The WSFS Mark Protection Committee, chaired by Donald E. Eastlake III, issued the following press release on February 25.
The World Science Fiction Society (www.wsfs.org, WSFS) is an unincorporated non-profit association whose activities include the annual awarding of the Hugo Awards via the selected World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) each year. WSFS, through its Mark Protection Committee (MPC), manages Worldcon Intellectual Property (WIP), a non-profit corporation that holds intellectual property on behalf of WSFS, which previously issued a Press Release on January 30 addressing some of these issues.
The WSFS MPC takes very seriously the recent complaints about the 2023 Hugo Award process and comments made by persons holding official positions in the MPC. In connection with these concerns, the MPC notes the following. There may be actions taken or to be taken that are not in this announcement.
- Dave McCarty has resigned as a Member of the WSFS MPC. The MPC has elected Bruce Farr to fill the remainder of Dave McCarty’s term until the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting. Thereby Mr. Farr automatically became a voting member of the WIP Board of Directors (BoD).
- Kevin Standlee has resigned as Chair of the WSFS MPC and Donald Eastlake has been elected Chair of the WSFS MPC. Notwithstanding his resignation as Chair of both the WSFS MPC and the WIP BoD, Mr. Standlee remains a WSFS MPC Member and WIP BoD Director.
- The Hugo Award Marketing Committee (HAMC) of the WSFS MPC has been dissolved and its activities transferred to the WSFS Marketing Committee, an advisory board to the WIP BoD. At this time those activities include the management of the WSFS.org, Worldcon.org, TheHugoAwards.org, and NASFiC.org web sites.
- To avoid any possibility of confusion, note that the “Tianwen Program” is not a part of WSFS and has not been approved or endorsed by the WSFS MPC or WIP.
- Minutes of the special meetings of the WIP BoD held on January 28 and 30 and minutes of the meeting of the WSFS MPC on January 30 are posted here.
Please note that each year’s Worldcon is run by a separate organization which administers the Hugo Awards for that year. The Chengdu 2023 Worldcon has asked that any specific questions about the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards be sent to [email protected]. The Glasgow 2024 Worldcon will be administering the 2024 Hugo Awards and can be contacted at [email protected]. For media enquiries on other topics related to MPC or WIP, you may contact [email protected].
“World Science Fiction Society”, “WSFS”, “World Science Fiction Convention”, “Worldcon”, “NASFiC”, “Lodestar Award”, “The Hugo Award”, the Hugo Award Logo, and the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Rocket are service marks of Worldcon Intellectual Property, a California non-profit corporation managed by the Mark Protection Committee of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society. You can contact the WSFS Mark Protection Committee at [email protected].
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So what was Dave Mccarty doing at the January 30th meeting of WIP BoD/MPC given that he resigned on the 28th?
It was considered the same session. They took so long at the first meeting that they had to reconvene later.
Lurkertype said
If Ben thought these decisions weren’t going to get out, and lead to calls for heads on pikes, that wasn’t his dignity guiding him.
It was his arrogance and hubris.
Rcade said:
We are. They aren’t.
Kevin Standlee said:
I realize that offending the God of Rules, Robert, is repugnant to some.
But the system is rigged against taking quick action, disenfranchises a large number of local members of the WSFS from walking in and taking immediate part of the discussion.
I know you’ve said before, if not Roberts, than what?
At this point, a llama with a paint ball gun looks more appealing.
Ed Green: Didn’t Kevin have us try out Sturgis’ Rules of Order one year at a Westercon?
Here are the minutes, where we haven’t minuted what occured.
A shame the MPC failed so badly at an understanding of the importance of transparency at a time when obfuscation can be perceived as complicity.
We are in such Orwellian territory.
Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.
I think it was voted in at the Hawaii Westercon, but defeated at the next one.
Ed Green: Found the info through the Wayback Machine. Looks like the use of Sturgis’ Rules of Order was voted in at the 1999 Westercon Business Meeting and voted out at the 2000 Westercon in Hawaii. So you’re right about the part that there was a quick return to Roberts.
I realize it’s an actual thing, but Sturgis’ Rules of Order sounds to me like how biker gangs would resolve their differences
Nit picking and fly specking:
@Ed Green. It’s officially ” paintball”, although the game did use the two word version for a brief period as its identity moved from individual brand names (The Adventure Game, The Ultimate Game, The Survival Game, Skirmish…) to a generic.
Llamas are notoriously inaccurate – with a paintball gun. But not when it comes to spitting.
Steve davidson said:
I learned this after the time to edit had elapsed. I lounge corrected.
A BM with a spitting llama seated at the front table, firing off paintballs willy nilly?
That’s a business meeting I’d love to be at! Wearing goggles of course.
Jan Vanek jr. on February 26, 2024 at 3:29 pm said:
If you could point out where it actually says that, I can get it fixed. I’m not seeing it in the document body or in its name (WIP-Bylaws_20150823.pdf). Where is the typo?
This is a crisis. When a scandal involving your organization gets news coverage cross multiple major news sources, it is a crisis.
And the thing about a crisis is that getting ahead of the news cycle and getting the narrative to be about how you are addressing and fixing the underlying issues is crucial. (The best way to do that is by addressing and fixing the underlying issues, but some people try for the narrative only approach). Either way, timeliness of reaction is vital.
WIP is moving with the fierce urgency of someday. This does not bode well.
For all votes that are not unanimous, the minutes for WSFS Mark Protection Committee and Worldcon Intellectual Property meetings should include how members voted, not just the vote count. As members we are entitled to know this, particularly when nine of the members are in elected positions.
@ Ed Green Robert’s Rules are a framework. They can be as flexible and fast or as constraining and slow as the chair desires. That the Worldcon chairs have historically leaned towards particularly rigid interpretations is not actually a requirement. Many large organizations that use various flavors of RRO manage to get through even contentious business relatively quickly
Ryan H.
I agree. There have been years the Chair has hung a poster with a quote from Robert’s that essentially says over the front table.
Then we proceed to ignore the sign and proceed to the long form RRO’s LARP.
Dave Weinstein said:
Yup. They hand out censures which are meaningless.
How about a vote of no confidence, stating the Board believes they are not trustworthy to have any position of authority in a Worldcon and communicate that to all bids?
Then let the bids explain to the voters their decisions?
Does the MPC not have the ability to get unanswered questions answered? They had two of the players in the meeting. There’s no reason they can’t ask each of them in a recorded way what happened, and then take a vote of confidence, followed by whatever votes are needed to change the rules if a supermajority (of the others!!) agree. Sure, they can refuse to answer. That would make the confidence vote super easy.
And while they’re at it, add the vote split information to votes going forward and back for three months. If that’s a rule, it should be changed anyway and they can do it.
I’m not sure the MPC and the WIP can do so much more than they’ve already done, given the statutes they have. They are, and should be beholden to the Worldcon (which makes its wishes known through the business meeting, Hugo electorate, and other means).
My focus is rather on what can be done to improve confidence in the Hugo process. People have talked about external auditing, but I got to thinking about the site selection process. The tallying group there includes a set of volunteers from the current Worldcon together with representatives from the various bids. Now, we don’t have bids for the Hugos, but we do have the previous and the next Worldcon.
So I’m thinking that the Hugo committee of Worldcon X would be designated by the concom for Worldcon X, but that Worldcon X+1 also gets to add a member to the committee. (If Worldcon X-1 also gets to add a member I’m mulling about.) Preferably that person will be expected to go on to be a part of Worldcon X+1’s Hugo committee.
@Karl-Johan Norén
A thing could have done, and could still do, is ask the members that
1) definitely have information and
2) are currently in the meeting with them
to report what they know, in full. These questions go to the heart of their purpose. That doesn’t require any rule changes.
But also they should change the rules and kick them out if they don’t, because obscuring what happened is antithetical to their purpose.
@Kevin Standlee
As Jan Vanek jr. said, in the PDF title (document properties).
Kevin Standlee: “Title” in Document properties (also shows as the page/window/tab title when opened in a web browser).
But of course this is a tiny typo that can well wait until more substantial changes are made (and I don’t even mean the superfluous comma in 1.2 “The Board of Directors may, change the principal office”. But it IS a bit confusing that the document ends “I attest that the preceding bylaws and standing rules, consisting of fourteen (14) pages including this page, are complete” in the middle of “Page 13”).
Ah, I see why I didn’t see it: I don’t open PDFs with a web browser. When I opened it in Adobe Acrobat, it did not show that typo. Thanks.
@Ray Radlein:Oh good, it’s not just me.