Worldcon Intellectual Property (W.I.P.) is the California non-profit corporation that holds the service marks of the World Science Fiction Society (www.wsfs.org) including the mark “Hugo Award”. In the midst of social media discussions about the continued viability of these marks, W.I.P. issued the following press release on January 30.
W.I.P. takes very seriously the recent complaints about the 2023 Hugo Award process and complaints about comments made by persons holding official positions in W.I.P. In connection with these concerns, W.I.P. announces the actions listed below. There may be other actions taken or to be taken that are not in this announcement.
- Dave McCarty has resigned as a Director of W.I.P.
- Kevin Standlee has resigned as Chair of the W.I.P. Board of Directors (BoD).
W.I.P. has censured or reprimanded the following persons, listed in alphabetic order, for the reason given:
- Dave McCarty – censured for his public comments that have led to harm of the goodwill and value of our marks and for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.
- Chen Shi – censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.
- Kevin Standlee – reprimanded for public comments that mistakenly led people to believe that we are not servicing our marks.
- Ben Yalow – censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.
Donald Eastlake has been elected Chair of the W.I.P. BoD.
The release also asks readers to note:
Each year’s World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) is run by a separate organization which administers the Hugo Awards for that year. The Chengdu 2023 Worldcon has asked that any specific questions about the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards be sent to [email protected]. (For media enquiries on topics related to W.I.P. other than the specifics of the 2023 Hugo Awards, you may contact [email protected].)
[Based on a press release.]
Update: 01/30/2024: The membership of the WIP Board are the members of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee. Upon Dave McCarty’s resignation, the MPC elected Bruce Farr to fill that now-empty seat (which was up for election at the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting). Bruce was currently already serving as a non-voting Treasurer of the MPC and of WIP.
The members of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee as of January 30, 2024 are: Judith Bemis (Elected until 2026); Alan Bond (Appointed by Seattle 2025 until 2027); Joni Dashoff (Elected until 2026); Linda Deneroff (Secretary, Elected until 2024); Donald E. Eastlake 3rd (Chair Elected until 2024); David Ennis (Appointed by Buffalo NASFiC 2024 until 2026); Bruce Farr (Treasurer, Appointed by Board Resolution to fill vacancy until 2024); Alissa Wales (Appointed by Glasgow 2024 until 2026); Chris Rose (Appointed by Chicon 8 until 2024); Linda Ross-Mansfield (Appointed by Pemmi-Con/2023 NASFiC until 2025); Chen Shi (Appointed by Chengdu Worldcon 2023 until 2025); Kevin Standlee (Elected until 2025); Mike Willmoth (Elected until 2026); Nicholas Whyte (Elected until 2025); and Ben Yalow (Elected until 2025).
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The “direct your questions on the Hugo voting to an email address we know you’ll never get an answer from” feels like a fancy eff you.
@Andrew Porter
-I- was not naive about that, but I see that a lot of other people were, and continue to be.
taiga, as the WIP/MPC are not involved in the convention’s specific awarding of the Hugo Awards, there is not a lot else we can tell you; those decisions are always by the committee of the seated Worldcon, and they are the only ones who are even able to answer those questions.
We can’t speak to their willingness or responsiveness, but WIP does not have the ability to give you any better answer (and can’t; that’s not in WIP’s authority to do so)
Andrew Porter
While more of a lurker than an active voice, I didn’t for a minute. Those of us who argued against it were told we didn’t know what we were talking about, and how could we punish the Chinese fans?
Sometimes dreams coming true are the most horrible of nightmares.
@Ed Green
“Those who learn from history get to watch in horror as those who don’t play out the same losing scenarios, repeatedly.”
@taiga:
I don’t think it’s that fancy.
@Jay Blanc – I followed your link and looked up WIP’s records. I’m no expert, so maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I note that their two most recent filings were accepted. Could it be that the delinquency has already been fixed?
Going to clarify my last comment since people seem to have missed the significance of it.
Worldcon Intellectual Property, as of last year, and having had and gone past their 30 days to respond in September, are in Tax Delinquency with the State of California back dated to 2020. This appears due to a failure to file, and a failure to attend to a warning notice delivered in August. They are under warning by the State of California Department of Justice that they face assessment of penalties, fees, suspension or revocation of status.
There has been some comment in the same arena that was discussing the trademark issues, that the organisation of the WSFS Surplus clause makes a tax audit of WIP a potential problem. I strongly advise they talk to a Tax attorney.
Curt Phillips: I am very surprised at Ben Yalow’s censure. In all matters Worldconish, Ben has long been one of the few people in the room who really knew what they were doing. I suspect that Ben may have been thrown under the bus in this matter… Fandom doesn’t need scapegoats.
The Ben Yalow you remember from back when you were active in Worldcon is not the same Ben Yalow from the last 10-15 years.
Ben’s not a scapegoat. He and McCarty have been taking turns driving the bus, and they’re fully accountable for the train they just crashed into. Ben’s being censured because he bears a legitimate heaping helping of responsibility here.
@Jerry Kaufman
They are still listed as Delinquent, and there’s a letter on file refunding their last fee check, because it appears they just tried to file their 2023 filings again, instead of making the missing filings.
It’s possible this is the state’s error. But it’s WIP’s duty to keep on top of their tax status.
Jay Blanc:
Why not turn to wealthy Liang Xiaolan and her friends for help? I believe she can offer lots of money and ways to commercialize for profits, just like what she did in Chengdu, didn’t she?
@Curt Philips:
People who acept work in Worldcons have responsibility.
Ben Yalow did acept the job to take care of last years worldcon. He promised that there wouldn’t be any shananigans and it would be buisness as usual.
Fast forward to Dave releasing the document.
We have unexplained disqualifications and a document that is a bad joke to stay polite.
So Ben did a) take a job without doing anything b) did take a part of that manipulation or c) at last did take a blind eye to it.
This are the facts and he got of lightly in my opinion.
So, I see the part where Kevin Standlee is reprimanded and forced to step down as WIP chair for “public comments that mistakenly led people to believe that we are not servicing our marks”
I’m missing the part where the WIP is servicing its marks. Unless the reprimands and censures and resignations are it, in which case I am underwhelmed. Maybe there’s nothing more the WIP can do in this case. But if there is, they should do it, and if there isn’t, they shouldn’t reprimand the guy who said so.
If that’s so, then the W.I.P. hasn’t justified it in their statement above. We could do with a fuller explanation than to just say “for his actions”. What actions? Did Ben shoot somebody in Chengdu? Show up wearing a Bolo tie instead of a bow tie?
Or are Ben and his Co-chair being blamed for part of this mess for failing – as co-chairs – to exercise oversight as regards the Hugo Awards? If so, that might not be as straightforward as it may seem.
I hope to eventually see fuller explanations.
@Jay Blanc,
Honestly, that stuff happens all the time in US corporation filings – if you look through the list there’s been a few of those over the years and most companies and 503c entities get form letters like that for this sort of thing. It’s part of the structure of running companies incorporated in the US where they could all learn something from Companies House in the UK.
If you follow the paper trail that is listed there was a misfiled form in 2020 which they apparently caught up with in 2023 but they’re still listed as in good standing and they accepted the filings – I suspect it’ll be cleared out this year with the 2024 filings. It was a first notification to fix the issue – which looks to date back to a change in form use but has only just been caught – as Jerry says, the other filings have been accepted.
Could we PLEASE stop willing this to be worse than it is?
While they do say that more actions may be taken, these minor slaps on the wrist are disappointing. Of course, several allegations have yet to be proven, and some may never be proven, but the pending allegations are very serious, at the level of demanding not simply a lifetime ban from WSFS related offices, but possible legal action.
As in so many scandals, there are the actions, and there is the coverup. The coverup is not just alleged. On statement from the Hugo administrator, all members of the Hugo committee and the con co-chair have conspired to say nothing and stick to a simple statement with no information, and absent a few outbursts, have stuck to that agreement.
But consider what else is alleged:
1) Hugo nomination ballot totals are allegedly deliberately manipulated
2) Hugo nominations calculations (EPH) were done incorrectly, allegedly deliberately or incompetently
3) Valid hugo nominees were eliminated from the ballot for no valid reason under the rules, with no extraconstitutional reasons named, in spite of many requests
4) Release of information on the above process was delayed, allegedly deliberately to hide the above alleged malfeasance.
5) All members of the committee have conspired to keep available information on the above problems from WSFS members
These allegations amount to the most serious malfeasance I can recall of Hugo and convention administrators, and unless there is no truth to them, the cover-up is itself a violation of the long tradition of transparency which is necessary in a system run in the highly unusual way WSFS and its yearly instances known as worldcons are structured. We’ve seen a number of people declare that they now feel the Hugos as a whole can be trusted or matter any more, which, should it happen in significant numbers, is the worst think that can happen to a trademark. For that reason, anybody who has participated in, or continues to participate in the cover-up has no place on a mark protection committee.
All members of the Chengdo Hugo and con committees should instead make a statement of anything they know about any malfeasance, or make a declaration that they are unaware of any which explains their prior silence. Even “I was not aware of any of these events, and because of that, person X requested I make no statements” would be a possible explanation, for example.
So while I am surprised that two of the three censured members retain their seats, I hope that this is a temporary situation, brought on by their refusal to resign, pending further investigation.
Hmmm… I think I’d like to see Ben’s comments on all this, should he make any. I still feel as though there are essential elements to this story that we’ve not heard yet.
@Cally–The resignations,removals, censures, and reprimands may well be part of “LISTENING to that trademark attorney.” Because yes, in trademark law, doing these things, or failing to do them, when you’re a nonprofit with both trademarks, and rules that make it possible for you to take things actions, really does matter, in being seen to actively defend your marks.
Ben Yalow may well have been instructed by counsel not to do any public declarations.
And that’s the charitable explanation.
I was supposed to head back to Oslo from China in September, but some super slow government red tape kept me there until November. That’s when I got to attend the Worldcon . I had a few brief chats with some of the organizers and made some interesting observations.
Dave and Ben were kinda like missionaries from a century ago, trying to spread the vibe and influence of the WorldCon to the fandom in China,They are ambitious, but perhaps their ambitions are too grand. Due to their ambition,They were constantly adapting and compromising with the local culture.
The Chinese volunteers came from various, sometimes even conflicting, fandom and organizations. Yep, there’s a lot of friction in China’s fan circles and sci-fi organizations – they often butt heads. The concom, no matter westerners or chinese, seemed like dragging a big cart through the mud, where it’s falling apart at any moment and the four wheels are constantly fighting each other.I haven’t even mentioned the influence of the government and large corporations yet.
they screw up for sure. But instead of figuring out who to blame, I’m more interested in how we can make the Hugo Awards system more reliable.
@Daveon–Some people actively want this to be the Death of WorldCon and the Death of the Hugos. That’s why they won’t accept evidence contrary to their doomsaying.
@Cally
Mike Dunford is an IP attorney, as well as a fan.
Could be. I’m starting to see that this issue might well… grow…
@Curt Phillips: It isn’t W.I.P. that has the ability to ban bids from countries not meeting freedom/transparency/dignity standards. That could only be accomplished by amending the WSFS Constitution. There would have to be a provision added to say, “A site shall be ineligible if it is located within a country that ….” (I am not going to try to write the provision myself, but that’s how the provision might begin — you can envision the rest.)
Yes, it would be possible to block a bid from Uganda with such a provision, since Uganda is planning to bid for 2028, with the vote to take place in 2026. But such a provision would have to be adopted at the business meeting at the Worldcon in Glasgow this year, then ratified next year at the Worldcon in Seattle.
Now, admittedly, some of the W.I.P. directors are also significantly involved at the Worldcon business meetings and could exercise influence on such a provision either for or against it. But they can’t unilaterally pass such a provision, nor could they unilaterally block it. It would be subject to the decision of the Worldcon members who attend the business meeting.
Kate said:
I spent 14 years working as an Intel guy in the Army. I come about my deep suspicion of anything the Chinese government does the old fashioned way.
@JoshuaK the most obvious metric around is the Reporters sans frontières World Press Freedom Index. It should be noted that the USA itself only scores midling on that test, in some years in the “Problematic” (3rd tier) group. However, this is because they track and score things like reporter murders by private parties, the President’s attacks on the press and other matters that would not cause direct censorship efforts on books, though book bans are not unknown. RSF also breaks the list down by a “political” score where the USA does much better, and you could find a metric where most Worldcon host nations would have no problem, but Egypt, KSA, Israel and Uganda might face problems. China faces problems on any front, so it would be blocked by even a low bar.
@Daveon @Lis Carey
WSFS constitution clause “2.9.3” is not a massive problem for WIP and it’s directors, solely because it has been beneath the attention of regulators. Hopefully, this delinquency can be cured before someone decides to audit WIP. But an Audit might lead to questions about how this whole thing is structured, and the regulators might not accept the explanations of “You simply do not understand how Worldcons work”.
@JoshuaK
The trademarks were transferred to WIP, including ability to protect the goodwill of those trademarks, was transferred to WIP. The WSFS constitution instructs the MPC to protect the trademark. Protection of the goodwill is included in protecting the trademark. This is explicitly why the WIP just had to explicitly disavow and reprimanded Standlee’s for making statements saying they can’t do anything.
@Brad Templeton: I am afraid that if you want to stress something in Xinjiang and other places, we all Chinese fans will stand up and argue with you.
I do not think it is a good idea to introduce a prior procedure to quantize something difficult to be quantized.
Bo Lindberg
Thanks. That’s a very few very bland words to cover all that seems to have gone on.
I don’t think they’ll be able to make it go away that easily though.
@Jay Blanc,
This has NOTHING to do with Worldcon or the constitution – which is why I didn’t mention it in my reply. It is not at the level of a regulatory issue because what you are picking up on is purely administrative stuff that I can assure you happens more than it should when you deal with Secretary of State offices around this country.
This is an issue with Californian reporting rules for corporations where there’s clearly been a misfiling that wasn’t picked up historically and now needs to be fixed.
This happens, I’ve had it happen to me in business – it’s a thing. I would URGE you not to keep trying to make a bad situation worse with, I have to say, a gleeful tone.
You are acting like you want Worldcon to fail here and I would suggest that none of us want that.
Dave Kyle says you can’t sit there.
I note that this WSFS announcement is drawing more public attention than previous discussions of The Situation. I’ve had two different non-fannish friends perk up on social forums and say “Wait, what just happened to the Hugos?”
@Daveon
All I know is that Tax Accountant bsky is now having the same reaction to the state of WIP’s filings, and WSFS’s organisation, as Trademark Attorney bsky was having.
I suggest the answer is to be found in WIP talking to a Tax Attorney.
@Jay Blanc,
And as I said to you there. Stop blowing up this stuff like that. That is NOT what they were concerned about and this issue with filings has ZERO bearing on the tax status of WIP.
You are conflating 2 unrelated issues here.
What you’ve found is a minor California State filing issue. The Bluesky discussions were based on a complete misunderstanding of the set up.
Speculation and demands for this or that to be done when you don’t know what is being done do not help.
@Daveon, both issues can be relevant at the same time.
@P.J. Evans:
Yes, and the Mark Protection Committee/WIP, in the form of its former Chair (and the only member to speak on this), Standlee, was very much NOT listening to him. That’s why I hope they get/have gotten a trademark attorney and listen to them.
Well, I’m at least glad to see McCarty resigned.
How unlike fandom in the rest of the world.
[This is a joke. Some things about fandom are universal, long before we start bumping into corporate ambitions and governmental interests to make matters much much worse.]
Is Ben going to do the decent thing and resign entirely, including from the LA in 20whenever bid?
This is me not holding my breath for even a few seconds.
@Jon DeC: aptly said. Kyle would probably have been outraged by the conduct, even though he was in fandom from the beginning, including the tensions way back that gave rise to his famous saying.
@Brad Templeton: For that matter, you could slap down the UK with those criteria for the super-injunctions. But the RSF “political” list ought to do, keeping the worst offenders like China and Uganda out.
Andrew Porter:
Now that is indeed the billion-yuan question. While I didn’t consider myself naive, I must admit that it hadn’t occurred to me that the Hugos could end up this corrupted. I don’t even recall any such doubts expressed explicitly before the Worldcon, but I did not follow the discussions in detail; in such case, I will be very grateful for any link.
I’d say we figured they wouldn’t have a problem counting the votes after they decided what to censor off the Hugo ballot. Stunning to realize that was overly optimistic.
Yes, the incompetence was something of a surprise, I agree.
I would love to hear Ben Yalow’s side of things and also he is being very sensible in saying nothing at this point.
Reactor (formerly Tor.com) has reported on this:
https://reactormag.com/worldcon-intellectual-property-censures-chengdu-worldcon-hugo-administrators/
Their article talks about the mysterious “not eligible” rulings for Sandman, Babel, Xiran Jay Zhao, and Paul Weimer, but not about the assorted weirdnesses with the vote-counting.
It’s not the corruption that surprises me, really, it’s what looks like multiple levels of incompetence and competing agendas. Every day I become more reluctant to attribute anything to “the Chinese government”, because I suspect we’re seeing the results of different agendas and levels of concern on the national, provincial, and local levels.
Especially striking is that the government (PRC/Sichuan/Chengdu) & commercial actors (I’m less sure about the fans) on the one hand wanted the Chengdu Worldcon to show that China has !!arrived!! on the international SFF stage, but on the other hand were completely unprepared for international SFF to be paying close attention.
Now I wonder, is this par for the course for artistic competitions staged for domestic consumption? that is, results including arbitrary disqualifications, statistics obviously botched, everyone is used to ignoring them? Or did this display an extra special level of incompetence & incoherence, as Chinese organizations tried to work with parameters they didn’t understand or care about?
@Lurkertype there are various countries, including Israel and Japan, who don’t score that well, though you don’t have to make the bar very high to exclude the worst offenders. In reality, the primary concern of fans seems to be that the awards be administered only subject to WSFS rules without interference from local laws. That would be very likely in most of the world, but not all of it. There could be an option that if a bidder is not in a country where that can be assured, that they could state that they will sub-delegate Hugo administration to a group in a country which meets the test. There could still be questions about countries like “who can get a visa?” and “whose love life is illegal?” and “Can you hold a panel on topic X” but I have not seen calls for constitutional rules to deal with those problems.
Minor correction to my post about the OP, where I wrote “can be trusted or matter” I meant to write the reverse, that there are people who feel the Hugos can no longer be trusted, those who feel they don’t matter.
Also @Camestros when you write “I would love to hear Ben Yalow’s side of things and also he is being very sensible in saying nothing at this point,” he is indeed sensible as far as his own interests to stay silent, but because he is in a position where he knows or should have known what went on, his silence is his continued participation in the cover-up of what went on. Some have speculated motives for the cover-up, but those don’t change the fact there is a large conspiracy of silence about what actually went on, and Ben is a chief participant.
@GustavVigeland770: I for one would be super interested in hearing more about your Chengdu Worldcon experiences, and perceptions of the SF scene in general.
It sounds like that you might have been one of the few international (or maybe more accurate to say Western?) attendees who (a) wasn’t an invited guest in a pre-arranged accommodation, (b) had prior experience with the Chinese SF scene & general culture and (c) doesn’t have to worry about upsetting people (e.g. industry people worrying that work might dry up if they speak out in a way that annoys or embarrasses publishers).
I chat a lot with various Chinese fans, but I’m coming from a fairly ignorant and informed position, and it sounds like you are much better placed than I am to make an accurate assessment of things.
I know for a fact Brad T was writing “can’t be trusted” and not the opposite.
Absolutely, he should have said a lot more prior to this point.