Buying Worldcon memberships

[Keith F. Lynch]

I've looked at both upcoming Worldcon websites (discon3.org and
chicon.org) to find out where to mail my checks. Apparently both
Worldcons demand that you get an online account before they will deign
to give you the address. I have too many online accounts already.
I can only memorize so many passwords.

I'm also curious what people without Internet access are supposed to
do. Or are those people not welcome at Worldcons?
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[Keith F. Lynch]

Someone Else <someon...@example.com.invalid> wrote:
> For the first, you could try what it says at the bottoms of the
> discon3 pages: "Contact r...@discon3.org for help with registration
> and this site."

I did the equivalent for Chicon. The reply just told me to register
on the website. To make sure I'm not already registered. (If I were
already registered, I think I'd remember.)

> For the second, people without Internet access won't be perusing
> their web pages.

True. But the web pages include progress reports which were
presumably also distributed in hardcopy, either in person or by
snail mail, to people some of whom don't have Internet access.

> The Chicon site says, "The most sociable way to register will be
> to find our representatives sitting at a table at any of numerous
> science fiction conventions around the world and register in
> person," as if there were in-person cons this year at which to
> find a representative.

Indeed. That's how I usually register. But, like most fans, I
haven't been to an in-person con since before Chicon won the bid.
And I won't be at one until after their rates go up. (My last
in-person con was Philcon in November 2019, and my next in-person
con will be Chessiecon in November of 2021, a record gap of slightly
more than two years.

As for Discon, until this month I didn't intend to go, despite having
looked forward to a DC Worldcon for over 40 years. But when their
egregious con chair was replaced, I reconsidered.

> While I think perhaps you should have done more before complaining
> (see "For the first", above), I agree that requiring people to
> create accounts in order to give them money is a bad idea.

I wasn't so much complaining as I was asking for information. I was
-- and still am -- hoping someone here would post the cons' mailing
addresses.

[Melita Kennedy]

I have a supporting membership (and will likely upgrade to virtual soonish).
Once you set up an account, to login you enter your email address and they
send you an email with a url which will automatically log you into the site.
I wasn't able to find any snailmail addresses on the website even after
logging in. I just commented on one of Discon's FB posts asking whether
someone could pay for a membership by check. I'll let you know if I hear
anything.

I just upgraded from supporting to virtual and the only option for payment
was by credit card.

It looks like if I purchased another membership, that they would want my
address and email associated with it.

[evelynchim...@gmail.com]

On Friday, July 16, 2021 at 10:04:26 PM UTC-4, Melita Kennedy wrote:
> I just upgraded from supporting to virtual and the only option for payment
> was by credit card.
>
> It looks like if I purchased another membership, that they would want my
> address and email associated with it.

I can believe that if you are purchasing a virtual membership, requiring
an email address makes sense. But if you are attending in person,
there should be a way to do so even if you don't have email.
(You could be reading the web pages at a library.)

[Tim Merrigan]

Would that make the entire con an @! party?
--

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Tim Merrigan

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[Mike Van Pelt]

In article <sccen0$2hi$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>I have too many online accounts already.
>I can only memorize so many passwords.

I passed that point years ago. So, I use LastPass,
and let it generate strings of gibberish for passwords
and keep track of them. If I were making the choice
today, I'd proably pick the open-source BitWarden.

I only have a handfull of passwords memorized --
the LastPass password, my email password, and the
password to my SSH key.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

[Paul Dormer]

In article <sfmk3k$vg7$2...@dont-email.me>, m...@shell.calweb.com (Mike Van

Pelt) wrote:

>
> I passed that point years ago. So, I use LastPass,
> and let it generate strings of gibberish for passwords
> and keep track of them. If I were making the choice
> today, I'd proably pick the open-source BitWarden.

I've been using the Kaspersky password manager for a few years, although
there was a report recently that their random password generator is not
as random as one might like. (There was a recent upgrade, but they don't
say if they've fixed this.

[Keith F. Lynch]

Mike Van Pelt <m...@shell.calweb.com> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> I have too many online accounts already.
>> I can only memorize so many passwords.

> I passed that point years ago. So, I use LastPass, and let it
> generate strings of gibberish for passwords and keep track of them.
> If I were making the choice today, I'd proably pick the open-source
> BitWarden.

I don't trust deterministic algorithms to make random passwords. I
make passwords, one character at a time, by placing seven pennies in
a small box, vigorously shaking it for several seconds, then taking
the pennies out without looking at them, placing them in a row, and
reading off the pattern of heads and tails as an ASCII character.
(If the character isn't valid in a password, I simply try again.)

And I certainly don't store passwords online. Storing them on paper
would be far more secure than that, if the paper is always in my
pocket.

However, it turns out that my Chicon account doesn't need a password.
Chicon sends me HTML emails with a login link whenever I want to see
if they've received my check yet. The login link is buried amongst
numerous other links. And it's both MIME-mangled and much too long
to either cut and paste or retype. Not to mention that it's run by
"Mailchimp," an email marketing company, so I had of course long since
blocked all Mailchimp emails as spam.

I've found that the best way to deal with it is to locate the login
link, discard the rest of it, manually un-MIME it, turn it into a
proper web page, upload it to my public website, and then load it from
a graphical browser. Neither convenient nor secure.

The good news is that they finally received my check, 32 days after
I mailed it. That's an average of less than one mile per hour. It
would have been faster for me to walk the whole way from Virginia to
Chicago, hand it to them, then walk home. I wonder how the Post Awful
carried the letter. No train, plane, automobile, bicycle, pack animal,
or pedestrian is that slow. Maybe they had a turtle carry it.

[Tim Merrigan]

The sent it the long way round, going south and a little east from
you?

[Paul Dormer]

In article <sfrln1$mrk$1...@reader1.panix.com>, k...@KeithLynch.net (Keith F.

Lynch) wrote:

>
> The good news is that they finally received my check, 32 days after
> I mailed it.

There was a bit in the paper recently of a letter taking over 32 years to
be delivered:

https://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/19491031.royal-mail-delivers-goods-vic
arage---32-years-late/

[Keith F. Lynch]

Paul Dormer <p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> k...@KeithLynch.net (Keith F. Lynch) wrote:
>> The good news is that they finally received my check, 32 days after
>> I mailed it.

> There was a bit in the paper recently of a letter taking over 32
> years to be delivered:

> https://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/19491031.royal-mail-delivers-goods-vicarage---32-years-late/

If my check had taken that long to get to Chicon 8, I wonder if they
would have treated it as a membership to Chicon 11.

32 years ago this month I attended Noreascon 3 and bought a membership
to Chicon 5.