By Tammy Coxen: It is time to remove the NASFiC from the WSFS constitution. But maybe something new and better can rise instead.
In 2014, I was chair of Detcon1, the highly acclaimed Detroit NASFiC. On the heels of that, I submitted a proposal to the business meeting to give Hugo nomination rights to NASFiC members, because I thought that creating a stronger and more supported NASFiC would ultimately help the Worldcon. Here’s what I wrote in 2014:
Because of its suitability for smaller markets that do not have the facilities or concentration of people necessary to bid for or run a Worldcon, NASFiCs have great potential to be a pathway for exposing new fans to WSFS, Worldcons, and international fandom. NASFiCs also play an important skill building role in running bids and in operating more complex organizational structures than many regional conventions. However, under the current model, there is limited formal connection to WSFS. Extending limited WSFS rights to NASFiC members would give those members a pathway for building engagement with WSFS and the Worldcon, ultimately strengthening the Worldcon.
At its best, everything I wrote about the NASFiC then is true. But since 2014, we have failed to see another NASFiC come close to living up to this potential.
Since then, both fandom and the world have changed dramatically. When the NASFiC was first proposed and selected, the vast majority of Worldcons were held within the United States. The vast majority of Worldcon attendees were American. International travel was more difficult and expensive. None of those things is true anymore.
In the last 10 years, fully half of Worldcons have been outside North America. Only two American locations have so far declared an intention to bid in the next 8 years. The largest Worldcons to-date have been held outside of North America. The Worldcon is international, and travel is more accessible for Americans than ever, so why is WSFS still carving out a special accommodation for North America? It’s unnecessary, and worse, perpetuates the idea that the Worldcon is really “an American thing” and Americans are most important to WSFS.
It is time to take the NASFiC out of the WSFS Constitution. One of the arguments made for keeping it in has been that if there was a US National Convention that ran annually, it would compete with the Worldcon. But I do not think Worldcon needs this protection.
I do think there is a role for an annual US National Convention. (Yes, that’s technically different from the NASFiC, but Canada already has a national convention, and the rest of North America was really only ever included as a technicality.) It could do many of the things I thought NASFiCs could do in 2014, like give people experience with bidding and running larger conventions, which American Worldcon bids could then draw on. But the current intermittent nature of the NASFiC does not help it build an audience of regular attendees and supporters.
So if you love the NASFiC, why not set it free and see if it can fly on its own?
Here’s what I’d like to see. Supporters of an American National Convention (let’s call it Americon for now) should come together and develop a plan for what future Americons should look like. I think a model where existing conventions bid to host the year’s Americon would be a great model, and help strengthen ties between US conrunning groups that have weakened considerably in the past decade. But it could also be a standalone convention, if the organization thinks that will have a better chance of success. I’m willing to be part of this group.
That group should bring a proposal to Glasgow in 2024 to remove NASFiC from the constitution and establish Americon. I’d envision it going like this:
2024 – first passage of constitutional amendment
2025 – ratification of constitutional amendment
2026 – The Worldcon (if in the US) or the NASFiC (if there is one) administers one last election to pick a site for the 2027 Americon
2027 – That site chooses locations for 2028 and 2029 (because if not tied to the Worldcon selection timing, a two-year lead makes more sense)
2029 onwards – each site runs site selection for the 2-year hence Americon
And then we see what happens. Hopefully we get a vibrant community forming around Americon, and getting excited by the new people it brings to their region. Hopefully we get US conrunning groups sharing best practices and learning from each other. Hopefully we get locations thinking “wow, it was really fun to have folks from around the country here, wouldn’t it be neat if we also had people from all over the world” and launching Worldcon bids. But WSFS isn’t needed for any of that, and it should get out of the way.
(With thanks to Michael Lee, on whose wall and with whose help a lot of these ideas were hammered out. And to Brian Nisbet, who says that that the timeline was his idea and I just don’t remember because there were cocktails at the time. Which is, you know, entirely plausible.)
Update 10/25/2023: Added new introductory paragraph.
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@Mike
As I previously mentioned, the wording of 2.9.3 established the WSFS as the controlling beneficiary of the surplus fund. And strictly speaking, the WSFS, or someone specifically serving on behalf of the WSFS, should be keeping accounts and reporting to the IRS when income is repatriated to the US. But this seems to come as a surprise to those involved who thought it was all solely the responsibility of the individual Worldcons.
Hopefully, the amount of money that will be transferred from Chengdu to Seattle will not be over $10,000…
These things are not a surprise. The financial reports of the Worldcons that still have a surplus are reported during the WSFS Business Meeting along with contact information for anyone who has questions. Here’s the link with an accounting going back to LoneStarCon in 2013 with details on their remaining funds and how they were spent.
@rcade
Please note I specifically said “money repatriated to the US”, which needs to be separately accounted for.
rcade: Jay is trolling us with the idea that the IRS will take the business meeting LARP of the WSFS rules at face value. The WSFS doesn’t own the Seattle Worldcon or the money it is receiving.
Might be easier to register WSFS as a religion.
@Mike
Are you trying to say that the WSFS doesn’t own the intellectual property rights to the Worldcon and the Hugo Awards?
If you’re saying that the WSFS Rules don’t really matter, and that all that really matters is the board of Worldcon Intellectual Property Inc. of California, and the board members that Worldcon Intellectual Property Inc. choose to seat…
Fine. Let’s just say that in public instead of leading people on to think they have input through the business meetings, or the idea that the Worldcon is an international organisation. It’s wholly owned by a non-profit company based in California, who lets the rest of us use the name, but shucks off the liability if anything bad ever happens.
In which case, there’s not going to be an ASFiC, and there’s going to continue to be a NASFiC. Because that’s obviously what Worldcon Inc. wants.
C’mon, dude. You know he’s not saying either of those things.
Though I do enjoy your conclusion that there’s still going to be a NASFiC.
I’m sorry but I grow increasingly tetchy at the Old American Fandom who treat the Worldcon as their toy, and just a way to have fun as a “Business Meeting LARP”, when to others the Worldcon is a serious part of their literary careers, and the physical operations mean caring after the wellbeing of thousands of people.
@Jay Blanc
WSFS is all the members of that year’s Worldcon. The rest is in the constitution you seem to be determined to misread. Also you’re arguing with people like OGH, who has been on concoms and also has been a Chair.
@P J Evans
Let me tell you a story of what I think about the competence of past Worldcon Chairs.
After a long long con of volunteering at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki, I decided that I’d go back to my hotel and lie down while watching the ending ceremony online. At the end of which was announced that the Worldcon After Party, with cheap food and beer, was going to start immediately… at my hotel.
I thought about how big the bar and dining area of my hotel was. And how many people had just been told to go there to get cheap food and beer. And I did not remember seeing any signs of preparation for that kind of crowd. And I realised I had about the time it took for the first trams to get from the convention centre to the hotel to step in and do something.
I checked in with the Hotel front desk. They were expecting at most 150 people. They were very surprised to hear of the amount of people who were going to be interested in cheep food and beer.
The rest of the evening was a blur as I went into emergency mode, trying to get hold of people who should know what was going on, getting extra space opened up. Put myself out as door dragon. Tried not to think about the massive crowds of people who kept getting off the tram, looking at the crowd I was holding at the entrance of the Hotel, and slowly letting people in at a rate that didn’t overwhelm the hotel.
This event had been organised by a Worldcon that would happen in later years.
Once it was all over, the chair of that Worldcon passed me in the lobby.
And condescendingly told me “Well, see, there was no reason to get worried, it all worked out fine didn’t it.”
And I was too tired to rip into him like he deserved. So I let it go.
But you could say it has coloured my opinion.
And now Jay shares an irrelevant anecdote for the purpose of being insulting. Did that make his arguments stronger? Or weaker?
I believe that the capital city of Finland is now properly referred to as “75”.
Many of us have sad but true stories about how this or that Worldcon couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery. I sympathize. But it doesn’t demonstrate that WSFS is secretly a global conspiracy with enormous slush funds.
“Let me tell you a story of what I think about the competence of past Worldcon Chairs.” What is the relevance of this story?
When Worldcons have a surplus, they pass it on to other Worldcons, which is in accordance with 2.9.3 “for the benefit of WSFS as a whole.”
I really don’t see what the problem is.
bill: Not that it changes your overall point, however, for the record, the Worldcon pass-ons are only part of the surplus. The rest of the surplus is retained by the entity that ran the con — which in the US has been nonprofit corporations, so they still have to use the money consistent with their tax-exempt purpose.
@Mike. I don’t know. He was annoying enough that I hushed him. When he gets tired of telling everyone else how to run cons, and starts listening to people who actually have experience….
Looking at the discussion here and on other places, I think there is another angle to this question. That is about Worldcon itself.
Right now, Worldcon serves as the de facto US national con. There are good reasons for that, having been mostly been held in the USA, by and for American fen. Thus also the NASFiC as a substitute US national con when Worldcon is held outside the USA (or Canada, which is a bit of a special case).
But by starting a dedicated US national con, this will effectively at the same time admit that the Worldcon isn’t the US national con anymore. I think this proposal needs to take that angle into account too, since I think that drives a lot of the scepticism and resistance I’ve read. This also means that the question of a dedicated US national con is of greater interest to the greater Worldcon community.
Jay Blanc on October 27, 2023 at 6:36 am said:
It sounds to me like you think that every Worldcon hands over 100% of their surplus to some WSFS Inc. It doesn’t. The word is “should,” and there’s no way to enforce it other than moral persuasion. In other words, if you decide to spend your convention surplus on something else, all that matters is that your friends are unlikely to speak to you again. I don’t know about you, but that matters to me more than most things, and that’s why the groups on whose boards I sit that have run WSFS-santioned events follow the WSFS rules.
Besides, as organized now, NASFiCs are part of WSFS as well, so there’s nothing wrong with a NASFiC donating any surplus funds to another NASFiC if they wanted to do so. Also, NASFiCs are not part of the Worldcon pass-along-funds agreement, so they haven’t even made any promises to share any hypothetical surplus with anyone. Despite that “should” clause, a NASFiC with a hypothetical surplus is only legally bound by their local legal restrictions, just like Worldcons are. I’m guessing you’ve not read any WSFS convention’s financial statements, have you?
The WSFS MPC asks Worldcons and NASFiCs to donate money to the MPC to pay for its ongoing operations. It does not and cannot compel those groups to pay such donations. And when a committee loses money (as it appears that the 2023 NASFiC is doing), we don’t ask for anything at all. Our books are open. We’re not hiding anything. What makes you think we’re lying?
How much do you actually know about how the World Science Fiction Society is organized? Do you really think that there is a Big Office Building with a Giant Corporation taking in hundreds of millions of dollars, and a CEO sitting on a giant pile of cash? As the Chair of Worldcon Intellectual Property, I can assure you that I’m not drawing anything at all from Worldcons. I’ll show you my income tax return if you like. But maybe you assume that I’m lying.
All WSFS-sanctioned events, and the WSFS Mark Protection Committee/Worldcon Intellectual Property file financial statements with the WSFS Business Meeting. You can see those statements in this year’s WSFS Business Meeting Agenda. Every one of those groups is legally independent of one another. The WSFS Constitution sets an aspiration, but there is no Giant Corporation holding a club over the heads of Worldcons and NASFiCs and demanding that every bit of “profit” be poured into their coffers.
This simply isn’t how it works. This isn’t how any of this works. It never has been how it works. How did you ever get the idea that this is how it works?
Of course it does. But WSFS is jointly “owned” by Worldcon/NASFiC committees and the members of Worldcon who elect the members of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee (who are the directors of Worldcon Intellectual Property). No individual Worldcon/NASFiC committee owns the intellectual property. No individual member of WSFS owns the IP. Nor do you, and nor do I, even though I’m the chief executive of that little non-profit corporation that owns the title to the IP. (A “job” that earns me exactly $0. Possibly you’re one of those people who are convinced that nobody ever does anything unless they are Getting Paid for it. I’ve certainly encountered my share of such people.)
But it appears to me that you think that everyone else in the world is lying, and that you, and only you, know what is Really Happening. You wouldn’t be the first person who insisted that I was raking it in under the table. This strikes me as the same sort of thinking that people who start SF/F conventions assuming that they would make Millions and Millions of dollars and then end up having to run for it when the sheriff shows up to serve a warrant upon them because they discovered that all of that money they thought was there wasn’t actually there.
I do find it amusing when people try to tell OGH how US tax law works. Yes, I know Mike didn’t work in the EE/EO section, but I rather expect he knows a fair bit more than most people about the general subject.
The current organization of WSFS has what amounts to a bunch of legal firewalls between its sanctioned committees, and that includes Worldcon Intellectual Property, a California non-profit, tax-exempt corporation recognized as a tax-exempt 501c3 organization under US federal and California state law. While this can sometimes get quite maddening, it also tends to reduce the risk of any single WSFS-sanctioned convention sinking the entire ship of Worldcon.
This is similar to how various Olympic committees can’t destroy the International Olympic Committee. Individual Olympic committees can and have lost money and effectively gone bankrupt, but they don’t own the Olympic IP, they only license it, and no court could reasonably say that the debtors of Olympic A could attach the assets of Olympic B or the IOC. (They could probably force the sale of Olympic A’s IP, but much of that isn’t all that valuable after their Games are over.)