Gopher Experiences: The good, the bad, and the ugly

[bravejaf]

Has anyone here ever been a gopher at a con? I'm gonna be a first time gopher at Ohayocon in a few weeks, but I just wanted to hear about other people's experiences as gophers. Also would ypu rate your overall experience of gohpering (is that a word) as positive or negative? Finally any tips you could give to a first time gopher?

Oh andd sorry if something like this has been done before.

[iserlohn]

Gofering is a hit or miss experience. Some cons treat their gofers really nicely, others (*coughhackotakoncoughack*) treat theirs like shit. The smaller the con, the more likely you are to get nicer bosses, better food, and fewer outsiders in your gopher-assigned crash space. Good luck to you!

[kthulhu]

What's a gofer, exactly?

[Double O Ninety]

What's a gofer, exactly?

I was thinking of that huge rodent in Caddyshack... Is a gopher someone who stands around and gives programs to people at plays? Or do you make sure that no one steals? Or a security guard?

gopher

a tree from the wood of which Noah was directed to build the ark (Gen. 6:14). It
is mentioned only there. The LXX. render this word by "squared beams," and the
Vulgate by "planed wood." Other versions have rendered it "pine" and "cedar;"
but the weight of authority is in favour of understanding by it the cypress
tree, which grows abundantly in Chaldea and Armenia.



gopher

n. A type of Internet service first floated around 1991
and obsolesced around 1995 by the World Wide Web. Gopher presents a
menuing interface to a tree or graph of links; the links can be to
documents, runnable programs, or other gopher menus arbitrarily far
across the net.

Some claim that the gopher software, which was originally developed
at the University of Minnesota, was named after the Minnesota
Gophers (a sports team). Others claim the word derives from
American slang `gofer' (from "go for", dialectal "go fer"), one
whose job is to run and fetch things. Finally, observe that gophers
dig long tunnels, and the idea of tunneling through the net to find
information was a defining metaphor for the developers. Probably
all three things were true, but with the first two coming first and
the gopher-tunnel metaphor serendipitously adding flavor and impetus
to the project as it developed out of its concept stage.


gopher



<networking, protocol> A distributed document retrieval
system which started as a Campus Wide Information System at
the University of Minnesota, and which was popular in the
early 1990s.

Gopher is defined in RFC 1436. The protocol is like a
primitive form of HTTP (which came later). Gopher lacks the
MIME features of HTTP, but expressed the equivalent of a
document's MIME type with a one-character code for the
"Gopher object type". At time of writing (2001), all Web
browers should be able to access gopher servers, although few
gopher servers exist anymore.

Tim Berners-Lee, in his book "Weaving The Web" (pp.72-73),
related his opinion that it was not so much the protocol
limitations of gopher that made people abandon it in favor of
HTTP/HTML, but instead the legal missteps on the part of the
university where it was developed:

"It was just about this time, spring 1993, that the University
of Minnesota decided that it would ask for a license fee from
certain classes of users who wanted to use gopher. Since the
gopher software being picked up so widely, the university was
going to charge an annual fee. The browser, and the act of
browsing, would be free, and the server software would remain
free to nonprofit and educational institutions. But any other
users, notably companies, would have to pay to use gopher
server software.

"This was an act of treason in the academic community and the
Internet community. Even if the university never charged
anyone a dime, the fact that the school had announced it was
reserving the right to charge people for the use of the gopher
protocols meant it had crossed the line. To use the
technology was too risky. Industry dropped gopher like a hot
potato."

gopher

n 1: a zealously energetic person (especially a salesman) [syn: goffer] 2: any of various terrestrial burrowing rodents of Old and New Worlds; often destroy crops [syn: ground squirrel, spermophile] 3: burrowing rodent of the family Geomyidae having large external cheek pouches; of Central America and southwestern North America [syn: pocket gopher, pouched rat] 4: burrowing edible land tortoise of southeastern North America [syn: gopher tortoise, gopher turtle, Gopherus polypemus]



gopher

\Go"pher\, n. [F. gaufre waffle, honeycomb. See Gauffer.] (Zo["o]l.) 1. One of several North American burrowing rodents of the genera Geomys and Thomomys, of the family Geomyid[ae]; -- called also pocket gopher and pouched rat. See Pocket gopher, and Tucan.

Note: The name was originally given by French settlers to many burrowing rodents, from their honeycombing the earth.

2. One of several western American species of the genus Spermophilus, of the family Sciurid[ae]; as, the gray gopher (Spermophilus Franklini) and the striped gopher (S. tridecemlineatus); -- called also striped prairie squirrel, leopard marmot, and leopard spermophile. See Spermophile.

3. A large land tortoise (Testudo Carilina) of the Southern United States, which makes extensive burrows.

4. A large burrowing snake (Spilotes Couperi) of the Southern United States.

Gopher drift (Mining), an irregular prospecting drift, following or seeking the ore without regard to regular grade or section. --Raymond.

gopher

Prairie \Prai"rie\, n. [F., an extensive meadow, OF. praerie, LL. prataria, fr. L. pratum a meadow.] 1. An extensive tract of level or rolling land, destitute of trees, covered with coarse grass, and usually characterized by a deep, fertile soil. They abound throughout the Mississippi valley, between the Alleghanies and the Rocky mountains.

From the forests and the prairies, From the great lakes of the northland. --Longfellow.

2. A meadow or tract of grass; especially, a so called natural meadow.

Go·pher Audio pronunciation of gopher ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gfr)
n.

A protocol for the storage and retrieval of text on a computer network using a TCP/IP protocol.

go·pher Audio pronunciation of gopher ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gfr)
n.

1. Any of various short-tailed, burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae of North America, having fur-lined external cheek pouches. Also called pocket gopher.
2. Any of various ground squirrels of the genus Citellus of North American prairies.
3. Any of several burrowing tortoises of the genus Gopherus, especially G. polyphemus of the southeast United States.

[iserlohn]

0090: thank you for your large and mostly useless post.

What the original poster is talking about is "gophering/gofering" at conventions. Most cons don't have enough true staff people to handle everything going on once the con begins (35 people are enough to plan an event for 5,000 people, but keeping them all organized once they show up is another story), so they recruit volunteers from the attendees to help out with things like line security, making sure the right tape goes on at the right time in the video room, watching over the equipment in said rooms to make sure it's not stolen, check badges at the dealer room, etc. In return for giving up your time to the con, gofers can get such benefits as crash space, a refund on their ever-increasing reg fees, food, a con tshirt, and so on. Most cons require at least 10 hours of work to get the good stuff.

As I stated earlier, the smaller and more fan-oriented cons will probably have nicer gofer staff and if you're lucky a lower number of req hours for stuff. The larger cons like AX and Otakon, though, are gofer hell. Otakon requires a hotel reservation in advance (no more free crash space, you get a comp check instead) and unless you go all out for your work and take a lot of shifts you'll get treated like crap (PM me for the story of my personal experience), and AX won't give you anything unless you work 28 hours.

[Double O Ninety]

Eck, that bites. Hmm... Well, I suppose it's good for someone with little money. Is Otakon really that bad? It seems like there are advantages to gophering.

[iserlohn]

Otakon is a large con (10,000+ attendees) with over 180 staff. There is a LOT of political infighting and jockeying for position amongst the ranks, and the upper staff are the ones doing a lot of the work, which is highly stressful and time consuming. Because of this, all of the major staffers at the con are extremely tense and stressed out, and a lot of this gets taken out on gofers, especially those who are obviously doing it just for the crash space/refund (aka a number of them). If you do your work, smile, and take on extra shifts whenever possible, you'll be fine. I prefer to see the con as much as possible, though, and look for other ways to get my compensations. Still, YMMV.

[Double O Ninety]

YMMV?

[iserlohn]

YMMV=Your Mileage May Vary

[Double O Ninety]

YMMV=Your Mileage May Vary

Oh, okay. Now I understand. I could see why the regular staff would be pretty stressed, though.