Conventions

How to schedule On Air Events and set up Google Hangouts On Air

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , 2 Comments

A few people have, believe it or not, asked for our procedure for setting up virtual conferences like FtBConscience 2. I figure it’s a good idea to go ahead and post the document that I’d passed around behind the scenes, so others can benefit from our, heh, “wisdom”. I’ve scrubbed out the FtB-specific stuff.

As of January 2014, the procedures for creating a live Google Hangout On Air have changed, in some ways quite drastically. Please read this thoroughly and attempt this at least once, all the way through, as a dry run before your con!

Remember, you will need all your facilitators to perform all of thee actions. This can’t be done in advance by a single person, because each panel will have to be run by the person who went through this procedure. It’s best to appoint at least 3 facilitators per concurrent “line” of panels that you’d like to run. You can sometimes do with less if you’re strict on end times, though.

Requirements:

A Google+ Account (obtain one here: https://plus.google.com/ )

A Youtube account (MUST BE LINKED TO G+ ACCOUNT, see below)

A telephone (land line for phone call verification or cell phone for text message verification)

(Optional) A 300x1200px banner for your event

To set up your Google+ Account linked to Youtube:

Google has a tutorial here: https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2553119?p=first_hoa&hl=en&authuser=0&rd=1

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How to schedule On Air Events and set up Google Hangouts On Air
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FtBCon2: Sexual Harassment Law and You, with full transcript! #ftbcon

Jason Thibeault, , , , , 2 Comments

Ken White of Popehat gave a great presentation at FtBConscience 2 about sexual harassment law and anti-harassment policies at conventions. Surprise surprise, the troll narrative about sexual harassment is about as far from the legalities of the situation as you can get!

Here’s some of his supplementary material he originally posted here:

Some related links:

Here’s the link to where the conference will be.

Here’s a short quiz in preparation for the talk.

Here’s a great resource about the recent history of calls for anti-harassment policies in the skeptic, open-source, and science fiction and fantasy communities.

Here’s the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s publications on discrimination issues.

I’ve written before about how complaints about harassment provoke disproportionate outrage and further harassment; those posts are hereand here.

The full transcript, graciously provided by Josiah BibleName (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr), is below the fold. It was provided without paragraph breaks; for readability, I’ll be editing them in as time allows.
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FtBCon2: Sexual Harassment Law and You, with full transcript! #ftbcon

FtBCon2: Evidence Based Feminism w/ full transcript

Jason Thibeault, , , , 28 Comments

Here’s the talk presented Friday night by HJ Hornbeck. Below the fold is the full transcript including all notes and links, which he’s helpfully provided.

I believe if you visit the Youtube page you will see that HJ has adequately performed his intended task — dredging for MRA trolls and making them take anti-scientific positions. Because that’s what it takes to deny that feminism is right about its foundational claims: you’d have to be anti-science.

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FtBCon2: Evidence Based Feminism w/ full transcript

The Hangouts I'm facilitating at #FtBCon 2

Jason Thibeault, 1 Comment

I’ve got the Google+ Events that I’ll be facilitating all set up for the convention this weekend! Check it out:

FtBCon2: Welcome / Orientation

FtBCon2: Evidence-Based Feminism

FtBCon2: When You Need a Hand, Not a Prayer: The State of the Secular Support Movement

FtBCon2: Between A Rock And…: Non-Binary Gender in Atheism

FtBCon2: Racism and the Zombie Apocalypse

FtBCon2: Women in STEM

FtBCon2: Trans* Representation in Video Games

FtBCon2: Godless Perverts Story Hour

FtBCon2: Secular Asian Community discussion

FtBCon2: Bible Study (or Taking the Bible Seriously as Fiction: A Read-Along)

FtBCon2: Curtain Call

Okay, I’ll admit it, I made this post mostly as a to-do list for my own purposes. Why do something that only has one purpose, when it can have two by simply posting it at my blog as well?

The Hangouts I'm facilitating at #FtBCon 2

The Ada Initiative recognizes the feminist fight in the skeptical and secular communities

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , 7 Comments

Two days ago, I was pleasantly surprised on Twitter (a rarity, to be sure) when The Ada Initiative tweeted the following:

 

Until then, I had no idea The Ada Initiative knew this parallel fight was happening in the skeptical and secular movements, where I’ve only seen them talk about the problems in technology, the open source world and geek culture.
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The Ada Initiative recognizes the feminist fight in the skeptical and secular communities

Ashley, Heina and I talking about rape, comics and conventions

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , , , , ,

Three disparate topics, not exactly light conversation to start off, but we got progressively less ragey at least. It was an interesting conversation tonight on the Ashley F. Miller Show. (The F stands for “Fuckin'”. [No it doesn’t. And you’d know that if you’d watched FtBCon!])

It was a relief to be on a panel I wasn’t running, with people who needed no prompting to set things up appropriately, after having done that all weekend long. Though I think I might be burned out on public appearances for a little bit. Let me restock on spoons for a bit, then we’ll see.

Also: I can’t believe I misattributed the nude revolutionary calendar to Taslima Nasreen. Now both she and Maryam Namazie are going to hate me. 🙁

Ashley, Heina and I talking about rape, comics and conventions

#FtBCon: Female Protagonists in Video Games

Jason Thibeault, , , 1 Comment

Had a fantastic panel with Ashley F. Miller, Rebecca Watson, Avicenna Last, Tauriq Moosa and Lynnea Glasser on female protagonists in video games, though we expanded the scope of the panel somewhat unexpectedly to cover also genderqueer, gay and trans* characters, which I wasn’t expecting and didn’t stack the panel toward. If I would have known in advance, I would have happily included voices, and I sincerely apologize if I was unable to speak for you adequately.

Even still, despite that issue of “mission creep” of the panel’s focus, I really enjoyed this panel. It was significantly more muted than the panel last night, but that’s probably a good thing. Last night’s was funny, and I had a good time, but it was a bit unfocused comparitively. This one ran really smoothly by comparison.

#FtBCon: Female Protagonists in Video Games

#FtBCon: Video Games, Religion and Morality

Jason Thibeault, , , , , 1 Comment

Thanks to the tight timing between the Atheist Music panel and our panel, where we had many of the same participants, we ended up turning into a pretty raucous and jovial crowd at the top of the panel while killing time waiting for Ashley and Brianne to join in. That translated into a much looser panel than I was expecting, but I really enjoy those sorts of panels so I encouraged it gladly.

Best single moment for me: Ashley humming the Katamari Damacy theme.

#FtBCon: Video Games, Religion and Morality

#FtBCon: The panels I've facilitated, and the panels I will facilitate

Jason Thibeault, , ,

Day three of FtBConscience, and it’s been a hell of a lot of work so far. I don’t have as many panels as PZ has had, but I’ve had a lot of last-second stress swinging in to help troubleshoot someone’s connection problems or dealing with sudden changes of plan. The tensest moment thus far was Kate Donovan’s presentation which started ~15 mins late, due to the university deciding to close up the building she was using several hours earlier than usual — so she sprinted home and set up as quickly as possible, and somehow seemed genuinely unruffled through her talk and still gave a bang-up presentation. My already immense respect for her has only redoubled.

I’ll include all the panels I ran / moderated / facilitated so far below, but I’ll also create a special thread for commenting that I’ll link the titles to below.
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#FtBCon: The panels I've facilitated, and the panels I will facilitate

#FtBCon: Atheism, Science and Art

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , 2 Comments

There were several tense moments when Glendon’s various devices all failed him in series; and when Anne’s internet connection completely failed her early on. But Amy, forced to fill time, did a pretty good job of keeping the panel together. Even through the sake! And a few lucky folks won some free Surlys, to boot.

#FtBCon: Atheism, Science and Art