68 thoughts on “MACII August 20 Business Meeting

  1. Yesterday I’m sorry that we didn’t publicize the post-meeting EPH info session better.

  2. I’m in the room already.

    If I’m reading my agenda correctly, this morning will start with “Two Years Are Enough” followed by 3SV.

    Today is the day the knives come out.

  3. I am here as well. I have already heard the word bloodletting twice. πŸ˜‰

  4. I am set up at the Business Meeting in good time, with a can of decaf diet dew and a bottle of water. Attendance does not seem to be falling off from previous days. I consulted with the timekeeper (who wasn’t busy, unlike the secretary.

    Site Selection Business Meeting convened at 10:02. ASL interpreter is now by the transcription board (people’s words appear there in written form for the hard of hearing.)

    Now shortening meeting by dispensing with question time for winning WorldCon bid (they offered). The 2018 WorldCon results are: San Jose
    The full breakdown of the number will be available in the newsletter.
    About the San Jose WorldCon
    It will be called WorldCon76 to help make it recognizable.
    T-shirts available at bid table.
    August 16-20.
    Ghost of Honor Bob Wilkins
    Another I missed
    Pierre and Sandy Pettinger Fan guests of honor
    Pro Guest of Honor
    Chelsea Quinn Yarbrough
    Spider Robinson
    (More to be named later)
    Rates:
    Supporting 50
    Attending 160

  5. Currently doing Site Selection business. San Jose presented two of their guests of honor, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Spider Robinson. Friendly on my side of the room.

    NASFIC next, with San Juan presenting.

    Ninja’d by Cat, who is sitting in front of me. πŸ™‚

  6. 2017 NasFic Results: San Juan, in Puerto Rico
    It will be called North AmeriCon’17 July 6-9
    Guest Diana Chavianoj
    Tobias Buckell
    George Perez
    Brother Guy Consolmagno
    Javier Grillo-Marxuach
    Paula Smith
    5 minute walk from the beach.
    Passport is not necessary for US citizens.
    Arecibo Observatory is nearby; a tour is planned

    Chicon 7 donated $1,000 to the NasFic to help fund it.

    Room parties will be allowed at both cons.

    Previous NasFic passed along $6,000 to North AmeriCon’17

  7. I’m curious to see what the final language for Nominee Diversity turned into, or at least generally what the concept is. (I’m confused by the various changes mentioned.)

  8. $ 3,395 to WorldCon 18 from Sasquan
    3,395 to WorldCon 17 (Helsinki) from Sasquan
    1,000 to North AmeriCon’17(?) from Sasquan

    Mark Protection Committee will meet after Business Meeting Sunday.
    Hugo Award is now properly trademarked (EU equivalent?) in the EU.

    Brief stand and stretch recess.

    Report of Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee (on most efficient method of delaying ratification for a year).
    Either pass a greater amendment or add a pair of sunset sunrise clauses, the form of which is on the paper report.

    Passed a resolution that we would use a pair of sunrise sunset clauses.

    Report on committee on Nominee Diversity (one creator can only have 2 items in a category) that altered wording to make it clear that, if possible, the creator will have the option of choosing which items to retain.

    Since this change makes the amendment closer to the current practice the committee considered it a lesser change–the chair agreed.

    Someone has appealed the ruling of the chair and now the chair has to read the manual to know what comes next.

    Ugh. We are now going to debate and vote on whether this is a major change. Let’s get on with this people!

    Another motion interrupts about should we have the SaA run the mics out to the next people going to speak. Motion fails.

    More debate on this stupid question of whether the change is greater or lesser.f

    Chair’s ruling was sustained by floor vote.

    Motion to extend debate failed.

    Voting on committee’s amendment now (creator gets to pick which works left off ballot.). Amendment passes. Despite some obfuscation by trilby guy. The amended amendment now says that creators will be allowed to choose which works to withdraw if possible.

    Changed debate time to 1 minute each side. Guy for said literally “this is a great amendment it does great things you should vote for it” and sat down to raucous applause. Guy against points out that this is a bit of a blunt instrument and might not be necessary, given EPH and the other thing.

    Attempted amendment to delay ratification by 1 year failed at the vote

    Nominee Diversity ratified. 5 minute recess.

  9. Aaaaand @Cat summarizes the amendment nicely. Thanks, Cat! I think I get it now.

    BTW what’s this new obsession with delaying ratification?! Ugh.

    ETA: Overall, I’m favor of Nominee Diversity. I presume if they can’t reach an author/producer/etc., they’ll just take the top two vote getters?

  10. @Kendall: From what I understand – the creator can withdraw any of their works, but they will not have knowledge of which works received how many nominations.

    They are allowed to say “keep the two with greatest no. of nominations” – but that’s equivalent to not withdrawing anything at all.

  11. @Bartimaeus: Thanks, and actually that answers what I was thinking about “what if they can’t reach the creator.” This sounds about perfect.

  12. Three Stage Voting (3SV) is now being discussed.

    Kate Paulk just had the incredible chutzpah to get up and talk about the reputation and integrity of the Hugos, speaking against the proposal. You know, Kate, if you actually wanted to have some credibility on this subject, you shouldn’t have spent the last 3 years as one of the main instigators of a group attempting to undermine the reputation and integrity of the Hugos.

    Dave McCarty — who, IIRC, was originally against this — just spoke in favor of 3SV as something where crowdsourcing helps the Hugo Admins validate eligibility of nominated entries, something which takes a great deal of time and effort.

  13. I wonder if we’ll get through 3SV today.

    Someone had proposed an amendment that won’t remove rejected works from the ballot – it’ll just expand the final ballot by the number of rejected works.

    I’m curious how that would interact with 4 and 6.

  14. @JJ: Wow, that was gutsy and so hypocritical of her. 3SV would probably help the reputation and integrity, anyway. I go back and forth on it, but. Come on, Kate. That was trolling of some variety on her part.

    @Eric Franklin: Interesting amendment. I see the point, but it kinda partially defeats the purpose of 3SV, methinks.

  15. Business meeting reconvened at 11:41

    2 Years are Good Enough–motion to reduce the number of Nominators to 2 WorldCons rather than 3. This year it would have affected 150 new nominators. It creates a big administrative headache to keep track of 2 lists that are expanding in real time.

    Amendment passed overwhelmingly

    Now, YA Not-a-Hugo Award.

    After lots of jinking around it passed (I actually got to speak–I made it brief.)

    Now–3SV is being explained.
    I assume you guys understand this already.
    Debate begins.

    Kate Paulk of Mad Genius Club is now speaking against. She thinks it will make the Hugos more open to gaming, and damage the reputation of the Hugo Awards for honesty (from a Puppy no less.)

    Administrator speaking for–promoting it because it allows crowdsourcing of determining eligibility at the middle stage.

    Someone is proposing amendment to keep rejected items on ballot and include further non-rejected entries.

    Okay whole thing is moving to committee because the original guy couldn’t get his stuff written out clearly, and then to Sunday.

    Moving on to Retrospective Improvement

    Member moved to convert to resolution rather than amendment.
    Retrospective Hugos will be annotated with the year given–passed
    Allowing Retrospective Hugos for the years that were missed because of WWII.
    Debating this.
    Speaker points out that Hugos are partly about acknowledging the heritage of fandom and not entirely about the author being alive to enjoy that.

    People clap when debate time runs out.

    Retrospectives for war years passed.

    Next up: Retrospectives allowed for years when No Award won.
    Ben Yalow notes that No Award is a candidate just like any other and shouldn’t have lesser rights–its Hugo shouldn’t be taken away.

    Kevin Standlee points out that it would be very difficult for the admins of a future retrospective to re-create the rules holding on a particular category for a particular years.

    Do Overs for No Award failed.

  16. Chair announces collection for coffe/tea tomorrow has met its goal.

    Now on Universal Suffrage.
    Specifies that all adult attending members must get all WSFS voting rights.
    Someone wants “sell” changed to “provide” because she wants free memberships to have voting rights.
    Others point out that the press get free memberships as do the ASL interpreters and certain other support staff.
    Attempt to change “sell” to “provide” failed.
    Underlying motion–voting rights with all adult attending membership.
    Universal suffrage passed and will pass to the next year’s WorldCon.
    No transferability of voting rights
    It was pointed out that 1) currently the transfers are not a big administrative headache and 2) this would make it harder to resell memberships if it turned out someone couldn’t come.
    No transferability of voting rights failed.
    Meeting adjourned 1pm straight.

  17. @Cat: Thanks for all the info in your posts, and especially this last one. I’ve been reading your info & Rachael Acks’; I like having multiple streams of info for the BM info! Acks had to leave before the last item (transferability of voting rights), so I was wondering how that went (I’m happy that one failed), thanks.

  18. I attended bits of the business meeting last year, but had programming commitments that kept me from most of it. This year, on the programming questionnaire, I requested not to be scheduled against it. (Got my request for all but Sunday.)

    Having attended all the sessions so far, I commend Roberts Rules of order for allowing an orderly process by which voices get to be heard. And I despise Roberts Rules of Order for providing an inexorable process by which isolated malcontents or clueless egotists can force simple issues into tedious, dragged-out delaying tactics even when the prevailing opinion on a topic will ensure an eventual clear landslide decision.

    Gah.

    I kept wishing for a peremptory procedure to determine whether a clear majority opinion existed *before* all the debates and motions and points of information and whatnot dragged out.

    And I wish there were a soccer-like yellow & red card system by which frivolous requests or clueless ignorance gave someone a timeout from being able to speak. “I don’t understand the motion because I haven’t bothered to read it yet” should not be allowed to take up other people’s time. Similarly, if you force a vote on something and are the only person on your side, maybe it wasn’t something that should have been raised in the first place. And wtf is with, “I have a complex scribbled amendment here in my hand that I want to introduce with no advance warning”?

  19. And wtf is with, β€œI have a complex scribbled amendment here in my hand that I want to introduce with no advance warning”?

    Sadly, SOP in many cases.

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