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to meet an explicit, objective criteria (e.g. word count, publication date, or performance length) – or if they were withdrawn at the request of the author or creator.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.
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Why wait as long as five years? Isn’t three enough? Maybe even two?
And why call the make-up award a “retro” Hugo? Just call it a Hugo, and recognize that it was delayed.
“unless required in local law” doesn’t sound like the best protection from censorship, dos it?
I was thinking the same. “Local law” was the spurious reason why McCarty excluded works in the first place. If this rule had been in place in 2023, would it have changed anything?
If it had been in place in 2023, theoretically the only fallback option would be to postpone administration of the affected categories to 2028.
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@Camestros Felapton:
Two things would change. First, Dave would actually have had to say it was local law outright, rather than simply engaging in a heavy dose of handwavium and implying it.
Second, @Kalin nailed it: The “marching orders” would have been for Dave to just not run the category and open the door to a Retro (which was not previously an option). That both ties his hands (theoretically – there’s still “But what if the category is run ANYWAY?” and I’ve approached that in another proposal, though in that case there is no good answer) and gives an “out” where doing that doesn’t just screw over everyone in the category. My read is that the consensus is that if Dave had done this, most of us would not be faulting him even if the result would have been a desultory ballot with a bunch of categories missing. It’s the mix of just vaguely saying “because reasons” (I think that’s a fair way to put it) and still running the categories with this mess in place.
The HOPE is that the combination would allow someone in a genuinely awkward position to exercise an alternative to “run a corrupted category” or “get people thrown in jail for running a ‘clean’ category”. IANAL TINLA but I /hope/ that it would also deal with, say, a super-injunction because the admin could (possibly) just say “there was an issue with local law that we can’t talk about” and have some degree of deniability that they were referring to the super-injunction instead of some arcane fight with the BBFC or something like that.
I don’t see why we need to retain the “excluded by local law” option. This proposal has a mechanism to handle cases where a work is wrongly excluded from the ballot.
I’m also not happy with waiting five years. The next year seems better. Or, so long as NASFIC is a WSFS con, handing the ballot over to NASFIC should be an option – that NASFIC can decline.
@Paul King:
The “local law” bit is there because we didn’t want to put an Admin in a truly impossible position. Not including that could make it seem that they just have to run the category regardless. The idea is this:
If there is no constitutional issue with the nominations:
-If you have a problem with local law, say so and don’t run the category.
-If anything else (angry sponsor, alleged ballot stuffing that you can’t prove is illegitimate, slate you don’t like, grouchy local government that won’t actually point out a legal violation, you name it…), suck it up and put in the nominated finalists.
The idea is, I would argue, to avoid the admin trying to wriggle out of running the Hugo Awards if we get another Puppy Affair. In the end, you run what you have.
As to “going the next year”, I’m not entirely opposed to that, but there’s been an expressed desire to have some “space” between runs. Now, if you do that you probably need to also say “…and don’t release anything about who was/wasn’t nominated.” Basically you just shred the nominations and move on.
Rereading I think I can see the logic and intent but the wording is confusing, and subject to bad faith misinterpretations. If removing.a work for reasons of local law is not permitted by the Constitution it doesn’t help to have a clause permitting it (even if it implies the oppostite.
There are two distinct cases here. First the case where local law does not permit the inclusion of a work, and second wrongful exclusion. And trying to wrap them together is not a good way to handle it – not least because the administrator obviously should handle the first case and can’t be counted on to handle the second.
What to do if the issue only comes to light after the awards have been given – as happened – is another issue.
I don’t like that it allows a work to be excluded if required in local law. Also, the language is tricky. After this proposal takes effect, it is part of the Constitution, so the local law justification is “provided in the Constitution” and the category can be run with the exclusion. My feeling is that WSFS should not allow local law to censor the Hugos. I would recommend not allowing exclusions other than what is provided in the Constitution.
3.13.2: The Hugo Administrator shall provide a list of all the works excluded from the final ballot and the reasons for exclusion, no later than the announcement of the final ballot. 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.
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I think if you want to keep the “Local law” exception it should be worded as “Unless explicitly asked in PUBLIC written form by the local government”.