LoneStarCon 3 Preliminary Business Meeting

Voters at LoneStarCon 3’s Preliminary Business Meeting on Friday morning struck down motions to eliminate the Fan Hugos, to create a YA category Hugo, and to add a third Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo.

Thanks to Kevin Standlee, Rachael Acks and others for livetweeting the proceedings.

Members voted “object to consideration” to this year’s motion to create a YA Hugo called Best Youth Book. Actually, the maker of the motion asked to withdraw it, but was prevented by another member’s objection, so it had to be put to a vote. YA Hugo proponents kept hope alive, in spite of the defeat, by getting the Business Meeting to form a YA Hugo study committee.

Members also voted to “object to consideration” of Milt Steven’s proposal to repeal the Fan Hugos and Eemeli Aro’s idea for expanding Best Dramatic Presentation to include a third Hugo for short length works of less than 15 minutes. Also failing were two motions to extend eligibility of certain items for the 2014 Retro Hugos (which will be given at Loncon 3 for works published in 1938).

However, members agreed they will take up the Joshua Kronengold/Lisa Padol motion expanding eligibility for the Best Fan Artist Hugo at Saturday’s Main Business Meeting. Under their revised definition “An artist or cartoonist working in any visual or performance medium whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, non-professional, display (including at a convention or conventions) during the previous calendar year” will be eligible in the category.

6 thoughts on “LoneStarCon 3 Preliminary Business Meeting

  1. The formation of a YA Hugo Committee is a farce as far as I’m concerned. If the members of the Business Meeting were truly serious, they would have formed such a committee LAST YEAR, when the previous proposal lost by a mere 17 votes.

    The way I see it, this action was taken to seeming deflect ANY criticism that could have been directed at the strident opponents of a YA award and a bone of appeasement to its supporters.

    In any event, the rejection of this idea for a third year can only been seen as yet another self inflicted black eye for fandom and the Hugo Awards…

    Chris M. Barkley
    Cincinnati, OH

  2. Chris: The way I see it is this: The efforts of a loud minority of business meeting attendees do not mean that they are a majority. It means that they are loud, and as far as I can tell, most of them are single-issue voters who wouldn’t care if every other Hugo Award went away as long as they Got Their Way. There are people, however, who would like to see if there is any sort of proposal that can somehow get enough support to pass, as opposed to just petulantly saying, “I’m going to whine until I get what I want, and you are all Big Meanies for not giving me what I want!”

    In other words, the YA Hugo supporters need to stop acting like children and instead think like adults prepared to reach some sort of compromise position based on what is realistic.

  3. Kevin: I and my supporters have been prepared to compromise for the past three years. All we have met is resistance from people who either have an intense personal grudge against me for my activism over the past decade OR have just decided “there are too many Hugos already” or both.

    So the perception childish behavior (such as humiliating Amy McNally and her proposal at the BM yesterday) depends on who you’re asking…

    Chris

  4. Kevin – you’re really going to call out single-issue voters over *anything*? During the run up to the split of the Best Professional Editor, several notable people showed up to the Business meeting to argue their case. After the motion passed, *poof*, never saw them again during the period I attended the meetings.

  5. I’d like to take a moment and apologize profusely to Kevin Standlee for calling the formation of the YA Study Committee, “a farce”.

    My initial comment was based on my feelings after the announcement of it’s formation, which was, why wasn’t this done a year ago?

    Since I was not attending LoneStarCon 3 (due to circumstances beyond my control), I had no idea it was Mr. Standlee, with the timely assistance of the Business Meeting Chair, Donald Eastlake, were actually behind the formation of the Committee.

    As badly as I want a Young Adult/Children’s Book Hugo Award, there was no excuse for me being rude, even in a good cause.

    I wish the Committee the best of luck and, if need be, my services as a member if they so wish.

    Chris M. Barkley

  6. I am glad to be on the committee for a couple of reasons. While I’m not 100% certain that it’s going to be a category that’s manageable, I think it’s something we should seriously consider and I want to help form the debate as reasonably as possible. Some of the arguments that have appeared in The Drink Tank and elsewhere have swayed me significantly, though I still have some doubts. I still wonder how we can show the preferences of the intended YA audience, but this is something I know we’ll be discussing.
    Chris

Comments are closed.