The 2024 WSFS Business Meeting Agenda published today by the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon contains the text of 12 amendments passed at the Chengdu Worldcon that are up for ratification; 20 newly proposed constitutional amendments; and the full text of 12 resolutions – but not the text of two other resolutions described by the committee as calling for the “censure of certain groups and named individuals over the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards”.
The titles of the two resolutions are:
“Statement of Values for Transparency and Fair Treatment” submitted by Chris Garcia, James Bacon, Frank Wu, Chris Barkley, Steve Davidson, Kirsten Berry, Chuck Serface, Paul Weimer, Andrew E. Love, Claudia Beach, Nina Shepardson, Bonnie McDaniel, Tobes Valois, and Linda Robinette.
“Chengdu Censure” submitted by Terri Ash, Kevin Sonney, Cliff Dunn, and Kristina Forsyth.
The resolutions will still be brought to the floor of the Business Meeting, but the substance of the charges will not be allowed to be discussed. Instead, Glasgow 2024, availing themselves of procedures in Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised, will treat the censure resolution as “a motion to form a committee on investigation as the first step in disciplinary proceedings.” This committee will be elected by the meeting to conduct an investigation into the allegations contained in the resolutions — including a reasonable attempt to speak with the members accused — and report back to the 2025 Business Meeting in Seattle, USA.
Glasgow 2024 has assumed the authority to say the Business Meeting will be placed in executive session while all of these proceedings are handled, and that session will be exclusively focused on the formation of an investigative committee into the charges. Glasgow 2024 says they will suspend livestream coverage during the related portion of the Business Meeting. The details of debate will not be published in the publicly available minutes, nor will this section of the meeting be shown in the posted recording of the Business Meeting.
The committee says this procedure has been formulated after taking “legal counsel to ensure adherence to Scottish law.”
We are concerned that publication of these items, as well as public debate about them in Glasgow 2024 spaces, will bring us out of compliance with Scottish libel and defamation law and expose Glasgow 2024, the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), and/or its members to significant legal liability.
But their statement in the agenda also says, “The World Science Fiction Society also has the clear right to hold its members accountable for their conduct and do so as transparently as possible.”
(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.
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.
….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.”
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….
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.
“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.
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.
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?
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…
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….
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.]
Donald Eastlake III has sent File 770 a copy for publication of a motion submitted to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting.
“Site Selection by the Worldcon Community” restricts site selection voter eligibility to those who have purchased the required membership and either (1) vote in person, (2) have cast a valid vote in the site selection that selected the administering convention, or (3) attended the previous year’s Worldcon or cast a valid vote in the site selection administered by the previous year’s Worldcon.
SHORT TITLE: SITE SELECTION BY THE WORLDCON COMMUNITY
Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution by adding text in Article 4 as follows:
Section 4.2: Voter Eligibility.
4.2.1: Voting shall be limited to WSFS members who have purchased at least a supporting membership[1] in the Worldcon whose site is being selected and meet one of the following criteria:
Vote in person at the administering convention,
Have cast a valid vote in the site selection that selected the administering convention, or
Have attended the previous year’s Worldcon or cast a valid vote in the Worldcon site selection administered by the previous year’s Worldcon.
Worldcons shall make available to the following Worldcon the information necessary to confirm criteria 3 above. Ballots that do not meet any of these criteria will be processed as if voted for “No Preference”.
Section 4.1: Voting.
4.1.2: Voting shall be by written ballot cast either by mail or at the current Worldcon with tallying as described in Section 6.4. Votes cast by mail must arrive at least 15 days before the end of on-site voting or they will be processed as if voted for “No Preference”.
PROPOSED BY: Donald E. Eastlake III, Jill Eastlake, Kevin Standlee, Tim Szczesuil
COMMENTARY: The most critical decisions made by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), the decisions with potentially the longest-term effects, are the selection of future Worldcon sites and committees and the amendment of the WSFS Constitution. This amendment addresses the first of these, site selection, which also affects the second because selected convention committees have significant control over the WSFS Business Meeting as well as the Hugo Award and site selection they administer.
The sponsors of this amendment trust the Worldcon Community to make the site selection decision. What is the Worldcon Community? In an approximate and general sense, it is those whose work and participation over the past 85 years has made the Worldcon what it is and given it value. These are, overwhelmingly, people who have attended the Worldcon. And, until the selection of Chengdu, they were the bulk of the site selection voters.
But under the present rules, the Worldcon is, in effect, available for purchase. Since modern day science fiction fans are common and ubiquitous, for at most a couple of hundred thousand dollars, a small amount for any substantial business or government entity wanting the prestige of a Worldcon, that entity can solicit voters, pay some or all the fees for them, get their vote counted, and win site selection. And when they win, they get the voting fees back.
This amendment tries to make the least restrictive change that it can while substantially improving the chances that the Worldcon Community will dominate site selection. It also provides for an earlier deadline for mail in ballots since it is very hard to do any checking when an avalanche of ballots arrive near the close of voting. It has no effect on who can vote on the Hugo Awards or on Business Meeting participation which are controlled by other rules.
This amendment includes as voters those who will have voted/attended recently. If this amendment is passed in Glasgow and ratified in Seattle, to participate in the site selection administered by the 2026 Worldcon a member of that Worldcon would have to pay the advance membership fee for 2028 and either vote in person at the 2026 Worldcon, have attended the 2025 Worldcon, have cast a valid ballot in the site selection administered by the 2025 Worldcon for 2027, or cast a valid ballot in 2024 for the selection of the 2026 Worldcon. Looking further into the future, a new voter who has never voted in site selection will have to attend either the Worldcon where the vote is being held or the previous Worldcon. However, once they have voted they can continue to vote in site selection without attending another Worldcon as long as they continue to vote with no more than a one year gap in voting.
[1] This “supporting membership” is part of the current Constitution. Business Passed On from Chengdu, Item 3 (Short Title: Consistent Change) will, if ratified in Glasgow, change this to “WSFS membership”.
By Kevin Standlee: Popular Ratification is the name of a proposal that would change the way that amendments to the WSFS Constitution are ratified, opening up the process so that all WSFS members (attending and non-attending) would have a vote in the process.
Currently, changes to the WSFS Constitution must be passed by the vote of the WSFS Business Meeting at two consecutive Worldcons. Only WSFS members attending the Business Meeting may vote. The current system allows the second year’s meeting to make changes to the proposal, provided that such changes do not increase the scope of the proposal.
Many members have complained that it is unfair that only those WSFS members who have the resources to attend Worldcon and the ability to spend a substantial portion of their time at that Worldcon in the Business Meeting have a voice and a vote in the amendment process.
Some people have proposed things like holding the meeting entirely online or allowing proxy voting. This proposal does not address those ideas, but does address something that I know I have heard many times. People who attend Worldcon but whose other commitments do not allow them to spend 10 AM to 1 PM for three or four days of the convention attending the Business Meeting have complained, “I can’t spend all of that time, and I don’t want to sit through all of that debate stuff. I just want to vote!”
WSFS doesn’t have a Board of Directors. It is governed by a “Town Meeting” direct democracy. Because of this, the Meeting can often spend a lot of time arguing procedural matters. There is no delegated decision-making body. All legislation is in the hands of the members, but only those members who come and sit through the arguments, amendments, and maneuvering. This can be immensely frustrating and time-consuming. It is a big barrier to participation.
Short of changing our system to an elected representative democracy, there are a few ways that we could allow all WSFS members to directly vote upon proposals, Popular Ratification is one of those ways.
Under Popular Ratification, the Business Meeting would still be the place where constitutional amendments start. The process of hashing out a proposal and wordsmithing it would continue to be at the Business Meeting. Once a proposal passes the Business Meeting, it would be the responsibility of the following year’s Worldcon to submit those changes to a vote of all of all current WSFS members. Those members would not have to attend Worldcon or the Business Meeting.
This new ratification process would allow members to vote in advance or at the convention. This is the same system as we use for voting on future Worldcon Site Selection. Unlike Site Selection, no additional fee would be required to vote on ratification of constitutional amendments.
All WSFS members, attending or not, could vote. Any proposal that gets more yes votes than no votes would be ratified and would take effect at the end of the Worldcon where the ratification vote was held.
There are exceptions and special cases defined in the motion, including dealing with proposals with conflicting effects.
This proposed procedure is similar to how changes to the constitutions of some states in the USA are handled. In those states, the legislature originates constitutional amendments, which are then submitted to the voters of the state for ratification.
I think that this proposal strikes a balance between the debate needed to originate constitutional amendments and recognizing that all of the members of the World Science Fiction Society have a stake in the process of making changes to the Society’s rules.
This proposal would not speed up the process of changing the WSFS Constitution. Some people think that it should be possible to make changes very quickly, and even to apply changes retroactively. While I understand the passion that these people have, an organization’s fundamental governing document should not be subject to sudden changes. This is why WSFS has required that constitutional changes take two years to complete. The two-year ratification process reduces what has been called “meeting packing,” It is not difficult to round up a bunch of people at a single Worldcon to push through proposals, It is a lot harder to do it two years in a row.
This would not be the first time that WSFS has changed its rules to allow people who cannot attend the Business Meeting to have a stake in a major part of how Worldcon works. Until the early 1970s, the selection of the site for future Worldcons was done entirely by a vote of the Business Meeting. You had to be at the meeting in order to vote. According to what I have read, only those people who were present at the start of the meeting where the vote would happen could vote. The doors were secured and late-comers were not admitted. This was to make sure that each bid could make a speech before the vote so that all the voters could hear it. Voting was done only in person.
By 1975, the members of WSFS had voted to introduce advance voting by mail. Today, almost fifty years later, we take it for granted that site selection voting is done in advance and at the convention. The Business Meeting’s role has been reduced to a ceremonial receipt of the results, even when there have been legitimate questions raised about the voting. Today, the idea that the Business Meeting should have a substantive voice in the determination of the results of Site Selection appears to be considered absurd by most members.
Over the years, WSFS has changed its rules to increase its openness to participation by all of its members, not just those physically present at the convention or at the Business Meeting. This has included such steps as publishing the meetings’ minutes, making the governing documents available online, and recording and posting recordings of the meetings. Publishing recordings of the Business Meeting was controversial when we started doing so in the 2000s. There were some members of long standing who strongly objected to recordings being made. They certainly did not want those recordings published where anyone with a web browser could see them. It did not become a fully accepted part of the process until the Business Meeting passed a rule confirming it. Now, we take for granted that the Business Meeting can provide for official recordings. Also, any member of WSFS present at the meeting may make their own recordings. Thus, the proceedings of WSFS, once obscure, are open to everyone who wants to see them.
We have changed our rules to allow the non-attending members to vote on where to hold future Worldcons. We have made the Business Meeting less mysterious and something where all members can hear the debate over proposals. Surely we can change our rules to allow them to have a vote in the process for changing our fundamental governing document. Doing so would be another step in an ongoing process of opening up the governance of the World Science Fiction Society to all of its members.
Kevin Standlee has sent File 770 a copy for publication of a motion submitted to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting.
“Popular Ratification” proposes that an amendment to the WSFS Constitution passed at a Business Meeting shall then be subject to ratification by a vote of WSFS members of the following year’s Worldcon. If the amendment receives a majority of votes in favor, it shall take effect at the end of the administering Worldcon (unless a later date is specified in the amendment).
SHORT TITLE: POPULAR RATIFICATION
Moved, To amend Article 6 the WSFS Constitution to replace the existing process for amending the WSFS Constitution with a process that would replace the existing ratification process with a ratification election by the WSFS members of the Worldcon the year after the Worldcon whose Business Meeting first passed the amendment by striking out and inserting words as follows:
Section 6.6: Amendment. The WSFS Constitution may be amended by a motion passed by a simple majority at any Business Meeting but only to the extent that such motion is ratified by a simple majority at the Business Meeting of the subsequent Worldcon.the process described in this Section.
6.6.1. First Passage.A Constitutional amendment passed by a majority vote at any Business Meeting shall be submitted to the members of WSFS for ratification by a process administered by the following year’s Worldcon.
6.6.2. Ratification.Each Worldcon shall conduct an election to ratify Constitutional amendments given first passage by the Business Meeting of the previous Worldcon. All WSFS members of the Worldcon administering the election on or before the end of the election period shall be entitled to vote on each amendment. Each amendment shall be presented as a separate proposal and voted upon individually.
6.6.3. Election Period. Ratification voting shall open at least ninety (90) days before the first Preliminary Business Meeting and shall close at the same time as Site Selection voting at the Worldcon administering the election.
6.6.4. Arguments For and Against Ratification.The Business Meeting may provide by the Standing Rules for the Governance of the Business Meeting for a process whereby arguments for and against ratification may be presented to the membership. The Worldcon administering the ratification election shall be responsible for making such arguments available to the eligible members.
6.6.5Vote Required for Ratification.
(1) Any amendment that receives more votes in favor of ratification than votes opposed to ratification shall be considered ratified, except as otherwise provided in this Section.
(2) Should amendments with conflicting provisions receive more votes in favor of ratification than votes opposed to ratification, only the amendment that receives the most votes in favor of ratification shall be considered ratified.
(3) Should amendments with conflicting provisions and with the most votes in favor of ratification be tied, the Business Meeting of the Worldcon administering the voting shall determine which version shall be considered ratified after it receives the results of the ratification vote. However, the Business Meeting making such decision may not amend the amendments pending ratification, but may only select from among them.
6.6.7. Announcement of Results.The Worldcon administering the voting shall announce the results of each ratification vote at the Site Selection Business Meeting.
Section 6.7: Commencement. Any changeratified amendment to the Constitution of WSFS shall take effect at the end of the Worldcon at which such change is ratified,that administered the ratification election for that amendment, unless a later date is specified in the amendment, except that no change imposing additional costs or financial obligations upon Worldcon Committees shall be binding upon any Committee already selected at the time when it takes effect.
Provided That this amendment shall first affect Constitutional amendments that receive first passage at the 2026 Business Meeting, so that any Constitutional amendments receiving first passage at the 2025 Business Meeting must be ratified by the 2026 Business Meeting by the process in place before the ratification of this amendment;
Provided Further That upon initial passage of this amendment, the Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee is directed to draw up proposed Standing Rules for the regulation of arguments for and against ratification, as provided for in new section 6.6.5, and to report such proposed rules to the 2025 WSFS Business Meeting for consideration if this Constitutional amendment is ratified;
Provided Further That unless the above changes are re-ratified by the 2030 Business Meeting, this amendment shall be repealed and the wording of sections 6.6 and 6.7 shall revert to what was in place at the time of this amendment’s initial ratification; and
Provided Further That the question of re-ratification of this amendment shall automatically be placed on the agenda of the 2030 Business Meeting.
PROPOSED BY: Kevin Standlee, Berni Phillips Bratman, Linda Deneroff, Lisa Hayes, Laura Miller, Cheryl Morgan, Ron Oakes, Linda Robinette, Olav Rokne.
COMMENTARY: Currently, amendments to the WSFS Constitution must be passed by one WSFS Business Meeting and then ratified by the following year’s meeting. This means that the legislative process is exclusively limited to those WSFS members who attend the Business Meeting. Members who cannot attend the meeting cannot participate in the process.
This proposal would replace the ratification stage (the second WSFS Business Meeting) with a vote of all WSFS members, whether or not they attend the Worldcon, of the Worldcon following the one whose Business Meeting gave the Constitutional amendment first passage. The Administering Worldcon (the one following the year in which the amendment received first passage) would submit all amendments that were first passed in the previous year to their WSFS members (attending and non-attending). Members could vote in advance of the convention by mail or by other mechanism (electronic voting) determined by the Administering Worldcon, or they could vote in person at the Administering Worldcon. (Note that existing WSFS Constitution Section 6.3 already says that “Valid paper ballots delivered by any means shall always be acceptable.” Therefore, the Administering Worldcon must provide a mechanism to vote by paper ballot; however, this proposal does not otherwise regulate the technology that the Administering Worldcon must use to run their election. The proponents of this proposal assume that the Administering Worldcon is likely to develop some form of electronic voting such as what is used for the Hugo Awards; however, it is up to each Worldcon to determine how they want to run their election.
Voting would continue until the end of Worldcon Site Selection, which typically ends on the third day of the Worldcon. The results of the ratification vote would be announced at the Site Selection Business Meeting. Any Constitutional Amendment receiving a majority (more yes votes than no votes) would be ratified. Ties lose, and abstentions or blank ballots do not count. There is no minimum vote requirement.
As with current Constitutional amendments, any ratified amendment becomes part of the Constitution upon ratification, but is not effective until the end of the Worldcon where it is ratified, A Constitutional amendment could include a future effective date, but could not take effect before the end of the Worldcon whose members ratified it. Once an amendment becomes part of the Constitution, it can be amended, even if it is not yet effective.
The Administering Worldcon would be required to publish arguments for and against ratification of Constitutional Amendments. The Business Meeting could create regulations for such arguments (such as who could submit them, any length restrictions, deadlines for submitting arguments, and so forth), and the provisions for this proposal directs the Nitpicking & Flyspecking Committee to, upon first passage of this proposal, to draw up a draft of such regulations to be considered by the 2025 WSFS Business Meeting should this proposal be ratified at the 2025 Meeting.
This proposal includes transition rules for moving from the current system to the new system, and a “sunset” re-ratification clause that would require the Business Meeting to re-ratify this system at the 2030 Meeting.
This proposal opens up the right to vote to nearly every WSFS member, other than the small number of members who join Worldcon as a WSFS member after the close of Site Selection voting. It would allow nearly all WSFS members to express a preference on changes to the WSFS Constitution without having to attend the current Worldcon or the Business Meeting.
This does not speed up the ratification process; however, it allows all WSFS members to have a say in the ratification process, rather than restricting it to members attending the business meeting.
Linda Deneroff has sent File 770 copies for publication of two motions submitted to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting.
“Missing In Action” proposes to create a limited exception to the current prohibition on transferring WSFS memberships.
“The Way We Were” proposes to restore earlier terminology by replacing “WSFS Membership” with “Supporting Membership” wherever it appears in the Constitution, and to replace “Attending Supplement” with “Attending Membership”.
SHORT TITLE: MISSING IN ACTION
Moved, to amend Section 1.5.2 of the WSFS Constitution by striking out and inserting the following:
WSFS memberships held by natural persons may not be transferred, except in the following circumstances: (a) when a person purchases a WSFS membership for someone without providing a name or accidentally purchases a duplicate membership. That membership may be transferred only prior to the opening of Hugo Award nominations in the winning convention, and (b)that, in the case of death of aif a natural person holding a WSFS membership dies, itthe WSFS membership may be transferred to the estate of the decedent.
PROPOSED BY: Linda Deneroff, Alexia Hebel, and Kevin Standlee
COMMENTARY: When someone tried to purchase more than one voting token for site selection, the Chengdu payment system was unable to record the name of the second, etc., person or persons. Thus, the person making the payment had multiple WSFS memberships that were actually meant for other people. This amendment would permit a person to purchase WSFS memberships and assign them to others, but only before any election was open in the winning convention.
SHORT TITLE: THE WAY WE WERE
Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution by striking out and inserting the following:
Moved: To replace WSFS Membership with Supporting Membership wherever it appears in the Constitution, and to replace Attending Supplement with Attending Membership, including all similar variations of the words (e.g., WSFS Memberships, WSFS members, attending supplement) to their grammatically correct replacements.
PROPOSED BY: Linda Deneroff, Alexia Hebel, Kevin Standlee, and Kevin Black
COMMENTARY: Since both terms involved the word “Membership” there has been a lot of confusion among people purchasing memberships who do not understand why they have to purchase a “second” membership, or why they have to buy a “WSFS membership” in the first place. Under the original terminology, the price of an attending membership was inclusive of the support price.
Any reimbursement restrictions could still remain in place, with the price of the supporting portion of the attending membership deducted from any refund.
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. This is the final post in the series.
“No, We Don’t Like Surprises, Why Do You Ask?” adds to the Standing Rules a restriction that “No business may be submitted to the Business Meeting without prior notice for consideration at the same meeting of the Business Meeting without unanimous consent.”
“Strike 1.4” deletes the Standing Rule that limits when the Business Meeting may start and which requires a specific time gap between the Preliminary Business Meeting and the Main Business Meeting.
“Magnum P.I.” changes the Standing Rules to permit a “Motion to Postpone Indefinitely” to be made not just at the Preliminary Business Meeting but also the first time a main motion is brought before a Main Business Meeting.
SHORT TITLE: “NO, WE DON’T LIKE SURPRISES, WHY DO YOU ASK?”
Add rule 2.2.1 to the Standing Rules, as follows:
Rule 2.2.1: Emergency Business. No business may be submitted to the Business Meeting without prior notice for consideration at the same meeting of the Business Meeting without unanimous consent. Any business which is submitted with unanimous consent for immediate consideration and adopted shall be subject to a motion to reconsider at the next day’s meeting of the Business Meeting, and said motion may be made and/or seconded by any member who voted against its passage or who was not present at the time. No business may be brought up under this section on the final scheduled day of the Business Meeting. Excepted from this shall be business presented to the Business Meeting by the Site Selection Administrator pertaining to that year’s Site Selection process and motions pertaining to the resolution of a disputed or failed Site Selection process. Except as provided within, this rule shall not be subject to a suspension of the rules.
SPONSORS: Cliff Dunn, Kristina Forsyth, Erica Frank
DISCUSSION: This is a minimal change, but it is aimed at preventing a “surprise rules change” by the Preliminary Business Meeting, as happened in Chengdu. The concept of “Notice to Absentees” is important, especially in the context of a convention with multiple conflicting tracks of business. Basically, this would force any such business to the next day. The sole carve-out is for Site Selection business — both for the potential adjudication of disputed ballots and the resolution of a disputed or failed Site Selection process. The former is necessarily time-sensitive and the latter should be considered potentially noticed in the form of the “Site Selection Business Meeting”.
SHORT TITLE: “STRIKE 1.4”
Standing Rule 1.4 shall be struck in its entirety.
Rule 1.4: Scheduling of Meetings. The first Main Meeting shall be scheduled no less than eighteen (18) hours after the conclusion of the last Preliminary Meeting. No meeting shall be scheduled to begin before 10:00 or after 13:00 local time.
SPONSORS: Cliff Dunn, Kate Secor
DISCUSSION: Standing Rule 1.4 is the Standing Rule which both limits when the Business Meeting may start and which requires a specific time gap between the Preliminary Business Meeting and the Main Business Meeting.
We find Standing Rule 1.4 overly prescriptive in its constraints on the Business Meeting. While it might be preferable to schedule meetings according to the directions contained in Standing Rule 1.4, as the last few Worldcons have shown, facility availability and business volume may not always align with this. Whether it is the necessity of the Preliminary Business Meeting spilling into a second day’s session or the possibility that space availability might require “non-conventional” scheduling (e.g. an earlier start or split sessions within a single day with a planned break), Rule 1.4 doesn’t anticipate anything but “vanilla” scheduling. We therefore propose eliminating it so as to remove those constraints.
SHORT TITLE: MAGNUM P.I.
Rule 5.3: Postpone Indefinitely. The motion to Postpone Indefinitely shall not be allowed at the Main Business Meeting, but shall be allowed at the Preliminary Business Meeting and the first time a main motion is brought before a Main Business Meeting. This motion shall have four (4) minutes of debate time and shall require a two-thirds (2/3) vote for adoption.
SPONSORS: Cliff Dunn, Jared Dashoff
DISCUSSION: At Discon in 2021, the Business Meeting was subject to heavier time constraints than usual across its first three days. At Chicon in 2022, the business of the Preliminary Business Meeting spilled over into the first day of the Main Business Meeting due to a large amount of business being presented. Combined with the wave of business this year, the possibility that business which might be respectfully but swiftly disposed of via Postpone Indefinitely might be unable to be disposed of thusly for no other reason than the Preliminary Business Meeting either being cut short or running over has emerged. Therefore, we propose to adjust the rules surrounding Postpone Indefinitely to allow it to be brought up at the “first pass” of any item of business.
Our hope is that this will be adopted with a 2/3 vote for immediate effect, given this year’s Business Meeting circumstances.
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.
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.
“When We Censure You, We Mean It” proposes that someone censured by the WSFS Business Meeting shall be ineligible to participate in bidding or running a WSFS convention for a specified period. A bid which names such a person on their committee shall be ineligible to appear on the Site Selection ballot or be written in. A seated Worldcon committee that includes such a person, even as a guest, shall be deemed incapable and its site selection and Hugo administration functions will be assumed by the following seated Worldcon.
SHORT TITLE: WHEN WE CENSURE YOU, WE MEAN IT
Moved to amend the WSFS Constitution by adding the following text:
Section 4.X: Bid and Convention Committee Eligibility
4.X.1: No person who has been censured by the WSFS Business Meeting shall be eligible to participate in bidding for or administering a WSFS-selected convention or any associated responsibilities, for a period of five (5) years or until the censure is lifted, whichever is longer.
4.X.2: Any bid naming a censured person on their committee shall become ineligible to appear on the Site Selection ballot or for selection by write-in vote. Any Worldcon committee naming a censured person on their staff at any level or as a named guest shall be deemed incapable and their WSFS business functions (site selection and Hugo administration) shall be assumed by the following seated Worldcon.
SPONSORS: Kate Secor, Kristina Forsyth, Terri Ash, Kevin Sonney
DISCUSSION: Right now, being censured by WSFS has no actual practical effect. Let’s make it mean something.
WSFS has historically been reluctant to censure people, which means that the bar to doing so is extremely high, and when we do it, it should have some kind of real-world effect. This sets up what seems like a proportionate response to the level of malfeasance required for a censure.
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.
