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.
“Location, Location, Location” proposes to add a formal test of “minimum human rights and democracy” to the requirements to file a Worldcon bid. The bid location would have to meet a certain minimum score in at least one of the following three reports: Reporters without Borders (Global Index), Freedom House (Countries and Territories scores), or Global Insights & Market Intelligence | Economist Intelligence Unit (eiu.com) (registration required to download report).
Also, if a selected location subsequently fell below the minimum standard, certain key Worldcon functions would have to be moved and conducted in a location that does meet the standard.
The motion is signed by: Cliff Dunn, Paul Haggerty, Amy Kaplan, Joshua Kronengold, Ruth Lichtwardt, Ellen Montgomery, Ron Oakes, Ann Marie Rudolph, Randall Shepherd, Kevin Standlee, Gayle Surrette, Tim Szczesuil, Eva Whitley, and Mark Roth-Whitroth.
SHORT TITLE: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Moved, to amend the Constitution by adding text as follows:
Section 4.6: Bid Eligibility
4.6.6: No bid filing shall be accepted for a proposed location which, at the time of filing, does not adhere to reasonable standards for minimum human rights and democracy as defined by at least one commonly accepted standard.
The standards at this time shall be:
a) Reporters Without Borders: rating of not less than 60 out of 100 in their Global Score
b) Freedom House: rating of not less than 60 out of 100 in their Freedom in the World dataset
c) Economist Intelligence Unit: rating of at least 6.00 in their Democracy Index
A bid filing which cannot meet any of these standards shall be deemed to be incapable of freely executing the Objectives of the Society as put forth in Article 1, Section 1.2.
4.6.6.1 Bids shall, as part of their filing, indicate their scores on each current scale or index in effect at the time of filing. A bid which does not meet or exceed the minimum score on at least one standard shall not be accepted by the Site Selection Administrator.
4.6.6.2 In the event that a location is seated which later falls out of compliance with the standards in effect at the time, it shall be the duty of the current convention committee to provide for, at a minimum, the Business Meeting, Site Selection, and administration of the Hugo Awards to take place in a location in compliance with a named standard. If the current convention committee shall fail to do so, that shall be considered committee failure under Section 2.6 of the Constitution.
4.6.6.3 If there are one or fewer operative standards, the current convention committee may, with the concurrence of the next convention committee, designate no less than one and up to three published standards of a similar nature, to be in effect for the coming year, in order to guarantee at least one and no more than three active standards at all times.
4.6.6.4 Changes can be made to these standards by following the regular Constitutional amendment process.
Proposed by: Cliff Dunn, Paul Haggerty, Amy Kaplan, Joshua Kronengold, Ruth Lichtwardt, Ellen Montgomery, Ron Oakes, Ann Marie Rudolph, Randall Shepherd, Kevin Standlee, Gayle Surrette, Tim Szczesuil, Eva Whitley, Mark Roth-Whitroth
DISCUSSION:
While efforts to “put the world in Worldcon” are admirable and have allowed us to go to places we would not have gone in previous years, it is also painfully obvious that there are parts of the world where it would be difficult, if not impossible, to carry out certain functions of the World Science Fiction Society safely and freely. Likewise, there are locations where it would be unsafe for a significant portion of fandom to attend out of a concern for the safety of attendees or local fans due to repressive laws regarding sexuality, religious affiliation, and so on.
Such discussion was dismissed as paranoid until recently, often with uncharitable insinuations about those raising the specter of those issues, but it is hard not to view the fiasco surrounding the Chengdu Hugo Awards as being symptomatic of such issues, even if the exact source is shrouded in some mystery (e.g. whether informal governmental pressure was involved versus a judgment call being made out of sincere concern).
The speculative works that the Hugo Awards reward will often reflect controversial subject matters which may not be approved of in many parts of the world. Yet works which attack controversial topics from various angles, some at odds with popular views of the day, are often the works which we might wish to recognize. We do not wish to deny our nominators and voters the ability to freely nominate the works of their choosing, and to have their nominations and votes freely counted. Nor do we wish to force the staff of a convention to choose between adhering to our rules and going to jail, or flouting our rules to protect themselves. In our view, the only moral course is to avoid putting them in that position in the first place.
Almost every country has some sort of rule or law on the books that could cause trouble in extreme circumstances. The sponsors do not operate under any illusion that this is not the case. Having acknowledged that, however, we also need to collectively admit that there are places where these types of rules or laws or customs are the rule rather than the exception. It would be grossly disingenuous to suggest that what happened last year or something similar will never happen again. It is also clear from history that places where such concerns might arise can and will change over time, both as a result of changing national priorities and policies as well as those of fandom.
The objective of this amendment is not to ensure that every Worldcon will take place in an ideal setting for every member – that would almost definitely prove impossible over a long enough timeframe – but merely to set a “basement threshold” which is likely to limit such occurrences. The amendment is also explicitly and intentionally crafted in such a way as to ensure that no country is exempt from potential disqualification if the designated standard cannot be met.
We invest a lot of trust in the convention committees that we select through Site Selection. Our current processes do not prevent a determined group from overwhelming the historic voting numbers in our Site Selection process. If we wish to expand participation in Worldcon, we must also set some boundaries as to what will be considered a suitable location for this conglomeration of members that we have.
Once a bid has been launched, it would create massive discontent if it was later ruled to be ineligible in some way, particularly in some way which was not plainly stated in advance of the process. By publishing these standards as part of the Constitution and the Bid acceptance process, it makes clear to those who wish to bid in a non-qualifying location that they need to find a different venue.
There are current proposals that add oversight to the Hugo selection process. But a key element of those proposals is the presumption that those overseeing the process are truly able to have access to the information that they would need in order to detect irregular actions, that they would be able to recognize it, and that they would not feel compelled to ignore it in order to avoid disastrous consequences for those involved in running the convention in the host location. Threats need not be explicit – a few well-placed words in a conversation from a locale with a history of harassing dissidents can have the same effect as a legal notice. We therefore consider it judicious to avoid, to the extent that we can, having a Worldcon hosted in a location where such pressures are likely to be applied.
We do recognize that these standards, as a rule, operate at the national level rather than the subnational level and that laws can vary within a country. If a sufficient number of standards could be found to address this, we would have strongly considered such a route. Given what is readily available, national-level standards are the best that we feel we can currently rely on.
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Thank Ghu, Roscoe, Klono, and all the Odd Gods of the Galaxy!
Fandom needs this. This proposal is worded in such a way (at least as I see it) that it favors no country. As written, it appears to me that if any currently qualified country were to elect a dictator, or be taken over by such outside of election, and changed to the point that it failed the test, that country would be disqualified until it once again met the qualification criteria.
I earnestly hope this is passed by the WSFS Business Meeting in Glasgow and ratified by same in Seattle.
Seems like there ought to be some kind of cutoff date for moving things around. What if the score changes a month before the convention such that the host country no longer qualifies? Will everyone running the business meeting be able to change travel plans & go to a different country at that point? Will members give up on the rest of the convention & go to a different country just to attend the business meeting? Will enough do it to get a quorum? How about a week before the convention? Or during the convention?
@Jon:
As one of the authors of the motion, I have a few thoughts:
First, the sorts of things that would be involved in knocking a location out of contention are likely to be pretty catastrophic outside of a truly marginal country. Remember, you’re looking at three reasonably diverse indexes, so if you qualify on all of them you probably need a few things to be going very wrong, not just a “hiccup” in a single index (e.g. the Netherlands suffered a big hit in the RSF index when a journalist was killed a few years ago, but the others weren’t affected). We’re generally talking coups and wars (be they civil or interstate) and the odds are pretty good that a probable across-the-board downgrade would be foreseen a while in advance (especially if the convention was qualified under all three options – they don’t tend to revise more than about once a year) and a con that had declined to act in the face of plunging scores would likely have been whistling past the graveyard for a while. If a country is facing catastrophic downgrades in index after index, knowing this is on the table /should/ prompt the con to act.
I would also suggest that a con being hosted in a marginal country (say, only barely qualifying on a single index) would arguably be “flying close to the sun” and this risk, being stated in the Constitution, would be known to them.
The best historical example to consider for a likely forced location move would probably be Zagreb’s 1993 bid, even though the war in question broke out in 1991 (two years prior). I think that’s the only serious bid that might have fallen into this issue. I don’t think we would have wanted to still go to Zagreb if they had been seated (given that Zagreb got bombed a few times).
Second, while 2.6 failure is invoked, there is theoretically room for the other convention to say “Carry on” (and in some very narrow subset of cases, this might be the right answer, though I’d argue that in most cases they should not do this) or to order the immediate export of the Hugo Award data; 2.6 just says “the other committee decides” but doesn’t constrain them in how they can act. The key here is that the decision ceases to be /that/ convention’s decision to make and devolves to the other one. Also note that the requirement isn’t to move the whole convention – just the core WSFS functions. The “party”, so to speak, could continue unabated – they could even /announce/ the Hugo Awards, so long as they were still being “administered” elsewhere.
However, if things “went wrong” a few weeks before the convention, the Hugo Award administration would already have been handled (you’d probably just end up issuing a press release and mailing the awards) and for the Business Meeting the right answer might be to (1) “pull a Wellington” (take a mulligan on the BM for the year) and/or (2) reschedule the BM for several months hence (presuming that the con wasn’t late in the year). The latter solution would probably be pretty close to 2021 (with the moved date) in terms of messing with who could participate. This would be an unsatisfactory situation for a lot of folks, but it might well be the lesser of the evils on the table.
If something happens /during/ the convention and it causes an emergency downgrade that knocks the con out of compliance in all three indexes out of the blue, I sincerely expect that most attendees would be too busy trying to run for the border to worry about this, while a number of BM regulars would be arguing about it while evacuating*.
*I jest, but only barely – I can totally see a spirited argument happening during the evacuation as a matter of self-distraction.
I agree that something needs to be done to prevent a recurrence of illegitimate Hugo nominee selection, but “minimum human rights and democracy” is not the right standard; “rule of law” is more useful. There are monarchies, for instance, which safely host academic conferences.
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@Flash Sheridan: I don’t see that as being a problem with the resolution as currently written. Both Sweden and Saudi Arabia are monarchies, but very different kinds of monarchies. Not surprisingly, Sweden gets a 99 score from Freedom House, and Saudi Arabia gets an 8.
What is the reason for the following provision?
This looks like a good approach to a hard problem
It does create an unexpected side effect. We are saying that the political systems of some countries prevent them from being able to run worldcons (correctly IMHO) but we would still like to have SFF written in those countries, often in opposition to the government of those countries, represented at Worldcon.
Individual Worldcon programme committees can and do do this but building up networks of good contacts across the world takes years. There is scope here for some international group of fans to do some really good work.
Not everything needs to be governed by the WSFS Constitution so I don’t see any reason why this shouldn’t be an independent group, perhaps more than one, providing advice to Worldcon without getting bogged down in needless bureaucracy
The proposal was being edited quire close to the deadline for new business.
Agreed that that paragraph is entirely redundant. In fact, I think it may have been removed immediately prior to filing, but we’ll see.
(a different Joshua K)
I guess I’d better fold my Libya-Sudan worldcon bid plans…
I agree with this while recognizing that my homeland is headed towards an illiberal democracy. As long at they continue to issue passports I will go abroad. I note that my homeland is presently at 66 on the Reporters Without Borders index. We have one seated Worldcon and a bid for another. Also, that is just plain disturbing to me as a citizen. Israel is below 60. I checked Canada and they are doing great. Uganda is abysmal. Freedom House has USA, Canada and Israel doing great with Uganda not so hot. I found the Economist site too difficult to use.
@Martin Easterbrook:
The effect isn’t entirely unexpected, but it’s sort-of unavoidable. However, if the writers are writing in opposition to the government (or seen as doing so), providing a domestic platform also gets fraught. I would argue that it is safer for all concerned to provide that platform outside the legal reach of that government.
@Flash Sheridan
I believe that the indexes we picked all use “Rule of Law” as part of their formulas – it just isn’t the whole formula. I know Freedom House does explicitly, I think it is somewhat implicit in RSF given that if rule of law is out the window the press is almost always going to be constrained as a result, and I’d be stunned if it wasn’t part of the Economist’s index. It is very hard to have a functioning, multi-party* democracy without a passable rule-of-law regime (even if it might be imperfect). But to the extent that the indexes don’t integrate this as much as we might like, I STRONGLY suspect there will be a statistically significant correlation between most any rule of law index and the more generic “freedom” indexes.
*Two-party does count as multi-party. “Multiparty”, as I recall, distinguishes from e.g. “single-party dominant”.
@Linda: Here are the Economist ratings (on a scale from 0 to 10) for the countries you mentioned. (To see the ratings, you have to provide an e-mail address, and they will send you a link to download the report.)
Canada: 8.69
USA: 7.85
Israel: 7.80
Uganda: 4.49
Some other countries of Worldcon interest:
New Zealand: 9.61
Finland: 9.30
Ireland: 9.19
Netherlands: 9.00
Germany: 8.80
Australia: 8.66
Japan: 8.40
UK: 8.28
China: 2.12
Personally, I much prefer a direct approach. If we don’t want a country to have a WorldCon, say so, in a motion to disallow them specifically and for cause. It also treats countries as single entities, and there’s a huge difference in regions (and often within regions) that would significantly complicate matters, both positively and negatively. The US would pass these tests as a whole, but if we held a WorldCon in Huntsville, Alabama, the view becomes dimmer (as much as I love the Von Braun Center). Mexico, which wouldn’t pass as a whole, also has portions which I would far far safer in than most of the places WorldCons have been in the last decade, as well as areas that are really scary.
The only part of this I have an issue with is the democratic index. I don’t believe the form of government should be a factor if the freedom and human rights criteria are satisfied. I would have thought, for example, that there would be no issue with holding a Worldcon in the Vatican City state even though it would not qualify as a democracy. The considerations should be the safety and freedom of expression of participants and non-interference with the running of the con, except for areas such as health and safety.
@Chris Garcia:
You’re assuming that the BM would do that. Let’s game out how that would go for Uganda given that we couldn’t even ask about the “Kill the Gays” law at Smofcon without Helen saying that was an unfair question and there being insinuations of racism being the only motivation for pressing them on that.
Also, if we still required filings at the prior Worldcon, that might work. But the filing timeline no longer aligns, so we have no way to disallow a bid once filed.
@Stuart Hall:
Hence part of why you only have to clear the threshold in one of the three, not all three.
Interestingly if the conclave of cardinals do make a Worldcon bid they will be disqualified under this proposal because the Vatican isn’t on any of the three indexes. Thus bringing an end to the magnificent but very cramped plans to hold the Hugo Awards in the Sistine Chapel.
If people are curious, I’ve made a Google Sheet that collates all three indices. Note they list countries and territories differently. The Freedom House data set is the most extensive (particularly if you fancy a Worldcon on a small island nation in The Caribean or the Pacific)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ypbkJQ30cuGxv-kyVnhT9IFArkmZTBL0ttAzGim1bFY/edit?usp=sharing
@Camestros Felapton:
Sounds like a good hoax bid. Vati-con, anyone?
[Then we could try to have Vati-con 2 and split fandom over a new format for the Business Meeting…]
The split leads to two rivals both claiming to be the chairs of the convention and one gets to hold Worldcon in Rome and the other in Avignon.
I will not be in Glasgow but am a supporting member of worldcon this year and really hope this passes. Thanks for drafting and advocating for it, proposers.
I would assume having a point under site eligibility like – “No site in _______ shall be eligible unril_______” would actually be far easier
@Chris Garcia
” if we held a WorldCon in Huntsville, Alabama, the view becomes dimmer”
??? I live in Huntsville. WTF is wrong with it?
I can understand the sentiment that it is desirable that Worldcon take place in countries that have good standards in Human Rights and Democracy, and also, that everyone in our community is welcomed, and at no risk, that is important, and I am sure that some of those signing, believe that, or maybe wish to open a discussion, but I am challenged by many things about this proposal.
I think my sentiment can be summed up:
“Location, my arse!”
You want to exclude countries, lets talk countries then.
This really feels like an American solution, to an American problem – The Hugos got messed up by Americans, so lets blame China and in doing so exclude over 100 countries from hosting a Worldcon.
The abnegation of responsibilities, the failures, the tacit support, yeah, its every other countries fault!
Feck Yeah.
Hopefully, some double checking can occur, (and Happy to stand corrected on any of this) and my geography, could be better.
My understanding is right now, that this would currently exclude countries such as Ukraine, Greece, Mexico, India, Kenya, The Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Malta.
Like Thailand, you will never meet a more lovely people than Thai people, and they love their fandoms.
That South Africa, Lesotho, Ghana, Botswana and Namibia, are thankfully not excluded by this, so some representation from the Continent of Africa.
49 countries from Africa excluded?
South America, again a big Continent, of 12 countries, and Central America, 7 countries, and from those, 19 countries, Costa Rica, Guyana and Chilli are not excluded, but 16 others are.
So, there are about 60 countries allowed, mostly European, must be 35 in Europe, some Asian, USA and Canada of course, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, (a lot of past venues, or nearly all…) 3 in South and Central America, and 5 in Africa welcome to be Worldcon, based on this, has any one of the proposers made an actual list of the countries allowed and excluded?
Dublin 2019, had representation from over 60 countries, I cannot imagine the brazen exceptionalism of Fans being prepared to say to “we never fucked up honest”, but guess what we are going to punish you, crush your hopes, desires, any aspiration at all of hosting a Worldcon is worthless. Your country – Bad.
Because, since the USA passes, it is OK. Was that where the bar was set?
And 130 countries are to be excluded, is that the plan?
How many fans from each of these countries have the signers engaged with, and discussed with, the reasons and wherewithal that their country should be excluded? Were representatives, fans, professionals, consulted?
I am afraid, I do not know all the co-signers, so maybe some are from planned excluded countries, are they?
Would it, could it even be a Worldcon any more, after this.
And the idea that what we have is democracy, we will create a system, where 5% of our members will vote on this, and build a set of rules that work to confuse and exclude, and if you are actually a competent person volunteering, we have it so that you need to wait a few hours to see when the vote happens.
Like how does the Worldcon system rate as a democratic one, how would that be seen? Not exactly a Ballot of all members, is it now?
Maybe before we lecture people on their countries democratic failings, we should reflect on our own society’s democratic failings.
My understanding was that some Eastern Bloc countries used to send representatives to Wolrdcon, for bid purposes, that they knew they would never win, but we fans, are not responsible personally for our governments, right, if we have a government vote, sometimes the wrong people get in, but that Fandom was aware, and so welcomed fans, and their bids failed. This might be an apocryphal story.
I think excluding Fans from the Worldcon process, because a government they have to live with (and may even dislike) is failing their own people, somehow, is really harsh, the individuals may not be responsible, and we are responsible for our votes and actions, and should therefore vote accordingly, and we actively exclude their involvement if a Bid is part of their requirement to engage.
Nuance, it’s an SF thing.
Using organisations that are based in London, Paris and Washington, seems selective. I would have to doubt anything The Economist says, as they supported the War in Iraq, and that war saw over 200,000 civilian Deaths. and so, am not inclined to trust them. Those people had human rights too.
To be clear, the most recent issue with Chengdu, and the corruption of the Hugo awards, if we are going to exclude countries, from what I can see, had everything to do with Americans failing, at so many levels, so much fail. Then the behaviors that followed. Add more fail. By so many people.
This is disingenuous misdirection, and it’s coming off fierce wrong to me.
The insinuation that it was the Chengdu government to blame, is fascinating, given not one of those Americans involved has yet to actually explain what occurred, or for that matter, apologise properly, or explain why they stood by and did not act, or account in any way.
Yeah, like maybe we need a Queue Index, and Conventions that have Long queues, they get to not host the Wolrdcon, because obviously it is influence from the bad Government, Ireland would be top of that list. Ireland – Bad.
@bill
I can’t speak for Chris Garcia but the state legislature seems awfully keen to prevent people like me from existing
Given our related coverage
http://www.concatenation.org/news/news9~22.html#uganda
http://www.concatenation.org/news/news4~24.html#worldcon-bids
http://www.concatenation.org/news/news4~24.html#eurocon-bids
As you might guess I wholly support this proposal notwithstanding the need for a cut-off date as others have suggested above.
I have mixed feelings about this proposal, I think.
On one hand, basing this on “freedom scores” shifts the value-judgements elsewhere and excludes many places where I wouldn’t be safe to attend a WorldCon or that might in principle use a WorldCon as PR cover for their human rights abuses
On another hand, basing this on “freedom scores” makes it sound like the safety of attendees is a secondary concern and will appeal all too well to people whose reaction to a Chinese bid was Yellow Peril racism or an attempt to refight the Cold War
On a third hand, it’s obviously better than nothing and can hardly make things worse
On a fourth hand, I think it’s interesting that no one’s objecting to this proposal as a distraction from the issues raised by Chengdu, given most of the issues were failures of the Hugo committee
And on the final hand, a proposal that centred the safety of attendees would still raise the question of which attendees. The US or UK might look like good prospects for most people but less so for someone from Nigeria having to negotiate border control, to choose a not at all random example
I loved my trips to Alabama back in the day. No way I’d feel safe taking my family there today, especially with recent legislature votes. And boy do I miss Sidewalk film festival!
I completely agree about multi-handed takes on this one. I think my feelings fall into the another, fourth and final hand arguments above. I also think cutting massive swaths of the world out sends a somewhat negative message as far as WorldCon being a world-wide entity. I find a scalpel works far better than a machete for these things.
Yes, the problem with Chengdu were western members of the Hugo committee preemptively deciding to disqualify finalists based on what they assumed would be considered offensive in China. We still have no evidence that anybody in China actually ordered them to do this. This proposal does not fix the issue of preemptive obedience at all.
In general, I agree with much of what Sophie Jane said. This proposal caters to some of the leftover Cold War fears that reared their head, when Chengdu won site selection, but does not take legitimate safety concerns of LGBTQ people, people of colour, etc… into account, who may not be safe in some parts of the US, UK or other western countries. Nor does it take the access issues regarding to restrictive visa policies that face many Worldcon members from non-western countries into account. In short, it center the safety and freedom of a very specific group.
I also have issues with these freedom indices, though at least this is based on three indices rather than one. Because looking at the criteria, there are biases notable. Some things which lower scores are also not really issues that affect Worldcon members or sometimes even people living in the countries in question, whereas other potentially serious issues are not taken into account at all. There also is no differentiation between regions. Coincidentally, one of those indices knocks out the US.
So, to the above comments (I’m addressing a few at once):
(1) Subnational indexes are hard to come by. You might be able to come up with one for the US or another country or two, but when you go to your first-tier subnational unit(s) you’re looking at going from somewhere just under 200 units (globally) to a FAR larger number. The US adds like 50, Mexico adds like 30, Australia adds about 7, Germany adds a batch, Spain and Italy, etc. 2000 is probably “about right” even if you exclude countries that are /way/ down in the stack, and for a lot of these non-profits that starts becoming logistically tricky to manage.
If there were several such options available, we’d have sought to integrate them. And, speaking for myself, I’d be open to supporting a follow-on amendment that augmented what we’ve put in to directly address that (at /least/ requiring some disclosure of warnings from certain groups).
(2) If there’s a desire to add an index that is e.g. LGBT-focused, speaking personally I wouldn’t be opposed.
Having said THAT, I don’t think I am being unreasonable when I say that with both this poind and the previous one, I’m worried that if too much is loaded onto a single amendment, it risks collapsing under the weight of its own complexity. I’d also be worried about relying on a single index (there’s a reason we picked three) which might change its criteria out of the blue – and I feel that it is fair to point out that a lot more has changed in the last 10-20 years on this front than on a lot of other fronts, so I’m concerned about integrating a rapidly moving target (in relative terms) with a single index.
(3) It is true that most (if not all) indexes that are not /extremely/ focused on a small number of factors integrate elements that we’re not that worried about. It is also true that in a lot of cases, we’re going to see very high correlations between those factors that we care about and those which are being measured. That isn’t an absolute given (there will be outliers in both directions, but at a minimum there aren’t a lot of countries with highly repressive laws in these areas that score great on the scales we’ve picked), but if we go outside this universe of options we’re having to look at things like State Department warnings (for the US; there are equivalents elsewhere) and so on which are going to be even more opaque and subject to direct political tinkering.
I do think that saying (and I paraphrase) “it looks like attendee safety is secondary because we don’t like what the thing is called” is really a distraction itself from the fact that we have no mechanism for defending against a bid from a place with any of these issues except “pray that a bid from such a place doesn’t get $200k from the Tourism Bureau to buy supporting memberships and voting tokens”. I’d note that when something like this happened with the Hugo Awards voting process (the Puppy Affair), we changed the nominations system in response, so I’m not sure how saying “We should do something to address this now” is different.
A final point for now: We’ve seen five of the fifteen things that came out of that server posted. There are a few others directly attacking the Hugo Award exclusions themselves that have yet to be posted (there’s one that bans any Hugo Admin who does what Dave did from ever touching the Hugo Awards again and two that ban irregular exclusions). Out of the fifteen, this is just the one that Mike chose to lead with.
I think a big part of my problem with it is the large scale exclusions mostly being from parts of the world where we might not see a WorldCon in our lifetime, but this would likely prevent them from engaging with WorldCons at a deeper level because at a constitutional level, we’re saying they’re not welcome.
The positives of this could easily be achieved by individual exclusions under site eligibility, where they could be tailored to the specific condition. Broad as excluding an entire country, narrow as a single city.
I’m going to keep rolling out posts with these proposals throughout today.
However, I did think this motion was the most interesting one. And just now Publishers Weekly tweeted the link to it.
@James B: A country only has to pass one of the three indexes to be eligible to host a Worldcon.
According to the spreadsheet compiled by Camestros Felapton, of the countries you mentioned — Ukraine, Greece, Mexico, India, Kenya, The Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Malta — all except Kenya pass at least one of the three indexes and thus would be eligible.
There are a lot more than 5 African countries eligible. I see the following on the spreadsheet as eligible: Benin, Botswana, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Namibia, Republic of the Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, The Gambia. Not as many as we might hope for, but certainly not shutting out the continent.
South America? 11 out of 12 countries pass at least one index. Venezuela is the only country on the whole continent that fails. Central America? Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama pass, so that’s 3 out of 7.
It isn’t 60 countries that pass, it’s 123 countries and territories. It isn’t 130 countries that fail, it’s 87 countries and territories. (I specify “territories” because there are some sub-national areas which were rated by at least one of the indexes.)
Here’s the complete list of countries and territories which were rated by at least one index but didn’t get passing scores from any of them:
Abkhazia
Afghanistan
Algeria
Angola
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brunei
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Chad
China
Crimea
Cuba
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Djibouti
Eastern Donbas
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Eswatini
Ethiopia
Gaza Strip
Georgia
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Haiti
Honduras
Hong Kong
Iran
Iraq
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Lebanon
Libya
Madagascar
Maldives
Mali
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Nagorno-Karabakh
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
North Korea
Oman
Pakistan
Pakistani Kashmir
Qatar
Russia
Rwanda
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Somaliland
South Ossetia
South Sudan
Sudan
Syria
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Tibet
Togo
Transnistria
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Uganda
United Arab Emirates
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Vietnam
West Bank
Western Sahara
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe
I like the scalpel rather than a machete analogy as an argument against the proposal. However, the only feasible scalpel is members voting in site selection which is also the status quo.
As a filter for excluding locations that don’t meet a basic minimum standard, I think something like this could work BUT it should have language included that makes it clear that this is a minimum standard and that other criteria should be considered in site selection i.e. passing these criteria isn’t an endorsement. Getting a tick on one of these criteria shouldn’t be seen as closing the argument on whether a given country is somewhere Worldcon would want to associate itself with.
Also, this criteria is limited to the question of national-level suitability. It shouldn’t be seen as dealing with subnational regions or specific cities…and obviously not dealing with specific venues!
I think it might also be worth teasing out the difference between the three criteria and why those ones are included. It might also be worth looking at the Our World in Data’s civil liberties index https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-index-vdem?tab=table
Also the Freedom House & Economist indices are functionally very similar and very correlated. Whereas the RSF criteria has a different emphasis and covers some of the concerns more specific to Worldcon (censorship and physical safety). It might be better for the rules to be (Freedom House OR Economist) AND (RSF) but with more generous cut-offs so the same number of countries qualify.
@Sophie Jane — the Alabama legislature has no ability to prevent you or anyone like you (regardless of whatever characteristic you are referring to; transness I’m guessing?) from existing.
@Christopher J. Garcia
“No way I’d feel safe taking my family there today, especially with recent legislature votes.”
The biggest danger anyone in your family would face visiting Huntsville, no matter their color, sexuality or gender identity, would be the risk of a traffic accident on the drive from the airport to town. Huntsville is, and has been ever since the government stood up Redstone Arsenal in 1941 (the army base where NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is located) progressive on race issues, especially compared to other parts of the state. This is not to say that there are not bigots who live here, but I can’t name a city where that is not true.
And despite state-level bathroom bills and other laws, my observation (based on trans people I’ve run into at work and in town, and what I read/hear in the media) is that trans people are safe here as well. Again, there are people here (as there are everywhere) that would tell others how to run their lives, but in general, no one really cares so long as you don’t hurt anyone else in what you do. Again, this is closely related to the fact that Huntsville is a company town, and the company is the Federal Government. Too much of the economic engine that drives this town is based on government money, and their policies simply won’t permit racism or transphobia at any level that would endanger any one.
@Cora Buhlert
“Coincidentally, one of those indices knocks out the US.”
Which one? The US is 66 out of a required 60 in Reporters without Borders; 83 out of a required 60 in Freedom House; and 7.85 out of required 6 in the EIU index (thanks, Joshua K.)
And while I agree with the goals of this amendment, I think the Indices it uses to rank and score countries are flawed in that they are not transparent; the measures used to rank/score one country vs another are different in any two countries; and they are subjective (at least, from the issues mentioned in the reports as being relevant to the scores).
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@Camestros Felapton:
The scalpel-vs-machete analogy hasn’t really worked for me in a long time (it’s been misused in a few cases where it didn’t fit), but I also think this is a case where the machete actually is more appropriate. As a certain Bible verse (or, if you prefer, lyrics from The Byrds) says:
As @Joshua K. noted above, there’s an objective list of who this kicks out for the moment. We’ve had “actual” bids (i.e. excluding hoaxes/jokes) from four of the countries on that list (China, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt [the latter two admittedly being the same team]).
I don’t think the scalpel approach is going to work here. While there are 87 countries listed on that list, I would note that a decent batch are not fully-independent entities. Hong Kong and Tibet are part of China, five (or so) territories are Russian-occupied chunks of their neighbors, and so on. I think the total of “actually independent countries” is probably closer to 75, but we’d have to argue over how to count.
The problem that I see with the “scalpel” is that it will likely lead to a Catch-22:
-If we were to pass a resolution when there is no bid coming from somewhere (even one with a contingent withdrawal), the proposers would likely be attacked as paranoid (“There’s no such bid, why are you doing this?”) as well as [something]-ist (only Belarus/Russia don’t really open the door to such attacks).
-If there’s a bid that’s been announced but we’re several years out, we’d likely be pilloried for “Oh, it’s too soon, this isn’t appropriate yet, things could improve” (as happened with daring to ask the Ugandan bid about the “Kill the Gays” bill at Smofcon).
-If we’re coming close to the voting year, we’d likely be told “But they’ve put in so much work, it would be rude to tell them no now!”
-And of course, if they win, we’d be overturning the verdict of the voters after-the-fact.
Passing a lot of these would eat up Business Meeting time and likely become exceedingly fraught. I expect /plenty/ of insinuations about “Why are you banning X and not Y” with a truckload of tu quoque. Going country-by-country for an “absolute no-go list” would almost assuredly be an ugly, emotive shouting match.
And this of course also ignores the fact that a bid could, facing opposition for being in one “bad” country, jump to another one which we haven’t said no to yet (witness Saudi Arabia->Egypt, which to be fair is an improvement – Egypt doesn’t have the death penalty for apostasy, for example – but that’s damning someone with faint praise if I ever heard it).
Now that I’ve said all that, I will say that I am open to discussing /which/ machete to pull out (e.g. which mix of indexes). I have no problem swapping in V-Dem’s Human Rights Index (maybe at 0.6, maybe a bit to one side or another of that?) in exchange for any of the other three, for example. Most of the results would remain the same – it would rearrange some countries in or out around the margins depending on what was dropped in favor of it, but there’s nothing so fundamental as to get worked up over it in my opinion.
Actually – a thought comes to mind: What would folks’ thoughts be on an approval straw poll at the Business Meeting under a Committee of the Whole on this? We could put a batch of indexes up and we could pick from the top 3-5 most widely-approved-of ones (and I only suggest not just taking the top three because there’s a chance of getting three highly correlated indexes).
If anything, having more indices is probably better — reduces possible bias, increases coverage and makes things more future-proof.
My other issue with the scalpel is that when things come down to a specific country, the issue of specific prejudices towards that country come into play. It is reasonable to question to what extent opposition to the Chengdu bid was due to sinophobia and to what extent it was due to legitimate concerns. Setting standards in advance helps clarify issues.
I’m not opposed to “more is better” as a principle, but I would become concerned that having too many could get a bit unwieldy. That being said, I also think “You have failed to qualify under any of 75 separate paths we gave you” strengthens a rejection and strengthens the case for pulling a Worldcon if you subsequently end up short on every single one.
I think we could add V-Dem without doing anything more. It would reduce the chances of a con having to come up with replacement standards by the seat of their pants.
With that being said, if we were using like ten standards, I might want to require that a country qualify on two or three at the time of being seated. Maybe say “at least X% of the standards then in effect (maybe 20-25%?), but in no event less than one”?
Our World in Data has a nice round-up of indices on Democracy
https://ourworldindata.org/democracies-measurement
I thought LGBTQI+ measures might be difficult to encapsulate the range of issues consistently. However, this one looks quite useful https://www.equaldex.com/equality-index [NOTE: I’m not LGBTQI+ myself, so don’t take my word for it ]
As well as a summary index it includes to subscores distinguishing between legal rights in a country and public attitudes. I think on the “Legality” subscale all the nations >=55 have homosexuality legal and without systematic censorship.
In my eyes, it is sad to see politics overtaking all else as the primary concern of what bills itself as the World Science Fiction Society.
@Camestros There was a version of this that had the indices listed in the Standing Rules instead to allow for easier expansion or swapping, I’m not sure what led to them being codified in this firmer form.
@Kate S.:
The threshold for changing the standards became almost identical to a constitutional amendment (folks were concerned about a rogue BM having too much power) and there were Smoffish complaints about it being “in the wrong place”. Where the list goes is not a hill I’m even willing to defend, let alone die on, vs the general amendment, as long as it is /there/.
I don’t see this as politics taking over the World Science Fiction Society. It is the World Science Fiction Society trying to protect itself from oppressive and dangerous politics.
Thanks. I stand corrected. It’s only “87 countries and territories.” Excluded.
Great work, it would not have passed if there was an attempt to exclude European countries! Clever.
You wouldn’t want that! That’s an impressive work around.
I see Gaza fails, quite right, the Hamas attack was an appalling atrocity, killing 1,200+ people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping and imprisoning 253 humans, utterly horrendous, but the Israel governments approach is one I am challenged by, is it 20,000 or 30,000 civilians killed, all, human beings, all with human rights, but no problem, being a Worldcon by this proposal (is that correct) that talks about human rights.
You see, I think it’s a pointless proposal, no one is going to vote for Israel or Gaza to host the Worldcon.
Judgement. Fans generally do the right thing, normally. Like it’s utterly beyond belief that fans were prepared to allow what happened in Chengdu to occur, but they were individuals and they should be treated as such..
So Uganda. Excluded. Has anyone spoken to Micheal and his team as they’ve arrived on the Worldcon scene to garner support, in the face of what they must know, regarding voter sentiment. Yet… They were at Worldcon, right, and other cons, isn’t it lovely to engage with nice fans, doesn’t mean that fandom will vote for Uganda, unlikely, but the fans know what the issue is, working with them to encourage progress, is more productive in my view.
This proposal cuts that engagement totally off. Stifles any organic desire for progress.
Again. I expect the constituency to do the right thing.
Has any engagement occured?
I’m certain a number of Russian fans would privately support the idea of Russia not hosting a Worldcon, based on sentiments published since the invasion of Ukraine, (locus for instance) but would they support this arbitrary approach. Who knows.
Meanwhile still an egregious attempt to misdirect away from the Americans, all of them, complicit in the Fails of Chengdu, leaders, supporters, corrupters and liers.
@James B
” I expect the constituency to do the right thing.”
Do you think the Chinese constituency who voted for Chengdu in site selection did the right thing?
The amendment is for abnormal times, and as a check for fans who won’t do “the right thing” as it is defined here.
Re Gray on July 13, 2024 at 10:56 am, it must be noted that European countries, even while nominally federations, have a single penal and even civil code, unlike USA (so there is really no reason to evaluate each subunit separately, and the argument is fallacious).