From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
Subject: Re: Police And Conventions
Date: 12 Aug 92 14:46:16 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com

In article <krikket.6023@meltdown.chi.il.us>  
krikket@meltdown.chi.il.us (D. 'krikket' Krick) writes:
> And of course COMMUMICATE WITH YOURSELVES!  Get 2 WAY RADIOS of  
possible!  It's
> amazing what kind of problems can be headed off if everyone knows  
EXACTLY what
> is happening...
> 

I'm afraid I have to disagree here (I had agreed with much of what
you had said up till this point).  For years, at Boskone we
had an "Operations" department that included floor walkers with
beepers and/or radios.  This resulted in a number of problems:

1.  The existence of an Operations group that was handling
    "security" created an "it's their job" attitude on the
     committee.   Committee members would see something wrong
     and call Operations rather than ever responding themselves.

     When we changed Operations to Services, a big part of the
     change was telling all the committee that "Services does not
     roam the halls. You do, while you are doing other things. If
     you see something wrong, do the right thing.  We can help
     if you need it. If it is bad, we can call the hotel 
     security staff.  But it is not our job to come by to tell
     a group of kids to stop sliding down the bannisters. You 
     can tell them this."

2.  Radios (at Boskone and at almost every other convention
    I've seen) contribute to a rather officious attitude among
    those who have them. I find it hard to keep from giggling
    every time I see one of them stop, look very serious,
    and call into their radio "Rover one to base, Rover one to
    base. All clear in the hall next to the ballroom. Over."

    A related problem is that folks walking around looking for
    trouble often find it.  Traditional con security often
    gets involved in things that are either not a problem or
    not OUR problem (that is, they are a hotel problem and
    are best handled by telling hotel security about them).

3.  Radios and beepers are usually not needed.  There are, after
    all, hotel phones all over the place.  

    At the last Boskone that had Operations (and lots of beepers
    and radios)  (this was in the mid-eighties somewhere), the
    head of Ops tried to insist that a) Program department must
    have a beeper and 2) they had to be able to talk to the
    HEAD of program.  It took the head of program that year to
    say that a) he would dump the beeper in a water glass if
    it were left in the Green Room, since the Green Room had a 
    phone and program could always be reached there and b) whoever
    was running the Green Room was in charge of program.  They
    wouldn't be there if they weren't capable of making reasonable
    decisions, and the program head did not have to be contacted 
    directly for all program related decisions.

Now that I've said this, I will agree that there are exceptions.
Worldcons, which are spread between several hotels and a convention
center, often can make good use of radios and beepers. However,
each person using one should justify this use and not get one
simply because he/she is a department head or because beepers
have become status symbols.

--
Jim Mann            
Stratus Computer   jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com