INTRODUCTION. The deadline to submit proposals to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting was July 10. The formal agenda will be out soon, but in the meantime the movers of 15 submitted items have provided copies for publication and discussion on File 770.
“Location, Location, Location” proposes to add a formal test of “minimum human rights and democracy” to the requirements to file a Worldcon bid. The bid location would have to meet a certain minimum score in at least one of the following three reports: Reporters without Borders (Global Index), Freedom House (Countries and Territories scores), or Global Insights & Market Intelligence | Economist Intelligence Unit (eiu.com) (registration required to download report).
Also, if a selected location subsequently fell below the minimum standard, certain key Worldcon functions would have to be moved and conducted in a location that does meet the standard.
The motion is signed by: Cliff Dunn, Paul Haggerty, Amy Kaplan, Joshua Kronengold, Ruth Lichtwardt, Ellen Montgomery, Ron Oakes, Ann Marie Rudolph, Randall Shepherd, Kevin Standlee, Gayle Surrette, Tim Szczesuil, Eva Whitley, and Mark Roth-Whitroth.
SHORT TITLE: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Moved, to amend the Constitution by adding text as follows:
Section 4.6: Bid Eligibility
4.6.6: No bid filing shall be accepted for a proposed location which, at the time of filing, does not adhere to reasonable standards for minimum human rights and democracy as defined by at least one commonly accepted standard.
The standards at this time shall be:
a) Reporters Without Borders: rating of not less than 60 out of 100 in their Global Score
b) Freedom House: rating of not less than 60 out of 100 in their Freedom in the World dataset
c) Economist Intelligence Unit: rating of at least 6.00 in their Democracy Index
A bid filing which cannot meet any of these standards shall be deemed to be incapable of freely executing the Objectives of the Society as put forth in Article 1, Section 1.2.
4.6.6.1 Bids shall, as part of their filing, indicate their scores on each current scale or index in effect at the time of filing. A bid which does not meet or exceed the minimum score on at least one standard shall not be accepted by the Site Selection Administrator.
4.6.6.2 In the event that a location is seated which later falls out of compliance with the standards in effect at the time, it shall be the duty of the current convention committee to provide for, at a minimum, the Business Meeting, Site Selection, and administration of the Hugo Awards to take place in a location in compliance with a named standard. If the current convention committee shall fail to do so, that shall be considered committee failure under Section 2.6 of the Constitution.
4.6.6.3 If there are one or fewer operative standards, the current convention committee may, with the concurrence of the next convention committee, designate no less than one and up to three published standards of a similar nature, to be in effect for the coming year, in order to guarantee at least one and no more than three active standards at all times.
4.6.6.4 Changes can be made to these standards by following the regular Constitutional amendment process.
Proposed by: Cliff Dunn, Paul Haggerty, Amy Kaplan, Joshua Kronengold, Ruth Lichtwardt, Ellen Montgomery, Ron Oakes, Ann Marie Rudolph, Randall Shepherd, Kevin Standlee, Gayle Surrette, Tim Szczesuil, Eva Whitley, Mark Roth-Whitroth
DISCUSSION:
While efforts to “put the world in Worldcon” are admirable and have allowed us to go to places we would not have gone in previous years, it is also painfully obvious that there are parts of the world where it would be difficult, if not impossible, to carry out certain functions of the World Science Fiction Society safely and freely. Likewise, there are locations where it would be unsafe for a significant portion of fandom to attend out of a concern for the safety of attendees or local fans due to repressive laws regarding sexuality, religious affiliation, and so on.
Such discussion was dismissed as paranoid until recently, often with uncharitable insinuations about those raising the specter of those issues, but it is hard not to view the fiasco surrounding the Chengdu Hugo Awards as being symptomatic of such issues, even if the exact source is shrouded in some mystery (e.g. whether informal governmental pressure was involved versus a judgment call being made out of sincere concern).
The speculative works that the Hugo Awards reward will often reflect controversial subject matters which may not be approved of in many parts of the world. Yet works which attack controversial topics from various angles, some at odds with popular views of the day, are often the works which we might wish to recognize. We do not wish to deny our nominators and voters the ability to freely nominate the works of their choosing, and to have their nominations and votes freely counted. Nor do we wish to force the staff of a convention to choose between adhering to our rules and going to jail, or flouting our rules to protect themselves. In our view, the only moral course is to avoid putting them in that position in the first place.
Almost every country has some sort of rule or law on the books that could cause trouble in extreme circumstances. The sponsors do not operate under any illusion that this is not the case. Having acknowledged that, however, we also need to collectively admit that there are places where these types of rules or laws or customs are the rule rather than the exception. It would be grossly disingenuous to suggest that what happened last year or something similar will never happen again. It is also clear from history that places where such concerns might arise can and will change over time, both as a result of changing national priorities and policies as well as those of fandom.
The objective of this amendment is not to ensure that every Worldcon will take place in an ideal setting for every member – that would almost definitely prove impossible over a long enough timeframe – but merely to set a “basement threshold” which is likely to limit such occurrences. The amendment is also explicitly and intentionally crafted in such a way as to ensure that no country is exempt from potential disqualification if the designated standard cannot be met.
We invest a lot of trust in the convention committees that we select through Site Selection. Our current processes do not prevent a determined group from overwhelming the historic voting numbers in our Site Selection process. If we wish to expand participation in Worldcon, we must also set some boundaries as to what will be considered a suitable location for this conglomeration of members that we have.
Once a bid has been launched, it would create massive discontent if it was later ruled to be ineligible in some way, particularly in some way which was not plainly stated in advance of the process. By publishing these standards as part of the Constitution and the Bid acceptance process, it makes clear to those who wish to bid in a non-qualifying location that they need to find a different venue.
There are current proposals that add oversight to the Hugo selection process. But a key element of those proposals is the presumption that those overseeing the process are truly able to have access to the information that they would need in order to detect irregular actions, that they would be able to recognize it, and that they would not feel compelled to ignore it in order to avoid disastrous consequences for those involved in running the convention in the host location. Threats need not be explicit – a few well-placed words in a conversation from a locale with a history of harassing dissidents can have the same effect as a legal notice. We therefore consider it judicious to avoid, to the extent that we can, having a Worldcon hosted in a location where such pressures are likely to be applied.
We do recognize that these standards, as a rule, operate at the national level rather than the subnational level and that laws can vary within a country. If a sufficient number of standards could be found to address this, we would have strongly considered such a route. Given what is readily available, national-level standards are the best that we feel we can currently rely on.
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Hold on. I think there is obvious merit to this proposal.
1. I wasn’t an opponent of the Chengdu bid
2. I was one of the first people to point at Dave McCarty’s odd behaviour around the Hugo stats and say “this is weird”
3. I was also somebody who, when the issue really exploded at the start of the year, repeatedly pointed out the issue was McCarty
There have been a range of bids in recent years that have led to a discussion about the suitability of a host country in terms of civil rights and the basic safety of people attending the convention, including China, Saudi Arabia, Uganda and Israel. There are reasonable questions to be asked. Likewise, there have been issues raised about the USA and more generally about visa access to a number of other countries (e.g. Ireland).
This proposal certainly doesn’t solve all those questions but by setting a minimum standard it helps clarify a lot of issues. It also means fans in a country will know in advance whether a bid is worth attempting. For example, I don’t think Saudi Arabia is a suitable country for a Worldcon because of its policies on Jewish visitors, women and LGBTQI+ people among other things but as far as I can tell the people who put together a possible Saudi bid were genuine fans who thought they could put on a good convention. The net outcome was they ended up being the centre of an extended (and heated) discussion about the domestic policies of their country – an issue they actually had very little control over. That was hardly a great way to engage them as fans and yet these were genuine and very relevant issue about their bid.
In terms of engagement, a clear set of rules on hosting a Worldcon is an improvement on the current situation.
Does Worldcon need other ways to engage with fans in ALL countries? Absolutely and “hosting a Worldcon” shouldn’t be the primary way of doing that. As we saw with Chengdu, many of us trying to build connections with fans in China had to do so DESPITE the officials of the Chengdu Worldcon rather than because of them and McCarty’s actions did deep harm to those connections.
I’ve said before that ideas such as satellite conventions and better online aspects of conventions are ways to internationalise a Worldcon – way better than hosting a Worldcon.
Even if the next 10 years of Worldcons were only held in nations that had never held Worldcons before, the reality would at best be 10 new countries and just in terms of economics, infrastructure and navigating the existing rules for site selection, that would be dominated by wealthy industrialised countries, even assuming you could find 10 countries to make a bid. As a way of engaging with the rest of the world it is very slow, & limited and also places the effort and the economic risk on international fans.
This proposal sets a standard. Like most standards, it is a bit arbitrary but it will cut down arguments and save a bunch of people a lot of time.
While the UK doesn’t always perceive itself as European, it is worth noting that it has three legal systems – English (also covering Wales), Scots and Northern Irish.
@James B. This really feels like an American solution, to an American problem – The Hugos got messed up by Americans, so lets blame China and in doing so exclude over 100 countries from hosting a Worldcon.
What????
Huh???
Where does this come from?
Forget the Hugos (why did you bring that up?)
Among much else, Chengdu filed a bid with con com, dates, venue etc as all bids are supposed to, and then they reneged on all counts: they did not respect the democratic process and honour the manifesto on which they stood, and gave us a highly commercialised Worldcon with GoHs that were a human rights nightmare. So there is a case for ensuring Worldcons are held with certain minimum human rights and democratic standards are adhered to.
This has nothing to do with the Hugos.
Focus.
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I am extremely upset and despaired to see this kind of proposal could be sent to the business meeting with its enough support and agreement from the most majority of western members.
I would like to introduce the basic reaction from Chinese fans. Nearly all of them show their disagreement against this proposal, describing it as a typical symbol of the ignorance, arrogance and viciousness from the first world especially America. Many fans said that Americans do not have the rights to judge the whole world under the principles invented by themselves. And they shouldn’t ask the whole world to obey to their own specific values, which have led to some disastrous sf works. Many fans casts doubt on the usage of the three index in their authority and accuracy, and fans wonder the reason to introduce these index which has strong ideaology and political meaning.
I would like to start my doubts on the proposal with the WSFS Constitution.
So it looks like asking the constitution to enhance the value of “minimum human rights and democracy” could lead to the violation of constitution itself. Ideological words like democracy and human rights could lead to impacts on legislation or any political campaign by appealing to members who join the worldcon and obey the constitution to make political choices and decisions under specific certain political values by using ideological propaganda and political metaphor.
One of the apparent examples that could be noticed is China. Obviously, the co-singers reacted to Chengdu worldcon irritatingly. Their conclusion is ideological and based on political values. And a reader of the proposal and possible further constitution will recall it, leading to a simple and naive prejudice on China. If he will vote on diplomatic fairs (like electing further president of the USA who will visit China), he will be effected by this experience. This is not what the constitution expected.
And we will notice the possibility of yellow peril and new cold war in the proposal naturally. Many of the replies have pointed this out, but I still want to emphasize something. It seems that we do everything wrong just because we are Chinese? I do hope this kind of racialism could be stopped. The discipline of western democracy leads to the self-hateness and reverse-nationalism in China, especially in the elites who would like to share interests under the unfair and inequality global capitalism system. The evil legacy of post colonialism in developing countries especially China could be dismissed easily when the moral expectations are enhanced by western liberalism media. Thus Chinese fans face their difficulties when they want to criticize the western sci-fi. Thier teachers and bosses might ask them to follow the taste of western world and Chinese western-based elites.
“No! Everything from the USA is better and you franking Chinese is the core of evil” has been heard for many times in my childhood and I cannot imagine it could be spoken by WSFS constitution. Thus I appeal to say no to this kind of racialism towards China firmly.
And we need to turn to the Global South. Only one country in third world has held a worldcon. And we first world sci-fi fan Brahmins will say no to other Global South. I cannot say the principles we are talking in File770 from liberity to LGBTQ+ could be reagred as necessary consequences when we ask for advice from:
and other countries and regions. They might just want to share their sf works. We should start with asking them if they have enough fans, stadium and holidays to talk about sci-fi instead of pouring out political judgment. This will only keep them away from the republic of World Science Fiction. And can we say the Republic of world science fiction as a kind of world literature by dismissing over 7500000000 people in the earth?
Even Liu Cixin boycotted by some western fans knows that “Weak and ignorance is not barrier to existence, and arrogance is.” Arrogance in this proposal is apparent. We could not see global south fans or Russian fans are invited to join this discussion because of arrogance. But can we ask them to follow the rules which was not set up by them?
@bill:
Yes, they are right. Chinese fans still brought one of the biggest worldcon in its history and joined the convention.
I do wonder what will hide behind this kind of opinions. It always leads to asking Chinese fans to raise the awareness of self-hateness.
And China has a huge amount of people. Science fiction should not be scared by the most majortiy of people in the world from China to other third world countries.
I also want to point out the over 2000 votes are not scary to China. Instead, use 500 voted to decide a world-class worldcon seems to be ridiculous in the time of 21st century. Rejecting more participants with worthless ideological pricinples instead of saying hello to the world is not great for the future of science fiction.
You can vote to others if Russian or other evil core want to join the ballot, not say no to them in a democratic dictatorship. If you can vote 3000 for Winnipeg you can also hold a “freedom” Worldcon, can’t you?
I used to introduce the following advice in my proposal:
I want to be clear: I used this to fight against “Location, Location, Location”. If we introduce these irrelevant deamnds on the sites, it could lead to more chaos. I have talked about the meaningless of “democracy and freedom” in the Constitution. And it is still necessary to talk more.
The proposal “Location, Location, Location” will start a dangerous exapmle of exclusion of sites. If someone asks for more index like fairness in publishing or IP, how can the constitution react to the requests? And there will be more discussion on index instead of sciecne fiction itself. The only thing we need to guard is the selection itself. Thus I appeal to purity of selection and voting, except for the ideological chaos.
@Zimozi: You raised a number of concerns about this proposal, but I will start with addressing one of the first you mentioned.
You indicated that many Chinese fans objected to the use of these three indexes (Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House, Economist) because they are inaccurate or are based on certain ideologies or political ideas.
Do you have a suggestion as to another index, which rates most or all of the countries in the world according to criteria that we would be interested in (human rights, democracy, etc.), in which China receives a good score?
@Joshua K.:
Honestly, I would like to reject all the index instead of introducing another index.
Indexes on democracy or other similar things should not be the judgment standard accepted by the WSFS and its constitutions. Indeed, we might disagree some of them that are “based on certain ideologies or political ideas”, but the indexes themselves have been the opposite way to Worldcon.
Science fiction should not be tied with the necessity of holding ideologies or political ideas. Readers and fans hold ideologies because they are humans living in the human society, but we could not ask a literature genre to have the same responsibility. For certain works they could be but the whole as a format couldn’t. Unfortunately, the constitution as the general expressing of the Worldcon act as the literature genre. Even if we can say the mission of constitution and Worldcon might include promoting science fiction and its culture, the values, especially “the right and the good ones” are not the part of it.
Maybe I can say some indexes like HDI will show the results you would like to see. But these index could not be the standard. You and I might agree with them but there must be someone saying that they dislike it. If we turn to an independent committee on business meeting to discuss and discover more indexes, we might also find out that it will be a difficult question to select a “good” one. Even the necessity of the values in these indexes has been questioned, and the statistical significance accuracy could not be examined exactly. Especially we might need experts in the academic area for scientific suggestions. Hold the prices but can we believe the experts in the Economists to explain their index?
Maybe the best way is to ask more people to join the ballot. It is not appropriate to ask for a motion in a business meeting which always holds limited attendance. It is even not democratic. On the contrary, you can call on to more friends to join the vote.
Chinese publishing house can appeal to the Chinese fans to join the ballot by only a newsletter post. I believe we can do this, too.
I agree but these kinds of discussion will occur with site selection regardless. They have already occurred around US-based Worldcons when Trump was attempting his Muslim ban.
I think Worldcon could be genuinely international but site selection and occasional conventions outside of North America is a bad way of doing it. International Worldcons have not always brought fans together. Worldcon’s in Japan or Finland did not lead to more Japanese or Finnish sci-fi on the Hugo Ballot. Even in English-speaking countries like Australia or New Zealand, the cultural exchange was limited .
@Camestros Felapton:
Worldcon in Finland may not have resulted on many more Finnish entries on the ballot (it got a couple there), but on the other hand, Finland is the third largest country for attending members this year (behind UK and USA) – I very much doubt there would be 174 Finns in Glasgow had it not been the Helsinki con (and the bidding process) bringing fans together.
@Camestros Felapton:
If this is true, the best thing we can do is not to stop international Worldcons. Instead, Worldcon itself should go to its end. I cannot imagine what Worrldcon can do except bringing fans together. Maybe selling houses or playing Genshin Impact?
Tero’s reply has shown you that international Worldcons have their own abilities to promote participation around the world. I would like to say something more: it should be natural for Worldcon to become international. This is “WORLDcon”, not NASFIC or China sfcience fiction convention. site selection innovates the fandom and local society to put more attention to science fiction and communication with more people around the world. Limited to specific English-speaking developed industrial countries and economic entities(One thing is Chinese Taiwan is willing to join this small group and get rid of the developing China by regarding itself as”a part of civilised (Anglo) world”) can only lead to the collapse of the science fiction as a world literature because of its obedience to the post-colonial system.
And ask the fandom that someone have never heard of to obey the rules they have never heard of could only strengthen the inequality. It shoukld be realized you have shaped the local fandom in your own thoughts by adding them with the rules set up by yourself. It could only lead the participator to obey the outside disciplines and keep them away from the local community, which causes the final death of sci-fi culture.
I am so happy to see this, which is essentially the precise motion I’ve suggested over and over and over again.
I urge all who can to vote for it.
OR…maybe…there are BETTER things that could be done. For example, improving the online version of the conventions and establishing satellite or parallel conventions. There is no fundamental reason why Worldcon needs to be in a single location these days. With or without this proposed rule change the majority of countries are not going to be hosting a Worldcon in the next 10 years.
@Zimozi Natsuc
“If this is true, the best thing we can do is not to stop international Worldcons.”
No one is trying to stop international Worldcons.
It is indeed weird to use Hugo nominations (for “sci-fi”, so apparently fiction only) as the only index of “bringing fans together”.
The Helsinki Worldcon is well documented as being as huge in its country as the Chengdu one was. There was a lot of chances to interact with non-Americans.
So the proposal is set to stop something ahead of time? That’s not a bad idea, but we will cast doubt on how this proposal takes its part in Worldcon. Maybe this is just a symbol of ideological political declaration without praticial contribution.
And because of this it is better to promote online Worldcon and business meeting, not to just put up obstacles on offline Worldcons.
@Joshua K.:
Yes, about ASFiC I wonder if this idea will be agreed. It’s also controversial but I haven’t found enough discussion on it this year yet.