28 thoughts on “DisCon III Opens 2023 Site Selection”

1. The ballot pdf does not appear to be form-fillable, which is a bold choice. I have access to a printer but I do not actually own one.

2. JDN, that’s what I thought at first, too, because I’ve got PDFs set up to open in the browser, and it’s not fillable if opened that way. But if you save it to your hard drive, open it in Reader DC, and click “Fill & Sign”, you can do so. I electronically signed it, so I hope they’ll accept that, since printing it out, signing it, and scanning it are not an option for me right now.

3. I switched to acrobat and I could sign it.

4. Clickity

5. I’m plumping for Chengdu. Time for the most populous country with the largest economy to have a chance. The Anglosphere has had enough bites at the apple for now, IMO. Time to put the World in Worldcon. Winnipeg! I ask you!

6. Miles: You vote as you wish, (I couldn’t stop you if i wanted… and I don’t want to, voting is good) but Winnipeg has a rather higher likelihood a larger number of people from places other than the home country will even be able to get permission to come.

   Of course, I’m extremely biased, since I can definitely get to Winnipeg (Looks around self…), and I have not even a tiny hope of China.

7. I used the Edge browser, and I could add text and “draw” my signature with a stylus.

8. Miles Carter: Time for the most populous country with the largest economy to have a chance.

   Neither of those criteria are high on my list of “things that make a location suitable for a Worldcon”. Worldcons aren’t done for the benefit of a country, and no country “deserves” a Worldcon. Worldcons are done for the benefit of Worldcon members.

   I’m a lot more concerned about whether the con committee has their ducks in a row, the chosen facilities are adequate and appropriate for a Worldcon’s space and programming needs, and that the host country doesn’t have laws which allow Worldcon members to be imprisoned (or worse) just because they’re LGBTQ or have posted political views on social media.

9. Good grief! +1000 to everything in your comment, @JJ.

   Also, thanks for the heads up re. the fillable aspect. I have a signature in Acrobat, so I’ll download & use that.

10. BTW it says it can take up to an hour for your Site Selection token to show up, but mine was there immediately, when I went back to the page. 🙂

11. The ballot does not make clear whether one should vote (1), (2) for your choice, or just an (X) for your preferred bid. Can anyone help?

12. Clickity.

13. It works like voting on the final Hugo ballot. Number your choices if you would like to indicate further preferences beyond your first choice. If you mark an x on just one, it will be the equivalent of just marking a first choice.

14. Andrew I. Porter: The ballot does not make clear whether one should vote (1), (2) for your choice, or just an (X) for your preferred bid. Can anyone help?

    Read the instructions on the first page. But yes, they needed to make that clear in the ballot section, as past ballots have done.

15. Winnipeg has a rather higher likelihood a larger number of people from places other than the home country will even be able to get permission to come.

    Whereas Chinese are not allowed into Canada without getting a Canadian vaccine, Canadians ARE allowed into China without getting a Chinese vaccine.

    (Today, entry is not yet allowed for the purpose of simply attending a convention – I believe you currently still have to have work or family in China to get in – but there’s two years left on the clock.)

    (And China has next to no covid.)

16. @Brian Z.

    (And China has next to no covid.)

    Yes, the CCP-run news media is entirely trustworthy on matters like this.

17. Brian Z.: China has next to no covid.

    I’m sure that Chen Qiushi, Li Zehua, and Fang Bin would vouch for the honesty of the Chinese government on this subject. 😐

18. Oh, crud, I put an X for my first and only choice. I should read. Or remember previous years. GAK.

    ETA: Whew, they’re used to idiots like me and treat “X” as “1 with no other prefs.” I really would prefer 1, then 2 for “none of the above,” but this is fine. (sigh of relief I didn’t totally mess it up)

19. @bill, ha! I got it from Wikipedia!

    I’m the last person to trust a government. Yet I noticed how the AP wire story about China’s vaccination program last month put a qualifier in its headline, “China says it has vaccinated a billion people,” but even AP (if you read to the bottom) acknowledged that “China has largely stopped the spread of the coronavirus by imposing restrictions and mass testing whenever new cases are found.”

    If visitors to Chengdu for a Worldon (or Beijing for the Olympics) are unlucky enough to have a covid outbreak in said city while they are there, they even might be asked to remain at their hotel while arrangements are made for them to fly home safely.

20. Brian Z: I got it from Wikipedia! I’m the last person to trust a government.

    Wikipedia says:
    Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reported on 24 March 2020 that the spread of domestically transmitted epidemic has essentially stopped and the outbreak has been controlled in China.

    So yes, you got it from the Chinese government.

     
    Brian Z: the AP wire story about China’s vaccination program last month put a qualifier in its headline, “China says it has vaccinated a billion people,” but even AP… acknowledged that “China has largely stopped the spread of the coronavirus by imposing restrictions and mass testing whenever new cases are found.”

    That’s an article which starts out “Chinese health officials announced”, and goes on to report what the Chinese health officials told them.

    So it seems pretty obvious why you didn’t include the links to your sources.

21. @JJ

    I’m pleased to find another instance in which we agree. Although as I’m apparently 200 years in the past, maybe I’m just catching up?

    Regards,
    Dann
    When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual. – Frank Herbert

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23. I think I would have preferred a more “interact with a web page” and less “print & scan” online voting arrangement. But, a “print & scan” works well enough that I will only kvetch a little.

24. I managed to buy my token and submit my form (I picked “fill out the PDF electronically, then print, sign and mail” as my means of submission).

25. @Ingvar: Agreed; one day, this stuff will get into the 21st century. 😉

26. @ Kendall: Both WorldCon 76 and CoNZeeland had a web-based way of voting. I have NO idea how that looked at the back-end (could’ve been that it simply printed two papers, one for the “voted in site selection” pile, and one for the “this is the actual vote” pile).

    @ Andrew (not Werdna):

    Yah, I expect the chances of a scanned email getting transatlantically transmitted on short-ish notice (basically, I have real-world constraints meaning I can’t readily mail this in good faith until late Nov, early Dec) somewhere between “higher” and “much higher” than a piece of physical mail.

27. @Ingvar: Understood. If I lived further from Discon, I would have fired up the scanner, scanned my signed form and sent that in by email.

28. I “signed” my ballot electronically by typing my signature in, in a cursive font. Hope that works for Discon.

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