Tag Archives: Hugo Awards

Glasgow 2024 Disqualifies Fraudulent Hugo Ballots

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The Glasgow 2024 Worldcon announced today they have detected at least 377 fraudulent votes for the Hugo Awards, most meant to benefit a particular unnamed finalist, and have disqualified those votes. As a result, the beneficiary of those votes now will not win in their category.

The Glasgow 2024 Hugo Awards Statement is published below, followed by a video commentary by Nicholas Whyte, WSFS Division head and Hugo Administrator.

In the course of tallying the votes on the final ballot for the 2024 Hugo Awards, the Glasgow 2024 Hugo Administration team detected some unusual data. 

Paragraph 6.2 of the WSFS Constitution states that “In all matters arising under this Constitution, only natural persons may introduce business, nominate, or vote, except as specifically provided otherwise in this Constitution. No person may cast more than one vote on any issue or more than one ballot in any election.”

A large number of votes in 2024 were cast by accounts which fail to meet the criteria of being “natural persons”, with obvious fake names and/or other disqualifying characteristics. These included, for instance, a run of voters whose second names were identical except that the first letter was changed, in alphabetical order; and a run of voters whose names were translations of consecutive numbers. 

Many of these votes favoured one finalist in particular, who we will call Finalist A. This pattern of data is startlingly and obviously different from the votes for any other finalist in 2024, and indeed for any finalist in any of the previous years where any member of the current Hugo Subcommittee has been involved with administering the Hugo final ballot.

In addition to patterns observable in the data, we received a confidential report that at least one person had sponsored the purchase of WSFS memberships by large numbers of individuals, who were refunded the cost of membership after confirming that they had voted as the sponsor wished.

On the basis of the above evidence, we have concluded that at least 377 votes have been cast fraudulently, of a total of 3,813 final ballot votes that we received. We have therefore disqualified those 377 votes from the final vote tally. This decision is not one made lightly, but we are duty bound as the Hugo Administrators to protect the Hugo Awards and to act against fraud.

We have no evidence that Finalist A was at all aware of the fraudulent votes being cast for them, let alone in any way responsible for the operation. We are therefore not identifying them. Finalist A has not been disqualified from the 2024 Hugo Awards. However, they do not win in their category, once the invalid votes have been disallowed.

No other votes have been disallowed. The only votes disallowed are those which we have positively identified as not cast by natural persons.

We recognise that after the Hugo voting in 2023, many in the community will, understandably, have questions about this. Unfortunately, our ability to answer is very limited, due to our responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of the ballot and data protection regulations. There are proposals to institute a system of independent audit for Hugo votes. But at present such a system does not exist, therefore the raw 2024 voting data cannot and will not be shared outside the Glasgow 2024 Hugo team.

However, the full voting results, nominating statistics, and voting statistics will be published immediately after the Hugo Awards ceremony on August 11th, 2024 as previously agreed in our transparency statement. Those will not include the 377 votes which have been disallowed but will include the other 3,436 votes.

We believe that it is important for transparency that we inform you now about what has happened. We want to reassure 2024 Hugo voters that the ballots cast were counted fairly. Most of all, we want to assure the winners of this year’s Hugos that they have won fair and square, without any arbitrary or unexplained exclusion of votes or nominees and without any possibility that their award had been gained through fraudulent means.

Announcement from the Glasgow 2024 Astounding, Lodestar, and Hugo Administrator

Pixel Scroll 7/16/24 Oh You’ll Never See My Shade Or Hear The Sound Of My Feet, While There’s A Scroll Over Pixel Street

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(1) GLASGOW 2024 DELAYS BUSINESS MEETING AGENDA. The WSFS Standing Rules required publication of this year’s Business Meeting Agenda by July 17. However, Glasgow 2024 today announced that agenda “will be delayed until Friday, 19th July 7pm (BST/UTC+1)”. X.com thread starts here.

Glasgow 2024 has received 50 items, including new business and items passed on from the prior Worldcons. And they have put up this chart to justify the delay in producing the agenda.

In the meantime, File 770 has published the text of more than 20 of these proposals. Here are the links.

  • Motion to Abolish the Retro Hugos Submitted to 2024 Business Meeting
  • WSFS 2024: Motion to Add Human Rights and Democracy Standards to Worldcon Site Qualifications
  • WSFS 2024: Three Resolutions
    • SHORT TITLE: APOLOGY RESOLUTION
    • SHORT TITLE: CHENGDU CENSURE RESOLUTION
  • SHORT TITLE: MAKE THEM FINALISTS RESOLUTION
  • WSFS 2024: Cleaning Up the Art Categories
  • WSFS 2024: Meetings, Meetings, Everywhere
  • WSFS 2024: Transparency in Hugo Administration
  • WSFS 2024: Irregular Disqualifications and Rogue Administrators
  • WSFS 2024: Independent Hugo Administration
  • WSFS 2024: No Illegal Exclusions
  • WSFS 2024: When We Censure You, We Mean It
  • WSFS 2024: And The Horse You Rode In On
  • WSFS 2024: Three Standing Rules Change Proposals
  • SHORT TITLE: “NO, WE DON’T LIKE SURPRISES, WHY DO YOU ASK?”
  • SHORT TITLE: “STRIKE 1.4”
  • SHORT TITLE: MAGNUM P.I.
  • Two More Proposed WSFS Constitutional Amendments for 2024
  • SHORT TITLE: MISSING IN ACTION
  • SHORT TITLE: THE WAY WE WERE
  • WSFS 2024: Popular Ratification
  • WSFS 2024: Site Selection by the Worldcon Community

    • Also along the way File 770 has published these drafts. Whether they have been submitted, or their final wording, is not known at this time.

    File 770’s reprints from the Journey Planet #82 “Be the Change” issue included two more proposals. Whether any or all were submitted to the Business Meeting is not known.

    (2) LAST DAYS TO VOTE FOR THE HUGOS. There are only four days left to vote in the 2024 Hugo Awards and to download this year’s Hugo Voting Packet. 

    Voting closes at 20:17 GMT on 20 July because that will be 55 years *to the minute* since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first landed on the moon in 1969!

    Instructions about how to vote and the way to download the Hugo Voting Packet are on the Glasgow 2024 website.

    (3) COMMUNITY ANSWERS OCTAVIA’S BOOKSHELF’S CALL. “Black Woman-Owned Bookstore Octavia’s Bookshelf Is Getting Closer And Closer To Funding Goal To Keep Doors Open” reports Blavity. At this writing, Octavia’s Bookshelf has raised $83,780 of the $90,000 goal.

    ….According to Pasadena Now, the Black woman-owned business Octavia’s Bookshelf was founded by Nikki High, a former corporate communications employee at Trader Joe’s who left corporate America to accomplish one of her biggest goals: owning a bookstore. The name of her shop was inspired by Octavia Butler, who was known for her science fiction novels. When she opened her doors in February 2023, she was immediately embraced by her neighborhood and got more than enough support to move into a bigger space.

    Due to traffic slowing down in the store, High is asking her community and the general public for help to remain in business; she set up a GoFundMe page….

    …Due to lack of funding, she was forced to cut the shop’s regular events, group discussions, children’s readings and workshops, but she hopes to be able to offer these services again soon once she raises enough money.

    Despite the hurdles she faces, High is unwilling to throw away her dreams.

    “I still know that this is a viable business,” High told Pasadena Now, “and this space is crucial to our community.”

    (4) LEGGO MY LEGO. “Get bricks quick: collectible Lego sets fuel growing black market” says the Guardian.

    A black market for highly valuable Lego sets is being built brick by brick, and authorities are trying to knock it down.

    Lego sets are highly sought after, by kids and their parents as well as adult collectors.

    But it’s not all fun and games. Bad actors who know the resale value of these sets are increasingly cashing in, while law enforcement aims to bust such Lego theft rings.

    Police in Oregon last week recovered 4,000 stolen Lego sets worth more than $200,000, according to law enforcement. Ammon Henrikson, 47, the owner of a retail store called Brick Builders in Eugene, was arrested and accused of knowingly purchasing the allegedly stolen goods for a fraction of their retail price and then reselling them, a local CBS channel reported….

    … Two people were arrested in Los Angeles last month in connection with more than 2,800 stolen Lego sets. In April, California police arrested three men and a woman after discovering stolen Lego sets worth a combined $300,000. Some of the stolen sets included the 921-piece Millennium Falcon, typically priced around $85, the 6,167-piece Lord of the Rings Rivendell set, worth $500, and the 1,458-piece Porsche 911 set, worth $170.

    Meanwhile, overseas, French police announced in 2021 that they had begun building a case against an international gang of toy thieves specializing in Lego….

    (5) CLARION WEST MATCHING. The Clarion West Writers Workshop can leverage your donation this week. More information here.

    The Sherman Family Foundation has offered a Week Five Matching Challenge, doubling any donations made this week up to $2,000! Donations made to Clarion West support free and low-cost programming for writers and readers year-round.

    (6) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES. Space Cowboy Books presents episode 77 of their monthly podcast “Simultaneous Times” with Phoenix Alexander & F.J. Bergmann.

    Stories featured in this episode:

    • “Loamblood” by Phoenix Alexander — read by the author
    • “Surgery for Dummies” by F.J. Bergmann — read by Jean-Paul Garnier

    Music by Phog Masheeen. Theme music by Dain Luscombe

    Heather Wood in 1988. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter

    (7) A. HEATHER WOOD (1945-2024). Publishing pro and folk singer A. Heather Wood died at Stony Brook Memorial Hospital on July 15 at the age of 79. At one time she was assistant to Tor’s President and Publisher Tom Doherty, and a consulting editor for Tor Books. She was also well-known in the folk music community as part of The Young Tradition, a 60s English group.

    We applied a tiny bit of that musical talent on Noreascon Three’s (1989) program SF Tonight, where I played Ed McMahon to Tappan King’s Johnny Carson, and Heather Wood was our kazoo-playing answer to Doc Severinsen.

    She also was known as part of World Fantasy Convention’s “Musical Interlude,” which featured pros singing in a folk revue.

    Her website, which lists her many accomplishments, is here.

    (8) IVAN GEISLER (1944-2024). [Item by Jeanne Jackson.] Ivan Geisler, longtime member of the Denver Area Science Fiction Association, passed away July 2, 2024 of congestive heart failure and old age.

    I was first informed this afternoon by Sherry Johnson, his ex-wife. Although Ivan was quickly found by his neighbors after his passing, and his dog Brownie returned to the shelter Ivan had adopted her from, there had been some difficulty locating contact information for friends and relatives.

     According to Sherry, memorial arrangements have not yet been organized. As Ivan was a veteran of the United States Army, it is likely the Veterans’ Administration will be involved in his funeral.

     Ivan joined DASFA over 30 years ago. He was a lifelong reader of science fiction and fantasy, and also an avid amateur astronomer—he was an active member of the Denver Astronomical Society long before he found his way into DASFA.

    (9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

    [Written by Paul Weimer.]

    July 16, 1928 — Robert Sheckley. (Died 2005.)

    By Paul Weimer: I came to Robert Sheckley’s work through an oblique angle. Somehow, through all of the reading I did in the late 70’s and early 80’s, I missed or didn’t recognize, his short story work (although it’s dollars to donuts I came across a story of three in the many anthologies I read during that period. (And a check in the writing of this shows a couple of Sheckley stories in 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories).  But I didn’t recognize his work and his genius and his skill until 1992. 

    Sheckley in the 1990s. Photo by John Henley

    Yes, it wasn’t until the movie Freejack came around that I started looking for Sheckley’s work specifically, since the movie proudly announced in its credits that it was based on “Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley”.  Yes, this is the movie where Emilio Estevez is a car driver transported to the future, with Mick Jagger (!) of all people as the major antagonist.

    The name sounded familiar even so, and so, as was my practice at the time (Total Recall leading me to Philip K. Dick in similar fashion), I decided that I needed to investigate his work, starting with Immortality, Inc. The novel was very different than the movie by a long show, but I was immediately hooked on his writing. 

    I found his work sharp, twisty, clever, devilishly entertaining, and especially for his short stories, with a sting in the tail. It was no wonder to me that his work has been so adapted so frequently, and with such great effect. And while science fiction is generally not explicitly in the prediction business, “The Prize of Peril” pretty accurately and sharply predicts and shows the consequences of television devoted and focused on Reality Television for clicks. “The Perfect Woman” shows the consequences of wanting the perfect mate, straight from the factory, and the consequences of a lack of quality control.  

    My favorite Sheckley story might surprise, but it is “Death Freaks” from the “Heroes in Hell” shared world verse. With the ability of throwing anyone who is anyone into their shared world version of Hell, the editors got a story from Sheckley involving the Marquis de Sade, Baudelaire, Lizzie Borden, Jesse James, and an 8th Century BC Greek Hoplite. Sheckley, perhaps out of all of the authors in the series, best “understood the assignment” and let his imagination run wild.  It’s a story that’s a lot of fun and full of the unexpected, entertaining all along the way. That’s what Sheckley could, and did do, with his fiction.

    (10) COMICS SECTION.

    (11) LADY DEADPOOL. “New ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Trailer Teases Even More of Lady Deadpool” promises Yahoo!

    Ten days ahead of the film’s release, Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine has a new trailer and TV spot.

    Set to the tune of Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey,” one of the first shots in the trailer shows the mysterious Lady Deadpool’s red boots and up past her signature belt to show the ends of blonde hair without landing on her face.

    And a week ago was this: “Deadpool & Wolverine & The Bachelorette”.

    Everyone seemed to like the Deadpool Bachelorette spot last night but can we talk about the episode? Thought Jenn made some strong choices, except for sending my countryman Brendan packing. Marcus is easy on the eyes, Grant was a little much and the day trading thing, but I get it. Two Sams will get confusing so slightly leaning towards Sam N. Jenn’s mom might have been the highlight and Melbourne, Australia, felt like a Hugh shout out so bit of a lowlight there. Overall, great start. What was I talking about again?

    (12) FOR MONSTER TOURISTS. Atlas Obscura lists “11 Museums Dedicated to Monsters”.

    Monsters have roamed the human consciousness as long as there has been one, from tales around the campfire, to the tomes of antiquity, to the modern cineplex. And sometimes those monsters leap off the page or the screen, and out of our imaginations. Sightings of cryptids and other frightful creatures have spanned millennia, often taking place in the darkest corners of the world. Luckily there are lots of ways to get to know these fantastical creatures—especially when enthusiasts create museums or exhibits dedicated to their lore….

    …In Point Pleasant, West Virginia, is a museum dedicated to the state’s most widely known cryptid: the Mothman. The only collection dedicated to the half-moth, half-man creature, the Mothman Museum celebrates this harbinger of misfortune, who has been spotted in Appalachia on and off since 1966. Much further in the past, stories of massive sea monsters off the Icelandic coast have stricken fear into the hearts of sailors. The Skrímslasetrið in Bíldudalur, Iceland, covers the history of these encounters. According to the museum, two of the monsters most endemic to Iceland’s waters are the hafmaður (Sea Man) and the skeljaskrímsli (Shell Monster), but there are more. From a four-legged beast that terrorized 18th-century France to an amphibious water demon in Japan, here are a few of our favorite places to get up close to monsters in relative safety…

    (13) READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP. “Gnatalie is the only green-boned dinosaur found on the planet. She will be on display in L.A.” announces NBC News.

    The latest dinosaur being mounted at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles is not only a member of a new species — it’s also the only one found on the planet whose bones are green, according to museum officials.

    Named “Gnatalie” (pronounced Natalie) for the gnats that swarmed during the excavation, the long-necked, long-tailed herbivorous dinosaur’s fossils got its unique coloration, a dark mottled olive green, from the mineral celadonite during the fossilization process.

    While fossils are typically brown from silica or black from iron minerals, green is rare because celadonite forms in volcanic or hydrothermal conditions that typically destroy buried bones. The celadonite entered the fossils when volcanic activity around 50 million to 80 million years ago made it hot enough to replace a previous mineral….

    (14) IT’S A TWISTER AUNTIE EM! “What Twisters gets right — and wrong — about tornado science” opines Nature

    When Hollywood producers showed up a few years ago at Sean Waugh’s office, he couldn’t wait to show them his thunderstorm-tracking equipment. Waugh, a meteorologist at the US National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, is a big fan of the 1996 film Twister, which stars Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as leaders of a tornado-chasing research team. And now, Hollywood was asking Waugh his opinion on how the science in the next film in the Twister franchise should look.

    On 17 July, when the film is released internationally, the world will see how Waugh’s recommendations panned out. Like its predecessor, the new Twisters film focuses on characters who are storm chasers: Daisy Edgar-Jones plays a researcher traumatized by past weather disasters and Glen Powell a social-media star racing for footage of the biggest and baddest tornadoes. But science has an even bigger role in the plot of the new film than it had in the original, say Waugh and other researchers who worked as consultants for Twisters. It not only shows advanced radar data and highlights links between climate change and tornadoes, “it’s an incredible opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists”, Waugh says….

    (15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George’s “Battlefield Earth Pitch Meeting” tells why the movie was made – not that you didn’t already know.

    [Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Anne Marble, Joe Siclari, Jeanne Jackson, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Niall McAuley.]

WSFS 2024: And The Horse You Rode In On

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INTRODUCTION. The deadline to submit proposals to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting was July 10. The formal agenda will be out soon, but in the meantime the movers of 15 submitted items have provided copies for publication and discussion on File 770.

“And The Horse You Rode In On” proposes to permanently bar any Hugo Administrator who disqualifies a nominee for a reason outside those in the Constitution and allows the category to be run without them shall be barred thereafter from participating in the award administration. There also are sanctions provided against a Worldcon committee that keeps such a person in the administrative role.

SHORT TITLE: AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON

Add Section 3.14 as follows:

Section 3.14: Disqualification of Administrator.  Any Hugo Administrator, or other person ultimately responsible for administering the Hugo Awards, who disqualifies an otherwise-eligible nominee for a reason other than one found in this Constitution and who thereafter allows the category to be run without them shall thereafter be barred from participating in the administration of the Hugo Awards.  Any Worldcon Committee which appoints such a person to a role administering the Hugo Awards and does not remove them upon being informed of their ineligibility shall be deemed to have declared themselves incapable under Section 2.6 of this Constitution. Should a Worldcon Committee decline to delegate authority to a Subcommittee under Section 3.13, the Convention Chair(s) shall be considered responsible under this section alongside the Hugo Administrator and be sanctioned accordingly.

SPONSORS: Cliff Dunn, Kevin Sonney, and Kristina Forsyth

DISCUSSION: As things stand, there are a lot of proposed rules restricting a Hugo Administrator from throwing things off the ballot.  However, most of these lack consequences for the party responsible for the problem.  With this proposal, we aim to change that.
Bluntly, if we could bar the person(s) responsible for the 2023 fiasco from being involved in the Hugo Awards for the rest of time, we would do so.  However, ex post facto laws are a bad thing and we’re not willing to open up that can of worms.  So we’ve settled on proposing this going forward: If anything like what happened with the 2023 Hugo Awards happens again, the Hugo Administrator is done with the Hugo Awards and future conventions are on notice that they are to be barred, on pain of being unseated.  If a convention fails to delegate authority to a subcommittee under Section 3.13 of the Constitution (we would suggest that any direct interference on their part would constitute not having delegated that authority), then the Convention Chair is also deemed to have had the authority to intervene and to have failed to do so.  We don’t expect this to come up – this has, to our knowledge, been done every year for many years – but we felt it important to address this possibility.

We don’t want to go further than this – there are people who will serve on the relevant committee in a ministerial role but make no formal decisions, and we don’t want to get into the question of who had what power and who didn’t.  However, the head of the committee/Hugo Administrator, regardless of their title, should be deemed to have that power and thus if this decision is made, they own it.  If they have an underling who they cannot stop from doing so, then they need to resign rather than permit such an abuse of the process continue in their name.

WSFS 2024: No Illegal Exclusions

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INTRODUCTION. The deadline to submit proposals to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting was July 10. The formal agenda will be out soon, but in the meantime the movers of 15 submitted items have provided copies for publication and discussion on File 770.

“No Illegal Exclusions” would provide that if a work is removed from Hugo Awards consideration “for a reason not in this Constitution unless required in local law” that Hugo category shall not be run. Instead, the category shall be eligible for a Retro Hugo starting 5 years thereafter.

SHORT TITLE: NO ILLEGAL EXCLUSIONS

Moved, to amend the Constitution by adding text as follows:

Section 3.13: Exclusions.

3.13.1: No member of the current Worldcon Committee or any publications closely connected with a member of the Committee shall be eligible for an Award. However, should the Committee delegate all authority under this Article to a Subcommittee whose decisions are irrevocable by the Worldcon Committee, then this exclusion shall apply to members of the Subcommittee only.

3.13.2: No work shall be removed for a reason not in this Constitution unless required in local law. In the event that a work is excluded from the final ballot for reasons other than those provided in this Constitution, that category shall not be run in that year and the category shall be eligible for a Retro Hugo starting 5 years thereafter.

SPONSORS: Kevin Sonney, Cliff Dunn

DISCUSSION: While there is a long history of “dubious” nominating ballots being set aside from consideration for the Hugo Awards, dating back to the late 1950s or early 1960s, prior to 2023 the only grounds which ballots appeared to be excluded were because of fraudulent conduct (e.g. a large number of ballots originating from a small village in England, all nominating only a single author’s work).  Likewise, works were only excluded because of objective disqualification – failing to meet an explicit, objective criteria (e.g. word count, publication date, or performance length) – or if they were withdrawn at the request of the author or creator.  Even in 2015-16, during the “Puppy Affair”, none of the works involved were removed except for the above reasons.

In 2023, an egregious wave of exclusions took place.  Multiple works across multiple categories were simply excluded without explanation beyond “the rules that we must follow”.  Additionally, extreme irregularities emerged where substantial numbers of ballots were thrown out in various categories.  Insinuations that the exclusions were done for the purposes of complying with local laws or customs were made, but nothing was ever explicitly stated.

Additionally, at least one Hugo Administrator has allegedly asserted the right to exclude ballots or works at their discretion.  If the fallout from 2023 has shown anything, it is that we do not want them to have the ability to exercise such discretion.

While we intend, explicitly, to remove that discretion and prefer that given the choice between a category being run in a “corrupted” manner and not run at all we prefer the latter, we also do not want to place conrunners in an impossible position – and even in countries not known for restrictive speech laws, there may be weird complications that we cannot envision.  One need look no further than the difficulty faced in aligning WSFS rules with various data privacy rules for how snarled this can get.

As such, we give the runners of a given year’s Hugo Awards a choice – they can either run a category “cleanly” or they can not run it.  We do not desire to cast aspersions on them if, due to local law, a category simply cannot be run in a given year, but we expect them to exercise that discretion rather than tampering with the finalist list in any way.

However, we also do not want to fail to honor the authors and creators in a given year, and the option of the Retro Hugos exists.  While those awards have likely outlived their original purpose, retaining them as a “backstop” for something like this seems reasonable – and the makeup of fandom five years hence is not nearly so radically different as that which would make up fandom 50 or more years hence.  Most creators would also still be around to accept their awards.

We acknowledge that there is a separate proposal to apply the Retro Hugo Award(s) at ten years instead of five, and while we are not averse to that (or to ultimately coordinating proposals at a common level), but we would like a discussion of five years vs ten before committing.

WSFS 2024: Independent Hugo Administration

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INTRODUCTION. The deadline to submit proposals to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting was July 10. The formal agenda will be out soon, but in the meantime the movers of 15 submitted items have provided copies for publication and discussion on File 770.

“Independent Hugo Administration” calls for transfer of Hugo Awards administration to a corporation (WSFA), which nevertheless “would be responsible for administering the Hugo Awards under the auspices of this Constitution”. It will be mandatory of the corporation to appoint a Hugo Award Administration Subcommittee (HASC) to administer the Hugo Awards for a given Worldcon.

The measure establishes a source of funds for the corporation to pay for legal and technical requirements, and to ensure that every Worldcon pays licensing fees for the marks, keeping them legally controlled and constrained by the contract of sale.

The proposal would not take effect “until the conclusion of the Worldcon two years following the ratification of this motion.”

The proposal includes numerous copyediting changes to remove “Mark Protection Committee” or Worldcon committee and replace it with WSFA where needed.

SHORT TITLE: INDEPENDENT HUGO ADMINISTRATION

Moved: To assign specific duties associated with Worldcons to a standing body that exists separately from the convention of Worldcon and has responsibility for maintaining the service marks of WSFS and associated items with due care and responsibility. This corporation shall be referred to in this document as WSFA, but may be renamed at the discretion of the Business Meeting at the time of consideration of this motion.

This corporation shall be formed by and shall assume all assets and responsibilities of the Mark Protection Committee and Worldcon Intellectual Property.

Material to be struck out is shown in strikethrough type. Material to be added is shown in underline type.

1. Amend Article 1 as follows:

Section 1.3: Restrictions. No part of the Society’s net earnings shall be paid to its members, officers, or other private persons except in furtherance of the Society’s purposes. The Society shall not attempt to influence legislation or any political campaign for public office. Should the Society dissolve, its assets shall be distributed by the current Worldcon Committee WSFA or the appropriate court having jurisdiction, exclusively for charitable purposes. In this section, references to the Society include the Mark Protection Committee WSFA and all other agencies of the Society but not convention bidding or operating committees.

[….]

Section 1.6: Authority.

1.6.1: Authority and responsibility for all matters concerning the Worldcon, except those reserved herein to WSFA, WSFS, or any of its committees established in this Constitution, shall rest with the Worldcon Committee, which shall act in its own name and not in that of WSFS or WSFA.

1.6.2: The Worldcon Committee may elect to hold a Hugo Award Ceremony to present the Hugo Awards, although it is not required to do so. Holding such a ceremony does not include any right to be included in the administration of the Hugo Awards.

Section 1.7: The Mark Protection Committee WSFA

1.7.1: There shall be a Mark Protection Committee of WSFS, which WSFA shall be responsible for registration and protection of the marks used by or under the authority of WSFS and the administration of the Hugo Awards.

1.7.2: The Mark Protection Committee WSFA shall submit to the Business Meeting at each Worldcon a report of its activities since the previous Worldcon, including a statement of income and expense.

1.7.3: The Mark Protection Committee shall hold a meeting at each Worldcon after the end of the Business Meeting, at a time and place announced at the Business Meeting. WSFA shall meet, at a minimum, once a quarter, on a schedule to be published to all WSFS members at least fourteen (14) days before each meeting. These meetings shall be public, except when legal reasons may require a closed meeting.

1.7.4: The Mark Protection Committee WSFA shall determine and elect its own officers at one of its quarterly meetings. This meeting will be noted in the published schedule.

1.7.5: WSFA shall be responsible for arranging for the administration of each year’s Hugo Awards as provided elsewhere in this Constitution. This may not be done by asking the current Worldcon to do such administration, to preserve independence.

1.7.6: WSFA shall be supported by mark licensing fees paid by each Worldcon, which shall amount to not more than 5% of a WSFS membership or 10% of an attending supplement per member of that Worldcon, and not less than the cost to maintain the service or trade marks for the year and any expenses associated with administering the Hugo Awards (and Site Selection, should the Worldcon elect to ask them to do so).

Section 1.8: Membership of the Mark Protection Committee WSFA

1.8.1: The Mark Protection Committee WSFA shall consist of:

(1) One (1) member appointed to serve at the pleasure of each future selected Worldcon Committee and each of the two (2) immediately preceding Worldcon Committees,

(2) One (1) member appointed to serve at the pleasure of each future selected NASFiC Committee and for each Committee of a NASFiC held in the previous two years, and

(3) Nine (9) members elected three (3) each year to staggered three-year terms by the Business Meeting. And,

(4) Any hired staff (full- or part-time) WSFA chooses to employ for purposes such as legal, accounting, or other professional services.

1.8.2: Newly elected members take their seats, and the term of office ends for elected and appointed members whose terms expire that year, at the end of the Business Meeting.

1.8.3: If vacancies occur in elected memberships in the Committee WSFA, the remainder of the position’s term may be filled by the Business Meeting, and until then temporarily filled by the Committee the remaining members of WSFA.

1.8.X: WSFA members other than paid staff may be recalled at any time by two-thirds vote of a WSFS Meeting. If this happens, they are not eligible for re-election or re-appointment for at least two (2)  complete terms after the completion of the one in which they were recalled.

1.8.Y: WSFA may also choose to remove one of its own members by unanimous vote (excepting the member under consideration). In this case, the seated Worldcon shall be asked to provide a replacement member until the next WSFS Meeting can elect a replacement. This election shall be held regardless of how the removed member was appointed to WSFA.

1.8.Z: Paid WSFA staff may be let go only by two-third vote of WSFA members.

2. Amend Article 2 as follows:

Section 2.1: Duties. Each Worldcon Committee shall, in accordance with this Constitution, provide for

(1) administering the Hugo Awards,

(2) (1) administering any future Worldcon or NASFiC site selection required, and

(3) (2) holding a WSFS Business Meeting.

The Worldcon may, at its discretion, ask WSFA to also administer any required site selection.

Section 2.2: Marks. Every Worldcon and NASFiC Committee shall include a notice in each of its publications that clearly acknowledges the service marks of the Society. The Mark Protection Committee WSFA shall supply each Worldcon committee with the correct form of such notice.

3. Amend Article 3 as follows:

Section 3.1: Introduction. Selection of the Hugo Awards shall be made as provided in this Article.

Section 3.2: General.

[….]

3.2.8: The Worldcon WSFA shall not consider previews, promotional trailers, commercials, public service announcements, or other extraneous material when determining the length of a work. Running times of dramatic presentations shall be based on their first general release.

3.2.9: The Worldcon Committee WSFA may relocate a story into a more appropriate category if it feels that it is necessary, provided that the length of the story is within twenty percent (20%) of the new category limits.

[….]

3.2.11: The Worldcon Committee  WSFA may relocate a dramatic presentation work into a more appropriate category if it feels that it is necessary, provided that the length of the work is within twenty percent (20%) of the new category boundary.

[….]

3.2.13: The Worldcon Committee WSFA is responsible for all matters concerning the Awards, although the Worldcon may be asked to participate in marketing and distributing materials related to the Awards.

3.2.X: Worldcon Committee shall make available to WSFA sufficient information, including mailing and electronic mail contact information for WSFS members of their Worldcon, to permit the WSFA to administer the Hugo Awards. WSFA shall exercise due care to protect this information and shall delete any such information after it is no longer needed toadminister the Hugo Awards for a given year.

Section 3.3: Categories.

[….]

3.3.20: Additional Category.

3.3.20.1: Not more than one special category Special Category may be created by the current Worldcon Committee with nomination and voting to be the same as for the permanent categories.

3.3.20.2: The Worldcon Committee must inform WSFA of their intent to present a Special Category at least three hundred and thirty (330) days before the first day of that Worldcon.

3.3.20.3: WSFA may not create a Special Category unless requested to do so by the Worldcon Committee.

3.3.20.4: The Worldcon Committee is not required to create any such category Special Category; such action by a Worldcon Committee should be under exceptional circumstances only; and any Special Category created by one Worldcon Committee shall not be binding on following Committees or WSFA, following the year in which it was requested and duly administered.

3.3.20.5: Awards created under this paragraph section shall be considered to be Hugo Awards.

[….]

Section 3.5: Name and Design.  : The Hugo Award shall continue to be standardized on the rocket ship design of Jack McKnight and Ben Jason as refined by Peter Weston. Each Worldcon Committee may select its own choice of base design. The name (Hugo Award) and the design shall not be extended to any other award

3.5.1: The Hugo Award shall continue to be standardized on the rocket ship design of Jack McKnight and Ben Jason as refined by Peter Weston.

3.5.2: If the Worldcon Committee elects to hold a Hugo Award ceremony, it may select its own choice of base design. If they do so, manufacture of the award trophy and the distribution of trophies to the winners shall be the responsibility of the Worldcon Committee.

3.5.5: If the Worldcon Committee declines or is unable to hold a Hugo Award ceremony, WSFA must still publish the winners, nominees, and long list as provided for elsewhere in this document. WSFA may opt to hold a ceremony at a time and place of its choosing, including strictly virtually. All finalists shall be invited to any such ceremony.

3.5.6: The name (Hugo Award) “Hugo Award” and the design of the Hugo Award trophy rocket shall not be extended to any other award, including any other Awards presented by the Worldcon Committee.

Section 3.6: “No Award”. At the discretion of WSFA an individual Worldcon Committee, if the lack of nominations or final votes in a specific category shows a marked lack of interest in that category on the part of the voters, the Award in that category shall be canceled for that year.

Section 3.7: Nominations.

3.7.1: The Worldcon Committee WSFA shall conduct a poll to select the finalists for the Award voting. Each member of the administering current Worldcon or the immediately preceding Worldcon as of January 31 of the current calendar year shall be allowed to make up to five (5) equally weighted nominations in every category.

3.7.2: The Committee WSFA shall include with each nomination ballot a copy of Article 3 of the WSFS Constitution and any applicable extensions of eligibility under Section 3.4.

3.7.3: Nominations shall be solicited only for the Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.

Section 3.8: Tallying of Nominations.

3.8.1: Except as provided below, the final Award ballots shall list in each category the six eligible nominees receiving the most nominations as determined by the process described in Section 3.9.

3.8.2: The Worldcon Committee WSFA shall determine the eligibility of nominees and assignment to the proper category of works nominated in more than one category.

3.8.3: If any series and a subset series thereof both receive sufficient nominations to appear on the final ballot, only the version which received more nominations shall appear.

3.8.4: Any nominations for “No Award” shall be disregarded.

3.8.5: If a nominee appears on a nomination ballot more than once in any one category, only one nomination shall be counted in that category.

3.8.6: If there are more than two works in the same category that are episodes of the same dramatic presentation series or that are written works that have an author for single author works, or two or more authors for co-authored works, in common, only the two works in each category that have the most nominations shall appear on the final ballot. The Worldcon Committee WSFA shall make reasonable efforts to notify those who would have been finalists in the absence of this subsection to provide them an opportunity to withdraw. For the purpose of this exclusion, works withdrawn shall be ignored.

3.8.7: The Committee WSFA shall move a nomination on an individual ballot from another category to the work’s default category only if the member has made fewer than five (5) nominations in the default category.

3.8.8: If a work is eligible in more than one category, and if the work receives sufficient nominations to appear in more than one category, the Worldcon Committee  WSFA shall determine in which category the work shall appear, based on the category in which it receives the most nominations.

3.8.9: If a work receives a nomination in its default category, and if the Committee WSFA relocates the work under its authority under subsection 3.2.9 or subsection 3.2.11, the Committee WSFA shall count the nomination even if the member already has made five (5) nominations in the more-appropriate category.

[….]

Section 3.10: Notification and Acceptance.

3.10.1 Worldcon Committees WSFA shall use reasonable efforts to notify the finalists, or in the case of deceased or incapacitated persons, their heirs, assigns, or legal guardians, in each category prior to the release of such information. Each person notified shall be asked at that time to either accept or decline the nomination. If the person notified declines nomination, that finalist(s) shall not appear on the final ballot. The procedure for replacement of such finalist(s) is described in subsection 3.9.4.

3.10.2 In the Best Professional Artist category, the acceptance should include citations of at least three (3) works first published in the eligible year.

3.10.3 Each finalist in the categories of Best Fanzine and Best Semiprozine shall be required to provide information confirming that they meet the qualifications of their category.

Section 3.11: Voting.

3.11.1: WSFA shall conduct Final Award voting shall be by balloting in advance of the Worldcon. Postal Ballots cast by postal mail shall always be acceptable. Only WSFS members may vote. Final Award ballots shall include name, signature, address, and membership-number spaces to be filled in by the voter; however, if the voter does not have their membership number, it may be supplied by the Hugo Administrator or their a designated staff member of WSFA.

3.11.2: Final Award ballots shall list only the Hugo Awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.

3.11.3: “No Award” shall be listed in each category of Hugo Award on the final ballot.

3.11.4: The Committee WSFA shall, on or with the final ballot, designate, for each finalist in the printed fiction categories, one or more books, anthologies, or magazines in which the finalist appeared (including the book publisher or magazine issue date(s)).

3.11.5: Voters shall indicate the order of their preference for the finalists in each category.

Section 3.12: Tallying of Votes.

3.12.1: In each category, tallying shall be as described in Section 6.4. “No Award” shall be treated as a finalist. If all remaining finalists are tied, no tie-breaking shall be done and the finalists excluding “No Award” shall be declared joint winners.

3.12.2: “No Award” shall be the run-off candidate for the purposes of Section 6.5.

3.12.3: The complete numerical vote totals, including all preliminary tallies for first, second, . . . places, shall be made public by the Worldcon Committee WSFA within ninety (90) days after the Worldcon.

During the same period, the results of the last ten rounds of the finalist selection process for each category (or all the rounds if there are fewer than ten) shall also be published.

Section 3.X: Hugo Award Administration Subcommittee.

3.X.1: WSFA shall each year appoint a Hugo Award Administration Subcommittee (HASC) consisting of eligible competent persons to administer the Hugo Awards for a given Worldcon.

3.X.2: Only WSFS members shall be eligible to join the HASC, regardless of any position in WSFA.

3.X.3: When the membership of the HASC has been selected and all selected members have agreed, the membership of the HASC shall be made public.

3.X.4: The HASC may consist of members of WSFA and/or other persons. Members of the HASC shall serve at the pleasure of the WSFA, and may be removed by a majority vote of the members of WSFA at any time during their term.

3.X.5: The HASC shall be responsible to WSFA regarding any decisions regarding eligibility and other interpretations of the Hugo Award rules in this Article, and shall publish a listing of such decisions and their rationales alongside the statistics required elsewhere in this Constitution.

3.X.6: The HASC shall have use of the existing WSFS websites and social media accounts currently controlled by the Mark Protection Committee.

Section 3.13: Exclusions.

No serving member of the current Worldcon Committee WSFA, the Hugo Award Administration Subcommittee, or any publications or other works closely connected with those Committees these persons shall be eligible for an Award. However, should the Committee delegate all authority under this Article to a Subcommittee whose decisions are irrevocable by theWorldcon Committee, then this exclusion shall apply to members of the Subcommittee only.

Section 3.14: Retrospective Hugo Awards.

3.14.1: A Worldcon held in a year that is an exact multiple of 25 years after a year in which no Hugo Awards were awarded may require WSFA and the HASC to conduct nominations and elections for retrospective year Hugo Awards for that year with procedures as for the current Hugo Awards, provided that year was 1939 or later and that no previous Worldcon has awarded retrospective year Hugo Awards for that year.

3.14.2: In any listing of Hugo Award winners published by a Worldcon committee, WSFA, or WSFS, retrospective Hugo Awards shall be distinguished and annotated with the year in which such retrospective Hugo Awards were voted.

Provided that the changes in this motion shall not take effect until the conclusion of the Worldcon two years following the ratification of this motion.

SPONSORS: Kate Secor, Kevin Sonney

DISCUSSION: The prestige of the Hugo Awards has been severely tarnished over the last few years. While some of this is due to the public’s fundamental misunderstanding of how the Hugo Awards are administered, it is also due to concerns over the award traveling around and being administered by a new group every year. It is extremely difficult to maintain institutional knowledge without an institution, and continued insistence on “using our own stuff” means that administrative functions cannot be guaranteed to be consistently run year over year.

It is time that WSFS took the Hugo Awards seriously and put some money into starting a real, honest to goodness corporation, which would be responsible for administering the Hugo Awards under the auspices of this Constitution.

This measure also establishes a funding mechanism for the new organization to pay for legal and technical requirements (and to ensure that every Worldcon pays licensing fees for the marks, keeping them legally controlled and constrained by the contract of sale).

It is the belief of the sponsors of this motion that having a continuing organization which can be held responsible for use of the marks and for award administration year over year will help restore confidence in the Awards as the premier fan-chosen SFF award. It also provides explicitly for how members of the corporation may be added or removed, and permits the corporation to hire actual professionals for matters like legal or accounting requirements.

While many Business Meeting regulars have been scarred by the spectre of WSFS, Inc. from the 1970s, after 50 years, it’s probably time to reconsider the idea. The world has changed, and a professional, standardized organization to do paperwork and administration is not going to run Worldcon as we know it.

WSFS 2024: Irregular Disqualifications and Rogue Administrators

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INTRODUCTION. The deadline to submit proposals to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting was July 10. The formal agenda will be out soon, but in the meantime the movers of 15 submitted items have provided copies for publication and discussion on File 770.

“Irregular Disqualifications and Rogue Administrators” proposes to cancel a Hugo Award category for the year in the event of any “irregular disqualification”. However, if the category is run despite any “irregular disqualification”, the nominees shall be deemed Finalists in all official publications. Provision is also made for a Retro Hugo to be offered for that year’s category ten years later. The rule does not apply retroactively.

SHORT TITLE: IRREGULAR DISQUALIFICATIONS AND ROGUE ADMINISTRATORS

Moved, to amend the Constitution as follows by adding text:

Section 3.6: “No Award”.

3.6.1: Lack of Interest. At the discretion of an individual Worldcon Committee, if the lack of nominations or final votes in a specific category shows a marked lack of interest in that category on the part of the voters, the Award in that category shall be cancelled for that year.

3.6.2: Irregular Disqualification. If one or more nominees who have received sufficient nominating ballots to qualify as finalists are removed from the ballot without either (1) citing a clause of this constitution or (2) evidence of fraud or misconduct with respect to the Hugo Award Finalist selection process, then the Award in that category shall be not be run in that year.

3.6.3: Category Run Irregularly.  In the event that a category with irregular disqualifications is run regardless of other restrictions, any nominees irregularly disqualified shall be deemed to be Finalists.  The category shall have its irregular nature indicated in all official publications without prejudice to the Finalists and Winner.  The category shall be eligible for being run as a Retro Hugo category ten years afterwards.

3.6.4: Non-Retroactivity.  3.6.3. Shall not operate retroactively, though this shall not prejudice the ability of WSFS to otherwise make similar provisions for events in years prior to passage.

SPONSORS: Cliff Dunn, Kristina Forsyth, Erica Frank

DISCUSSION: This proposal would divide Section 3.6 into three sections.  The first is existing language in the Constitution and is not altered in any functional manner.  The second, “Irregular Disqualification”, is new, as is the third, “Category Run Irregularly”.

While there is a long history of “dubious” nominating ballots being set aside from consideration for the Hugo Awards, dating back to the late 1950s or early 1960s, prior to 2023 the only grounds which ballots appeared to be excluded were because of fraudulent conduct (e.g. a large number of ballots originating from a small village in England, all nominating only a single author’s work).  Likewise, works were only excluded because of objective disqualification — failing to meet an explicit, objective criteria (e.g. word count, publication date, or performance length) — or if they were withdrawn at the request of the author or creator.  Even in 2015-16, during the “Puppy Affair”, none of the works involved were removed except for the above reasons.

In 2023, an egregious wave of exclusions took place.  Multiple works across multiple categories were simply excluded without explanation beyond “the rules that we must follow”.  Additionally, extreme irregularities emerged where substantial numbers of ballots were thrown out in various categories.  Insinuations that the exclusions were done for the purposes of complying with local laws or customs were made, but nothing was ever explicitly stated.

Additionally, at least one Hugo Administrator has allegedly asserted the right to exclude ballots or works at their discretion.  If the fallout from 2023 has shown anything, it is that we do not want them to have the ability to exercise such discretion.

Our objective here is to implement a clear standard: Either a category shall be run “cleanly” (that is with the qualifying finalists being placed on the ballot unless disqualified under our rules or withdrawn by the finalist themselves) or it shall not be run at all.  We consider a failure to run a given category in a given year to be a lesser “offense” against the participants of a given Worldcon than running a category with seat-of-the-pants adjustments and exclusions.

There is a good deal of concern about “awards being taken away”.  We’ve decided not to do that, but we feel that adding an “asterisk” to the awards is both proportionate and necessary: It is likely that any such situation will be well-known even without such an indication, and automatically re-adding irregularly removed finalists is effectively in line the precedent we seem likely to set this year. 

Authorizing a Retro Hugo in the event of a category being run irregularly is something we acknowledge as controversial.  Frankly, we are torn — as of the drafting of this amendment, there are various transparency initiatives being moved forward and we don’t know what the structural efforts to avoid a repeat of 2023 will look like in final form.  The position we take is that this should be allowed but not compelled — there is no right answer and most of the damage will have been done, but at the same time a sufficiently corrupted process must have some avenue for being re-run, and “the Hugo Administrator covered it up until after the ceremony so we can’t do anything” feels like a cop-out.  If the consensus within fandom is that the category shouldn’t be re-run, we believe that it shouldn’t, but if the problems were manifest enough (e.g. multiple finalists being disqualified or it being obvious that the results were wholly fabricated) that the consensus is that the category should be re-run, we want to open the door to that.

At the same time, these rules weren’t in place in 2023, so we’re not applying them retroactively.  We are comfortable that that way lies madness, but if these rules are in place going forward then we’re at least not explicitly trying to “change history”.

We acknowledge that another proposal we are submitting uses a five-year timeline for the Retro Hugo Awards in question.  We initially proposed five years for this as well, but we wish to have a discussion on the merits of five versus ten.  That being said, we are also prepared to cooperate with other proposals to produce a coherent outcome at either value.

WSFS 2024: Transparency in Hugo Administration

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INTRODUCTION. The deadline to submit proposals to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting was July 10. The formal agenda will be out soon, but in the meantime the movers of 15 submitted items have provided copies for publication and discussion on File 770.

“Transparency in Hugo Administration” would add to the existing requirement for a report of Hugo voting statistics a requirement to account for any withdrawals, and explain any moves (between categories) or disqualifications.

SHORT TITLE: TRANSPARENCY IN HUGO ADMINISTRATION

Moved, to amend the Constitution to require a public accounting of any withdrawals or disqualifications of potential Hugo nominees.

Text to be removed shown in strikethrough, text to be added in underline.

3.8.2: The Worldcon Committee shall determine the eligibility of nominees and assignment to the proper category of works nominated in more than one category. Any moves or disqualifications conducted under this section shall be published and explained with the statistics published as required in section 3.12.3 of this document.

[…]

3.8.6: If there are more than two works in the same category that are episodes of the same dramatic presentation series or that are written works that have an author for single author works, or two or more authors for co-authored works, in common, only the two works in each category that have the most nominations shall appear on the final ballot. The Worldcon Committee shall make reasonable efforts to notify those who would have been finalists in the absence of this subsection to provide them an opportunity to withdraw. For the purpose of this exclusion, works withdrawn shall be Ignored. All such withdrawals shall be published with the statistics published as required in section of 3.12.3 of this document.

SPONSORS: Kate Secor, Kevin Sonney

DISCUSSION: This is a pretty simple request that all disqualifications and withdrawals be listed and explained when the statistics are published, to improve transparency.

The Hugo Awards:  How Big of a Deal Are They?

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By Bill: Paul Weimer in his guest post of July 7 (“Be the Change: For the Future of the Hugos”) said “[T]he Hugo Awards DO matter. Careers and publishing lives were harmed by what happened in Chengdu.”  OTOH, Trish Matson in her guest post in the same series (July 6, “Changes Needed for the Hugo Awards Process”) said “The Hugo Awards are not actually very well known throughout the entire speculative fiction community. Out of a world of fans, only a few thousand people each year vote for them.”  Over the years, there have been posts speculating about just how important being awarded a Hugo is to the success of the work, and to the writers who win them.  Are they simply egoboo?  Or do they represent money in the bank through additional sales?

I suppose one could hire a polling company to ask random people “Do you know what the Hugo Awards are?  Do they influence your decisions about what to read and buy?”, but that would be expensive.  Publishers of SF should have some hard data about what happens to sales of a book when it wins a Hugo, but that information is likely proprietary, and we probably will never see it.

One thing that is easily (and cheaply) measurable, however, is how often the awards are mentioned in the news media.  Perhaps this is a useful proxy for how well-known they are to the general public.

The ProQuest company sells access to databases of the articles of newspapers and other media.  They market primarily to libraries.  Their search interface and the data they report allow us to ask the question, “How often do the Hugos get mentioned, compared to other prominent literary and entertainment awards?”

The table below shows the answer(s) to that question.  I searched ProQuest in three calendar years (2003, 2013, 2023) for the number of articles in which the phrases “Hugo Award” or “Hugo Awards” appear, in four separate publications:  The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today.  And I did the same searches for the Edgar Awards (from the Mystery Writers of America), the Academy Awards (for movies), and the Tony Awards (for Broadway plays).

To pick a random entry in the table, the data should be read as “Between Jan 1 2023 and Dec 31 2023, there were 6 articles in the Los Angeles Times that contained either the phrase “Edgar Award” or “Edgar Awards”.”

   New York TimesWashington PostLos Angeles TimesUSA Today
       
2023
Hugo13530
Edgar7263
Academy381174410207
Tony323519565
2013
Hugo2540
Edgar7750
Academy593636888157
Tony78926623858
2003
Hugo0222
Edgar14562
Academy9051398592188
Tony86552915639

Pixel Scroll 7/7/24 Little Pixels, On The Viewscreen. Little Pixels, Made Of Tickie-Scrollie

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(1) HAPPY THIRD! Sunday Morning Transport is hosting a summer celebration which begins with this free read – a story by Scott Lynch: “Selected Scenes from the Ecologies of the Labyrinth”.

July marks our third (We can’t believe it’s been two and a half years!) summer — and we’re celebrating with four great free reads. Yes, you read that right, a whole month of free goodness from The Sunday Morning Transport — by Scott Lynch, Margaret Dunlap, Rachel Hartman, and Paolo Bacigalupi. We hope you love these and all our stories as much as we love bringing them to you on Sundays….

(2) HELP NEEDED TO FIGHT CANCER. “Help R. S. A. Garcia Pay for Cancer Expenses” at GoFundMe. People have been responding generously to R.S.A. Garcia’s urgent call for help in order to afford needed blood tests – the medical reasons for which are detailed in the updates at the link. Garcia recent won a Nebula for the short story, “Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200”.

…And thank you all for getting me to $48,000 in just about a week! Amazing!

I still have a way to go to get to $55,000 so I’ve moved my appointments back a week to try to get enough funds to pay for them.

For now, I was able to do some blood tests and I hope that they’ll give clearer answers. My oncologist has also switched some of my meds, but I had to keep taking the Zoladex, so I’m still getting some heart symptoms. Hopefully, we’ll figure out what’s going on there soon.

Please share and donate if you can. The sooner I reach my goal the sooner I can complete my other investigative procedures and work on treatment….

(3) INFORMATION PREVENTION. [Item by Steven French.] The internet has caused the biggest crisis in human communication since the arrival of the printing press, the award-winning dystopian author Naomi Alderman has said. “Naomi Alderman: ‘Whatever happened to talking? We’ve lost the ability to swap ideas’” in the Guardian.

The writer of The Power, a 2016 feminist science fiction novel, said we are living through the “third information crisis”, in which digital communications have eroded in-person communication and entrenched disagreement.

“If you have a person in front of you, you can have a conversation and, ideally, through sharing experience and empathy, you may come to some new position that recognises what you’re both bringing to that conversation,” she said. “This can never happen with a book, TV show, tweet, someone’s ranty YouTube video. Increasingly, I think that leads us to be vulnerable to a kind of fundamentalism, to ‘I’ve got my view and I’m sticking to it’.”

Alderman is exploring the impact of the internet on human communication for a new five-part documentary series for BBC Radio 4, The Third Information Crisis, which begins tomorrow….

(4) BID ON BLOCH’S HUGO. Robert Bloch’s 1959 HUGO AWARD for Best Short Story is up for bids on eBay. Of added interest is that the seller is “Official Dave Hester Store” – Hester being one of the regulars on the old Storage Wars show.

17th World S F Convention 1959 HUGO AWARD – Best Short Story 1958 – THE HELLBOUND TRAIN by Robert Bloch Trophy

We believe this award came from Mr. Robert Bloch estate.

Robert Bloch (1917-1994) American fiction writer primarily of crime psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. Best known as the writer of Psycho (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock.

“That Hell-Bound Train” is a fantasy short story by American writer Robert Bloch. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in September 1958 and in 1959 Robert Bloch was awarded the 1959 HUGO AWARD.

The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The award is administered by the World Science Fiction Society.

Award is 8-3/4″W x 8-3/4″D x 19″H including the 4-3/4″H wooden stand.

Award is in good vintage condition with signs wear, peeling, discoloration and a tarnish to the plaque. There are small chips and scratches to the wooden base. Please see photos.

(5) PROOF OF LIFE. Kevin Standlee has posted video of the Westercon 76 Business Meeting.

The Westercon 76 Business Meeting received the results of Westercon 78 (2026) Site Selection, ratified all of the pending amendments to the Westercon Bylaws passed on from the Westercon 75 Business Meeting, and passed two new bylaw amendments that clarify the official name of the convention and broaden the suggested range of dates for holding the convention. As with the previous wording that was in the Bylaws, the suggested range of dates (anytime during the months of May, June, and/or July) are not required, only suggested. These two bylaw amendments will be up for ratification at Westercon 77, which will be held in conjunction with BayCon 2025. The exact wording of the Bylaw amendments will be published in the minutes of the Westercon 76 Business Meeting and the 2024-25 version of the Westercon Bylaws, Standing Rules, and Draft Agenda for 2025, which we will publish when the Business Meeting staff releases it, which we expect to happen before the end of July 2024.

(6) BAYCON TO HOST WESTERCONS 77 AND 78. [Item by Kevin Standlee.] BayCon will host both Westercon 77 (2025) and 78 (2026), after the members of Westercon 76 in Utah voted to award the right to host Westercon 78 to a bid from BayCon’s parent non-profit organization. BayCon 2025 was previously awarded the right to host Westercon 77, as announced on June 14, 2024.

19 members of Westercon 76 in Utah voted in the 2026 Site Selection election. BayCon received 13 of the votes cast. The summary of votes is available here.

The write-in bid for BayCon 2026 applied to a bid filed by the Society for the Promotion of Speculative Fiction on July 2, 2024.

A more detailed breakdown of votes cast per day will be in the minutes of the Westercon 76 Business Meeting

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 7, 1968 – Jeff VanderMeer, 56.

By Paul Weimer: In some ways, Jeff Vandermeer, although he didn’t know it, helped get me into reviewing and criticism. Back around 2000, I started to get interested seriously in science fiction and fantasy and the field of SFF. I think I’ve mentioned before elsewhere that this is when I cast my first Hugo ballots, was reading Locus assiduously, etc.  I also got interested in reviewing. 

Jeff VanderMeer

In those wild days, getting into reviewing and getting arcs and books and getting involved in that community was easy, although no one would really see my work extensively for years. I was mostly reading reviews and not writing my own at this point, though. One of the reviews read in a newsletter was for City of Saints and Madmen, by Jeff Vandermeer. Given my usual tastes, this book sounded off-the-wall bonkers and way outside my comfort zone. But the reviewer, whose name sadly I cannot remember alas, convinced me of two things: I wanted to write reviews myself, to help be a signpost to others. And, germane to this birthday, to try Jeff Vandermeer.

I was stunned by the visceral, immersive, New Weird experience that City of Saints and Madmen, in its original form gave me.  I bought the later edition, too (sadly both were lost in book moves) and started reading Vandemeer ever since. He does sit outside my typical comfort zone on a number of levels (much like M John Harrison does) but his fearlessness in trailblazing the New Weird, to this day, makes him one of my must-reads. 

While I still have a strong affinity for Ambergris and the stories and novels set in it, I think my favorite is the braided, twisting, self-referential and convoluted and so out there Annihilation trilogy. I think that, even more than Ambergris, is the work that you hand someone who wants to try Vandermeer.  If you like this, you will like the rest of his work. If not, you will not.  The movie adaptation, which takes from more than just the first novel, is an interesting adaptation. It sits somewhat skewed from the main texts, but given the whole New Weird aesthetic and mindset…it makes it a good movie FOR that reason. 

And Vandermeer, along with his wife Ann, is a pretty damn good anthologist, in the bargain. (The Time Traveler’s Almanac my favorite of these.)

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Eek! settles a dispute. Did you know Godzilla has big enough hands to play this game?
  • Foxtrot proposes new shows.
  • The Argyle Sweater shows what cowpokes and writers have in common.

(9) SIMAK: A SERIES OF Q&AS. Joachim Boaz shares the clippings in “Exploration Log 4: Six Interviews with Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988)” at Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations. They include a Luna interview conducted by the brilliant interviewer Paul Walker, and an interview in Janice Bogstad and Jeanne Gomoll’s Janus conducted by Bill Brohaugh.

The first interview is:

Scholar and author James E. Gunn recorded a video interview with Clifford D. Simak in 1971 at World Science Fiction Convention in Boston.

Simak charts his earliest writing efforts, including his lost first manuscript, and his first experiences reading science fiction. He read Haggard, H. G. Wells, and Poe. And then in high school he picked up an early issue of Amazing felt a thrill that such a magazine existed. Soon he realized that he too could write for the magazines:at that time “there wasn’t too much competition and if a man could write anywhere near complementary [to what was in the magazine] you could sell.” He compares the early scene to the present in which “it’s much harder for a young writer to break in.”

He traces his early career across Midwest–North Dakota, Minnesota, etc.–as a newspaperman. His perambulatory existence prevented him from continuing his SF writing as “there’s no such thing as an eight-hour day or a 40-hour week” at the smaller newspapers. A more stable newspaper job in Minneapolis allowed him to return to science fiction. He discusses his influential letter exchange with a young Asimov, his early pulp work, and the restrictions that knowing too much about a topic places on the imagination. Simak conveys pride that his stories for John Campbell, Jr. placed “ordinary characters” in strange science fictional situations….

(10) DID YOU MISS MIDNIGHT? “George Clooney’s Post-Apocalyptic Space Movie Shouldn’t Have Flown Under the Radar” argues Collider.

…The Midnight Sky seemed to come and go without much attention, but it’s not hard to see why. It’s a film that features beautiful works of visual effects (which even received an Academy Award nomination), yet wasn’t available to be seen in theaters due to the theatrical shutdowns related to the COVID-19 virus. Additionally, audiences may have been skeptical about a cold, realistic version of a post-apocalyptic event when they were dealing with their own mental health issues during the height of the lockdown. Factors out of Clooney’s control prevented the film from getting the rollout it deserved. But The Midnight Sky is a beautiful examination of human achievement that shows just how grandiose the science fiction genre can be….

(11) LIVING 22 MINUTES IN THE PAST. FOR 378 DAYS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] A trip to “Mars“ has ended for 4 NASA crewmembers. For over a year, they lived in isolation in a simulated Mars habitat—including an up to 22-minute one-way time delay to communicate with their base “back on Earth.” “Volunteers who lived in a NASA-created Mars replica for over a year have emerged” – NPR has the story.

Four volunteers who spent more than a year living in a 1,700-square-foot space created by NASA to simulate the environment on Mars have emerged.

The members of the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog mission — or CHAPEA — walked through the door of their habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday to a round of applause.

“Hello. It’s actually just so wonderful to be able to say hello to you all,” CHAPEA commander Kelly Haston said to the assembled crowd.

Haston and the other three crew members — Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones — entered the 3D-printed Mars replica on June 25, 2023, as part of a NASA experiment to observe how humans would fare living on the Red Planet.

The volunteers grew their own vegetables, maintained equipment, participated in so-called Marswalks and faced stressors that actual space travelers to Mars could experience, including 22-minute communication delays with Earth.

The 378-day endeavor was the first of three NASA missions the space agency has planned to test how humans would respond to the conditions and challenges of living on Mars, where it says it could send astronauts as soon as the 2030s. NASA’s second CHAPEA mission is scheduled for the spring of 2025, and the third is slated to begin in 2026….

[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Kevin Standlee, Joachim Boaz, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kurt Busiek.]

Be the Change: For the Future of the Hugos by Paul Weimer

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EDITOR’S NOTE: In this sixth reprint from Journey Planet’s “Be the Change” issue, Paul Weimer urges future Worldcons to pledge that the persons involved in running the 2023 Hugos will not be part of their bid. He wants certain freedoms written into the WSFS Constitution, and a “kill switch” for the year’s Hugos if government censorship is threatened. Weimer wants an outside agency to tabulate Hugo Awards voting. He wants to add virtual participation to the Business Meeting. And also to have a way to make rules changes in a single year, rather than the current two.

View of the Hugo exhibit at Noreascon 3. Photo from Fanac.org.

By Paul Weimer: Systems that rely on being people-strong and not process-strong can last a long while without incident, until a situation arises that causes those same people to fail in their duties and responsibilities or interpret those duties and responsibilities in a way that ultimately is harmful to the system.

So it is with the Hugo Awards and Worldcon, as proven by the events of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon.

I take it as an axiom that the Hugo Awards and Worldcon have had, in the language of my dayjob, a system breakdown leading to a nonconformity. That system must be reformed or further nonconformities will occur. I take it as a second axiom that it is desirable that further nonconformities are not desirable.

In the words of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, i.e., Vladimir Lenin, I am here to propose What is to Be Done.

I propose that the system be fortified and improved in a variety of ways. What we have seen as a result of the 2023 Worldcon is a systemic breakdown. A single “patch” will leave Worldcon and the Hugos vulnerable to that patch being worked around, countermanded, ignored or otherwise proven insufficient in preventing a future system breakdown. However, I am not an anarchist; I believe that Worldcon and the Hugo Awards are important and worthy of saving.

Step One: Locking the Barn Door

I am well aware of the very loose structure of Worldcons in general. Nevertheless, given the shocking behavior and actions of those involved, I would like any and all future Worldcon bids to pledge that the individuals involved in the 2023 Hugo Awards are not permitted to be part of their bid in any capacity. I am aware of the small world of “SMOFs” and the limited nature of the tribal knowledge of running cons. However, if, for example, Dave McCarty were to be part of any future Worldcon bid, how could I, or anyone, trust a single thing that he does? And this mistrust is present in any capacity, even if he were not near the actual administration of the award itself.

In keeping with that, and getting to the root of the previous Worldcons’ mistake, I would want any future Worldcons to pledge that they will uphold freedom of speech, expression, and identity (on all axes). This should be written into the Constitution. Works and creators should have their eligibility determined only by the WSFS Constitution, not by perceived or real censorship from local government authorities or influence from outside organizations.

In cases where government censorship threatens the Hugo Awards, there should be a “kill switch.” Tainted results are worse than no results at all. There are multiple winners of the 2023 Hugo Awards that basically consider themselves not to be winners. When things have broken so badly that multiple winners have stepped back and renounced this honor, you have a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Confidence and reliability in the nominations, finalists, and tabulation of the votes has to be reestablished.

Step Two: Trust but Verify

Like the Oscars, I think it is time to employ an outside agency to tabulate nominations and finalists. While I recognize that this will cost money, having an outside auditor do the actual tabulation of nominations and final votes will show the world that the Hugo Awards and Worldcon are serious about reliability and confidence in the results. The upfront and forthright response from Glasgow when they announced the finalists was good. That, too, should be a standard written into the Constitution. The loose rules of the Constitution in reporting Hugo nominations, finalists, and other information were deliberately exploited by the Chengdu Worldcon. That’s a system breakdown; the Constitution must be amended to stop that from occurring. That, and an independent auditor, will completely restore confidence after what happened in 2023.

I understand that there are some who would object to employing an independent auditor, as opposed to “double checking” the work, but honestly, after the 2023 awards, I’d rather have an unbiased third party do it at this stage.

Step Three: Building Strength

When I first joined Worldcon, I was shocked as to how few nominations are required to get on the ballot. This was, of course, exploited some years ago by the Sad and Rabid Puppies, and efforts were put in place to make such slating more difficult. By and large, those efforts did solve that problem, but they did not address the overall problem: Worldcon, paradoxically, is too small. It costs a lot of effort and money to participate in Worldcon, and when we take into account things like the Business Meeting, it takes a lot of time as well.

Efforts need to be made to broaden the Worldcon Electorate and to improve the Business Meeting.

For the size of the science fiction readership, a few thousand voters is an astonishingly small number. While numbers for the sake of numbers is not an overall good, a larger and more interesting electorate is good for science fiction. Worldcon should take steps to make virtual participation easier and more attractive, including participation in nomination and voting. Even in this day and age, the Hugo Awards appears as a secret clubhouse; if you don’t expend enormous effort or have someone “already in the know,” you won’t ever get there from here. Worldcons should be engaging with and reaching out to the community. It can and has been done–Helsinki comes to mind. This should be the norm, not the exception. Cities that are hosting Worldcon should be engaged with. These are the World Science Fiction Awards and the World Science Fiction Convention. This is a Big Deal.

And that brings me to the Business Meeting. Right now the Business Meeting is a small, clannish, and relatively obscure part of a Worldcon. For a body that basically makes Worldcons and the Hugo Awards possible, it is, frankly, a body that does not reflect the 21st century, its norms, or needs. It was one thing when Worldcons were less than 1500 people. Now, Worldcon attendance is routinely triple or quadruple that number, and like it or not, Worldcon and the Hugo Awards have had “greatness thrust upon them.” I’ve seen the arguments that Worldcon and the Hugo Awards don’t have any responsibility or any need to respond to a larger electorate or a larger remit, but the fact of the matter is, for the wide range of SFF readers and the general public, the Hugo Awards are a cornerstone of science fiction. Worldcon, the Hugos, and the Business Meeting may not WANT that mantle, but they have that mantle.

And it’s high time to start acting like it.

A Business Meeting that basically is Robert Rules of Order: The Role-Playing Game might be well and fine in a world where the Hugo Awards don’t truly matter, but the thing is, the Hugo Awards DO matter. Careers and publishing lives were harmed by what happened in Chengdu. And a Business Meeting that purposely and deliberately makes it difficult for change and growth to occur is a Business Meeting that is holding Worldcon, the Hugo Awards, and science fiction back.

To this end, the organization of the Business Meeting should incentivize and improve attendance and participation. This would, I propose, include a virtual component as well as physical attendance. Worldcon is in Glasgow this year. A fan who cannot get to Glasgow should not have their ideas go unheard because of it.

I think that the two years “King Log” approach to any changes to Worldcon and the Hugos is a brake that perhaps has had its time. However, a Business Meeting that allowed virtual participation would help make “King Log” less of a problem. Consider, a fan from, say, York going to their first Worldcon in Glasgow this year. Even if they have a great idea, attend the Business Meeting, and propose a resolution, if they can’t afford to go to the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, they will subsequently be unable to follow through on their proposal.

As a result, the proposals and changes that happen to the Hugo Awards and Worldcons are, in practice, restricted to a cadre of dedicated con-goers who can afford to go to Worldcons in far flung locations and have the time and desire to play Robert’s Rules of Order: The Role-Playing Game in order to have any changes done. This fundamentally and practically puts the administration of Worldcons and the Hugo Awards in the hands of a small Oligarchy. As evidenced in the 2023 Worldcon and Hugo Awards, that Oligarchy has failed in its duties.

There is much more to be done besides all of this, but these changes would provide a foundation to help create an inclusive, dynamic, diverse Worldcon that avoids the pitfalls and problems that have tarnished its reputation.