Moderator participation continues to be an unresolved issue in convention program.

Here’s the thing. Moderators, if they truly are to do a good job, a more than adequate job, MUST be interested in the topic. By definition, you must be involved enough to care to ask the questions. You must want to know about the topic in order to prepare – to read books or reviews or bios or prep in whatever way, to know your panelists, to be ready to go for 45 minutes or whatever, to have back-up in case questions fall flat. YOU HAVE TO CARE.

Thus, authors who moderate are by definition involved in the topic and should be. Generic moderating is like a generic interview; it CAN be done, but it won’t be very interesting.

What do I mean by generic moderating? Simple – the asking of relatively unspecific or generic questions of everyone. I can DO the generic interview – “what’s your background?” “what was the idea that caused you to write your fist book?” “Do you like touring” but if I don’t READ the friggin book and get to know the author, it’s second rate. If I don’t say “where did you get the idea for that intriguing secondary character who always seems to appear at the right time?” or “Why set your book in St. Paul – do you prefer it to Minneapolis? Did you live there? You seem to know it very well” or “You have a special interest in beer making/underwater basket weaving/autoerotic asphyxia, am I right? It seems to be a theme in your work?” or whatever makes it an interview specific to that person, then I’m a second rate interviewer. Sorry but I feel that you must prep to be first rate.

Thus, moderators do have an interest which means they are possibly going to chime in. I have NO PROBLEM with that idea; I believe that within limits, that’s acceptable. I’ve done it and I believe I’ve done it well – I don’t hog, I hold back but if someone says something I can talk about, respond to, I will. If my comment as moderator can move the discussion forward, or bring out some more details, cast light on something, I should indeed participate. One panel a few years back in fact I was ASKED to participate in the discussion because I had a unique take on things. Cool, huh?

Moderators do not have to sit it out. They can participate within some limits, there’s no rule there. My rule IS simply that moderators DO HAVE TO CARE.

In some worlds, people believe that all moderators should be fans and fans should only be moderators. I don’t. Big time. And I object to that mode of thinking. I think it smacks of rudeness – the assumption that we fans get to do all the hard work, we fans are the worker bees who are there to make the panelists all shine. This “fans are moderators” thinking tends to be accompanied by “all panelists are writers” It implies that we fans don’t have any in-depth interest in the topic, nor any expertise. Bullshit. We are as interested and have as many opinions as writers on most of these topics. As I point out repeatedly, many authors work so hard and are so caught up in various aspects of their work that they do not have the breadth of knowledge that many fans do. DON’T misunderstand – tons of writers are expert in the field, beyond their own work and of course they make the best panelists. But fan=moderator, pro=panelist is not the solution. Not one I would like anyway. No one I support. And no matter how often I am lectured that “I have to be on a panel to promote my work”, as it is not true, I don’t really care. More to the point, that is not the purpose of convention programming. No matter how much I’m lectured that it is. Good moderators “sell” themselves at least as well as good panelists by doing good, intelligent, charming, informed work on a panel. Trust me on this.

So writers should moderate. I believe they should share in the panel, the effort, the program, the work. They ARE part of this community, they benefit and they work hard within our community and they reap rewards from it – as we all do. They are not the “entertainers” and we fans the audience, not solely. They don’t get to talk and we to listen. Solely. Some of the finest, best, most skillful moderators I have ever heard are writers. Some are fans.

One year I moderated a panel about a topic I knew little about – and the reason I believe it worked is that I asked the questions I assumed everyone, anyone would ask. I wanted to know stuff and I consider myself typical in that regard; I represent fandom on a panel, representing readers who want to know stuff. The panel was about mystery bookstores, and don’t we ALL want to know how they do it? So that worked. And I did look up the bookstores and research in advance. But on a topic-specific panel, I don’t move until I know about my panelists so I can dig a little deeper. I HATE “generic programming” with a passion and believe it cheats everyone not to prepare. In order to be the best moderator, you have to be interested in the topic of the panel. It will work otherwise but it won’t be GREAT. I like great. I skipped some obvious topics at this LCC because I could not find a way to discuss something that was fresh or new and I was afraid the panel would end up being flat, and dull. “X in the mystery novel” “Y and the mystery” – generic program. Blech.

I’m done with running conventions. Please understand that no, this isn’t me being coy so please do not say “we’ve heard that before” as if I’m joking or trying to be cute. I will not do it again. My disability will not allow me to take on such a task any more. It was dumb of me to have done it this time, but I simply did not know, didn’t understand the extent of my limitations back in 2004 when we started. Now I do. I don’t know if my opinion/weight will carry anymore. There have been attempts to write “how to moderate” – some of which I welcome and some of which I find a little odd since it’s NOT LIKE WE HAVEN’T TRIED WRITING THIS SHIT UP BEFORE. A couple years ago something went around from a bunch of people who wrote up a “how to” thing as if none of us, not one convention runner had ever once tried this. I appreciated the effort but admit to being insulted because no one ever once ran it by anyone involved in convention running, or convention program design. We’re pretty easy to find. And that write-up seemed to imply “we have to do this because no one else has done it” when year after year, convention after convention, we provide guidelines, letters, emails, lots of suggestions and guidance to moderators. But if people won’t and don’t read what you send, it hardly matters who writes it, does it ? Maybe some writers hear things better from other writers. Still, it would have been nice to have been included in that conversation when it began. I’ve organized convention programming three times since 1994, and have advised or been part of the effort on three other conventions in recent years. I have expertise here.

And there are some great “how to moderate” guides out there. This year, I quoted from one of the best – Wiscon does it so very well. Every moderator got a letter from me with guidelines and suggestions and even a rule or two. The catch here is probably that those who know how don’t need to read the stuff and those who do, think they know and WON’T read the stuff.

Twenty years ago we began talking in sf convention circles about doing moderator training; it’s impossible to do “live” because we figured the only way to do it, at the convention, well, that’s too late. I know people who could train moderators – I could at this point and several people I know could show what to do/not do. Hmm, this could be REALLY funny if we did a “how to/how not to” moderate with examples. But again, who would attend? It’s not the sort of thing you can make mandatory (although, man, would that be, um, interesting to try) but those who would be willing to attend probably already DO know this stuff. The ones who THINK they know everything, are SURE they have nothing to learn are, perhaps, the ones who need the training the most. It’s not LIKE “convention 101” which can help anyone who’s there early in the weekend. So like any other “speaking to the converted”, it’s still an issue – how to reach people who think they know stuff, know it so well that they can’t be bothered reading the guidelines or listening to rules or suggestions.

All of which will be discussed in my blog entry later this week on one of my major gripes – one of the most baffling things I faced during the months leading up to LCC 2007 – how to get folks to read stuff.