they died.
I assure you this phrase was well known, and its meaning as
above understood, by Walt Willis and the others who set up
TAFF. What it means is that if we presume the mortality rate
among those who had joined the LASFS over the years was less
than 50 percent, and if we keep in mind the fact that the
population of what was then called "actifandom" (the very fans
who would have been considered the most likely to contribute to
and participate in TAFF voting) was estimated to number only
around 300 or so, and the votes they may have cast would have
been split among two, three, four or more candidates, then a
hefty "bloc" vote from the LASFS probably could have elected
any nonentity or, for that matter, absolute fugghead of their
choosing. I am sure the fans who put TAFF together were aware
of this, as well. I do think they would not have chosen to
shoot themselves in the foot by opening the door wide. But
YMMV.]
>ISTR that there's long (i.e., since the early '60s) been some
>low-level (generally amicable) disagreement about how much
>importance should be given to the concept of the TAFF Delegate
>being an Ambassador. In its fullness, this would mean that
>each country's fans would be saying "This person is our
>representative, someone we believe you would enjoy and profit
>from meeting and associating with". (The other country would
>have the chance to do the same thing the next year.) I don't
>see any compelling reason to think this idea is significantly
>inferior (or superior) to the one that gives the recipient
>country a stronger say in who is selected.
While we're at it, Don, let's toss in the people who feel TAFF
is or should be a "charity"; I'm not certain how they go about
determining who the most impecunious fan on the ballot may be
and thus who to vote for, but it's a sentiment I've seen
expressed every bit as often as the notion that perhaps our
TAFF delegates should be "ambassadors" representing all fans on
their side of the Big Pond.
I don't happen to agree with either of these sentiments, and no
doubt I'll get around to explaining why at some point, but for
now I'll content myself with trying to make a point by
considering TAFF as if it were analogous to a charity.
Let's pretend it's a charity that raises $2 million a year for
AIDS treatment and research. Along come some people whose
lifestyle generally precludes the possibility that they will
ever get AIDS, and they think it would be nifty indeed, or at
least more broadly representative, if this $2 million a year
could be used for treatment and research of something a larger
number of people are more likely to get -- cancer, perhaps.
(The people who get AIDS, they might well reason –- fags, drug
addicts, people who are sexually promiscuous –- are an elite
minority in the general population, so as far as they can see
it's perfectly reasonable for the general population to
consider "appropriating" this fund-raising mechanism and
decidedly undemocratic for the minority to protest in any way.)
Let's stipulate that, early on, some of these people "talk" in
a perfectly amicable way about how the fund should perhaps be
used for cancer research, while others engage in equally polite
converse to the effect that the money would be better spent on
a shelter for the homeless. We can make all these people part
of the Clinic's Board of Directors and stipulate that the Board operates
under the belief that it has wide discretionary
powers, and it actually has _de facto_ powers, with regard to
the disposition of the funds collected. As the population of
the Board is in flux, in any given year the funds might go to
AIDS, cancer or a homeless shelter. The "pledge" forms that
individuals turn in with their contributions to the Clinic
nonetheless continue, year in and year out, to assure those
individuals that the purpose of the Clinic is to provide
treatment and research for AIDS. And the Board members who
channel the funds collected to cancer research or the homeless
shelter positively exude an air of calm indifference when
they're accused of misappropriating the Clinic's funds by those
who support the Clinic's original purpose--the fact that they
_can_ do it appears to be the only justification they need.
Analogies have a tendency to become tedious if they are
stretched over too much territory -- and perhaps that is
already the case with the above. The point I hope this helps
make is simply this: All discussion about different possible
purposes for TAFF, no matter how "amicable" the discussion may
be, are red herrings. The debate is not about whether cancer
research or building a homeless shelter might/might not be
"better" than conducting AIDS research, it is about fundamental
honesty.
The TAFF ballot is a remarkable document. A single sheet, of
which one side is given over to the platforms of the candidates
and ballot form itself, the other side of the 8.5x11" page
explains the history, voting mechanism and purpose of TAFF in
clear and straightforward prose that strikes me as being
amazingly difficult to misunderstand unless one keeps one's
hands over one's eyes and one's eyes closed Very Very Tight.
For those who may not have one handy, the very first sentence
of the TAFF ballot states: "The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund was
created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring
well-known and popular fans familiar to those on both sides of
the ocean across the Atlantic." It has not a single word to
say about electing someone to "represent" local fandom to
fandom overseas in ambassadorial fashion, nor is there any
mention made of attempting to help fans who cannot otherwise
afford to go to make the trip.
Have you ever tried to play MONOPOLY with anyone who's
fundamentally incapable of playing by the rules? S/He suggests
that, instead of going a second time upon throwing doubles,
maybe s/he should be allowed to build a hotel for the price of
a house on the property s/he lands on, or buy a utility for
half price (even if it is already owned by someone else) if
s/he lands there. It's not that these notions aren't
interesting so much as it is the fact that the game is no
longer MONOPOLY.
I sincerely urge you, Don, as well as Gary Farber, as well as
former TAFF administrators like Patrick and Teresa Nielsen
Hayden, as well as anyone else reading this -- assuming only
that you consider yourselves to be fundamentally honest persons
-- to take a little time and actually >read< the TAFF ballot.
If you (and they) find you can't support TAFF for the purpose
described there, then do us the honest favor of refraining from
participation. Don't vote. Don't contribute. Go away and
leave us to play the game as it was meant to be played -- as,
indeed, the ballot still claims it is meant to be played.
There are honest alternatives to this rather harsh stricture
I've laid on you. There are always alternatives. The one that
springs most readily to mind is to tell the truth on the TAFF
ballot. Put in a note to the effect that fans who are
uncomfortable with the idea of awarding TAFF on the basis of
merit (because it implies such undemocratic notions as that
some people are more meritorious than others) can vote for the
fan they think best "represents" all of fandom on their side of
the Atlantic or the fan they think is the most impecunious or
for any other whimsical notion which may come into their silly
pointed heads. I suspect that I, personally, wouldn't vote in
such a TAFF, and I'm certain I wouldn't contribute any old
fanzines to be auctioned -- but I'd probably still participate
in auctions in which old fanzines were being offered.
If this is to be done, it should be done quickly -- if it is
made clear in time, Chuch Harris might like to have his fanzine
collection back.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Dr Gafia
In article <877908...@smof.demon.co.uk>, t...@smof.demon.co.uk (Tim
Illingworth) writes:
>It breaks down if the vote is seriously unbalanced. Eg. 3 candidates,
>receiving 40/30/10 votes one side, and 4/4/4 the other. The winner is
>the 3rd candidate, as the only one to survive elimination.
I am sorry to admit that you have lost me here. As I read it,
there is 100 percent of the US vote and 100 percent of the
UK vote--and the requirement is that the winner must receive
a minimum of 20 percent of the US vote and 20 percent of the
UK vote or be eliminated. (Okay, the "UK" vote can sometimes be the
European vote and the "US" vote can include Canadian votes, for those
inclined to be picky, picky, picky.) If there are 80 votes cast on one
side (40 + 30 + 10), then 20 percent of that 80 is 16, so only the
candidate who has 10 votes is eliminated--which would be the case even
without the rule. On the other side, 12 votes have been case (4 + 4 + 4),
and each candidate has won 33.3 percent of that vote, so no one is
eliminated by the rule. What is the problem?
--rich brown
Dr Gafia
In article <630q9t$1mc...@port.net.interport.net>, v...@interport.net
(Vicki Rosenzweig) writes:
>In the meantime, we're not living in a mathematical abstraction: do
>remember to send those TAFF ballots to the nearest administrator.
What she said.
--rich brown
Dr Gafia
In article <EIo1n...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>, ma...@zeus.bris.ac.uk (Steve
Brewster) writes:
>What sorts of ballots in the US (apart from fan fund ones) have a
>'write-in' option? Is the 'write-in' option common?
Theoretically, any political ballot. Since the balloting is mostly done
by machine, you have to ask for a "write-in" ballot when it comes your time
to enter the "booth". They have to take your write-in
ballot and count it after the tally is taken off the voting machines.
In most cases, it is a "protest" vote; I was thinking of doing it in
the Presidential election between Lyndon Johnson and Barry ("Nuke 'em back
to the stone age!") Goldwater, but decided it was more important to defeat
Goldwater.
--rich brown
Doug Wickstrom
At the risk of becoming embroiled in a flame war, might I point out
that:
Your characterization of Goldwater is and was incorrect.
The phrase you quoted was not Goldwater's, but is a corruption of a line
in a speech by Gen. (Ret.) Curtis E. LeMay, one of the
_Vice_-Presidential candidates, in 1968 _not_ 1964 (Wallace-LeMay
ticket). The actual line was more-or-less "tell these North Vietnamese
to pull in their horns and stop this agression or we'll bomb them back
into the Stone Age."
Gen. LeMay was opposed to the use of nuclear wepons from the time of
their inception, argued against their use in 1945 ("Hell, I'm destroying
a city a day; by October they won't have any left.") and did not at any
time advocate their use in Viet Nam. His remark in 1968 was
precipitated by a North Vietnamese invasion of South Viet Nam following
the failure of the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, and the resulting
near-obliteration of the V.C. LeMay was a very interesting and
dichotomous individual. Homework exercise: determine how the man who
opposed nuclear weapons from the beginning could be the same man who
built the Stragic Air Command.
IIRC, and I do RC, it was the candidate you ultimately supported
(Johnson) who did, in fact, attempt to "bomb them back into the Stone
Age."
Perhaps your recollection of the purpose of write-in ballots is equally
faulty. Ghu forbid that a write-in candidate might actually _win_.
Bernard Peek
In rec.arts.sf.fandom, article <19971028093...@ladder01.news.ao
l.com>, Dr Gafia <drg...@aol.com> writes
>Don, my entire argument here is that the phrase "write-ins are
>encouraged" was >not< intended to provide an alternate avenue
>for someone to "win" the TAFF race.
Any evidence for this assertion?
--
Bernard Peek
b...@intersec.demon.co.uk
Dr Gafia
In article <630fhe$q...@panix2.panix.com>, gfa...@panix.com
(Gary Farber) writes protesting something I wrote about him:
>[ . . . ] I said that people whom I knew to be active in
>fandom for over two years, who qualified to vote for TAFF,
>whose name Dan Steffan didn't know, could use my name as their
>cite. I made no offer more sweeping than that, and I would
>make no offer more sweeping than that. What I said was
>entirely proper.
>
>Your imputation that I was doing anything other, or in any way
>improper, is absolutely false, and I'd ask that you withdraw
>it, please. I accept that your memory has been unreliable
>here, and that you are not intentionally distorting the truth,
>but I'd appreciate your correcting your misstatement, please,
>and not repeating it.
I may end up repeating it AND apologizing for it, because I feel it's
important to get to the truth of the matter, and I am calling on you and
others here to help me to do so.
First, there _is_ some unreliable memory involved here, and there is no
question that the unreliable memory involved is mine. But it isn't at
fault for any more than the fact that I cannot, at this point, cite just
who you were speaking to -- I thought it was either with or about Seth
Briedbart (which I'll explain later), yet a detailed short- and long-term
search on Dejanews using "Farber + TAFF + Briedbart" does not come up with
the item. I apologize for that. And, at the moment, for that alone.
Because, second, what you did struck me -- not as an after thought but as
you were in the process of doing it -- as being precisely what Martha's
supporters had done, and as I considered it improper when they did it, I
felt precisely the same thing about it when you did it. No choice, really.
I was even intending to say something about it at that time, but there
were more important matters under discussion and I never got around to it
–- it just stayed lurking around in the back of my mind -- until I brought
it up here in the item you found objectionable.
The matter under discussion was, of course, the requirement to have been
in fandom for a given amount of time -– a rule in effect since TAFF got
started in 1953, the idea at the time being that a year or so of activity
should provide even neos with enough knowledge about what was going on in
the microcosm to make them reasonably qualified voters. Since there are so
many different areas of the microcosm presently which think of themselves
as "fandom," compared to the more centralized microcosm of 1953, even I
doubt that it succeeds –- so it has to be an extremely inconvenient rule
for those who feel TAFF voting should be opened up to anyone who's ever
watched a complete episode of Star-Trek.
8-([;o>}
Yet the TAFF ballot continues to take it seriously, whether or not I think
it can or you or Patrick Nielsen Hayden believe it should. It states: "If
you think your name may not be known to the administrators, then in order
to qualify your vote, please give, in the space below, the name and address
of an active fan (not a fan group, a candidate or their nominator) who is
known to them and to whom you are known." In short, if you know enough
about fandom to know the name and address of an active fan known to the
administrators, and that active fan knows you well enough to vouch for the
length of your involvement in the microcosm, then you are qualified to vote.
Martha Beck's supporters, when they were attempting to get convention fans
who were generally uninformed about TAFF to write in Martha's name as their
choice, instructed these ignorant convention fans to cite Bob Tucker as
someone who could verify their qualifications to vote. Since Tucker has
been a BNF and Living Legend since before I was born, this would probably
have ensured that the ballots would not be questioned by the TAFF
Administrator – since it would give the impression that the voter at least
knew enough about fandom to realize Bob's status in the microcosm. (It
goes without saying that if anyone lists, say, the president of some
obscure fan club whom no one outside of that club has ever heard of, that's
a pretty fair indication that the person doing the citing _doesn't_ really
know very much about fandom.) And if the Administrator found it suspicious
that so many ballots came in from so many fans he had never heard of, all
of them citing Bob Tucker as the person to verify their activity, it is
quite probable that, between his kindheartedness and the fact that he has
undoubtedly met so many people at conventions whose names he could not
possibly remember, that Bob would feel himself unable to deny anyone who
cited him. At least, I believe that is probably what Martha's supporters
were counting on, because it suited their aims admirably that the
convention fans being manipulated be as new and raw and as ignorant of the
truth about TAFF as possible.
To my mind, attempts to circumvent the few rules TAFF has demonstrates a
despicable disregard for the principles TAFF has lived by. Maybe that's
Just Me. I would like to think that it isn't.
In any event, the instance involving you was one in which someone (I
thought it was Seth) said they intended to vote and cite, in that spot on
the ballot, someone well known among the sf fans zooming along the
information highway (although perhaps it was someone else saying they would
cite Seth) as the fan who could verify their activity. Since it's tedious
to keep going back and forth covering both possibilities, let's just say
(until shown otherwise) that it was someone who would have cited Seth. You
popped up to say no, that wouldn't be such a good idea, since Dan Steffan,
the TAFF Administrator, would have no idea who Seth was, and arguably might
disqualify the ballot. You said it would be much better to list you
instead (although I thought you said someone else, I can't cite who and
will – unless shown otherwise –- accept what you say here). I don't
specifically recall you making all that many qualifications about using
your name for that purpose, but they may have been implicit or they may
have been used earlier even if I am right about this.
Now, I acquit you of self-serving designs on TAFF, or desire to manipulate
the voters for your own purposes, but otherwise this is precisely what
Martha's supporters did. They wanted the ballots submitted by voters too
ignorant of TAFF and fandom to know who to cite to be counted, so they
provided them with the name of one of the fannish community's BNFs which
they could use –- thus circumventing the >intent< of that rule, which was
designed to give the TAFF Administrator an indication of whether or not
that voter had been in fandom long enough to know who would and would not
be someone to cite. Unless you did not do what I said above, you did the
same thing with a net fan who, however long s/he may have been
participating in groups like this one, was not in the fandom were TAFF
originated, did not know who would and would not be someone to cite.
If it was actually someone else who did this and I have confused him with
you, I am prepared to apologize. If the above is not, in fact, what
happened, I am prepared to apologize. If this clarification is sufficient
to make you feel better, I'm glad, but if not, feel free to stick it in
your ear.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Dave Locke
Dr Gafia phosphorized:
In the specific focus of providing a reference who can verify your
tenured slanhood to the administrators, let's set the record straight
and let's get very real and very clear about something here.
> ... the TAFF ballot ... states: "If you think your name may not be known to
> the administrators, then in order to qualify your vote, please give, in the
> space below, the name and address of an active fan (not a fan group, a
> candidate or their nominator) who is known to them and to whom you
> are known."
Correct.
> In short, if you know enough about fandom to know the name and
> address of an active fan known to the administrators, and that active
> fan knows you well enough to vouch for the length of your
> involvement in the microcosm, then you are qualified to vote.
Incorrect. You have to provide a common name, period. If you *know*
who the administrators know, without someone telling you, you probably
wouldn't have to cite a reference.
If you don't know the administrators, you probably don't know the name
of someone you know in common. If the reference you provide is also
not someone known to the administrator, how can your reference provide
verification when their own fanhood is unknown?
> Martha Beck's supporters, when they were attempting to get convention fans
> who were generally uninformed about TAFF to write in Martha's name as their
> choice, instructed these ignorant convention fans to cite Bob Tucker as
> someone who could verify their qualifications to vote.
Those "uninformed" and "ignorant" fans had been contributing to the
support of TAFF for some time, and still do. They were provided with
the names and addresses of *several* fans the administrators knew (not
just Bob Tucker) who traveled within their own circles, so they could
find someone they *did* have in common who could provide legitimate
reference.
Terrible!
---
Dave | dave...@bigfoot.com | http://www.angelfire.com/oh/slowdjin
"I ain't here to make life a la carte for you."
-- Meldrick Lewis, "Homicide: Life on the Street"
Bernard Peek
In rec.arts.sf.fandom, article <19971029100...@ladder01.news.ao>In article <h85sTGAv...@intersec.demon.co.uk>, Bernard
>Peek <b...@intersec.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>>>[ . . . ] Don, my entire argument here is that the phrase
>>>"write-ins are encouraged" was >not< intended to provide an
>>>alternate avenue for someone to "win" the TAFF race.
>>
>>Any evidence for this assertion?
>
>citing the instances in which the write-in vote was used,
>previous to the Martha Beck debacle, in which you would have to
>be daft to claim that the intent was to win the race.
Yes I've seen those postings but the anecdotes you relate don't provide
any evidence in support of your assertion. You assert that the write-in
option "was >not< intended to provide an alternate avenue for someone to
"win" the TAFF race." Now please quote some evidence in support of that
argument.
The write-in option seems to me to be a catch-all clause that permits
the existing selection process to be overridden when unforseen
circumstances require it. It's insurance. As with all insurance schemes,
if things are going well there's no need to claim. The fact that the
write-in option has never been used in anger isn't a recommendation for
discontinuing it.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@intersec.demon.co.uk
Alison Scott
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) wrote:
>In article <877908...@smof.demon.co.uk>, t...@smof.demon.co.uk (Tim
>Illingworth) writes:
>
>>It breaks down if the vote is seriously unbalanced. Eg. 3 candidates,
>>receiving 40/30/10 votes one side, and 4/4/4 the other. The winner is
>>the 3rd candidate, as the only one to survive elimination.
>
>I am sorry to admit that you have lost me here. As I read it,
>there is 100 percent of the US vote and 100 percent of the
>UK vote--and the requirement is that the winner must receive
>a minimum of 20 percent of the US vote and 20 percent of the
>UK vote or be eliminated.
You know, rich, for somebody who accuses other people of not reading
your posts properly, you aren't paying at all enough attention here.
We'd previously discussed the way in which the existing 20% rule
breaks down. What Tim was describing was an alternative 20% rule,
whereby each candidate has to get 20% of his or her votes from the US
and UK. This avoids the problems of large slates, but has the problem
Tim describes above (though probably more likely so in theory than in
practice).
--
Alison Scott ali...@fuggles.demon.co.uk
Rather typical homepage: www.fuggles.demon.co.uk
Cutting-edge fanzine: www.moose.demon.co.uk/plokta
Dr Gafia
In article <345b6c53....@news.demon.co.uk>,
ali...@fuggles.demon.co.uk (Alison Scott) writes:
>You know, rich, for somebody who accuses other people of not reading
>your posts properly, you aren't paying at all enough attention here.
>
>We'd previously discussed the way in which the existing 20% rule
>breaks down. What Tim was describing was an alternative 20% rule,
>whereby each candidate has to get 20% of his or her votes from the US
>and UK. This avoids the problems of large slates, but has the problem
>Tim describes above (though probably more likely so in theory than in
>practice).
Yes, Tim explained it very well and I have just emailed him a thank you
(which I'm now making public in my post to you).
What you don't seem to understand in your remarks to me here, Alison, is
that posts do not always arrive in everyone's mailbox in the same order.
Or, in some cases, at all. I am not sure how or why this is so, but it has
been established that it happens.
It's an interesting notion but abstract--I'm not sure, even with the
explantion, how it would achieve the objective desired. I'm not even sure
what objective it would achieve but, then, as you suspect, I am a bear of
Very Little Brain.
The truth of the matter is, Alison, the sort of things that prompt these
changes haven't happened all that often in UK-to-US races -- so maybe I
should just bow out. But I think fans on my side of the Atlantic have sent
you pipple far more "duds" than you UK fans have ever sent to us and it
bothers me.
--rich brown
Dr Gafia
In article <345a39d4...@news.demon.co.uk>,
r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk (Rob Hansen) writes:
>On 26 Oct 1997 17:10:34 -0500, gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber)
>wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>>We're talking only about a difference arising from minor
>>bureaucratic problem of nominations not getting in on time,
>>possibly by a single day, after all.
>
>I've no great desire to revisit the events of 1985, but this
>bit of misinformation irritates the hell out of me every time
>I see it. The nomination in question was not a single day
>late. It was _postmarked_ almost a week after the deadline.
>I am 100%, cast iron certain of this because I was the TAFF
>administrator it was sent to.
>
>Just a minor correction for the historical record.
>
>Rob Hansen
Thanks for taking the time to do so.
I have no particular desire to revisit those unpleasant events
myself, Rob, but I'm beginning to think it is a mistake for the
actual participants to leave the telling of them to the
terminally fuzzybrained. I gather it was no less a personage
than Robert Anson Heinlein Hisownself, in his first GoH speech
at a worldcon back in fantiquity (they weren't Worldcons, with
a capital 'W,' then), who flattered his audience by dubbing us
"timebinders" and remarking our ability to pass on information
from one fan generation to the next, making it unnecessary for
each to reinvent the wheel, learning from the mistakes of
history and thus not being doomed to repeat them along with
mundania. (And we probably get laid a lot more often, too.) I
don't think fans are slans, but we have at times actually been
timebinders of just that sort, and I'd say it is wholly
dependent on getting and keeping accurate information
available, even if it is a bit painful to do so, because the
uninvolved -- between theorizing on how they would have liked
it to have been and speculating on how it "must" have been,
almost invariably Get It Wrong.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Dr Gafia
: gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) [said]
[. . .]
>: >The situation of a controversy over the write-in never
>: >arose before. It has never arisen again on the other fan
>: >funds. That says it all, right there, and I think is
>: >sufficient to demonstrate that the elimination of the
>: >write-ins was an obvious, if perfectly understandable,
>: >over-reaction made in the heat of the moment.
: Sorry, but your argument about its uniqueness is specious on
: its face. >>Certainly<< it only happened that way one time--
: the language which allowed "write-ins" was removed from the
: ballot after it happened, since if you can't have write-ins,
: you can't have write-in campaigns (and maroons won't be urged
: to believe they're the same thing), and if you can't have
: write-in campaigns, then you certainly can't have "secret"
: write-in campaigns in which ignorant convention fans are lied
: to and manipulated. It's amazing simple.
>This fails to explain why this problem never arose before in
>thirty-odd TAFF races, nor has ever arisen in twenty-odd DUFF
>races before or since, nor in GUFF races.
Oh, there's an explanation of why the problem never came up in
the earlier TAFF races, but it's implicit rather than explicit
and I really must apologize for not realizing – particularly
given all of my experience in dealing with you, Gary -– that
such things are inevitably beyond your grasp. Or so it all too
frequently seems.
But it's there, nonetheless: "... since if you can't have
write-ins, you can't have write-in campaigns (and maroons won't
be urged to believe they're the same thing)."
Prior to 1985, prior to the Actual Event, no one had ever
interpreted "write-ins are encouraged" to mean "write-in
campaigns are encouraged," much less "write-in campaigns with
the intent of winning the TAFF race, thereby circumventing a
large number of the other rules, are encouraged." As a direct
result of this fact, no actual write-in campaign was ever
conducted (at least not to the best of my knowledge and
understanding).
(I claim this as a fact even though, for reasons I have yet to
fathom, you seem to feel it needs to be proven in some iron-
clad manner, with Actual Quotes from fans of the period saying,
I must suppose, "It's never occurred to me that the phrase
'write-ins encouraged' might someday be interpreted to
encourage an actual write-in campaign to win the race," which
I'm certain no one actually ever said since, of course, if the
notion never occurred to any of them, the notion of denying it
had ever occurred to any of them could not have occurred to
them either, wot?)
I didn't bother, initially, to respond to the matter of why it
has not happened subsequently in other fan funds; I thought it
was irrelevant and my non-response indicative of same. Not so
--my failure to respond was seen by at least one person as a
failure to comprehend. So I responded; you, once again, didn't
understand it –- or so you said –- and so I wrote a
"simplified" version which, as I write this here, I posted to
rasff last night. It's always possible that I may yet have to
explain it again, but I'm going to hope for the best and that
my last attempt was sufficient, and thus not waste any more
bandwidth here.
>The problem in 1985 was unique.
It was the first time it ever happened, yes, and yes, it wasn't
allowed to happen again. That makes it unique. No question;
no debate.
>It also was dealt with by the institution of the 20% rule.
Only in a left-handed sort of way that did not get to the heart
of the matter. The 20% rule prevents a bloc vote on the part
of any club, group, cabal or convention from winning the TAFF
race outright, by sheer force of numbers, since it is now
necessary to win a certain minimum percentage of the votes on
the two sides of the Atlantic. It didn't and doesn't prevent a
coordinated write-in campaign at clubs and conventions on both
sides of the Atlantic. It didn't and doesn't address the
matter of misleading ignorant convention fans about the nature
of TAFF and thereby manipulating them so that a small number of
people can impose their will on all the rest of us. And it
certainly didn't and doesn't address the fact that, although it
was never intended and never previously used to support an
actual write-in campaign, once the phrase "write-ins are
encouraged" was interpreted to include (since it did not
specifically exclude) write-in campaigns, there would be any
number of fans down the line who would claim that write-in
campaigns were always intended to be included and write-in
campaigns could be instituted by anyone for any whimsical
reason that might occur to them. Whether you wish to be or
not, Gary, you are yourself abundant proof of that. So the
phrase had to go; I was glad to see it go and I oppose seeing
it reinstated.
>Moreover, it was dealt with without any change at all, since
>Our Side won merely by Getting Out The Vote.
Tell me about it.
That old TAFF matter of "vote buying" back in TAFF antiquity,
(i.e., 1956) had it been known about in time to act, arguably
could have been "dealt with" by Getting Out The Vote for Dick
Eney (who definitely won the UK vote and might have won the US
vote had the vote-buying not taken place); unfortunately, by
the time word of it actually got around, the winner (who had
only bought votes once, and then reluctantly) had already been
declared, most fans decided to "accept" it with as much grace
as possible rather than make a fuss and a handful complained
bitterly because they thought it was outrageous (and one, our
very own Chuch Harris, gafiated for 10 years in disgust because
of it).
The truth of the matter is, Gary, when we found out what was
happening –- Martha's supporters certainly didn't announce what
they were doing to fandom at large –- there was not a good deal
of time left to Get Out The Vote before the race would be over.
I don't specifically call just how we found out of it; Patrick
may be of some help in providing the actual facts of the
matter, because I dimly recall that it was a friend of his who
either wrote or called him about it, having (on something of a
fluke) actually attended one of those con and witnessed what
was being done and by whom.
Well. Anyway. Whatever. When word of it _did_ get to us,
Patrick and Teresa were not in any position to be going around
to any more clubs or to more conventions (if there were any
more conveniently located to them being held before the end of
the voting) or sending out fliers to beat the bushes for votes
on such short notice. It may have been partly because they
were still getting settled in New York City, or possibly this
was when Teresa was going to various places for treatment of
her narcolepsy; hell, even in ordinary circumstances it's not
easy, unless you're wealthy, to decide to go to a convention or
pub your ish on the spur of the moment.
As it happened, I had been running, for quite some time, a
mailing list service, for fanzine editors of my choice, which I
called Drudge Enterprises (a wholly owned subsidiary of the
Vernon McCain Division of Proxyboo, Ltd.). One of these days
I'll explain all the Hidden Meanings in that title, but not
today. Anyway, the service was free for those I chose and I
provided labels for the fanzines then being published by the
Nielsen Haydens, Richard Bergeron, Avedon Carol, Marty Cantor,
Bill Patterson, Stu Shiffman, Larry Carmody, Alina Chu,
mineownself and quite probably a few others whose names have
slipped out of the cast-iron sieve I call a memory. The mega-
list -- everyone who received one or more of those fanzines --
totaled around 700 (the basis of my claim, later, that the main
stream of fannish fanzine fandom had not grown by That Much
since the '50s, during which the number of actifans was
estimated to be around 300, rising to 500 if you tossed in
the fringe fans).
Well, anyway, my personal contribution to the mess was to run
off a TAFF ballot and a flier, explaining what was happening in
that inimitable way I have which probably should have assured a
landslide victory for Martha, and sent it out to all 700 of
them. It seemed like a Good Thing to do. At the time. I'm
not aware of anything else that was done to Get Out The Vote.
Do you, Gary? I mean, I recall various Brits talking about
urging or petitioning Rob Hansen not give any of the UK funds
to Martha, if she won, and others talking about boycotting
any parties that might be held in her honor or convention
program items she might be on as the TAFF delegate. Those
were designed to Get Out the Anger, not the Vote. Have I
forgotten something you did, or the Nielsen Haydens, or anyone
else who was upset about it?
I'm asking because, it seems to me, if I hadn't had the $200
handy needed to publish and circulate that flier and ballot,
either (a) with all her write-in votes, Martha's was never a
threat and the Nielsen Haydens had already won by a large
margin or (b) the flier and ballot turned the tide. Now,
$200 is a nice piece of change, even today, and I was
extremely lucky to have it, and not mind putting it up for
what I regarded as a Worthy Cause. My point, I guess, is that
if I _hadn't_ been that fortunate, TAFF probably would've been
won by that write-in vote, but Martha would not have had a Good
Time, since the Brits were for once sick and tired of having
fans they genuinely wanted to meet dangled under the noses,
only to be snatched away to have someone they'd never heard of
forced down their throats, some genuine unpleasantness would
have occurred and TAFF would probably have been discontinued or
still in turmoil.
On the bright side, if TAFF was still in existence, you would
still have your write-in provision.
I'll have to finish responding later.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
RSmith2678
In article <19971029220...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>Do you think
>maybe Seth Briedbart might like an Australian vacation? Or
>maybe Aahz? Or Ulrika O'Brien?
>
>
Sure, why not? Let's send all three of them.
--Randy Smith
RSmit...@aol.com
--The Guy From Nebraska
Ulrika
In article <19971030101...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes, re fans, presumably the
"terminally fuzzy" ones:
> between theorizing on how they would have liked
>it to have been and speculating on how it "must" have been,
>almost invariably Get It Wrong.
Gee, and they say Americans can't handle irony. You *go*, rich.
--Ulrika
Ulrika O'Brien, Philosopher Without Portfolio
***ulr...@aol.com***
Dr Gafia
In article <19971031000...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
rsmit...@aol.com (RSmith2678) writes:
>In article <19971029220...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
>drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>
>>Do you think
>>maybe Seth Briedbart might like an Australian vacation? Or
>>maybe Aahz? Or Ulrika O'Brien?
>>
>Sure, why not? Let's send all three of them.
Go for it.
--rich brown
mike weber
>What sorts of ballots in the US (apart from fan fund ones) have a
>'write-in' option? Is the 'write-in' option common?
>
>I only ask because I can't think, offhand, of any sort of ballot
>in Britain that has such an option. (I think its rarity in Britain
>was one of the reasons for its being dropped from the TAFF rules,
>wasn't it?)
>
>
Virtually all public ballots in the US have a "write in" option, but
it's often made pretty difficult to exercise -- i believe that in
Georgia, write-ins for President only count if the candidate has sworn
electors ready to vote for him in the Electoral College[1] -- thus,
Mickey Mouse and Alfred E. Newman votes are simply discarded...
[1] And _don't_ ask me to explain the Electoral College...
__
<mike weber> <<emsh...@aol.com>>
Dr Gafia
A continuation:
In <19971024031...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Dr Gafia <drg...@aol.com> wrote:
: gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) [said]
[. . .]
>(By the way, if you genuinely believe that Martha Beck did
>nothing wrong, it would be polite to quit dragging her name
>into your argument.)
Andy Hooper referred to it here recently as "L'affaire Beck";
I'm forced to use her name to let people know I'm addressing
the same thing. There's nothing in what Andy wrote to indicate
that _he_ considered Martha the villain; it just appears to be
the shortest way to refer to the matter. As someone who, 20
years prior to those events, supported Walter Breen, it made
more sense to >me< to refer to that particular contretemps as
the "Donaho Boondoggle" (since Donaho published the zine which
most fans refer to as the _Boondoggle_), but the feud itself is
nonetheless generally recalled as the "Breen Boondoggle," and
I've long since stopped raising the quibble and have tended to
call it that, myself. It's the same thing, really -- but as
someone who was on the Other Side in the matter, I try to make
it clear at least once in whatever I write about it that I
have nothing against her as a person, think of her as a victim
of the other agenda of some of her erstwhile supporters and
try to point out that a number of people whose opinions I
respect hold her in personal high regard. (I don't think I've
ever met her.)
But when you come right down to it, I don't really >know<
that Martha is blameless; I've been led to believe that her
supporters suggested running the write-in campaign at cons
where she was known and that they pointed out to her, as they
did to those convention attendees subsequently, that "write-
ins" were "encouraged". If all she did was say "yes" to it, I
would be inclined to think her a victim; if she took active
part in the distortion, the depiction of TAFF as an instrument
promoting regional rivalries and as an appropriate tool to be
Sending Messages to the Worldcon to the effect that the Midwest
"is _not_ the Wimpy Zone," I'm afraid I'm >still< inclined to
hold her relatively blameless as a club and convention fan
who's perhaps had scant reason to pay close attention to TAFF's
original intent. Any ill will I feel or felt was for the
cynical few who Knew Better and yet acted as they did anyway.
: >It's mere gravy to make further observations: 1) I'm quite
: >sure Patrick has not "forgotten" the circumstances of the
: >controversy.
: That's okay, I'm sure Rob hasn't forgotten them either--for
: _precisely_ the same reason you're certain Patrick hasn't
: forgotten them. I do get the impression that Patrick has
: forgotten >something< fairly important here, for all that I'm
: not certain whether I'll be able to put my finger on it. Or
: whether I'll want to, if I can. But that's another matter.
>This is an unpleasant form of unspecific slurring, by the way.
I suppose it's that, too; it is also, however, and primarily,
how I feel -- but if you think I'm glad of it, you're wrong. In
fact, if you think I'm glad of it, you can stick it in your
ear. And, truth to tell, I feel much the same way about you --
including the very deep regret that that >is< how I feel.
: >2) Laying aside the fact that I entirely agree that the
: >circumstances of the Martha Beck write-in campaign were
: >badly misused by some proponents, there was nothing per se
: >wrong with using the write-in -- that's what it was *there*
: >for....
: Absolute utter nonsense. I am prepared to show you a dozen
: or more instances of its use for one of the non-serious
: purposes I outlined in what I wrote –- to give someone a
: little jolt of egoboo when the ballots were counted, for just
: one of the examples I cited.
: But can you show me _>ONE<_ example, in the entire 40+-year
: history of TAFF, where it was used in the manner you seem to
: feel it was intended to be used? That's a purely rhetorical
: question, I know, since it was, after all, >your< point that
: there IS only one example, the Martha Beck write-in, and
: unless you are lying in the paragraph above about your
: agreement, given what has actually happened.
>I think it's clear that the write-in option was there to be
>used as fans saw fit according to circumstances as they arise.
>Your contention that it was never intended to serve as more
>than an object of frivolous amusement seems unjustified. But
>if you have some evidence from the early days of the fund
>where people said "of course, no one should ever actually be
>allowed to *win* via a write-in; its purpose is purely as a
>medium for jokes," by all means, reprint this for us.
All right then, Gary, you've pushed me to the wall; I would
have practically taken an oath, so sure was I that there was
not anything "in print" on this topic, so no doubt you will be
saddened to hear that I was wrong. As it happens, of late I
have been putting my fanzine accumulation [Bruce Pelz term]
into accessible file boxes, in folders, in alphabetical order,
so that possibly, in a couple of years, if I keep it up, I can
start to call it a fanzine collection. I am sure you'll find
it almost as hard as I did to believe that I could experience
such phenomenal luck, but here it is nonetheless:
" . . . Shortly after we thought we were finished writing the
ballot Walter said, "You know, we really should put in
something to allow write-ins." I barely had to think about it
before I objected....I pointed out that clubs in Atlanta and
Los Angeles had enough members to out vote all of fandom....but
Walter said we had to take the chance. "We have to have some
way to let fans who don't want to vote feel that they have
contributed to and participated in the fund. So let them write
in the name of their friends as long as they send in the voting
fee -- it's not as if we were in any danger that any of them
might win! Besides, this way, we've covered all our bases, so
that if, later on, we have a problem with some of the
convention fans -- for example, should Martha Beck's friends
attempt to conduct a write-in campaign in her behalf --
everyone will know that they were just flat-out Wrong." --
Chuch Haggis, "How We Wrote Up The TAFF Ballot," PLOY #1.
Actual heart-felt words of "Thanks", I believe, would probably
be entirely inappropriate at this juncture . . . .
>If the intent had been to forbid anyone winning via a write-
>in, surely it would have been disallowed? >
Aha! I >knew< we had to agree on something, here. _If_ the
intent [of the phrase "write-ins are encouraged," I presume]
had been to forbid anyone winning via a write-in, it surely
would have been disallowed...assuming, that is, that this
might be one of the few requirements that the Administrators
agreed should [whisper it] Actually Be Enforced.
But, yeah, if you make that assumption, and that assumption is
correct, then I agree. BTW -- though I hate to admit it,
since it smacks of inattention -- I missed it; would you mind
very much telling me just who the maroon is who seems to think
the intent of the phrase "write-ins are encouraged" is to
forbid anyone winning via a write-in? That way we can both
point outflang fingerbones of scorn at him or her.
>I'm not aware that this is, in fact, the intent.
A very good thing. Let me compliment you on your astuteness,
sir.
>It seems to me that you are retroactively wishing this were
>so, which doesn't make it so.
Then you are deluding yourself, Gary. I don't wish anything of
the sort. I'm very much aware that my "wishing" for things
does not make them so, or I wouldn't be having this argument
with you now. I have said that I do not think the phrase
"write-ins are encouraged" was meant to encourage write-in
campaigns, and I have said why I think it; I stand by what I
said, I still think common sense upholds it and, to assure you
there is not mistake, I repeat that I do not think the phrase
"write-ins are encouraged" was meant to encourage write-in
campaigns. I have also said -- and I point it out because it
appears to have escaped your notice -- that I have also said
that I did not think it was unreasonable for Martha's
supporters to interpret it that way. I think it is the "wrong"
interpretation, a misinterpretation, but I do not think it is
an "unreasonable" interpretation and therefore not a _willful_
misinterpretation. I think TAFF has dealt with that as it
deserved to be dealt with; I am quite comfortable with it. Any
objection you suppose is entirely of your own making.
[. . .]
>: [blah, blah, blah >snipped<]
>Thank you for your respectful summary, which makes me ever so
>eager to bother responding to your good faith response.
I am once again going to cut this off and come back to your
other points as time allows. But I really owe you an apology
(and have only just now discovered it) and I want to get it
out quickly. After coming down on you so hard in a good deal
of the above, it's perhaps appropriate to end on this note.
I thought I had a devastating response prepared for this -- I
could hardly wait to tell you how "impressed" I was with your
response, so much so that I really felt shamed not to have come
up with one anywhere near as effective when you pulled the same
bit on me. I'm sure your mind leaps readily to the cause of my
problem, although others here might not; it loses considerable
force when I am forced to reveal that you never did so. It was
Patrick. *Sigh* I know, I know, you're not really 15-year-old
twin brothers. I'm glad, for my own sake as well as yours,
that I didn't go any further than I did, but I apologize for
letting it go too far, that far.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Gary Farber
In <345a39d4...@news.demon.co.uk> Rob Hansen
<r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> wrote:
: On 26 Oct 1997 17:10:34 -0500, gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) wrote:
: <snip>
: >We're talking only about a difference arising from minor bureaucratic
: >problem of nominations not getting in on time, possibly by a single day,
: >after all.
: I've no great desire to revisit the events of 1985, but this bit of
: misinformation irritates the hell out of me every time I see it. The
: nomination in question was not a single day late. It was _postmarked_
: almost a week after the deadline. I am 100%, cast iron certain of this
: because I was the TAFF administrator it was sent to.
: Just a minor correction for the historical record.
I wasn't describing the events of 1985, Rob; I was addressing the question
of the future events the removal of the write-in option was intended to
address. I apologize for not making this sufficiently clear, apparently.
I still fail to see the great moral significance to which week one does or
doesn't get the paperwork in on.
Sharon L Sbarsky
In article <19971030224...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
Dr Gafia <drg...@aol.com> wrote:
>The truth of the matter is, Gary, when we found out what was
>happening –- Martha's supporters certainly didn't announce what
>they were doing to fandom at large –- there was not a good deal
>of time left to Get Out The Vote before the race would be over.
>I don't specifically call just how we found out of it; Patrick
>may be of some help in providing the actual facts of the
>matter, because I dimly recall that it was a friend of his who
>either wrote or called him about it, having (on something of a
>fluke) actually attended one of those con and witnessed what
>was being done and by whom.
>
>Well. Anyway. Whatever. When word of it _did_ get to us,
>Patrick and Teresa were not in any position to be going around
>to any more clubs or to more conventions (if there were any
>more conveniently located to them being held before the end of
>the voting) or sending out fliers to beat the bushes for votes
>on such short notice. It may have been partly because they
>were still getting settled in New York City, or possibly this
>was when Teresa was going to various places for treatment of
>her narcolepsy; hell, even in ordinary circumstances it's not
>easy, unless you're wealthy, to decide to go to a convention or
>pub your ish on the spur of the moment.
>
Patrick and Teresa may not have been able to get to more conventions, but
there were others who did, and were getting more fans to vote. I believe
it was this particular TAFF race that there was a "campaign" at Lunacon at
several of the fannish parties to remind people to vote.
<snip>
>
>I'm asking because, it seems to me, if I hadn't had the $200
>handy needed to publish and circulate that flier and ballot,
>either (a) with all her write-in votes, Martha's was never a
>threat and the Nielsen Haydens had already won by a large
>margin or (b) the flier and ballot turned the tide. Now,
>$200 is a nice piece of change, even today, and I was
>extremely lucky to have it, and not mind putting it up for
>what I regarded as a Worthy Cause. My point, I guess, is that
>if I _hadn't_ been that fortunate, TAFF probably would've been
>won by that write-in vote, but Martha would not have had a Good
>Time, since the Brits were for once sick and tired of having
>fans they genuinely wanted to meet dangled under the noses,
>only to be snatched away to have someone they'd never heard of
>forced down their throats, some genuine unpleasantness would
>have occurred and TAFF would probably have been discontinued or
>still in turmoil.
>
I'm sure your efforts have helped, but were probably not the total reason
that the write-in vote failed.
Is the voting list still available? How many people voted who were on
your mailing list and may not have voted the year before (and therefore
needed your reminder)?
How many people were in fandom, but weren't usual voters and may have been
convinced by other means?
Sharon
Kate Schaefer
In a previous article, fa...@netcom2.netcom.com (Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604) says:
>
> From: dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman)
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
> Date: 26 Oct 1997 16:44:53 GMT
>
> In article <EIo1n...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>,
> Steve Brewster <Steve.B...@Bristol.ac.uk> wrote:
> >What sorts of ballots in the US (apart from fan fund ones) have a
> >'write-in' option? Is the 'write-in' option common?
> >
>
> It's usual in some states, may not be in others. Within a state which has
> that option, it may or may not be available in a particular city, county,
> town/township, village, borough, city-county, school district,
> neighborhood association, etc.
> --
>In California, write-in candidates have to qualify to be
>valid. I don't recall what the qualifications are, though.
In southeast Washington in 1994, Linda Smith won election to Congress on
a write-in campaign. She was an extraordinarily popular (and
extraordinarily principled) conservative member of the state
legislature, running an incumbent who alienated her liberal supporters by
accepting donations from the NRA, while never picking up much support
from individual NRA members. I don't remember what happened to the
official Republican candidate; it may have been one of those scandals we
have out here where he registered his car in Oregon to avoid paying the
high taxes in Washington and failed to cover his tracks in time for the
election, or maybe he wasn't feeling well.
In 1996 Linda Smith squeaked by for re-election, this time running
semi-normally as the incumbent. The squeaking part was based on her
insistence on acting as though the campaign finance laws she's trying to
get passed applied to her, and on her generally annoying Newt Gingrich by
pointing out his lack of principles, consistency, stuff like that. I
disagree with Smith on most of the principles she's upholding in the
political world (she's anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-separation of church
and state), but I admire her tremendously for the honesty and integrity
she's brought to that political world.
--
Kate Schaefer
ka...@scn.org
Richard Newsome
Bernard Peek <b...@intersec.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>We've seen what happens when a write-in campaign tries to hijack the
>vote -- nothing much. There's a brief flurry of activity as truefans get
>roused from their deathbeds to vote, voting administrators gnaw their
>nails down to the elbows and the fan funds get more voters than ever
>before. After that, the same old same old.
Ah, but what happens if the candidate of the Wimpy Party ever actually wins?
Richard Newsome
new...@panix.com
Kim Campbell
tickets....
Kim :-)
Webbed at
<http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~kimc/index.htm>
P Nielsen Hayden
In article <19971104225...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) deplored:
> pompous >self-righteous< assholes, fighting the Good Fight
I wonder how he can do that with a straight face? Don't the very photons on
his screen rise up in rebellion?
-----
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Dr Gafia
In article <63kmb3$m...@panix2.panix.com>, new...@panix.com
(Richard Newsome) writes:
To Bernard: "Nothing much". That's an interesting description
of the second half of one of the three major feud/fan wars in
the history of our microcosm.
To Richard: You've been around fandom long enough to know the
answer to that, yourself. The Wimpy Party has won quite a
number of times. Every time, in fact, that the preference of
the host country has been thwarted. It is the Wimpy Party, and
only the Wimpy Party, that insists on its self-given right to
force down the throats of a bunch of strangers they've never
met on the other side of the Atlantic someone those strangers
have never, always in place of someone those strangers have
expressed a desire to meet.
There's never a problem telling the members of the Wimpy Party
from other fans and it's not just that they don't know the
Secret Handshake, either. They're more than just assholes,
they're pompous >self-righteous< assholes, fighting the Good
Fight against snobbery and elitism.
Near the middle of this century, the most creative elements of
science fiction fandom devised a means to send their most
talented and well-liked fans across the Atlantic to attend an
sf convention, and in alternate years to get in exchange the
most talented and well-liked fans from across the Atlantic to
attend a convention on their side. It was based on merit, as
was the egoboo received in an egoboo poll. It wasn't
"democratic" but it wasn't intended to be.
But the pompous and self-righteous, who are always among us,
have managed to toss a number of spanners into the works over
the years, always with a holier-than-thou air, convinced that
they are defeating the worst kind of arrogance and that the
any expression of a desire to have a regular mechanism to let
us meet someone who's impressed us with their wit and writing
prowess is a kind of snobbishness they can pat themselves on
the back for defeating.
If any of you have a genuine desire to know just how often the
Wimpy Party has managed to do this (and what happened as a
result), provide me with a list of all the TAFF winners. I'd
be happy to go down the list and give an itemized account, but
I wouldn't want to leave anyone out.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Ulrika
In article <19971104225...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>There's never a problem telling the members of the Wimpy Party
>from other fans and it's not just that they don't know the
>Secret Handshake, either. They're more than just assholes,
>they're pompous >self-righteous< assholes
Oh. I geddit. rich is Wimpy.
Dr Gafia
In article <63oa7l$o...@news1.panix.com>, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden)
writes:
>In article <19971104225...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) deplored:
>
>> pompous >self-righteous< assholes, fighting the Good Fight
>
>I wonder how he can do that with a straight face? Don't the very photons on
>his screen rise up in rebellion?
What's most bothersome about this to me is the realization that, although
(FYI) it's not readily apparent from the inside looking out, there may be
something in what you say. After all, there usually is. The scuttling
sound in the rocks you hear is my psyche ascrabling, now, trying to decide
if I am one, two, three or all four of the above.
"It's the inner disciplines that I'm interested in!"
Society without Law, the individual taking responsibility,
Introspection into the Universe inside each of us.
To look at the self and be confused....
To go on after you've embarrassed yourself,
Since you know it's for the betterment
Of the Human Condition,
And to be wrong, if you must be wrong, out loud.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Dr Gafia
In article <tnh-031197...@tnh.dialup.access.net>, t...@panix.com (T
Nielsen Hayden) writes:
>The 20% rule, like TAFF, is about getting fan communities into
>contact with each other . . .
And let's keep in mind, too, that it's as simple as a bridge.
By which, I guess, I mean I don't understand what you are
trying to say. I've tried both "The 20% rule is about getting
fan communities into contact with each other" and "TAFF is
about getting fan communities into contact with each other"
and neither of them quite "works" for me.
You go on (I'll continue the quote below to show it) to explain
that the 20% rule _prevents_ a couple of things from happening,
which to me sounds more like it is preventing the wrong fan
communities from getting into contact with each other, which
means it would be "about getting the right fan communities in
touch with each other," which would be okay and still sounds
nice, except I think they're really essentially the _same_ fan
communities on different sides of the Atlantic, and they are
already in contact with each other. Then too, by the same
token, the implication to be found in TAFF "...getting fan
communities into contact with each other" is that they are not
in contact with each other presently or without TAFF or maybe both.
Perhaps I could bring myself around to supporting this
notion, because while it would have me voting for whoever was
on the ballot representing, oh, Trekdom or comix fandom or the
club/con fan community I'm not currently in contact with, it
would also have them voting for the person representing
mainstream fanzine fandom, or at least some fan community
_they_ were not in contact with. That would be . . . amusing.
But somehow I don't feel either of those was what you meant.
Maybe if you explain it one more time. Use simple words and
I promise to move my lips as I sound them out, perhaps
thereby getting their meaning on some level which has thus
far escaped me.
>[ . . . ] It keeps one side from wishing an unknown (and
>perhaps not sufficiently interactive) candidate upon the
>other.
As I've said. But in such a way that I've managed to make
just about everyone resent me for doing it. It's just this
little "knack" I have, really.
>[ . . ] It also makes it difficult for a fan to win TAFF by
>pitching his or her fanac entirely to the fans across the
>water -- the assumption being that if you can't get 20% of
>your own fandom to vote for you, you're not much of a
>representative.
And I'm sure Melvin, the mighty prophet of FooFoo, was smiling
a beatific smile down upon all of you TAFF administrators and
former TAFF administrators on the day you had the foresight to
provide us with _that_ protection. I mean, it really leaves
one to Wonder about those fans who set up TAFF in the first
places, doesn't it? The threat that someone might be highly
popular in the host country but a virtual unknown in his/her
own has loomed over TAFF since its inception like one of the
Nine Mortal Men inquiring after Bagginses without ever
once being realized. But who knows when it might have been,
eh? So, thank you, thank you, thank you for saving us all
from this dread, this eldrich horror, this virtual Fate As Bad
As Death.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Dr Gafia
Another continuation:
In <19971024031...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Dr Gafia <drg...@aol.com> wrote:
: gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) [said]
[. . .]
: I don't think TAFF can possibly benefit from setting up a
: situation wherein some people are going to find they have
: been buying a pig in a poke. Deception is not an option and
: should not be encouraged.
>I agree, but I can't see that this would ever likely be the
>case. There is no such thing as a "stealth" TAFF campaign: if
>a significant number of write-ins started coming in for a fan,
>you can rest assured that the administrators would make this
>known to fandom, of course. No?
No. But you go on, so (since you're doing such a fine job of
it) I might as well let you hoist yourself completely by your
own petard:
>The events of 1985 were not done in "stealth," and couldn't
>have been; thus was the write-in campaign defeated. No one
>was "deceived," despite the existence of the write-in option,
>any more than anyone has ever been "deceived" in the seventy-
>odd cumulative races of fan funds with write-in options.
>In short, your above paragraph is one whopping big red
>herring, though I accept that you don't consciously intend it
>as such. I think you're just rather stuck on refighting The
>Battle Of Martha Beck as your only paradigm for examining the
>pros and cons of the write-in option, so far as I can
>see. Again, I'll be happy to be [misjudging] this.
Then I am glad to be able to add to your happiness, Gary. You
appear to have forgotten that the US TAFF Administrator for
that race, Avedon Carol, had just finished being raked over the
coals by Richard Bergeron and a host of maroons who were
arguing that, in the immediately preceding TAFF race, it had
been "unethical" (in that it was in violation of the secrecy
of the "secret ballot") for a TAFF Administrators to say
*anything* about the way the current vote was going. At
present, of course, you don't believe that, I don't believe
that, no one we know believes that and, indeed, I found it
hard at the time to think that >any< sensible person could
reasonably believe that, yet it was the basis of Bergeron's
attack on Avedon and before it was all over he was able to
find a few supporters for the notion without bribing them all
with a column or a cover for their fanzine.
Now it's true that Avedon, although extremely bummed out by
all this, was _not_ intimidated, so this was not a bar in
her case to speaking up.
But let's get back to that a bit later here -- you're having so
much *f*u*n* hammering your point home, I hate to interrupt.
: The inexperienced convention fans were not
: the only ones who would have been deceived--
>This is the sort of thing that gives me the impression you are
>stuck on arguing 1985. I'm talking general cases, you're
>arguing The Unique Case.
Right. You're talking an absolutely artificial construct
which, since you are the one who has envisioned it, can _only_
work the way you can imagine it will. I'm talking about the
way it actually happened. There _is_ that distinction to be
made between the two expressed views and I'm glad that you are
the one to make it.
: ...the regular TAFF voters voting in that election had every
: reasonable expectation that their contributions would send
: either P&TNH or Rich Coad to the UK. In your imaginary
: situation here, we are presuming two or more convention fans
: are facing off against each other. I don't think the fans
: who vote for them should be cheated out of their
: contributions by an out-of-the-blue "write-in" vote...
>No write-in campaign can be successful with an "out-of-the-
>blue" or "stealth" campaign. Such a campaign would need
>*more* publicity than a normal campaign. Thus, no one is
>"cheated," and your argument fails: no moral wrong is
>committed. Anyone running a write-in campaign is running
>at a significant disadvantage, and I see no moral or ethical
>problem involved.
>A write-in campaign *must* have more publicity than any other
>in order to win.
>We're talking only about a difference arising from minor
>bureaucratic problem of nominations not getting in on time,
>possibly by a single day, after all.
>In sum: Big Fucking Deal.
>To win, you have to campaign, and be sufficiently popular. On
>the ballot, or as a write-in.
>That's all there is to it.
>Not a moral issue. Not an ethical issue. It's just not.
Well, between your initial posting of this rant and my running
it again above, I think it is safe to say that we all know now
how things can and cannot be and what "must" and "has to" occur
in the absolutely artificial and self-built construct of write-
in campaigns within the boundaries you have conveniently set up
for them in your imagination. Otherwise, what we have here can
be summed up in a single word: Bullshit.
I don't know where you were hanging out while this was going on
or who explained what had happened to you, but a number of
points seem to be missing from your comprehension. Let me tell
you, then, about all the "impossible" (according to your
construction) things that actually happened. (And since they
actually happened, I will believe that they could happen again,
no matter what may be the case in your own personal Coventry.)
First, when Martha was denied a place on the ballot because she
and her supporters had failed to meet the relatively simple
requirements set out for running -– which, I trust, you don't
mind in the least having been enforced along with the other
relatively simple rules? -- their response was silence. As a
rule in law, silence betokens agreement; Sir Thomas More really
_should_ have been allowed to keep his head on his shoulders
for that reason but he was betrayed by a perjurer. If you
don't agree with something, you are required to Speak Up or
your approval will be assumed. It's just that simple.
Second, there was no general announcement on the part of Martha
or any of her supporters to fandom at large at any time after
she had been denied a place on the ballot for cause that a
write-in campaign was being contemplated, much less undertaken
seriously.
Third, with Martha presumed to be out of the picture, the race
was between a few well-known and well-liked fanzine fans (a
married couple who were both active, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen
Hayden, and Rich Coad, a former British fan who was then living
on the Left Coast) who felt no particular animus for each other
and did not represent substantially different elements of the
microcosm, so they just pubbed their ishes and left it up to
the microcosm to choose.
Fourth, the voting in the US for that race might best be
described as lackadaisical. The Fund was flush with money so
there was no big need to turn on the heavy pumps or put
anybody's fanzine collection on the line. I also think that,
all other things being –- or at least seeming –- equal, the
notion that the people who are playing hosts should be allowed
to have their choice is the generally accepted one.
Indeed, I think this idea is paramount
to more fanzine fan voters than you care to believe; I know I
said, quite some time back, that I thought it pretty much a
major consideration and your response was to take delight in
pointing out that the TAFF ballot says "both" sides and not
just the "host" side are involved. The exact quote from the
ballot is: "The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund was created in 1953
for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and
popular fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean
across the Atlantic." No doubt it will exasperate you beyond
reason when I tell you I think the TAFF ballot has been,
over the years, very carefully worded, changing just a bit
over the years for purposes of clarification, and in this
case I think "both sides" is a clever way to say "the host
side" without getting anyone's nose out of joint. My
reasoning is that there has never been, not even once, any
complaint that a candidate got "too many" votes in the
host country; the sole source of complaint, over TAFF's
many years of existence, has been that there have been "too
many" votes cast in the non-host country for someone whom
the vast majority of the voters in the host country have
never heard of. But, please, be my guest, go back and stick
your head in the sand and pretend that this is not the case.
The only point I am making here is that the race was not a
"hot" one over here, so the voting turnout was light and I
think (I could be wrong) it was generally hoped that for
once the Brits would get to play host to someone they had
expressed, through their voting, the largest desire to meet.
Fifth, although my memory could be wrong, I don't believe
Avedon was the person who alerted Patrick (or anyone else)
that There Was Something Going On. Not, I think, because
she had been intimidated by Bergeron into remaining mum –-
although I believe there are other folks who might have
been intimidated by it –- but because the campaign >was<
being conducted in stealth and she had no more advance
warning of it than anyone else.
Contrary to your several statements to the effect that this
would not/could not/should not be a sensible way for a write-in
campaign to take place, it is in fact what happened. Had it
succeeded in remaining a "stealth" write-in campaign, it might
very well have succeeded. It was perfectly apparent that there
was no heat in the race to bring about a large turnout of US
voters; it didn't appear to be needed, so a lot of people who
might ordinarily vote did not place a high priority on doing
so and seemed to be letting the hosts have their choice.
What this meant, of course, was that Martha's supporters would
_not_ have to get a huge number of votes at those conventions
for Martha to be able to win; the lower the other participation
(in the US and the UK combined), the lower the total number of
votes they had to overcome to win a victory for Martha.
You say a stealth campaign doesn't work and couldn't work, but
it was the only way this could have worked. It was clearly to
their advantage to keep what they were doing to themselves as
much as possible. Toward this end, it's my understanding that
while fans at those cons could elect to send in their own
ballots, Martha's supporters were "willing" to post them all,
i.e., doing their best to collect and hold on to them so
they could drop them on Avedon at the last minute, presenting
Martha's victory as a _fait accompli_, since at that point
nothing could be done to counter them.
It was pure luck, not any of their doing nor what they wanted
to happen, that a friend of Patrick's attended one of those
cons and sent word about what was being done in sufficient time
to allow anything at all to be done to counter them, and as it
was it was very nearly not enough.
And that's the way it was and is, so thank you and good night,
Gary Farber.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Dave Locke
Dr Gafia, beating his dead horse throughout this thread, wrote:
> Since Martha's campaign was conducted exclusively in the US
> a semi-secret write-in _campaign_
> if you can't have write-in campaigns, then you certainly can't
> have "secret" write-in campaigns
> Contrary to your [Gary's] several statements to the effect that this
> would not/could not/should not be a sensible way for a write-in
> campaign to take place, it is in fact what happened. Had it
> succeeded in remaining a "stealth" write-in campaign, it might
> very well have succeeded. ... You say a stealth campaign doesn't
> work and couldn't work, but it was the only way this could have
> worked.
> Martha's supporters certainly didn't announce what they were
> doing to fandom at large
Yes they did, rich. The fliers went out to every U.S. and U.K. and
even every Oz fan on three fanzine mailing lists (and, yes, there were
more than just a handful in each area): Gallimaufry (Stopa & Locke),
Resolution (Causgrove), and The Works (Locke), and were available for
pickup at various conventions, with repro rights freely given to
anyone interested.
Is there, at root, any fact from which you could spring to the
conclusion you stated here?
> It was clearly to their advantage to keep what they were doing
> to themselves as much as possible. Toward this end, it's my
> understanding that while fans at those cons could elect to send
> in their own ballots, Martha's supporters were "willing" to post
> them all, i.e., doing their best to collect and hold on to them so
> they could drop them on Avedon at the last minute, presenting
> Martha's victory as a _fait accompli_, since at that point
> nothing could be done to counter them.
Absolute nonsense. Are you making this up as you go along?
There were a lot of good people involved on both sides of that
particular TAFF race. It's never too late to let go of the anger and
recognize that fact.
I'm very sorry that you have a bag of rocks to drag around on the
subject of 1985. The rest of us seem to have reduced ours to mere
grains of sand, or we carry them around as specks in our pocket lint.
"(I'm reminded of an old joke: "I've got good news and bad news. The
good news is that Solipsism is true. The bad news is, it isn't you.")
-- Dave Romm
Barnaby
Dr Gafia wrote in article <19971106223...@ladder02.news.aol.com>..
.
>....The exact quote from the
>ballot is: "The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund was created in 1953
>for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and
>popular fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean
>across the Atlantic." No doubt it will exasperate you beyond
>reason when I tell you I think the TAFF ballot has been,
>over the years, very carefully worded, changing just a bit
>over the years for purposes of clarification, and in this
>case I think "both sides" is a clever way to say "the host
>side" without getting anyone's nose out of joint. My
>reasoning is that there has never been, not even once, any
>complaint that a candidate got "too many" votes in the
>host country; the sole source of complaint, over TAFF's
>many years of existence, has been that there have been "too
>many" votes cast in the non-host country for someone whom
>the vast majority of the voters in the host country have
>never heard of. But, please, be my guest, go back and stick
>your head in the sand and pretend that this is not the case....
*boggle*
I was going to avoid this thread as scrupulously as I do the latest rerun
from Half-Baked Al Laska's Rant-o-Mat, but this was too much. I had to read
it twice to make sure I had read what I thought I'd read, an argument so
bizarrely null-A that it seems to have been written by that alien with the
flapping head from =The Arrival.= It's hard to believe that even an
AOL-broken photon would accept this stuff without protest.
But never mind--that's just a clever way to say "I agree with you
completely" without getting anyone's nose out of joint.
Barnaby Rapoport
Dr Gafia
In article <34664c8d...@news.pipeline.com>, dave...@bigfoot.com
(Dave Locke) writes:
>> Martha's supporters certainly didn't announce what they were
>> doing to fandom at large
>
>Yes they did, rich. The fliers went out to every U.S. and U.K. and
>even every Oz fan on three fanzine mailing lists (and, yes, there were
>more than just a handful in each area): Gallimaufry (Stopa & Locke),
>Resolution (Causgrove), and The Works (Locke), and were available for
>pickup at various conventions, with repro rights freely given to
>anyone interested.
>
>Is there, at root, any fact from which you could spring to the
>conclusion you stated here?
You know, they ("They" = plural of "Them") say we shouldn't write about
this stuff, yet how am I to learn about any view that differs from my own
if I don't put mine out? Or would you rather, Dave, that I went on
_secretly_ thinking that you folks never announced what you were doing?
Was it, perhaps, one of those fanzines that alerted Patrick? Or is it
likely that Patrick would be on any of those fanzines' mailing lists?
How about other people associated with TAFF? Say, e.g., the administrators?
If I was misinformed, I would like to know about it. You too, I bet.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Dr Gafia
Et tu, Barnaby?
I read stuff like yours here and find myself saying, "Well, I guess I
didn't explain it very well."
Okay, look. I'm perfectly aware that in the phrase "for the purpose of
providing funds to bring well-known and popular fans familiar to those on
both sides of the ocean cross the Atlantic" the three words "on both sides"
literally means fans on the host side AND
fans on the non-host side.
That is the literal meaning. There's no argument on that.
Okay, but what is the _practical_ meaning? The TAFF ballot, as I
said, is very carefully phrased; since the back is given over to the
platforms and the voting, the front has to tell anyone who picks it up like
a flier (which is most often the case) everything s/he needs to know about
TAFF -- what it is, what it's supposed to do, who can vote, who can run,
etc., &c., &c. It is the _sole_ source of TAFF wisdom, it contains >all<
the rules.
So when the TAFF ballot tells you that TAFF is intended to bring fans who
are "well-known and popular" on "both sides of the ocean" cross the
Atlantic to attend conventions, what is is trying to convey? Is it not
saying that the ideal is when _both_ sides agree that the delegate is
well-known and popular with them? Or are you going to tell me now that
"both" either figuratively or litereally means "only one"? I mean, isn't
that what had you croggled above
-- your thought that I was trying to say something like that?
Okay. We're agreed -- "both" is supposed to mean "both".
Next question: Since their inception, have there been _any_ TAFF races in
which the winner has been someone who has been well-known and popular on
only ONE side of the ocean? You don't have to wrack your brain, Barnaby --
I'll answer it for you: Yes, there have been quite a few.
Now, I don't think it would matter, so much, if the host country out-voted
the non-host country, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe it would. I think I'd be
willing to live with it if other fans felt strongly about it, but as it has
never happened I can't say for sure. We'll all have to wait and see.
When it has happened, it has always happened the other way -- the host
country gets outvoted by the non-host country. Most the time it is a US
fan being sent to the UK -- there are so many more US fans.
Is this the stated ideal of TAFF? Or not?
--rich brown
Dr Gafia
It's a rule in law, I said a day or so back, that silence
betokens agreement. As I noted, St. Sir Thomas More thought to
save his head via this rule (and was really only done in by
perjury), but it is also my argument for pulling things out
of the past that I was too tired to respond to initially and
dealing with them -- since those who do not speak are presumed
to agree, I want to let my disagreement be known.
The previous round of exchanges here about TAFF left me in the
dust after only a few days -- I never did catch up. As I had
had much the same experience in an earlier exchange on the same
topic over on one of those Smof/Rutgers groups, I'd vowed not
to let that happen again, but unfortunately the combination of
too many people talking too much trash, my desire to respond
fully rather than with a few dismissive quips and the fact that
the narcoleptic symptoms of my sleep apnea act up worst when
I'm trying to Get Something Done made it a vow I simply could
not keep. As a result, a lot went unanswered that should have
been responded to, if only to let people know that there is
another point of view. While I hold that I've been silent, not
silenced, I'm sorry for that silence, even though I know it
can't be helped.
I know my views on TAFF are not particularly popular here;
indeed, it's possible that I could eventually suffer the net
equivalent of having my head set on a pike outside the gates of
Londontown. Mind you, I think even some of my friends have
misunderstood me (I embrace the possibility that I may have
misunderstood them), but I think their misunderstanding is
every bit as honest and unintentional as my own. At least, I
sure as hell hope so.
I suspect they, and some of you who know me not at all, might
wish that I could refrain from mentioning the older and most
bitter arguments, lest they be rekindled, but I don't happen to
feel that sweeping unpleasantness under the rug is the best
way to deal with these things. We're supposed to be
timebinders, learning from our own and the earlier mistakes of
others. While I don't want to turn into an old namesake of
mine who was forever "clarifying" matters, a number of points I
felt needed to be made got set aside on disc. Until just
recently.
In article <19970814205...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
Andy Hooper, who writes at odd intervals under the non de plume
of "fanma...@aol.com (FanmailAPH)," offered:
>[ . . . ] All of these theories about bloc-voting and ballot-
>stuffing assume a degree of interest in the process which only
>a handful of people -- such as rich brown -- really possess.
>The worst thing about L'affaire Beck and its attendant
>discontents is that it created a climate of paranoia and
>proprietary jealousy about fan funds that seems unlikely to
>die until the people involved do so themselves.
I'm sorry, Andy, I know you probably meant this seriously, but
I find myself giving way to laughter. It's the combination of
you speaking with the flavor and authority of a fannish
archeologist, patiently explaining the significance of a
recently uncovered artifact, and my wondering how long it
will take before this opinion is accepted as "fan history"
that sets me off in giggles. I suspect the answer to the
latter is: About as long as it takes the people involved to
die. A pity, if so. Not the dying –- we all have to do
that, sooner or later –- but the fact that, the way fandom
works, it will probably be Quite Some Time before it gets
checked for accuracy -- so the only fans capable of
appreciating the irony and humor of the situation will all be
fertilizer. (Some of us, no doubt, will >still< be fertilizer
. . . if you follow me.)
Off hand I don't recall how close (or fastidiously distant) you
were to or from "L'affaire Beck," as you call it, but at some
point I think you must've been standing in the sun too long if
truly thinks it >"created"< a climate of paranoia and
proprietary jealousy. I don't agree that that is the climate,
though, so maybe I'm biased, the only one to whom it could
hardly appear to be the reverse.
If you're looking for the first time the TAFF result was seen
as something so distant from the intent of the Fund that some
fan or fans felt it necessary to Speak Up about it, you'd have
to go back to those Wrong Thinkers and Troublemakers, Walter
Alexandrew Willis and "Chuch-o" Randolphus Harris -– whoops,
there, I see you already have -– with their hideously paranoid
and proprietarily jealous "attacks" on one of the US&A's
r * e * a * l * Big Name Fans, according to his own lights,
Bob Madle, as opposed to all those fake BNFs with whom Willis
and Harris were so well acquainted, including such virtual
nonentities as Lee Hoffman, Max Keasler, Shelby Vick, Redd
Boggs, Bob Silverberg, Robert Bloch, Bob Tucker, Charles
Burbee, Francis T. Laney, Charles Wells and others.
You of all people should realize this, Andy -- you have not
only read, but assumed for your own self a degree of interest
that led you to retype for our consumption here what Bob had
to say about that event. Personally, I just >loved< the bit
where Madle figuratively pats Walt Willis on the head and then
condescendingly "instructs" him on what fandom is >really< all
about . . . I don't think I've laughed so hard since I heard
Burbee interviewed by Bjo for the revived Shangri L'Affairs.
Tell me, though, don't you think, if Bob had been right, that
fandom would have long since adopted the terms "RBNF" and
"FBNF" as part of our regular fannish vocabulary?
I don't suppose many of the people involved in this present
discussion will ever have the least notion why that nefarious
pair, Willis and Harris, did what they did instead of "playing
nice" and sacrificing truth on the altar of harmony. They had
the chutzpah to point out to Madle that the TAFF "win" he'd
just purchased had been at the expense of Dick Eney, the kind
of fan TAFF had been set up to reward and also the fan whom the
overwhelming majority of TAFF voters in the UK had wanted to
meet, if the ballots they had individually paid to cast meant
anything at all.
Of course, when you come right down to it, they >didn't< mean
anything at all, not really. Eney stayed home; Madle received
the funds to make his trip, including not just the money he'd
put in to pay for others to vote but the money put in by Brits
to cast their own ballots –- and then came back to "justify"
what he'd done by depicting Willis et al. as naive, paranoid
and proprietary, and, for a real non sequitur, pointing out
that as many as half of the loyal local club fans who'd voted
for him had actually attended one or more local regional
conventions, just in case there was any doubt
about their fannish credentials.
I haven't got anything personal against Madle; he's a decent
and well-meaning guy. I think he made an error of judgment, is
all, as I said here when I was responding to Dick Lynch. I'd
think a lot better of him had he been able to own up to it. I
don't believe he set out to "buy" votes; when he was asked if
he would pay the voting fees, as Stu Hoffman had done (very
much with, I feel certain, the intent of buying votes), I think
it was in such a way that he felt if he said no, people would
think him cheap.
He didn't come out and >ask< who in hell WAW and Chuch thought
they were to be addressing a RBNF like himself in such a rude
manner, since too many fans of the period were well aware that
Walt and Chuch were two of the dozen or so fan who put TAFF
together in the first place. I don’t know but what there might
be fans who think that, _because_ they helped put it together,
Walt and Chuch were the _last_ two people in the world anyone
might reasonably expect to have the slightest notion of what
TAFF was supposed to be all about.
So it wouldn't surprise me to find there are fans who regard
Willis and Harris as a couple of pygmies who shared the
thoroughly ridiculous delusion that a fan of Robert A. Madle's
immense stature in the microcosm, or any of the kind of fans
who voted for him, should give a flying fuck _what_ the
sniveling Brits may have wanted. Let 'em eat cake, wot?
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Richard Newsome
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>Second, there was no general announcement on the part of Martha
>or any of her supporters to fandom at large at any time after
>she had been denied a place on the ballot for cause that a
>write-in campaign was being contemplated, much less undertaken
>seriously.
Your recollection here appears to be mistaken. I have a copy of
Dick & Leah Smith's newszine, _Uncle Dick's Little Thing_, dated
"December 1984", in which they openly and heavily promote a write-
in campaign for Martha Beck while stating their reasons for doing
so. Unless this issue came out late the write-in campaign was out in
the open, since _Uncle Dick's_ was a generally available fanzine and
had a reasonably large distribution, as far as I know.
This is issue #9 of _Uncle Dick's Little Thing_. There is a big
drawing of Martha Beck on the cover, with the headline "Troublesome
TAFF". Then within there is a two-page editorial urging a write-in
vote for Martha Beck. Dick & Leah state that they aren't familiar
with Rich Coad, and that they like and respect the Nielsen Haydens
and would under ordinary circumstances find it difficult to choose
between them and Martha Beck. However, they urge a vote for Martha
as a protest against what they regard as unfair treatment of her
by the TAFF administrators, in not issuing her a deadline extension
when (according to the Smiths) deadline extensions were issued to
other candidates the previous year and two years before that.
The headline on this editorial reads "Write in Martha Beck for TAFF,
Hold over funds for DUFF". A cartoon by Cesar Ramos shows a bearded
fan displaying the message: "MARTHA FOR TAFF. WRITE-IN!!" At the end of
the editorial appears the following statement: "ballots are enclosed
with this issue of UNCLE DICK'S. TAFF ballots must reach the
administrators by Dec. 31, DUFF ballots by Feb. 28. Please vote."
On the bacover of the zine appears an unrelated cartoon, some
administrivia and the lino "Write-In MARTHA BECK for TAFF".
A letter in the lettercol from Roger Reynolds says: "MARTHA BECK FOR
TAFF! That's the best thing we wimpies can do for any European con."
They also devote a page to the DUFF campaign. The 4 candidates were
Mike Glicksohn, Joni Stopa, Marty and Robbie Cantor and rich brown.
They advocate voting for Hold-Over Funds, stating that they had
planned to endorse rich brown until they saw a letter he wrote
about TAFF in which he states (according to them): "TAFF doings and
TAFF administrators are not accountable to individual fans. Nor, when
you come right down to it, are they accountable to fandom at large."
They go on to say "If that's how brown feels about TAFF, we don't
think we'd like the way he'd administer DUFF." So they urge a vote
for Hold-Over Funds on the grounds that Glicksohn has already been
to Australia, the Stopas could go on their own, and as far as the
Cantors go "we cannot endorse a regular wearer of Dr. Who scarves
as a representative of North American fandom".
There is no indication when this issue was mailed, but presumably
the Smiths allowed enough time to ensure that people would
receive it in time to make the voting deadline at the end of the
month. I would guess that it was likely mailed out around Thanksgiving,
since any later would have led to issues and ballots being delayed
by the Christmas postal rush. Maybe someone has a copy of this
issue with a postmark or perhaps the Smiths recall when it went out.
This issue has a Change of Address listing for rich brown, to 1014
N. Tuckahoe, Falls Church, so presumably rich was on their mailing
list and should have received this issue.
Richard Newsome
new...@panix.com
..
>
Dr Gafia
In article <63u5ue$me9$1...@darla.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com (Dan
Goodman) writes:
>In article <3465903a...@news.usit.net>,
>Janet D. Miles <jmi...@usit.net> wrote:
>>Posted and emailed.
>>
>>On Thu, 06 Nov 1997 14:32:32 -0500, in alt.callahans "Dr.Rob"
>><rham...@bgsm.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>Dr.Rob clears his throat and asks a question that has been nagging at
>>>him:
>>>
>>>"Where did the phrase 'Crottled Greeps' come from?
>>
>>According to a post in rec.arts.sf.fandom/rec.cooking, the
>>earliest known use is a cartoon caption:
>>
>>"Well, if you don't like crottled greeps, why did you order
>>them?"
>>
>>No indication of the artist or publication, but it just sounds
>>like it ought to be Gahan Wilson. I don't know, though, I'm just
>>guessing.
>
>I believe it first appeared in a fanzine (amateur publication). I _think_
>it was published in the British Isles.
The word "crottled" has actually been traced back to an article
in a mundane newspaper supplement called _This Week_ in which
the term was invented to define those little "bubbles" that
appear in comic strips near the heads of characters to indicate
that they are intoxicated.
But "crotttled greeps" was first used by Dean Grennell (as Art Wesley), in
a 1953 issue of his fanzine _Filler_. It wasn't a cartoon, it was a lino:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
'But, if you didn't like crottled greeps, why did you order them?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For greater detail (including the recipe, which was Andy Young's), see
Warner's _A Wealth of Fable_.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Richard Brandt
Dr Gafia wrote:
> > Dr Gafia wrote in article <19971106223...@ladder02.news.aol.com>..
> >>No doubt it will exasperate you beyond
> >>reason when I tell you I think the TAFF ballot has been,
> >>over the years, very carefully worded, changing just a bit
> >>over the years for purposes of clarification, and in this
> >>case I think "both sides" is a clever way to say "the host
> >>side" without getting anyone's nose out of joint.
[and later:]
> So when the TAFF ballot tells you that TAFF is intended to bring fans who
> are "well-known and popular" on "both sides of the ocean" cross the
> Atlantic to attend conventions, what is is trying to convey? Is it not
> saying that the ideal is when _both_ sides agree that the delegate is
> well-known and popular with them? Or are you going to tell me now that
> "both" either figuratively or litereally means "only one"? I mean, isn't
> that what had you croggled above
> -- your thought that I was trying to say something like that?
>
> Okay. We're agreed -- "both" is supposed to mean "both".
Come now, rich. Make up our mind.
> Next question: Since their inception, have there been _any_ TAFF races in
> which the winner has been someone who has been well-known and popular on
> only ONE side of the ocean? You don't have to wrack your brain, Barnaby --
> I'll answer it for you: Yes, there have been quite a few.
>
> Now, I don't think it would matter, so much, if the host country out-voted
> the non-host country, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe it would. I think I'd be
> willing to live with it if other fans felt strongly about it, but as it has
> never happened I can't say for sure. We'll all have to wait and see.
>
> When it has happened, it has always happened the other way -- the host
> country gets outvoted by the non-host country. Most the time it is a US
> fan being sent to the UK -- there are so many more US fans.
The student is now encouraged to consider a scenario where (barring
rules
specifying a mimimum of support on both sides of the ocean) a candidate
is
elected who is not "well-known and popular" in EITHER continent. Given a
dedicated ballot-stuffing campaign in one of the countries, it is not
inconceivable.
--
========= http://www.xoom.com/arts/literature/rsbrandt ========
"And you know something? If you put a sock on its head, a World
Fantasy Award really _does_ look like Jacques Costeau."
-- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Arthur Hlavaty
Dr Gafia (drg...@aol.com) wrote:
: Next question: Since their inception, have there been _any_ TAFF races in
: which the winner has been someone who has been well-known and popular on
: only ONE side of the ocean? You don't have to wrack your brain, Barnaby --
: I'll answer it for you: Yes, there have been quite a few.
: Now, I don't think it would matter, so much, if the host country out-voted
: the non-host country, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe it would. I think I'd be
: willing to live with it if other fans felt strongly about it, but as it has
: never happened I can't say for sure. We'll all have to wait and see.
: When it has happened, it has always happened the other way -- the host
: country gets outvoted by the non-host country. Most the time it is a US
: fan being sent to the UK -- there are so many more US fans.
: Is this the stated ideal of TAFF? Or not?
I am puzzled. Have there been any TAFFs since, say, 1984, when a host
country felt that the nonhost country was imposing on them someone less
popular in the host country? The nearest I can recall is a complaint from
Vegas about the TAFF winner being somewhat disagreeable, but they seemed
willing to chalk that up to nicotine withdrawal, nor did I notice any
I-told-you-so's when that same winner absconded with the funds. I
recognize the imperfection of my knowlegde and my memory, and I am willing
to be enlightened about any other examples.
--
Arthur D. Hlavaty hla...@panix.com
Church of the SuperGenius In Wile E. We Trust
\\\ E-zine available on request. ///
Barnaby
Richard Brandt wrote in article <3464B4...@cris.com>...
>Dr Gafia wrote:
Well, here's another message that hasn't made it to my newsreader. Maybe
it'll turn up later, but, given that it's from AOL, probably not, so I'll
answer using Richard's post as a platform.
>> > Dr Gafia wrote in article <19971106223...@ladder02.news.aol.co
m>..
>
>> >>No doubt it will exasperate you beyond
>> >>reason when I tell you I think the TAFF ballot has been,
>> >>over the years, very carefully worded, changing just a bit
>> >>over the years for purposes of clarification, and in this
>> >>case I think "both sides" is a clever way to say "the host
>> >>side" without getting anyone's nose out of joint.
>
>[and later:]
>
>> So when the TAFF ballot tells you that TAFF is intended to bring fans
who
>> are "well-known and popular" on "both sides of the ocean" cross the
>> Atlantic to attend conventions, what is is trying to convey? Is it not
>> saying that the ideal is when _both_ sides agree that the delegate is
>> well-known and popular with them? Or are you going to tell me now that
>> "both" either figuratively or literally means "only one"? I mean,
isn't
>> that what had you croggled above
>> -- your thought that I was trying to say something like that?
>>
>> Okay. We're agreed -- "both" is supposed to mean "both".
>
>Come now, rich. Make up our mind.
>
>> Next question: Since their inception, have there been _any_ TAFF races
in
>> which the winner has been someone who has been well-known and popular
on
>> only ONE side of the ocean? You don't have to wrack your brain, Barnaby
--
>> I'll answer it for you: Yes, there have been quite a few.
>>
>> Now, I don't think it would matter, so much, if the host country
out-voted
>> the non-host country, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe it would. I think I'd
be
>> willing to live with it if other fans felt strongly about it, but as it
has
>> never happened I can't say for sure. We'll all have to wait and see.
>>
>> When it has happened, it has always happened the other way -- the host
>> country gets outvoted by the non-host country. Most the time it is a
US
>> fan being sent to the UK -- there are so many more US fans.
[more Richard snipped]
Actually, my post just meant what it said. My incredulity wasn't a
rhetorical device. The passage I quoted literally doesn't make sense.
That's what boggled, or croggled, or crottled, me, and why I rescued it
from a long post so that it might be better enjoyed. I didn't have any
larger agenda or ulterior motive--I wasn't trying to score a point off you
because I disagree with your position on TAFF. (From what I know of Sixth
Fandom, it makes perfect sense to me that they would include a ballot
provision for jokes and egoboo). It was probably mean and unnecessary for
me to make fun of you for posting gibberish, but that's what I was doing:
reacting to what you did say, not what you were trying to say.
If Barnaby does wrack his brain, and wrack it pretty hard, he can infer the
missing steps between your non-sequiturs and come up with something like,
"I think 'both sides' is functionally equivalent to 'the host side' because
many fans are 'well-known and popular' on their own side and not the other,
but none are 'well-known and popular' on the other side and not their own."
But that's ignoring such complications as how the subsequent history of
complaints proves anything about the intent of the ballot's authors (let
alone that one sentence is secretly a clever way of saying the opposite)
and why this proof is so indisputable that anyone who disagrees is guilty
of sticking their head in the sand like an ostrich.
I'm sure there's an explanation (and, judging from the quotes above, it
looks like I got one, and in the course of a fairly stern talking-to)--but
it wasn't there.
Barnaby Rapoport
Fun fact: ostriches stick their heads in the sand so they can hear
approaching footsteps that are beyond visual range.
Kate Schaefer
In a previous article, rsbr...@cris.com (Richard Brandt) says:
[massive snippage]
>
>The student is now encouraged to consider a scenario where (barring
>rules
>specifying a mimimum of support on both sides of the ocean) a candidate
>is
>elected who is not "well-known and popular" in EITHER continent. Given a
>dedicated ballot-stuffing campaign in one of the countries, it is not
>inconceivable.
Wasn't that what happened with Mario Bosnyak?
I believe that the occasional weird result may actually be good for
transatlantic fandom, apoplexy and all. When something expected happens,
the TAFF winner travels, takes a great many notes, publishes a first
installment or possibly two, administers the fund, and hands it over to
the next winner from that side. When something unexpected happens, lots
of transactlantic phone calls, letters, and e-mails result, along with
the publication of many fanzines.
Do note that I said occasional. Once every fifteen years would be quite
often enough for me, and I would confine the variety of unexpected event
that I think is beneficial to the choice of an odd candidate. I don't
think Abi Frost's peculation was at all good for transatlantic fandom.
I hasten to add that while the candidate I support in the current race,
Victor Gonzalez, is in fact weird, his victory would not be weird.
Victor has been active in fanzine fandom for many years (only yesterday I
ran into a fanzine of his and Tom Weber's, published in 1985, and very
silly it was, too), was a co-editor of Apparatchik, the fanzine with
foolish self-characterization, and looks just like a D. West drawing
(possibly this means he looks just like D. West, though I can't guarantee
this). Oh, and he's mailed his fanzines to numerous British fans over
the years.
--
Kate Schaefer
ka...@scn.org
Dr Gafia
In article <346933a3...@news.demon.co.uk>, r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk
(Rob Hansen) writes:
>As the TAFF administrator in question, my understanding was that
>deadlines are usually only extended when there are only two
>candidacies and to not do so would mean that you had no race. In 1984,
>Rich Coad and the Nielsen-Haydens already had their nominations in
>before deadline, so further extensions were unwarranted.
Plus there was precedence -- Ted White was denied a place on the ballot
because one of his nominators was ONE DAY late. I realize, Rob, that you
may have been unaware of the particulars of that precedent when you made
your decision, but your decision was in accordance with it.
--rich brown
Barnaby
Dr Gafia wrote in article <19971108015...@ladder01.news.aol.com>..
.
Yes, the article did finally show up in my newsreader....
>In article <34629...@news1.ibm.net>, "Barnaby" <hra...@ibm.net>
writes:
>
>> Dr Gafia wrote in article <19971106223...@ladder02.news.aol.com>
..
>>
>> >....The exact quote from the
>>>ballot is: "The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund was created in 1953
>>>for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and
>>>popular fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean
>>>across the Atlantic." No doubt it will exasperate you beyond
>>>reason when I tell you I think the TAFF ballot has been,
>>>over the years, very carefully worded, changing just a bit
>>>over the years for purposes of clarification, and in this
>>>case I think "both sides" is a clever way to say "the host
>>>side" without getting anyone's nose out of joint. My
>>>reasoning is that there has never been, not even once, any
>>>complaint that a candidate got "too many" votes in the
>>>host country; the sole source of complaint, over TAFF's
>>>many years of existence, has been that there have been "too
>>>many" votes cast in the non-host country for someone whom
>>>the vast majority of the voters in the host country have
>>>never heard of. But, please, be my guest, go back and stick
>>>your head in the sand and pretend that this is not the case....
>>
>>*boggle*
>>
>>I was going to avoid this thread as scrupulously as I do the latest
rerun
>>from Half-Baked Al Laska's Rant-o-Mat, but this was too much. I had to
read
>>it twice to make sure I had read what I thought I'd read, an argument so
>>bizarrely null-A that it seems to have been written by that alien with
the
>>flapping head from =The Arrival.= It's hard to believe that even an
>>AOL-broken photon would accept this stuff without protest.
>>
>>But never mind--that's just a clever way to say "I agree with you
>>completely" without getting anyone's nose out of joint.
>
>Et tu, Barnaby?
I think I've just been cast into the very center of the inferno.
Though actually, if you go by Shakespeare, a better comparison would be
Cassius. It's Cassius who says, "Ha ha! how vilely doth this cynic rime!"
when The Poet gives him and Brutus a prophecy that's good advice but lousy
poetry.
Then rich gulps a can of spinach and says:
>I read stuff like yours here and find myself saying, "Well, I guess I
>didn't explain it very well."
>
>Okay, look. I'm perfectly aware that in the phrase "for the purpose of
>providing funds to bring well-known and popular fans familiar to those on
>both sides of the ocean cross the Atlantic" the three words "on both
sides"
>literally means fans on the host side AND
>fans on the non-host side.
>
>That is the literal meaning. There's no argument on that.
>
>Okay, but what is the _practical_ meaning? The TAFF ballot, as I
>said, is very carefully phrased; since the back is given over to the
>platforms and the voting, the front has to tell anyone who picks it up
like
>a flier (which is most often the case) everything s/he needs to know
about
>TAFF -- what it is, what it's supposed to do, who can vote, who can run,
>etc., &c., &c. It is the _sole_ source of TAFF wisdom, it contains >all<
>the rules.
>
>So when the TAFF ballot tells you that TAFF is intended to bring fans who
>are "well-known and popular" on "both sides of the ocean" cross the
>Atlantic to attend conventions, what is is trying to convey? Is it not
>saying that the ideal is when _both_ sides agree that the delegate is
>well-known and popular with them? Or are you going to tell me now that
>"both" either figuratively or litereally means "only one"? I mean, isn't
>that what had you croggled above
>-- your thought that I was trying to say something like that?
>
>Okay. We're agreed -- "both" is supposed to mean "both".
>
>Next question: Since their inception, have there been _any_ TAFF races in
>which the winner has been someone who has been well-known and popular on
>only ONE side of the ocean? You don't have to wrack your brain, Barnaby
--
>I'll answer it for you: Yes, there have been quite a few.
>
>Now, I don't think it would matter, so much, if the host country
out-voted
>the non-host country, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe it would. I think I'd
be
>willing to live with it if other fans felt strongly about it, but as it
has
>never happened I can't say for sure. We'll all have to wait and see.
>
>When it has happened, it has always happened the other way -- the host
>country gets outvoted by the non-host country. Most the time it is a US
>fan being sent to the UK -- there are so many more US fans.
>
>Is this the stated ideal of TAFF? Or not?
Aha, so I guessed right about what you meant! (After you wrote this but
before I received it, in my reply to Richard Brandt's reply to you.)
As I've already said, I agree with this. I guess you could say I was just
pulling a Swanky, butting into a serious discussion with idle and malicious
humor that people then had to waste time taking up seriously. (Though on
the other hand, RASSF provides ample precedent for thwacking with a ferule
much lesser infelicities than what I quoted.)
Barnaby Rapoport
Dr Gafia
In article <630o4g$4...@panix2.panix.com>, gfa...@panix.com
(Gary Farber) writes:
>: I have no doubt that the vast majority of GUFF and DUFF
>: voters are aware of what happened in that TAFF race --after
>: all, they're frequently the same voters. Even where they're
>: not, they know how upset people were about it when it _did_
>: happen in TAFF. And just in case you're wondering how upset
>: they were, they were so upset about it that, as impossible
>: as it is supposed to be to get a "change" in the fan funds,
>: TAFF no longer has the language on its ballot "encouraging"
>: write-ins. That's a fact.
>
>It's probably pointless of me to say this, but I can't make
>the slightest sense of what logical point you are attempting
>to make in this post, rich.
>
>Can anyone else understand what point rich is driving at?
>
>Beyond that he doesn't care about fan funds besides TAFF, that
>is.
Since no one else has volunteered . . .
You had cited the lack of any "write-in" campaign being
conducted, before-or-since, in GUFF and DUFF as if it were
some kind of "proof" that doing away with the write-in in TAFF
wasn't necessary. (Yes, yes, you qualified the statement; it
was necessary but an over-reaction--is that better?) Anyway, I
said that the voters overlap to such an extent that most of
them are probably aware of the unpleasantness that surrounded
the TAFF write-in campaign and don't want to see it in their
fund -- which would make them reluctant to undertake a write-in
campaign.
I do not look on GUFF or DUFF in quite the same way as I do
TAFF, this is true -- so what happens to them is not of any
great moment to me. However, if they are snug in their belief
that they can trust their voters' common sense, why, I hope
they are right about that, although I would in some cases point
out that they're the same voters TAFF trusted to use theirs.
Since I'm really not concerned enough to Tell Them So, right
here, if such a thing should happen in GUFF and DUFF, I won't
even be able to tell them "I Told You So." I might be able to
tell them that I _could_ have told them so, if I had wanted to,
but I won't, even though I could. (I have this Serious Image
Problem going here on r.a.sf.f., it seems, so I have to do
_something_ to convince everyone I'm a Nice Guy.)
My point was simply that there were _other_ explanations,
besides the one you wished to see promulgated, as to what GUFF
and DUFF maintaining the write-in may mean. I see nothing in
it to impel TAFF to follow DUFF's and GUFF's lead.
Or have I just muddied it all up again for you?
--rich brown
Dr Gafia
In article <63bomc$3...@panix2.panix.com>, new...@panix.com (Richard
Newsome) writes:
>drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>>
>>The 20% rule prevents a bloc vote on the part
>>of any club, group, cabal or convention from winning the TAFF
>>race outright, by sheer force of numbers, since it is now
>>necessary to win a certain minimum percentage of the votes on
>>the two sides of the Atlantic. It didn't and doesn't prevent a
>>coordinated write-in campaign at clubs and conventions on both
>>sides of the Atlantic.
>
>Any sufficiently large and well-coordinated conspiracy could take
>over TAFF, no matter what rules are adopted -- take it over from
>the large and well-coordinated conspiracy that runs it currently,
>I mean.
Which large and well-coordinated conspiracy runs it currently? I'd
sincerely like to know. I have the feeling what you have in mind is a
group that is not large, is not well-coordinated, and certainly is not a
conspiracy.
Still, your initial point is correct.
>>[ . . . ] thereby manipulating them so that a small number of
>>people can impose their will on all the rest of us.
>
>I'm having a hard time visualizing Martha Beck imposing her will
>on you. Does she wear black leather and brandish a whip?
>(And if so, why didn't she get more votes from Britain?)
I don't think I've ever met Martha, although I understand she is a nice
person; I'm not certain if she would be "nice" enough to get dressed up in
tight leathers and give us all a nice firm whipping or not, and so must
leave her supporters to answer. But if they had managed to get a few
hundred voters to cast ballots for Martha
without it attracting the attention of supporters of the fans who were on
the ballot, they could have elected Martha -- and that would have been
imposing their will upon us all.
--rich brown
Alan Braggins
drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
> was necessary but an over-reaction--is that better?) Anyway, I
> said that the voters overlap to such an extent that most of
> them are probably aware of the unpleasantness that surrounded
> the TAFF write-in campaign and don't want to see it in their
> fund -- which would make them reluctant to undertake a write-in
> campaign.
But TAFF voters' own awareness of the unpleasantness couldn't
be relied on to have the same effect, so it was necessary to
eliminate the write-in to make sure?
Dr Gafia
In article <un2ja9...@ncipher.com>, Alan Braggins <ar...@ncipher.com>
writes:
Well, we have Gary, here, who has no doubt voted in a few TAFF elections,
and he wants it reinstated, no doubt because he thinks it might be
necessary to use it in a write-in campaign.
And I did go on to point out that the GUFF and DUFF voters are,
in many cases, the same voters, and while their administrators may think
they are safe enough from a write-in campaign, they remain vulnerable to
one whereas TAFF does not.
--rich brown
C R Harris
Rich (Dr Gafia) Stupidly I hit the wrong key and lost your long post
about TAFF. I hope you'll forgive me if this is an incomplete answer.
I agree with all of the facts you offer and some of your arguments but,
basically, and for all of its acknowledged faults, TAFF does work
reasonably well. I was sorry that Bob Madle "won" and sorry for the
Abigail debacle but just about everyone else was fine by me.....even
though the first choice on my voting form usually comes in second.
(Help break the chain! Vote for Vicki Rosenweig this year. Please!!!)
Now, if, all those years ago when I was a Founding Father, I'd thought
that I'd still be worrying about TAFF when I was pushing 70, I might have
asked for professional advice and tried to word it all differently, but
I think now that it's too late and I'm too old and we are stuck with it.
I know it's not perfect, I know it's open to manipulation, and I think
that eventually a mid-European group will hi-jack the thing and kill it
off.
Regrets? Yes, I never did meet Grennell, or Boggs, or you, or
Burbee...........but the people I did meet were fun and well worth a
fanzine collection.
And anyway, Sue sez she'll leave me if Gary dares send that lot back
and I have to buy another damn filing cabinet.
And Rich,........it's not too late. If you ever want a
nominator.........
Chuck
C.R.Harris
Dr Gafia
>[ . . . ] I don't know why rich is making such a fuss over this.
>Counting and verifying TAFF ballots is neither dramatic nor
>mysterious.
<snip Teresa's perfectly straight-forward explanation of How It Is
Done>
>[ . . . ] Fandom being what it is, most of the voter names will be
>more or less familiar to you. That leaves a small number of voters
>whose names don't ring any bells at all -- possibly because you can't
>quite make out their names.
>
>At that point you phone up the person listed as a reference and ask
>whether this is someone they recognize. If they say sure, the guy's
>been coming to conventions for years, you can go on to ask whether
>they know the correct spelling of the voter's name. That's good, if
>you can get it; you'll want it to be recognizable when it appears in
>the published list. If they say they don't know that person from
>Adam -- well, the rules are the rules.
There we go. The magic words. "The rules are the rules." _That_ was
what I was making the fuss about, Teresa -- I thought Gary and Patrick
were saying, implicitly if not explicitly, that the rules weren't the
rules, or leastwise they didn't have to be enforced if it was at all
uncomfortable for them to do so, it was actually a great drag to do
so, since it was a lot easier (in that people didn't get bent all out
of shape) not to make waves and just let things slide in the name of
keeping it all as non-confrontational and egalitarian as possible.
Quite probably -- fandom being fandom, y'know -- this was just my
misreading, not what they meant, not what they said, not what they
meant to imply.
I apparently do not interpret some of the rules as other people do,
you among them. This can also be a problem, whether it occurs on a
large or a small scale; it is the basis, if you stop to think of it,
of all the disagreements that occur in the mundane between the many
sects of what is essentially the same religion.
Sometimes I have second thoughts about my own interpretations; I also
have second thoughts about my second thoughts.
I was a bit upset at Gary, e.g., because I felt he, like the people
who supported Martha Beck, compromised the part of the ballot which
requires the voter either to know the TAFF administrator OR to know
someone who knows the TAFF administrator to be qualified to vote.
This would limit the TAFF voting to the 2,000 or so fans who have been
active for at least a year in segments of the microcosm which have
been closest to TAFF over the past decade or more, by my guestimation.
But in our struggle to make TAFF less snobbish and in-groupish by
acknowledging that fandom is, bighod, bigger than ever, since there's
nothing _prohibiting_ what Gary (and some of Martha's supporters) did,
perhaps taking it back another notch in the name of opening up the
TAFF voting to perhaps 20,000 or so fans is where we want to be
headed.
So the requirement, de facto if not de jure, will be that new voters
either know the TAFF administrator, know someone who knows the TAFF
administrator, or know someone who knows someone the TAFF
administrator knows.
That'll be the ticket. Maybe bigger _will_ be better, after all. As
sure as love is a thing that can never go wrong, more than likely.
--rich brown a.k.a. DrGafia
Dr Gafia
In article <EJ51x...@cix.compulink.co.uk>, kcam...@cix.compulink.co.uk
("Kim Campbell") writes:
>> In article <19971031000...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>> rsmit...@aol.com (RSmith2678) writes:
>>
>> >In article <19971029220...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
>> >drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) writes:
>> >
>> >>Do you think
>> >>maybe Seth Briedbart might like an Australian vacation? Or
>> >>maybe Aahz? Or Ulrika O'Brien?
>> >>
>> >Sure, why not? Let's send all three of them.
>>
>> Go for it.
>>
>> --rich brown
>>
>>
>Regrettably, with that number of fans to send, we can only afford one way
>tickets....
And thus is "half-TAFF" reborn. There used to be polls taken in which people
would be nominated for half-TAFF -- the Fund that would take you overseas but
NOT bring you back. This was
replaced by a British idea known as COFF (which stood for the "Cement Overcoat
Fan Fund") in which the person elected would be taken half way across the
Atlantic and dropped there while
they were wearing the requisite overcoat.
--rich brown
Richard Newsome
v...@interport.net (Vicki Rosenzweig) writes:
>As an honest administrator, if I knew X, I would call him, even if he
>was someone who'd never voted in TAFF and who probably never would,
>and he'd say "oh, yes, Z, I've known her for years." Fine, Z's vote
>counts. But if Ulrika is the administrator and doesn't know X, Z's
>vote would not count unless Ulrika happened to recognize Z's name.
How many votes don't get counted in the average TAFF race, because
nobody recognized the voter's name? Does this rule ever get enforced
at all? I can't recall ever hearing of any votes being thrown out
on these grounds. None of Martha Beck's voters got disqualified, am I
correct?
Richard Newsome
new...@panix.com
Pam Wells
In article <19971122211...@ladder02.news.aol.com>
drg...@aol.com "Dr Gafia" writes:
> And thus is "half-TAFF" reborn. There used to be polls taken in which people
> would be nominated for half-TAFF -- the Fund that would take you overseas but
> NOT bring you back. This was
> replaced by a British idea known as COFF (which stood for the "Cement Overcoat
> Fan Fund") in which the person elected would be taken half way across the
> Atlantic and dropped there while
> they were wearing the requisite overcoat.
Make that the 'Concrete Overcoat Fan Fund', administered by Steve Green
and Kev Clarke, the final awarding of which was to its own administrators
(because they wanted it that way). It had ceased being a joke and become
taken too seriously in some quarters, so it had to go. (Back in the late
1980s, IIRC.)
Unlike the proper, reputable fan funds, the whole idea of COFF was to
encourage factionalisation and ballot-stuffing; you could vote as many
times as you wanted, so long as you paid your voting fee each time. And
you could check on how things were going, so that if someone else was
winning, you could just buy a few more votes for your preferred victim.
I think something like this provides a good outlet for Bad Feelings to
be vented, and it makes some money for the legitimate fan funds in the
process.
--
Pam Wells Vacuou...@bitch.demon.co.uk http://www.bitch.demon.co.uk
Vicki Rosenzweig
I'm doing this in a slightly non-standard way, putting my comments first,
because I didn't want to snip rich's long post, but I know people often
skip past messages that begin with large amounts of quoting:
I haven't seen Teresa's post that rich was responding to. With that in
mind, while I think I see rich's point--that there is a community we can
mostly point to if not define, which contains the people who care about
TAFF, are likely to vote, and are appropriate voters--the mechanics of
it are problematic even if we limit voters to people who are either known
directly to the administrators or are known to members of that first set.
In simplest terms, I suspect that for any possible TAFF administrator,
there are people known to her/him who are not known to other possible
TAFF administrators. Those people themselves are not the tricky case
here, since the likely TAFF administrators--that is, the people running
for TAFF--are known to each other. If I lose this race, and someone uses
my name to vouch for them as being active in fandom, the administrator
will know who I am and get in touch with me. No problem. (Similarly for
Tom, Ulrika, and Victor.)
The potential problem is that the set "known to someone known to the
administrator" is a function of who the administrator is. For example,
I've been in fandom since 1981. I've met a lot of people in that time.
And many of them have met a lot of people. So, for instance, there are
people who don't normally vote in TAFF, who might not know me, but
might think "hm, it says she lives in New York, I can tell her to contact
X." As an honest administrator, if I knew X, I would call him, even if he
was someone who'd never voted in TAFF and who probably never would,
and he'd say "oh, yes, Z, I've known her for years." Fine, Z's vote
counts. But if Ulrika is the administrator and doesn't know X, Z's
vote would not count unless Ulrika happened to recognize Z's name.
This seems to be what the rules call for, but it feels a bit weird.
For example, I'm not a filker--for which the filk community should be
grateful, since I seem to be congenitally incapable of singing on-key--
but I know a few filkers, from cons and local fandom and apas. All of
them know other filkers. Should those other filkers--the people who
someone I know to be a fan will vouch for--be eligible to vote in TAFF
if I'm the administrator, but not if someone else is?
And to what extent is someone going to be in the position of having to
guess whether an administrator, seeing their name on a ballot, will be
able to remember that this is the person she had breakfast with at
Lunacon several years earlier, or the helpful fan who was gophering
at the same event, or the guy who asked an interesting question when
she was on an otherwise unsuccessful panel at a con? And if they
guess wrong--if the administrator they're sure they know, because that
was a really interesting conversation they had--doesn't recognize the
name, should she just throw away the ballot, or should she contact the
voter and say something like "I'm sorry, I don't remember your name.
Where did we meet? Wiscon? Sounds possible, but I'm afraid I don't
remember that conversation, I was running around like a headless
chicken that weekend. I'm sorry to sound like a security officer,
but is there someone we both know who can vouch for you?"?
The underlying distinction here--besides my wondering whether
a good memory for names is an advantage for a fan fund
administrator--is that, even as the rules are currently written, the
eligible voters are both (quoting rich here--see below) "the 2,000
or so fans who have been active for at least a year in segments
of the microcosm which have been closest to TAFF over the past
decade or more, by my guestimation" AND any other fans who
happen to have been active in any other segment of the microcosm
that the current administrators are close to, including people who
happen to live near the administrator and have been annoying him
or her at local conventions for years.
Vicki Rosenzweig
v...@interport.net | http://www.users.interport.net/~vr
In article <19971122211...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, drg...@aol.com
Vicki Rosenzweig
v...@interport.net | http://www.users.interport.net/~vr/
Typos are Coyote padding through the language, grinning.
--Susanna Sturgis
Dan Goodman
In article <658hlc$j...@panix2.panix.com>,
Richard Newsome <new...@panix.com> wrote:
>v...@interport.net (Vicki Rosenzweig) writes:
>
>>As an honest administrator, if I knew X, I would call him, even if he
>>was someone who'd never voted in TAFF and who probably never would,
>>and he'd say "oh, yes, Z, I've known her for years." Fine, Z's vote
>>counts. But if Ulrika is the administrator and doesn't know X, Z's
>>vote would not count unless Ulrika happened to recognize Z's name.
Does the distinction between "known to" and "known by" count here? I'm
fairly sure that, for example, X's name is familiar to Vicki -- he lives
with a member of an apa she runs. But she may never have met him, or
corresponded with him, or read any of his fanwriting.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Dave Locke
Vicki Rosenzweig phosphorized:
Good post.
> If I lose this race, and someone uses my name to vouch for them as
> being active in fandom, the administrator will know who I am and
> get in touch with me. No problem. (Similarly for Tom, Ulrika, and Victor.)
From the current ballot:
"If you think your name may not be known to the administrators, then
in order to qualify your vote, please give, in the space below, the
name and address of an active fan (not a fan group, a candidate or
their nominator) who is known to them and to whom you are known."
If you're referring to the current race, a voter can't cite your name
as a reference. If you're speaking of future races, as I believe you
are, then the name of a previous candidate (provided they're not the
current administrator) is logical enough when a voter is casting about
for the name of someone they know who is known to the administrator.
Of course, that becomes a less valid assumption as time passes, and
there's always a pool of qualified voters b/u/t/ /n/o/t/
/t/r/u/f/a/n/s/ who might not be known to any recent ex-candidate.
I think the issue here is whether it's kosher to say: "These active
fans in your area of fandom are known to the administrator; if one of
them can vouch for you, you can cite their name as a valid reference."
mike weber
On Sun, 23 Nov 1997 05:31:05 GMT, dave...@bigfoot.com (Dave Locke)
wrote:
>From the current ballot:
>
>"If you think your name may not be known to the administrators, then
>in order to qualify your vote, please give, in the space below, the
>name and address of an active fan (not a fan group, a candidate or
>their nominator) who is known to them and to whom you are known."
>
Good. The exact words -- let me see what i think about that.
Uh huh. No explicit limits on how, or on how well, known your
reference must be to the administrator.
Going by the principle that everything not forbidden is permitted
((until proven otherwise)), then the "friend of a friend"
interpretation certainly seems viable to me.
How about citing, say, Ned Brooks? Don Markstein? Jeff Copeland?
((All names from SFPA, where a relative newcomer might encounter a
ballot, and all, certainly, coming within _at least_ the "friend of a
friend" rubric...
--
<<mike weber>> <<emsh...@aol.com>>
History doesn't always repeat itself -- sometimes it just screams
"Why don't you listen to what I'm telling you?!?" and lets fly with
a club. <<JWCjr>>
mike weber
On 22 Nov 1997 21:12:09 GMT, drg...@aol.com (Dr Gafia) wrote:
>So the requirement, de facto if not de jure, will be that new voters
>either know the TAFF administrator, know someone who knows the TAFF
>administrator, or know someone who knows someone the TAFF
>administrator knows.
>
>That'll be the ticket. Maybe bigger _will_ be better, after all. As
>sure as love is a thing that can never go wrong, more than likely.
As i recall the TAFF rules, the qualifying phrase is something like
"...known to the TAFF Administrator or to someone known to them...";
to me that has always seemed implicitly to include the "friend of a
friend" situation you seem to be finding so unlikely here.
And given the postal/second-hand nature of so much fannish
acquaintance, it seeme perfectly straightforward, logical and clear...
<<Forgive me if i am misinterpreting your position...>>
Pam Wells
In article <658hlc$j...@panix2.panix.com>
new...@panix.com "Richard Newsome" writes:
> How many votes don't get counted in the average TAFF race, because
> nobody recognized the voter's name? Does this rule ever get enforced
> at all? I can't recall ever hearing of any votes being thrown out
> on these grounds. None of Martha Beck's voters got disqualified, am I
> correct?
I can't speak for Martha's voters (before my time), but during my TAFF
administration none of the votes I received were disqualified.
P Nielsen Hayden
>How many votes don't get counted in the average TAFF race, because
>nobody recognized the voter's name?
A range from "extremely few" to "none," with the latter more frequent.
This is because, for all the rhetoric spent on this Burning Question, there
really are very few people determined to vote in TAFF who aren't, in fact,
qualified to vote in TAFF. Even, I suspect, by the narrowest of definitions
put forth in this argument.
>Does this rule ever get enforced at all?
Yes.
>I can't recall ever hearing of any votes being thrown out
>on these grounds. None of Martha Beck's voters got disqualified, am I
>correct?
I would imagine that most of Martha Beck's voters were perfectly legitimate
fans. This is a non-issue.
-----
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Kevin Standlee
Vacuou...@bitch.demon.co.uk (Pam Wells) writes:
> Unlike the proper, reputable fan funds, the whole idea of COFF was to
> encourage factionalisation and ballot-stuffing; you could vote as many
> times as you wanted, so long as you paid your voting fee each time. And
> you could check on how things were going, so that if someone else was
> winning, you could just buy a few more votes for your preferred victim.
What about MAFF, the Mid-Atlantic Fan Fund, which includes the same idea.
It is voted on every year as part of the Blackhole and Hogu Awards,
listed as "Most Desired Gafiation (Winner to get MAFF)." I think Robert
Sacks has won it more often than anyone, but when the late Chris Carrier
plopped on the scene in 1993, he managed to win it in his first year of
eligibility, along with three other Hogus. (I'm told he'd come to the
Hogu Ranquet intending to buy a bunch of Hogus aimed at Sacks, with whom
he was conducting a rather one-sided feud, and the rest of the audience
formed a bidding pool to make sure he couldn't win the bidding on
anything.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a thought from Kevin Standlee -> (stan...@LunaCity.com)
LunaCity BBS - Mountain View, CA - 650 968 8140
Arwel Parry
>v...@interport.net (Vicki Rosenzweig) writes:
>
>>As an honest administrator, if I knew X, I would call him, even if he
>>was someone who'd never voted in TAFF and who probably never would,
>>and he'd say "oh, yes, Z, I've known her for years." Fine, Z's vote
>>counts. But if Ulrika is the administrator and doesn't know X, Z's
>>vote would not count unless Ulrika happened to recognize Z's name.
>
>at all? I can't recall ever hearing of any votes being thrown out
>on these grounds. None of Martha Beck's voters got disqualified, am I
>correct?
This is a singularly well-timed development to this thread! Yesterday
morning a TAFF ballot dropped through my letterbox (via a con's mailing
list), and I have to admit to some debate with myself as to whether I'm
entitled to vote as though I've been reading SF for 30 years and been
attending cons occasionally for the last 10 years or so, being a shy
retiring fellow I haven't particularly actively thrust myself into the
fannish community apart from occasionally dropping notes here and in the
uk B5 group.... and being on the membership list of most Worldcons in
the last 10 years... serving behind the bar of the Intersection Green
Room... So, does this sort of thing count as being "active in fandom"?
By the way, a not-quite-complete report of my trip to Euro-Octocon can
be found at http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/eng/eurocon97.htm - I'll get
round to finishing it RSN!
Arwel
--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
Steve Brewster
Arwel Parry (ar...@cartref.demon.co.uk) wrote:
:
: This is a singularly well-timed development to this thread! Yesterday
: morning a TAFF ballot dropped through my letterbox (via a con's mailing
: list), and I have to admit to some debate with myself as to whether I'm
: entitled to vote as though I've been reading SF for 30 years and been
: attending cons occasionally for the last 10 years or so, being a shy
: retiring fellow I haven't particularly actively thrust myself into the
: fannish community apart from occasionally dropping notes here and in the
: uk B5 group.... and being on the membership list of most Worldcons in
: the last 10 years... serving behind the bar of the Intersection Green
: Room... So, does this sort of thing count as being "active in fandom"?
I'd guess that if you're sufficiently well-informed about TAFF
as to agonise solicitously over whether you're in a position to vote,
then you _are_ in a position to vote. Errors and omissions excepted.
--
"After 1939 he retired permanently to his | Steve.B...@Bristol.ac.uk
country house where he became interested | +44 117 928 7445
in growing weeds. He published _Weeds, | http://zeus.bris.ac.uk/~masjb
Weeds, Weeds_ in 1937." | Opinions are my own.
P Nielsen Hayden
>I'd guess that if you're sufficiently well-informed about TAFF
>as to agonise solicitously over whether you're in a position to vote,
>then you _are_ in a position to vote.
This generally does seem to be the case. :)
Aahz
[massive snipping]
In article <658anv$3pc...@port.net.interport.net>,
Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@interport.net> wrote:
>
>And to what extent is someone going to be in the position of having to
>guess whether an administrator, seeing their name on a ballot, will be
>able to remember that this is the person she had breakfast with at
>Lunacon several years earlier, or the helpful fan who was gophering
>at the same event, or the guy who asked an interesting question when
>she was on an otherwise unsuccessful panel at a con? And if they
>guess wrong--if the administrator they're sure they know, because that
>was a really interesting conversation they had--doesn't recognize the
>name, should she just throw away the ballot, or should she contact the
>voter and say something like "I'm sorry, I don't remember your name.
>Where did we meet? Wiscon? Sounds possible, but I'm afraid I don't
>remember that conversation, I was running around like a headless
>chicken that weekend. I'm sorry to sound like a security officer,
>but is there someone we both know who can vouch for you?"?
To my way of thinking, the fact that the person knows you (or someone
else) went to a particular Wiscon is sufficient grounds to justify
accepting the vote. The point of the vouching is simply to verify that
the person is or has been connected to fandom in some way, and methods
of verification that don't necessarily involve naming a mutual
acquaintance are perfectly acceptable.
(I'm curious what the reaction to my ballot was; I did end up putting on
it, "I was told to put Jon Singer's name here.")
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~aahz
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het
"I won't accept a model of the universe in which free will, omniscient
gods, and atheism are simultaneously true." -- M
Arwel Parry
In article <65c12n$a...@news1.panix.com>, P Nielsen Hayden
<p...@panix.com> writes
>In article <EK5Jx...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>, Steve.B...@Bristol.ac.uk wrote:
>
>>I'd guess that if you're sufficiently well-informed about TAFF
>>as to agonise solicitously over whether you're in a position to vote,
>>then you _are_ in a position to vote.
>
>This generally does seem to be the case. :)
Well that's reassuring, then. The cheque's in the post...
Kim Campbell
Arwel ParryIn article <EHWChLA$9Ke0...@cartref.demon.co.uk>,
ar...@cartref.demon.co.uk (Arwel Parry) wrote:
> This is a singularly well-timed development to this thread! Yesterday
> morning a TAFF ballot dropped through my letterbox (via a con's mailing
> list), and I have to admit to some debate with myself as to whether I'm
> entitled to vote as though I've been reading SF for 30 years and been
> attending cons occasionally for the last 10 years or so, being a shy
> retiring fellow I haven't particularly actively thrust myself into the
> fannish community apart from occasionally dropping notes here and in the
> uk B5 group.... and being on the membership list of most Worldcons in
> the last 10 years... serving behind the bar of the Intersection Green
> Room... So, does this sort of thing count as being "active in fandom"?
>
It's worse than that, Arwel! You have got yourself tied up in a Worldcon
Bid! Yes, all the above counts as "active in fandom", as does
contributing to the Intersmof and Internext lists. After all,
Intersecction was 2 years ago. I would be happy to vouch for you, should
that be necessary.
> By the way, a not-quite-complete report of my trip to Euro-Octocon can
> be found at http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/eng/eurocon97.htm - I'll get
> round to finishing it RSN!
>
Sounds like fun!
> Arwel
> --
> Arwel Parry
> http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
Kim :-)
--
Bugshaw for TAFF
mike weber
On Mon, 24 Nov 1997 13:56:10 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden)
wrote:
>In article <EK5Jx...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>, Steve.B...@Bristol.ac.uk wrote:
>
>>I'd guess that if you're sufficiently well-informed about TAFF
>>as to agonise solicitously over whether you're in a position to vote,
>>then you _are_ in a position to vote.
>
>This generally does seem to be the case. :)
>
Sort of the inverse of "Anyone who would actively _try_ to be
President probably shouldn't be allowed to be."