Some Kfest Reflections

Some people noticed that I haven't been to Kansasfest (the long-running Apple II convention) in a while, and moreso I am not involved at all with it nor even mention it much. So just some thoughts on that here.

Q. You've been using Apple II computers for a long time. Did you attend any early kfests?

A. No. I only really found the greater Apple II community when I got internet access in 1995 or so, and at the time the online community was very unfriendly. I only really found a reasonable group of Apple II users relatively late, in the mid-2010s.
Q. Have you ever been to Kansasfest?

A. I've been in person once, in 2018.
Q. Was it amazing?

A. I had an OK time. It wasn't the life-changing experience people had talked it up as. Mostly since I was new and didn't know any people there, and also because I stayed on a quiet floor. I actually tried really hard to get my introverted self into things, including spending a lot of time in the Cocohran lobby, but without much luck.

I did participate online a few times during but haven't really taken part since then.
Q. Why did you stop attending?

A. At some point some outsiders came in and had a bit of a coup where they cancelled and/or encouraged people to resign from the board running things. What bothered me most was a person who had a long history of dedication to the kfest cause being cancelled by people digging up "likes" buried deep in his personal social media account, then driving out anyone trying to stand up for him.

There was also a big push to move kfest out of Kansas City, but that didn't bother me as much because pretty much any location is equally inconvenient to me. I do think the people pushing this have somewhat confused ideas about the political leanings of college towns, especially those in major metropolitan areas.

Around this same time COVID hit, and once the return to in-person happened there was a big debate if any health measures should be taken. The "no-health measures" people won, and promptly the next kfest there was a massive COVID outbreak and they had to send people home early. In any case this whole situation alienated a bunch of people, including most of the attendees I'd most like to see. And since they appear to be permanently boycotting kfest there's not a lot of reason for me to go back.
Q. Don't you want to present your work there?

A. I had attended online and even presented a few times, but eventually came to the conclusion that the kind of presentations I gave were a bit too technical for the audience.

After my sizecoding presentation the moderator for the session expressed an opinion that my talk was too complex to understand. Then at the pod-caster wrapup that year, they went around and said something nice about each presentation... about every talk but mine. I am sure these were not intentional slights, but it made me realize that kfest is not necessarily the best venue for showing off my work.
Q. But didn't you win an Apple II Forever Award?

A. No.

There has been some confusion about this with people assuming I have. Part of the problem might be that at one point there were an excessive amount of people named "Vince" involved in the Apple II world and some of them have won the award. Not me though.
Q. What about alternate conferences like INIT HELLO?

A. INIT HELLO has the misfortune of being in Maryland in the summer. I grew up in Maryland and still have family there, so I often have to travel down there. It's an annoying trip and so not really excited to do it yet again with whatever vacation time I have left when I could be going more interesting places. Also it's in the summer, and if you've ever had to endure Baltimore's heat and humidity on a summer day you can see why it's not the best time to travel there.