GWSIG Monthly Meeting Minutes/Meeting27

International Game Developers Association

Steve: yo
wendy: hello Steve
wendy: which steve is this? Dinehart?
Steve: j
wendy: ah hah
Steve: lord of breeze and all he surveys
wendy: you're showing up as a normal attendee, which confused me
Steve: yah I clicked andy's link instead of logging in
wendy: heh
Steve: Should log outt and do it the right way
Steve: I'll be back
wendy: ok
Steve: hmmm
wendy: are you here.... but invisible?
wendy: ah! there you are
Steve Jacobs: now you can oaste agenda into notes
Steve Jacobs: though if its just us we don't need one :-)
wendy: well, we can go through the motions. and if anything needs to be decided we have the power to make decisions by fiat
Steve Jacobs: what's the booth issue???
wendy: well, the Austin conference is being run by a new organization this year
Steve Jacobs: GDC
wendy: so it's not a guarantee that we'll get the free booth space we got previous years
wendy: we need to get in touch with them and get that ball rolling
Steve Jacobs: ok, I'll do that via Jamil
wendy: well, Richard thinks we need to contact Jane
Steve Jacobs: Jane who??
wendy: Pinckard
wendy: she's the one who's been writing all the promo blogs etc. for Austin
wendy: I've got her email address here
Steve Jacobs: Dunno who she is. Know that Jamil is aware of the long term relationship between us and Austin
wendy: maybe what we need to do then is email Jamil and copy Jane
Steve Jacobs: will do
Steve Jacobs: We should be sure we've got folks who will man it before we ask
Steve Jacobs: would look stupid to ask for one and then not use it
Steve Jacobs: especially first time under the new regime
wendy: i'm planning to go to Austin. If no one else, I'll man it
Steve Jacobs: oooh, its the bride to be
Beth A. Dillon: Whew
wendy: i think it's an important membership opportunity for the sig
wendy: hey Beth
Beth A. Dillon: Jane also runs Game Career Seminars primarily.
Steve Jacobs: I agree. We should do it. If you volunteer to be the keystone I'll ping Jamil
Beth A. Dillon: We may be able to do an exchange like offer her a speaker for booth space, or at least talk about those possibilities as well.
Steve Jacobs: Hey beth, you going to future play in Nov??
wendy: maybe I should write the emails, since I'm going to be the ... uh... keystone?
Steve Jacobs: Yah beth, will offer that later if they are resistant
Beth A. Dillon: Probably not. If my paper is accepted, I'll be doing a Skype-in presentation.
Steve Jacobs: Beth you wus
Beth A. Dillon: One plane trip per semester for me from now on.
wendy: are you going to Austin?
Steve Jacobs: I'll make first contact with Jamil, since he and I have the history around this and then hand off to you and Jamil will hand off to Jane I 'd guess
Beth A. Dillon: Can't, it's in October, right?
wendy: September
Beth A. Dillon: September, ah, right, moved from the fun Halloween dates.
Beth A. Dillon: Too early, classes start September 4th.
wendy: bummer
Beth A. Dillon: I'll be going AWOL this year to finish classes (except for hopefully GDC).
wendy: ok
Steve Jacobs: Hey Beth I'll be streaming sandbox again :-)
Beth A. Dillon: I'll pick it up again eventually.
Beth A. Dillon: Nice.
Beth A. Dillon: Off the record, I'm also being phased out of GameCareerGuide.com since I can't be fulltime or move to San Francisco.
Steve Jacobs: Sorry bout that, when's it happen???
Beth A. Dillon: So my CMP contacts will be a bit limited here on out, but I'm back to writing mode vs. editing.
Beth A. Dillon: The end of August, sadly.
Beth A. Dillon: Back to picking up scraps of money, no more regularity!
wendy: who's taking over for you?
Steve Jacobs: You ping the magazines, etc? Regular column should be possible somewhere
Beth A. Dillon: ... Do I not know what high noon time is or did we skip ahead?
Beth A. Dillon: Jill Duffy
wendy: Steve has no respect for the agenda
Beth A. Dillon: Whew
Steve Jacobs: We went to the one we could decide, since we can do that without anyone here
Steve Jacobs: \I dunno if we can decide anything else :-)
wendy: some people do read the minutes, so I think we should start at the top and go down
Steve Jacobs: At least that was my thought
Beth A. Dillon: Gotcha
wendy: so, I officially call this meeting to order *bang*
delayedbrit: hello
delayedbrit: ouch!
Beth A. Dillon: Ha ha ha
wendy: see! I call the meeting to order and suddenly Andy shows up!
Steve Jacobs: Delayed temporaly or intellectualy
Steve Jacobs: ???
delayedbrit: both probably!
wendy: we'll start with the books update
delayedbrit: Cos I'm scared of you Miss Despain! ;)
delayedbrit: cool
wendy: negotiations with publishers have gone in such a way that a decision has pretty much been made
wendy: unless someone here knows that AK Peters (the publisher) is secretly the devil or something
wendy: i'll take that silence as a no :-)
Beth A. Dillon: Har
delayedbrit: or proof that we're all working with the dark prince too
wendy: the general consensus among potential contributors to the book was that they would prefer royalties over an up-front payment
wendy: it wasn't unanimous, but it was an overwhelming majority
delayedbrit: does that mean I get to marry a princess?
Beth A. Dillon: They have confidence it'll sell.
Beth A. Dillon: (That's a good thing!)
wendy: that's the deal AK Peters is offering
wendy: and they've been very responsive and eager to work with us
Steve Jacobs: I'm working with AK on a book of my own
Steve Jacobs: they seem like good folks and haved heard same from others
wendy: woot!
Steve Jacobs: AK seems to really enjoy working with writers
delayedbrit: um yeah, woot! :0)
Steve Jacobs: the other folks seemed to be exactly what you'd expect from a larger publisher
Steve Jacobs: Dansky likes them
wendy: Dansky likes AK Peters, yeah
wendy: which doesn't matter too much since I'm the one who has to deal with them most :-)
Steve Jacobs: Just another vote of confidence
wendy: AK Peters has some good ideas for marketing the book too
delayedbrit: That's grand, good job Wendy
wendy: I've got their contracts sitting on my desk right now
Steve Jacobs: Good. Other folks didn't seem to push verk hard
Beth A. Dillon: Excellent!
Steve Jacobs: very
wendy: I'm going to have my lawyer look them over, and then we're off to the races - and I'm afraid I do mean races, if we're going to get the first one out in time for GDC
Steve Jacobs: Speaking of which I should ask for more copies to give away at sandbox
Steve Jacobs: Happy writing
Steve Jacobs: Wendy if you need chapter editors or someone to back you in a crunch lemme know
Beth A. Dillon: Wow yeah that's a quick turnaround
wendy: it'll be an adventure - complete with long slogs through the wilderness, evil nemesises and a dragon to fight, I"m sure.
Beth A. Dillon: Is that including printing time?
wendy: yep
Steve Jacobs: Couldn't commit to writing this time, too swamped but editing I can do
wendy: I don't know if we'll make it, but I'd sure like to
Beth A. Dillon: Let's try
wendy: and the second one definitely needs to be out before profs start making book lists for the fall semester
Beth A. Dillon: For sure
wendy: so now I have contracts in hand I can start finalizing contributors etc.
wendy: things have seemed to be moving very slowly up till now, but I'm hoping to really get cracking now.
wendy: i'll be in touch with volunteers via email
wendy: so let's move on to agenda item #2 unless anyone has further questions
wendy: thanks for the volunteer to help editing Steve
wendy: ok, item #2 - Credits Committee report
Steve Jacobs: my pleasure
wendy: Dinehart doesn't seem to be here. we'll get a report from him if he shows up before the end of the meeting.
wendy: Dean Wall doesn't seem to be here either
wendy: so we'll leave those two items on the agenda for next week.
delayedbrit: I'd like to push the imdb issue this week
Steve Jacobs: hmmm, should be pushybrit
delayedbrit: I'm starting onto a big tranche of work soon, so would like to sort a letter to them and moby asap
delayedbrit: lol
wendy: it seriously looks like IMDB is only taking writers corrections from WGA
wendy: which is probably smart
delayedbrit: then let's hit them with a stick
wendy: but I'm not sure it's a good fit for the video games
delayedbrit: Besides I'M WGGB!! So they'll have to listen to me LOL
wendy: and we can probably make a case for that
delayedbrit: Let's find out
Beth A. Dillon: Yeah, left out content there.
wendy: i hope we can get a dialog going with IMDB
wendy: so... work together with Stephen Dinehart on that, Brit
wendy: hopefully he can help you out
delayedbrit: grand
wendy: i know you're both busy though
wendy: the curse of the volunteer
wendy: so.... next on the agenda is the five year plan
Beth A. Dillon: Heh heh
wendy: and I have to admit I haven't read the doc you sent out yet
wendy: shall we all pause for a minute and do so? :-)
Beth A. Dillon: Yes
delayedbrit: I think we shold start with a round up of all those who stand in our way
wendy: i can probably paste it in here
delayedbrit: yep, let's pause
wendy: heh
Steve Jacobs: I like the part where we take over EA, SOE, MIcrosoft Games and Nintendo. Can we do that first???
Beth A. Dillon: With smiles on our faces.
wendy: wow Andy - this looks like you put some actual work into this
delayedbrit: lol
Steve Jacobs: YAh, the part with the pipe bombs and everything
delayedbrit: :0) Thought you'd like that bit
delayedbrit: I borrowed it from Canis Canem Edit
Beth A. Dillon: Ahahaha
schen: I know Jane Pinckard, I was on a panel with her.
wendy: hey Sande!
wendy: welcome
delayedbrit: Hi Sande!
wendy: we're all looking at the five year plan Andy sent out
wendy: Andy - doesn't the IGDA already have a writing award?
wendy: or are you saying they're not currently awarding the award to the best writers?
Steve Jacobs: Thanks Sande, I've already contacted them both. Wendy, look for a copy in your e-mail
delayedbrit: I ppicked this up from discussions
delayedbrit: If we're pushing to support another award, let's edit that bit :0)
schen: sorry, haven't looked at andy's 5 year plan
Beth A. Dillon: A contest sounds different to me than an award.
delayedbrit: contest and award are both in there :0)
schen: who's wendy2?
Steve Jacobs: Split personality
wendy: it's my recording device, which is taking notes on the computer with the macros in it for posting to the wiki
wendy: i clone myself now and then when I'm really busy
Steve Jacobs: Wendy's working on the game version of Sybil and is doing research
Beth A. Dillon: Yeah, just mean, IGDA doesn't do contests as an umbrella group, so that may be more the direction to head in for the SIG.
Beth A. Dillon: Heehee
schen: Hello! must leave shortly. But if Kim hops on, let her know I wonder how she's progressing with getting a student to start compiling list / Hiring Hall
wendy: we'll ask her
wendy: thanks
wendy: hey Sande
wendy: a game jobs recruiting group has expressed interest in working with us
wendy: would they be a good partner for the hiring hall?
Steve Jacobs: cool, which one??
schen: in what capacity?
wendy 2: greenlight jobs
wendy 2: it occured to me that they might already have the contacts
Steve Jacobs: If we wish to pursue stuff like that I can touch base with Mary Margaret
schen: Perhaps if they could help me w/ the contacts part - but it might be conflict of interest, since they have their own clients and such.
schen: I'm attacking it from the other angle...
schen: getting listings from game companies who will list what they want.
schen: and then anybody can submit to them
wendy: maybe if we work with both greenlight jobs and marymargaret it will lessen the appearance of a conflict of interest
Beth A. Dillon: Mary Margaret told me they don't watch positions for game writers when I talked to them at a booth, but maybe that's on us to change that?
Steve Jacobs: maybe
Steve Jacobs: never hurts to ask again
Steve Jacobs: They get enough nudges they might change their minds
wendy: greenlight jobs were eager to work with writers, but they're newer
schen: You can have greenlight jobs contact me.
wendy: ok, i'll do that. thanks Sande.
schen: I don't know if it's liek an agent thing... if they just wnat to be listed as an agent
Steve Jacobs: lemme know when we want to move back to 5 year plan
Beth A. Dillon: Well this all ties in.
wendy: ok - back to the five year plan :-)
Beth A. Dillon: Should we go down the plan or what?
schen: ok. gotta get going. Take care
wendy: I think we should put this on the wiki where people can make edits and we can track changes etc.
Steve Jacobs: However you want to, I have a few thoughts that overlap several items
delayedbrit: see you sande
wendy: thanks sande
Steve Jacobs: bye
delayedbrit: we can pop it on the website/wiki for review
wendy: We're starting to run out of time for our official meeting. how bout we put it on the wiki, and anybody who can stick around after the official meeting time, we can start making edits and conversing about it
wendy: then we can take the conversation to the mailing list for feedback too
Steve Jacobs: Can I throw one item out there as it overlaps sevral and I'm not sure where I'd do it
Steve Jacobs: ??
delayedbrit: name it Steve
wendy: be quick :-) we haven't even started on Matters Arising yet
Steve Jacobs: ok implicit perhaps, but not explicit is working with local igda chapters, for speaking/educating on writing's role, recruiting etc
Steve Jacobs: A strrategy we should be implementing
Beth A. Dillon: Definitely
delayedbrit: cool, I can add that, any preference as to where?
Beth A. Dillon: It goes hand in hand with conferences/events
Steve Jacobs: nah, it's why I wanted to kick it around here
wendy: education?
Beth A. Dillon: Education maybe?
Beth A. Dillon: Or Recruitment? It's sort of both
delayedbrit: could put it under both
wendy: a few other things have double billing as well
wendy: like the survey
Beth A. Dillon: Yeah choose one primarily
wendy: so i say put it under both
Beth A. Dillon: Education
Beth A. Dillon: lol Okay
Steve Jacobs: cool
Beth A. Dillon: I guess it's a split plan, right?
Beth A. Dillon: Not like singular tasks
wendy: overall, Andy. I have to say this looks great. I think it's exactly what the SIG needs. It'll give us a roadmap and standards to measure progress by.
Steve Jacobs: Agreed
delayedbrit: Grand :0)
Steve Jacobs: Raising Pint in Andy's direction :-)
delayedbrit: cheers :)
wendy: aye
wendy: ya done good mate
Beth A. Dillon: Yay!
delayedbrit: AoBwise Rhi, Jim and myself talked at Develop yesterday and bigged up the SIG
wendy: woohoo
Steve Jacobs: cool
wendy: quick let's do matters arising
delayedbrit: Jason popped in and apparently got a lot of good feedback about the session
Beth A. Dillon: Lovely
delayedbrit: we gave out the quartley there too
wendy: Kim's not here to talk about future play
Steve Jacobs: I can
Beth A. Dillon: Has anyone thought of connecting with Games:EDU in the UK>?
wendy: yay for the quarterly!
Steve Jacobs: Far as I know, all is moving along
Beth A. Dillon: Happens soon
delayedbrit: not as far as I know.
wendy: we've got till Nov., so it's not terribly urgent. I'm glad write club lives on.
wendy: moving on to the Report
wendy: any comments on the one I wrote and sent out last month?
delayedbrit: I don't know anyone who'd take it on at the moment
wendy: it seems to have gained us a new volunteer, which seems like a success to me
delayedbrit: +...I'm not going to be in the UK much for the rest of the year
Beth A. Dillon: Yay!
delayedbrit: hurrah!
Beth A. Dillon: Recruitment and conversion
Steve Jacobs: Hurrah that Andy's out of England?
Beth A. Dillon: Ha ha ha
Beth A. Dillon: Nice timing
wendy: I think the takeover of Britain needs to be done on the sly :-)
wendy: can't talk about it in the open like this
delayedbrit: lol
delayedbrit: it's worse for you guys, I'll be spending part of the year on the same continent as you :oP
Steve Jacobs: But I need to tell you where to get your grinning, white-faced masks
Steve Jacobs: even better Andy, where?
delayedbrit: Canada
Steve Jacobs: which province/town???
wendy: you can hang out with Beth
delayedbrit: Montreal :0)
delayedbrit: oh no! ;0p
Steve Jacobs: excellent
wendy: oh. you can hang out with Rich
Steve Jacobs: Need to find more excuses to visit the scene up there
Beth A. Dillon: I'll be there in October/November.
Steve Jacobs: Wrong coast for beth
wendy: hey - we've got two minutes. Let's try to finish up the agenda
Beth A. Dillon: For the Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace game workshop! Ha.
wendy: visit after
Beth A. Dillon: Go go go
Beth A. Dillon: I blame everyone but me.
Steve Jacobs: killjoy :-)
wendy: I'm going to continue the Report, but if anyone ever wants to take over that duty, I'm eager to give it to someone else
wendy: so, Dansky isn't here to defend himself on the whitepaper issue or the statistics issue
wendy: but I've heard a sneaky rumor that we may (_may_) be able to present the results of our survey at Austen
Beth A. Dillon: I'm trying to sort out what I can dedicate myself to regularly and I think the book chapter is good for now. I want to stay short term project oriented if possible.
wendy: Austin
Steve Jacobs: Just pinge'd em on the booth
Steve Jacobs: Not going myself
wendy: so that gives us a little more cache than just putting the results on the website
Beth A. Dillon: Yeah
delayedbrit: be good to see ya all
wendy: moving on - Steve. Any movement on the script/doc library?
Beth A. Dillon: Man I wish I could come present them.
Steve Jacobs: meeting with Susan Gold at Sandbox
Beth A. Dillon: Ah nice
wendy: sorry, who is Susan Gold?
Steve Jacobs: Runs the educaztion sig
Beth A. Dillon: Heads up Game Edu SIG
wendy: ah!
wendy: wonderful
wendy: i'll take that as progress :-)
wendy: so let's talk about the next meeting
Steve Jacobs: ok
wendy: Aug 29 or 30 would be the traditional time
wendy: but it's awfully close to Austin
wendy: shall we have this a week earlier?
J.: Hey folks.
wendy: hey! J. made it! welcome!
J.: Yeah, only an hour late, bother.
Steve Jacobs: MAkes sense so that everyone can touch base re the conf
wendy: so the 22 or 23rd
wendy: any preference on day of the week?
Steve Jacobs: gotta check
Beth A. Dillon: I'll be gone August 19-26th (wedding), but I don't think I'll be much of a loss.
wendy: oh
wendy: heh
Beth A. Dillon: I just need to know when the book chapters should be in.
wendy: i'll be in touch via email about that
Beth A. Dillon: Loverly!
delayedbrit: I can't commit to any dates at the mo
wendy: thursdays work a little better for me than wednesdays right now
Steve Jacobs: I will set up whatever anyone wants, at the moment they both look clear
wendy: let's go for thursday then
wendy: the 23rd
wendy: sorry Beth
Steve Jacobs: Starting in sept the academic year rears its ugly heads and my teaching schedule will dictate
Steve Jacobs: I'm more sorry I can't get up to the wedding
Steve Jacobs: Should be a blast
J.: Beth's going to have a great time that week, she'll be ok. ;)
Beth A. Dillon: Sept. 4 begins the horrors for me.
Beth A. Dillon: Ha
Beth A. Dillon: If the rings show up in time, if the dress is done in time, etc, etc...
Beth A. Dillon: It's like organizing a festival!
Steve Jacobs: oh yeah
wendy: Steve, you'll take care of setting up the meeting room for next month?
J.: Or like creating a small town
Steve Jacobs: yes'm
Beth A. Dillon: Sim Wedding
wendy: woot
delayedbrit: thanks for sorting the rooms out Steve
J.: wedding tycoon
Beth A. Dillon: lol
delayedbrit: and congrats Beth :0)
delayedbrit: woot!
Beth A. Dillon: Wedding Tycoon
Steve Jacobs: :-)
J.: oh wait no one gets rich off this except the planners and suppliers
Beth A. Dillon: It'd be an awesome game
Steve Jacobs: and vera wang :-)
Beth A. Dillon: If you were a planner or supplier
Beth A. Dillon: Okay we're chatting again
wendy: instead of losing money and going bankrupt, you die
Beth A. Dillon: We done?
Beth A. Dillon: lol!
Steve Jacobs: must be
wendy: yeah, we're done
Steve Jacobs: gotta go anyhow
wendy: *bang*
Steve Jacobs: ciao
Beth A. Dillon: "You failed to organize a good wedding. Now you die."
J.: sorry I was late folks, looks like everything went fine without me
delayedbrit: I'll email a rejigged 5 year plan through for posting on the wiki
J.: see some of you in austin hopefully
wendy: but if anyone wants to hang around and chat about the five year plan, please do
delayedbrit: see you steve
J.: and I'll make a note for the next meet
Beth A. Dillon: Book book book book book
wendy: or the book
Beth A. Dillon: Well we just need to get on all the chapter writers, uh oh
wendy: first of all, we need to finalize who's actually writing all the chapters
wendy: some chapters don't have an active writer and some may change their minds when they find out how little they're being paid
wendy: that's why i haven't gotten serious about deadlines and outlines yet
wendy: now we know what we're actually talking about
delayedbrit: which book are we doing first?
wendy: but that's my job, Beth. So don't you worry about it. You've got a wedding to plan. :-)
wendy: The technique book is going to be first
wendy: though the deadlines are going to be so close I'm going to have writers working on them simultaneously
wendy: but it's the technique book we're going to try to have out by GDC
Beth A. Dillon: Ahh good to know
wendy: so - i have a comment on the five year plan Andy
wendy: at the beginning, it sort of makes it sound like the only people we're aiming to educate are writers from outside the industry
wendy: when really, I think we're trying to raise the bar across the industry
wendy: including those writers who already have jobs
Beth A. Dillon: Good point
wendy: the action items seem to reflect this, but the opening doesn't really
delayedbrit: I'd be happy to swap the formatting chapter for the tutorial one on the book
wendy: it's a touchy thing to write though
wendy: oh yeah?
delayedbrit: h'okay I'll tweak that  :0)
delayedbrit: yeah :0)
wendy: would you consider doing both?
wendy: no pressure. just wondering.
delayedbrit: Not in the time we have, I'm going to be realllllly pushed to do one in the time we have :(
delayedbrit: I could offer something on the genre book more easily as it'd write itself more easily...but I'm not down to do anything on that at the mo
wendy: ok
wendy: i'll be finalizing who's writing what this week
wendy: one more edit for the five year plan...
Beth A. Dillon: Heh
J.: I have one impression as well, from skimming Andy's draft.
wendy: The SIG will survey writers and the industry to build up a picture of industry practice as it relates to games writers.
wendy: could we add "regularly" to that sentence somewhere?
wendy: so it doesn't imply that we do it once in five years and we're done
delayedbrit: we're not likely to conduct 'regular surves though are we?
wendy: why not? the hard part is done
Beth A. Dillon: True
Beth A. Dillon: It's up
delayedbrit: I'll pop something in :)
J.: yeah, IGDA proper doesn't survey its stuff all that often, except for quality of life
wendy: well, regularly could mean once every three or four years
wendy: but it implies that we start building up a history of data
J.: ok then. 4 years is like a generation in game dev anyway
wendy: we can start spotting trends etc.
wendy: hey, and there's Dean
dean: hey, there's me
wendy: we skipped your item on the agenda. have you done anything related to the contest?
dean: hi, sorry i'm late. our company is transforming itself and i'm on too many committees to make it happen
wendy: is it transforming itself into a big robot that can shoot missiles out its arms?
dean: no, except that someone mentioned a behind the scenes mail list where projects get coordinated?
dean: i wish. :) that would be easier
wendy: heh
wendy: the committee mailing list
wendy: it's on yahoo groups right now
wendy: lemme find you a link
wendy: we cleverly hide it on our website
Beth A. Dillon: I wish they'd do another diversity survey, for example
J.: they'll get around to another before long
dean: ok, i need to get on that if i can. and secondly, how do other team leads go about recruiting volunteers? i don't want to violate any ettiquette and need to get hopping
J.: I often wonder if they worry that studios will start resenting all the surveys coming from igda and would just stop replying
wendy: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/gwsig-announce/
delayedbrit: h'okay, I'll send the redraft through by email, see you later folks!
delayedbrit: that;s why we shouldn't survey too often - survey fatigue :)
delayedbrit: see you
wendy: our last survey was done in 2005, wasn't it?
Beth A. Dillon: Dean--drag people in!
wendy: later Andy. thanks
dean: heh. ok. anyone know a draggable lawyer? (read that how you will)
Beth A. Dillon: Toughy
wendy: there's one who talks on the general mailing list sometimes. i should remember his name but it's escaping me at the moment.
Beth A. Dillon: I've got to jet, I'll be on IM!
dean: i've started two lists of questions for the contest. one concerns what the SIG can support in terms of things like is there a budget? :)
J.: tom buscaglia
wendy: he's a game-industry centric lawyer. the same guy who writes the regular article for IGDA
J.: but he hasn't said much in the writers list in a while
dean: the other is about implementation like what type of contest to run, format, judging, etc
J.: since I joined, even. hmm.
wendy: well, i think if someone asked a legal question on the general list he might have something to say
wendy: and if not, we can approach him directly
dean: regardless, we'll need to run it past a lawyer before unveiling, so it'll be good to know one. would it be out of line to post that to the writers list?
wendy: and if he can't do it, someone else on the list may have a corporate lawyer willing to donate a little time
wendy: you can post it to the list - we may be able to use IGDA's legal service for that
wendy: which, I suspect, is Tom
J.: tom's a board member
wendy: I think the idea was to make it as much like a "traditional" writing contest as possible
dean: ok. cool. so by next meeting i should have dragged some volunteers and located a legal advisor
dean: yeah, got that much, but there seemed to be some disagreement last chat over what "traditional" is
wendy: we do tend to beg, borrow and steal volunteers wherever we can get them. sometimes it helps to post specific, small tasks you're looking for help with
wendy: like posting to the general list something like... "Can anybody do X for this project?"
dean: alright. so long as i know that's acceptable use of the list, i'm good
wendy: if it were me... I'd probably surf the web for half an hour or so looking at how other writing contests are set up. then steal the bits I like.
wendy: people tend to respond better if you put out a first draft of something so they can comment on something concrete
wendy: oh - J. - good work on getting the quarterly out to the Develop confernce
wendy: did the process go pretty smoothly this time?
dean: alright then. sorry i have to bolt to yet another transformational meeting
wendy: maybe you can propose the huge robot scheme
J.: did it actually get out? I hadn't heard back from Andy or Rhianna
wendy: yeah, Andy said they passed it out at their session
J.: but I guess it would have to have got out by now, heh. No, Rhianna handled all the back-end stuff and Andy wrote a replacement intro box for the front
J.: I just banged it out in like 10 minutes and mailed them the pdf
J.: the printers did the rest
J.: it doesn't take me that long. this weekend, I finally plan to start building the agc edition
J.: all the material's in, now I just have to see how well it fits :)
wendy: excellent
wendy: I'm going to check about getting them in the goody bags again this year
J.: yes please
J.: since it's local to me I can transport the copies
wendy: that will give us a sense of numbers
J.: and I'll probably just go through my paper's printers again
wendy: it worked great last year
J.: yeah I think they'll be a little better organized too
J.: old management got cleared out :)
wendy: heh, that's either good or bad
J.: I'm leaning toward good, but I'll spare you reasons why
J.: they're really ratcheting up the price though
J.: people are going to wake up next week and go omg wtf $650
wendy: printing ain't cheap
J.: I meant ticket prices :)
wendy: oh, you mean for the austen conf
J.: yeah
wendy: austin
J.: I can ask next week for a print estimate
wendy: i thought you meant for printing
wendy: ok
J.: need to focus on getting it built this time
wendy: conferences cost money too :-)
J.: oh sure, and they want people there who are committed types
wendy: i think their price is fair, especially since there was early registration
J.: it was around $150 two months ago when they announced it
J.: yeah except I thought a company I've been f'lancing for would pay my way
J.: so it's probably gamasutra again
J.: which ain't bad
J.: ok, nice talking as always
J.: will be in touch
wendy: thanks for your work on the quarterly