Steve Cooper, Co-Chair of the 2014 Worldcon, Loncon 3, said in a message to the Smofs list that a meeting of the full committee decided against introducing a YA special Hugo or YA award despite requests to use its one-time authority under the WSFS Constitution to do so.

Reasoning – As there is currently a business meeting sub-committee in place to bring forward proposals for a YA Hugo / Award to the WSFS business meeting at Loncon 3, we believe it would be wrong for Loncon 3 to pre-empt the workings of this committee, especially as they do not have a draft proposal we could test. So any such move would be seen as Loncon 3 giving an opinion that we believe X is the solution to the YA award, and as the administrating convention for the business meeting where the proposals will be tabled this would be inconsistent with the due impartiality the WSFS membership would expect of us.

Cooper added, “We do not plan to issue a press release on this as it is not our policy to announce things we are not doing, but many of the individuals who have lobbied us to run and not-run a YA Special Hugo have been informed of our decision. People on this list are free to pass on our decision to others not on-here, but we would ask that the decision in full – including the reasoning – is quoted.”

Advocates for a YA Hugo category Chris M. Barkley and Juli Marr responded on Facebook expressing “profound disappointment” about the decision and criticizing the way it was communicated. They also rebutted the reasons given for the decision.

That being said, we would like to reiterate several points; the call for this Special award would have served a dual purpose; to see if the idea a of YA award had any traction with the Hugo Award electorate and for the Hugo Award administrators to provide the YA Committee (and the Business Meeting) any indications of problems that may have occurred during the nomination or voting process.

While we acknowledge the Committee’s reasoning for not presenting the award, we maintain that such an award can be administered this year, without the appearance of prejudice or impropriety by the Committee towards the YA study group. Language from previous proposals could have been used for the expressed purpose of administering the award for this occasion.

However, In light of this decision, we can only look forward to the upcoming discussions of the YA study group over the winter. It is our fervent hope that we will present a viable YA Hugo Award proposal for passage at the Loncon 3 Business Meeting.