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
Counter-point… If there is truly no one interested in operating an independent NASFiC organisation, what is the justification for it continuing?
I would hope that the North American fandom can stand up to the challenge of organising a bid selection process on which convention gets to call it’s self “NASFiC”.
I’m not at all concerned if the spun-off NASFIC (or whatever it is called) includes Canada or Mexico or is purely a US National Convention. It could contain the same scope as NASFIC, and while I think a new name might be useful, still calling the “new” con NASFIC is not a deal breaker to me. It’s the spinning off from WSFS that I think is valuable, and the decoupling it as being just “Worldcon lite when Worldcon isn’t in the US”.
I’d even be fine with the parts of Iceland counting, as I want to go to Iceland for a con. 🙂
For all of you wanting it to be North American…. I have been informed that Canvention (the Canadian national convention) is currently defunct. If Canada wants to be part of this, folks from Canada should join the group figuring out what the new con and structure should look like – for years I got told “Canada doesn’t need the NASFiC” and there was a general air of them having been pulled into this NASFiC thing quite unwillingly. So if they want to be part of it, then there’s certainly room to expand the scope, but they need to actively want it, not have it foist up on them. As a Canadian myself, I know that we are very sensitive to automatically being lumped in with the US. And ditto Mexico. Including them without their willing support is just colonialist.
@Mike “Those who want WSFS out of the NASFiC business don’t need to invest a lot of effort in passing the baton unless a viable group wants to receive it.”
The meat of this proposal, I think, is to offer up a baton to be passed. And if in the (at minimum) 2 years it takes to pass the motion, an organization doesn’t step up to take it, well, let it drop. Failure is always an option.
I imagine that the ‘Organisation’ baton would be handed off to those who are already holding it. It would be a change of organisation, not of the people doing the organising. The WSFS doesn’t actually do the operational stuff to do with Worldcons after all, and the people who want NASFiCs have always seemed to find people to run them in the past. If this is sustainable into the future would be up to them.
Andrew Trembley: That’s the way it looks to me, too.
Since this doesn’t have to be decided today we can wait and see whether anyone comes forward.
The situation reminds me very strongly of when the late Robert Sacks was trying to start the Continental SF Association or whatever its exact name was. It gained zero traction.
I can’t think of an argument against other regional conventions under the WSFS banner. The practical problem might the administrative burden on future Worldcons required to administer multiple site selection elections. Disestablishing NASFiC would avoid this.
Thomas Barnes says “I can’t think of an argument against other regional conventions under the WSFS banner.” I think there’s a fundamental one.
The NASFiC selection process is that Worldcon members vote for next year’s NASFiC unless there is a NASFiC this year, in which case the NASFiC members vote for it. (So if you have successive Worldcons outside North America, we let the members of the first NASFiC vote for the location of the second one, which makes sense in terms of having an invested electorate). The WSFS membership is historically skewed to the US (or more recently, at least has a large US component) even when the Worldcon is overseas. I don’t think it would be wise to have a US-based Worldcon deciding where next year’s Asian / African etc convention should be held … it’s the wrong electorate.
I said in my proposal that I was willing to be part of the group to think about what comes next. I’m pretty sure Michael Lee is onboard too! I’ve set up a Google Group so that anyone else who’s interested can join the conversation. Unfortunately Google now requires you to have a Gmail account to find and join a group on your own, but I think can add other email addresses directly, so if you don’t have a Google account, just let me know you’re interested and I’ll add you directly.
Here’s a link that I think will work, so long as you are already logged into Google.
https://groups.google.com/g/set-it-free
If anyone tries it, please report back.
The justification is that it has existed for 48 years and there continue to be conrunners bidding to host the next one. All WSFS has to do to keep it running is to ask a Worldcon or NASFiC to run a site selection vote a few times a decade.
So far the only person who has come close to volunteering to work on a new traveling American SF convention has also said their primary goal isn’t the success of that effort, but the end of NASFiC as a WSFS undertaking.
Jay Blanc talks about NASFiC as a “Continental US” convention. This would be a surprise to the 2017 San Juan (Puerto Rico) NASFiC.
Whatever group emerges, count me in!
@Evelyn
I specifically said, “I’d also like to note that I think that NASFiC truly has not always been a Continental USA National Convention.”
Sorry, I read that’ as that NASFiC used to range more widely, but had become only Continental. My error.
I continue to see more antagonism towards “NASFiC as part of WSFS” than I do enthusiasm for “NASFiC (or Americon, or whatever) as an Independent National Rotating Convention”. That being the case, the proposal continues to look like “Kill NASFiC”.
Who, exactly, benefits from removing NASFiC from the WSFS umbrella? I see “remove the administrative burden from WSFS”, but do the people in WSFS who actually do the NASFiC stuff see it as a burden? Presumably, they do administrative con running because they enjoy it. If someone who is currently active in WSFS conrunning were to say, “Man, I enjoy being on the WSFS committees, but that NASFiC stuff sure is a pain in the ass”, that would carry some weight.
@Tammy – yes, I tried it, and I’m in. (both in the group and for the what-comes-next discussion)
@bill – Yes, I think you’ve seen some active conrunners (both American and European) say NASFIC isn’t something that should be part of WSFS. I ran site selection at MidAmericon in 2016 for both Worldcon 2018 and NASFIC 2017. It’s certainly simpler to just run one site selection rather than two, though I knew that was part of the job when I signed on for it.
It may well be true that there is more enthusiasm for killing NASFIC than for spinning it off into something better. I hope that isn’t true — I’m more interested in this “something new” than anything else i’ve been in fandom for a couple of years — but the community will have to bear that out.
@Bill asked
The inclusion of the NASFiC in the WSFS constitution implies that North America is special and deserves to have extra consideration when the Worldcon isn’t in North America.
You could also read it as WSFS wants to be a WORLD science fiction SOCIETY and is in the business of running things other than Worldcon. That’s certainly how the proposers of ASFiC seem to have taken it. If WSFS is in charge of the NASFiC, then why shouldn’t it also be in charge of the ASFiC?
I think there are lots of good reasons why WSFS shouldn’t oversee ASFiC. Mostly because I think it’s a really bad idea for them. As Colin points out, it would at least occasionally be the wrong electorate picking the location. WSFS is very dysfunctional as it is, so why put yourself at its mercies? And if you expect that the Worldcon will not be in your zone most of the time, then you are at risk of two consecutive Worldcons on the other side of the world (that are probably difficult for you to attend en masse) making rules about the way your convention is governed, potentially without your input. It seems much better for an ASFiC to be governed by the equivalent of an organization like ESFS that administers Eurocon.
If you think that WSFS shouldn’t in charge of ASFIC (and the regional conventions of any other regions that ask it to be), then you’re back to point 1 – the inclusion of the NASFiC in the WSFS constitution implies that North America is special and deserves to have extra consideration when the Worldcon isn’t in North America.
And (to answer your question) I think that is a really bad look for the Worldcon and does damage to the perception of WSFS in the eyes of conrunners in the rest of the world. And that’s why, regardless of anything else, I think it’s time to take the NASFiC out of the constitution.
But I would actually like to see more vibrant US fandom. More connections between conrunners. More communities coming together and building things. Maybe even leading to more US Worldcon bids. The NASFiC is too intermittent, too irregular, too unfocused, and too often treated as a consolation prize to do those things well. Maybe if I’d seen any evidence of that happening in the last 9 years I’d feel differently about the NASFiCs potential, and think keeping it was worth the hit to the NASFiCs reputation.
But what I think is that maybe by starting something new, with those ideas as explicit goals, what replaces the NASFiC can be more effective than it ever was. I’m willing to help make it so. Michael’s willing to help make it so. Maybe other people will be too.
@Tammy “You could also read it as WSFS wants to be a WORLD science fiction SOCIETY and is in the business of running things other than Worldcon.”
Well, one could. But I see a vast chasm between WSFS (the business meeting) and WSFS (the club that nobody knows they’re members of, the club that gives them Hugo and Site Selection voting rights). And as long as the Business Meeting continues as an Athenian Democracy LARP rather than a body that represents the club members…
If WSFS was a real club and acted like a real club (which, I think, would be good for the Hugos and good for Worldcon), I could totally see regional chapters taking up the mantle to govern continental and/or national cons.
But that statement, on its own, illustrates the chasm.
I agree with you, Andy. If WSFS was another kind of organization then having chapters and multiple conventions all over the world under one umbrella could be really cool! I’d love to see satellite Worldcon events even. But WSFS is very much not that kind of organization, and the path to making it thus feels… not impossible, not inconceivable, but the sort of thing that requires more people making a concerted push for a longer time than anyone wants to to make it so. But maybe still a worthwhile goal to attempt. (And if it succeeded, then the Americon organization could totally apply to be a chapter.)
Tammy Coxen wrote:
Until this past weekend, that was not the case, unless you’re only counting total membership rather than physical attendance (the “warm body count”) figure. The 8,365 individual attendees of the 1984 Worldcon in Anaheim was the high-water mark prior to Chengdu, which I expect to have an attendance on the order of 15,000 individuals. Loncon 3 and Worldcon 75 Helsinki had more total members, but not more total attendees, according to the Long List of Worldcons.
Jay Blanc on October 25, 2023 at 7:44 am said:
That’s because “NASFiC” is one of the WSFS service marks managed by the WSFS Mark Protection Committee. Worldcon committees get appointees to the MPC for the same reason. Eliminating NASFiC includes abandoning the NASFiC service mark so anyone could hold one if they wanted to do so.
Personally, people who do not think NASFiC should exist, or at least should not exist as a WSFS-sanctioned convention, should just move to strike it out of the WSFS Constitution. If such a proposal was ratified, the MPC would, as I say above, abandon the service mark. After that, if someone wanted to start holding a convention called “NASFiC,” there would be nothing stopping them.
Tammy – this is a well-written, well thought out proposal. I think you’re right, and I so hope it comes to pass.
And Detcon1 was just plain amazing!
@Kevin Standlee
And I think that attendance in 1984 was driven in part by the “Star Wars” marathon, and in part by the one-day memberships (of which there were a lot). The media publicity was also relatively favorable.
Going to every year with a two-year lead time would be good for NASFiC. A group that wanted to bid for a NASFiC could plan ahead as long as they want, without having to wait to find out whether a NASFiC will even be held that year. If and when they win, they have two years to organize. Crucially, that two year period includes another NASFiC one-year out, which is when you really want to put program planning into high gear. This would be so much better than the current one-year lead time. It would make running a NASFiC a much more attractive proposition. It would be perfect for clubs that want to level up from running a local convention but are not yet ready to bid for a Worldcon.
Add to the timeline: Establish a NASFiC Intellectual Property organization on the Worldcon IP model, and request WSFS to transfer the trademark.
Thanks, Tom, I think you and I have really similar ideas about this!
Just a reminder that anyone who’s interested in talking about planning for what could come after should join this email list!
https://groups.google.com/g/set-it-free
This is your fear, not theirs.
At the first pair of back-to-back non-North American Worldcons, ratifications were punted to DisCon III. But this time we have mostly Asian members passing ASFiC and no defensible reason for other non-North American members at Glasgow 2024 to deny it to them, since they’ve lived in peace with NASFiC so long. Nor will it become more defensible should a bloc of North Americans happen to discover themselves abruptly possessed by an anti-NASFiC spirit.
Pairs of back-to-back non-North American Worldcons per decade, 1950s through 2010s: zero. The 2020s: twice so far, with six more non-North American bids and counting by 2029. There may never be two North American Worldcons in a row again.
Rather than burn NASFiC in the futile hope of preserving a status quo that is already history, since ASFiC encourages Asian fandoms to feel like members of the community, pay their dues, and participate in site selection:
If You Love Worldcon, Set It Free
Despite the passage of ASFIC in the room (by a very small number of people), Dave McCarty has said that he thinks the sentiment in the region is much more in favor of an ESFS-style governance model for the ASFIC. Hopefully we’ll get some clear messaging from Asian fans before or at the ratification vote. I do appreciate your consistency, though – certainly if you support NASFiC you should support ASFiC.
If WSFS was a different kind of organization, as Andy has said above, then a WSFS that had chapter all around the world and operated a set of interconnected conventions could be really great thing. But we’re not that kind of organization. Remember – NASFiC members aren’t even WSFS members and don’t have any rights. Neither would ASFiC members.
The fact that we may never have multiple US conventions in a row again does not argue against having an annual convention to me. Especially if it’s not time-bound to a specific time of year related to the Worldcon. It could be just as welcomed in years when a lot of US fans haven’t spent all their money and vacation time overseas, and might be able to afford to travel to the domestic con and the Worldcon.
I think that the WSFS is basically faced with the following options –
Option 1) Status Quo.
– Actions – Keep NASFiC but refuse to ratify ASFiC.
– Benefits – Retain the status quo.
– Requirements – Convince the non-US attendees of Glasgow 2024 not to support either motion.
– Risks – WSFS receives substantial reputational damage for giving the appearance that it considers North America to be more important than Asia. Unlikely to settle the matter, and is certain to be brought back up again.
Option 2) ASFiC
– Actions – Keep NASFiC, ratify ASFiC.
– Benefits – Moves WSFS to being more global.
– Requirements – Ratifying ASFiC at Glasgow 2024, Changes to the WSFS constitution, enlargement of the Marks committee, additional administration costs and legal issues of becoming a multi-national organisation that would need to register their operations in China.
– Risks – WSFS becomes dysfunctional in it’s current form as a multi-national organisation. Other large regions push to enlarge this further. WSFS is squeezed by practical and legal requirements into becoming a radically different structure than it is now.
Option 3) Spin off NASFiC
– Actions – Do not Ratify ASFiC, Spin NASFiC off as an independent organisation.
– Requirements – Convince the non-US attendees of Glasgow 2024 not to support ASFiC, convince the US centric ‘regulars’ at Glasgow 2024 to support spinning off NASFiC. Those who currently organise NASFiCs populating a new successor organisation. Changes to the WSFS constitution, sale or irrevocable licence of the NASFiC service marks to the successor organisation. (IANAL, but I understand California law will require an actual sale or licence agreement.)
– Risks – NASFiC Succsessor Organisation may fail.
Summary of risks: Maintaining the status quo or ratifying ASFiC have considerable risk towards the WSFS. Spinning off ASFiC only has a risk for future ASFiCs. And the risk of any particular NASFiC failing, or no bids occuring for a NASFiC, already exists. So in my opinion, spinning off NASFiC is the best option for the WSFS.
Nice summary @Jay Blanc!
“And the risk of any particular NASFiC failing, or no bids occuring for a NASFiC, already exists.”
True, but if any given NASFiC fails under the status quo, there is institutional support for having another one at another place later regardless. While if an independent NASFiC fails, there’s a good chance it will drag the whole supporting/administrating apparatus with it, and that would be the end of NASFiCs.
@bill
Under the Status Quo, if a NASFiC fails, it fails. Unlike the Worldcon, there’s no provision made for anyone to step in to save a NASFiC that won it’s bid, but can not proceed with it.
There’s just as much chance of a NASFiC failure resulting in it becoming permanently defunct while it is inside the WSFS as there is outside of it. Either by outright removal following such a failure, or by no one capable of providing a convention bidding to provide it.
If there ever comes a point where no one in the North American organised fandom is capable and willing to take forward a NASFiC from bid to convention, then it’s dead even with the support of the WSFS. All that would happen with “institutional support” is the spectacle of having a yearly bidding process on a dead convention. The WSFS can not save NASFiC in such a circumstance.
If there is support for NASFiC, and it is a live con with potential to thrive, then it’s currently being held back by it’s status as Worldcon’s understudy. Let NASFiC be it’s own thing, and let it fade or thrive.
“If there is support for NASFiC, and it is a live con with potential to thrive, then it’s currently being held back by it’s status as Worldcon’s understudy.”
I suppose that this is your opinion, else you wouldn’t have written it, but I don’t see any evidence that it is being held back.
It’s held back in at least one way, namely, it can occur only in years when the Worldcon is not in North America.
Or we could just get rid of NASFiC entirely. Is it really necessary to have it, or is it just a drain of time and energy better spent on local/regional/theme conventions or Worldcon?
But I guess that isn’t majority opinion.
Here’s all the ways the status-quo currently hold back NASFiC –
– Only occurs at all on the whims of happenstance on who wins Worldcon bins
– The WSFS ‘prestige’ cuts both ways, and NASFiC will always be overshadowed as being the “Worldcon we have at home”.
– NASFiCs can’t put money aside for future NASFiCs, any surplus goes to the WSFS.
– NASFiCs are restrained into a compressed bidding and planning time, much shorter than time frames most con-runners would like to have.
@Gary Farber: One of the key reasons why the new post-NASFIC suggested here proposes that existing conventions bid for it and “become” the continental/national convention that year is to shine a light and encourage local/regional conventions. Instead of a concom spending their time building an entirely new one-shot convention, they can use it to enhance and build their own community convention, and to make connections with convention communities around the country. (And hopefully world, as just as Americans go to Eastercon, I would expect non-Americans to occasionally visit this new con, if schedule/location/con interests.)
But if your interest is just to get WSFS out of NASFIC, this proposal does that. But hopefully keeps many of the things for people that want NASFIC, and adds things that aren’t currently a part of the US (and possibly entire North American) scene.
Why stop there? Let’s kill Worldcon too.
The double standard of Europe voting down ASFiC after living with NASFiC for fifty years is unaffected by whether Americans today decide to bury NASFiC or replace it. ASFiC fills a need for Asia’s fandoms of today similar to what NASFiC did for North America back then. While we jet around the world on annual vacation budgets, China’s salaries are one-tenth of ours; elsewhere they are even less; it is much harder for them to get visas or access financial services.
AsiaCon, not ASFiC, carries the burden of “additional administration costs and legal issues of becoming a multi-national organisation that would need to register their operations in China.” ASFiC is just local cons with site selection run by an unincorporated literary society. While some might like to see an AsiaCon spring into being fully formed, there is simply not an environment conducive to its emergence equivalent to what Eurocon had (and arguably even Eurocon, which is expelling members, doesn’t have it any more). That makes the relative anarchy of ASFiC the most feasible and fannish path forward. Even if Americans decide they feel like they don’t need one anymore.
@BrianZ
Arguably a continental convention based around the same model as Eurocon is much more suitable for Asia, given the wide geographic and cultural differences, which are even more pronounced there than they were in Europe when the ESFS was set up. Or, given the truly huge scale of that part of the world, more NatCons supported by a “local” continental org might be even better. However, given the economic differences you highlight, along with the geographic issues, I feel the comparison between a WSFS administered con in Asia and NASFiC are tenuous at best.
But I want to say there is a tone in a small number of the responses to this idea that really feel like being told, as a non-(North?)American that the rest of us are invited to the WSFS/Worldcon party and we may even be asked to dance, but the music is off limits for some reason. The world, and Worldcon, is changing. 30 years ago for me, and many of my fannish friends of various ages, it was an impossible dream to go to a Worldcon, 20 years ago I managed to get to 1 on the island next door and in the last 6 years I’ve had the privilege of being involved in running 5 across two continents. And the proportion of non-NA conrunners involved in Worldcon in general has gone visibly up. And I know I’m so lucky to be able to do that, and I wish for all fans that they get to go to a local (for whatever value of local) Worldcon in their lives at some point.
I think it’s right that this conversation be led by North American conrunners/fans, but I also think that things have changed a lot in the last 50 years and so the fact that fans from other countries and continents (not just Europe) “lived” with NASFiC isn’t super relevant anymore, maybe some of us want to have other opinions now?
It is unproductive to get into the conversation about your belief the ESFS expelled members (which it has not), as the situation is far more complex and nuanced than that.
Brian Z on October 26, 2023 at 9:20 am said:
That was not because it was a pair of non-North American Worldcons. It was because the 2020 Worldcon could not be held in person due to the pandemic and because New Zealand was closed. Had it not for that, the 2020 WSFS business meeting would have been held as usual. It was special circumstances and the CoNZealand committee deciding to hold a pro forma meeting that effectively postponed ratification, primarily as a favor to all non-New Zealanders. They would have been within their rights to hold a full meeting and take whatever action they wanted to take.
Incidentally, there have been consecutive non-US Worldcons before; it’s just that one of the two Worldcons in each pair was in Canada. (1994/1995 and 2009/2010) And while some people may scoff at the thought, Canada is also a Scary Foreign Country to which many US citizens will not travel. I dealt with this myself as far back as 1994, where I was a division manager and deputy chair of the Worldcon in Winnipeg. You may think I’m joking, but it’s really the case that there are Americans who simply will not travel out of the USA for any reason whatsoever.
And in passing, I note that most Worldcon attendees are IMO completely ignorant of how site selection works, no matter how often we try to explain it to them. I recall people claiming to me that it was “illegal” for the 2010 Worldcon to be in Australia because “the rules require every other Worldcon to be in the USA.” This was because their only experience was the sequence from 2002-2009 just happened to be US – Non-US and they assumed that “the rules” required it to be that way. This is the “nobody ever reads the instructions” effect, I guess.
Jay Blanc on October 26, 2023 at 3:46 pm said:
Huh? Where did you get this idea? Neither Worldcon nor NASFiC surplus funds are given to WSFS. Worldcon and NASFiC committees may make agreements among each other for sharing of surplus funds, but those are private arrangements not regulated by WSFS in any way. WSFS doesn’t have much central organization, only the one committee that manages the intellectual property. That committee asks WSFS-sanctioned conventions to donate money to pay for their work, but only if the conventions have the available funds to do so.
@Kevin Standlee
It was perhaps unintentional, but the word ‘benefit’ has legal weight to it. NASFiCs can’t specifically earmark any of their surplus funds to future NASFiCS, only to the WSFS.
It’s important to note that if the WSFS goes forward into being a Multinational, the legal implications of it’s organisation will come under much closer scrutiny by multiple national regulators with multiple opinions on how the law applies. The specific words used in the constitution, the status of the MPC, the way bids work, they all might not appear to a government regulator the way they appear to fandom.
The WSFS has had Worldcons outside the U.S. since 1948 without the organization having to become “multinational.” The premise that anything being considered now would require it to do that is dubious. Worldcons and NASFiCs are run by their hosts and they are the legal organizations operating in their countries, not WSFS.
@rcade
You may have that opinion. National regulators may have differing opinions. The weight of legal momentum has been moving in the direction of viewing the entity that controls the “intellectual property” as the parent organisation. (Thank Starbucks et all’s method of organisation.)
ASFiC would mean that the WSFS would now have a persistent relationship and operations across borders between countries that are not cleanly aligned with each other, including the movement of considerable amounts of money. This will attract a higher level of scrutiny than the WSFS has been exposed to before.
The argument you are making is a scare tactic against more than just ASFiC. Worldcon is also a relationship between the WSFS and countries other than the U.S. Would you recommend against having more Worldcons in Asia like you’re recommending against establishing ASFiC?
Your use of the word “persistent” to describe WSFS relationships and operations is wrong. It has no business presence in any other country and only has minimal operations in the U.S. to manage a set of trademarks and allow their use by other organizations. WSFS does not move considerable amounts of money around. It has no staff or budget.
Let’s see how the Fandom organised structure of the WSFS sounds if I restate it detached from Fandom…
“Yoyodyne is an informally incorporated organisation with minimal operations in the U.S. to manage a set of trademarks and allow their use by other organisations.
Yoyodyne does not have a business presence in any other country, only distinct legal franchising entities that bid on being allowed to use Yoyodyne’s intellectual property.
Yoyodyne has no staff, and has no board, only a committee that has complete executive control over Yoyodyne’s intellectual property.
Yoyodyne has no budget, except for the minimal budget of it’s intellectual property committee, it merely oversees at a detached distance the transfer of funds between the distinct legal franchising entities that bid on Yoyodyne’s intellectual property.”
I suggest that regulators might find fault with some aspects of how the WSFS operates if it were subject to a greater amount of international scrutiny than it currently has.
I see that, formally, Eurocon’s coordinating body is “disallowing” a group of blacklisted countries from nominating, bidding, or having delegates, so it does seem an effort was made to avoid calling it expelled. Thank you for pointing that out. That the situation is complex and nuanced was exactly my point – an Asian con will navigate similarly treacherous waters.
Unfortunately I couldn’t be there, but I found RiverFlow’s con report very informative. While it is great Chengdu pulled this off, and good the Leaders kept their speeches mercifully short, why transport fans to the massive grounds of a museum which can’t easily facilitate breaking out into more intimate groups? Why the roving “volunteers” making a beeline to stacks of paper fanzines to ask whether they were submitted for prior review? None of this prevented the event from being a success, but, shall we say, more fun could have been had. I don’t mean to be too hard on Chengdu, just hightlight the point that worries me, and I’m confident the organizers of the next Asian Worldcon watched what happened and will make sure they don’t fall into that rut. But for a regional con in a region where so many bids will be fighting an uphill battle to minimize that stuff, my money is on an anarchic popular bidding system over a council of delegates. If Asian fandom can actually create such a council that isn’t heavy on the Ministries of Culture, the Provincial Business Development Forums, and the Intergovernmental Meetings of Friendship Organizations, more power to them – but they haven’t, what they’ve done is passed a WSFS constitutional amendment that cuts through all that like butter.
Europe absolutely should bring its vision. This can also be accomplished by building on what passed in Chengdu, recommending changes in advance of 2029 re-ratification, a study committee… the sole option is not throwing it out when the Americans show up in a bloc to eliminate their own convention.
On comparability of today’s Asia and yesterday’s North America, I think the analogy holds. The are so many regional budget carriers. The cost of 1970s air travel between LA and Chicago was more than today’s between Shanghai and New Delhi. Roads and rails are increasingly allowing, say, Chengdu fans to take a train to Bangkok and vice versa. An ASFiC could organically alternate, sometimes bids from expensive, developed cities, sometimes bids from cheap, easily accessible developing cities. So I say let them try it, but sure, propose other options.
Thanks for your comments.
@Jay Blanc
The WSFS does not supervise (oversee) the transfer of funds from one Worldcon committee to another. It has no power to ensure that it takes place, just as it had no power to make Chengdu release progress reports or hold the Hugo nomination process when it was expected to take place.
An individual Worldcon is not a franchise of the WSFS. It does not pay WSFS a franchise fee, ongoing royalties or agree to anything else generally associated with a franchising relationship.
@rcade
The wording of 2.9.3 indicates that bidding organisations agree to transfer of the surplus to the benefit of the WSFS. That seems to be the bidding organisation agreeing to a consideration towards the WSFS in return for the licence of intellectual rights to a franchise operation.
Jay Blanc: Supposing your analysis of WSFS is correct what offense are you expecting regulators to be interested in?
Regulators have defined jurisdictions and performance benchmarks to be evaluated against. The entities that run Worldcons have funds, workers, and do transactions. They’re of much more interest.
@Mike
It’s not an either/or, if the regulators get involved, they will consider the entities that run the Worldcons and the WSFS. And the issues involved are such things as ensuring no tax liabilities were accidentally avoided, all relevant reporting regulations were followed, that the WSFS can show due diligence was performed on bid winners…
Very strictly speaking, these things should already be taking place. The WSFS is generally getting away with “informal operation” because the WSFS has flown under the radar by being too small to take notice of. Expansion will draw attention.
Jay Blanc: In short, you have no current offenses in mind that should interest scary international regulators.