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.

The first, titled “Apology Resolution”, offers an apology on behalf of the World Science Fiction Society to six named 2023 Hugo nominees and others who were harmed by the irregularities of the Chengdu Worldcon Hugo Awards administration.

The second, titled “Chengdu Censure Resolution”, proposes to censure the 2023 Worldcon committee for “failing to uphold the promises expressed during the bid campaign”, its Hugo Administration committee for “improper conduct” and Dave McCarty specifically for “removing works from the ballot for reasons not listed in the Constitution” as well as for “discrepancies in balloting”, and asserts members are owed “a refund of their WSFS Membership fees”.

The third, titled “Make Them Finalists Resolution”, calls for WSFS records to reflect that five works and one individual disqualified by the Hugo Administrator Team of the 2023 Worldcon were Hugo finalists, and likewise disqualified Astounding Award finalist Xiran Jay Zhao for that award.

Below are the full text, sponsors’ names, and supporting statements for all three resolutions.

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SHORT TITLE: APOLOGY RESOLUTION

WHEREAS Babel (Best Novel), Color the World (Best Novelette), Fongong Temple Pagoda (Best Short Story), The Sandman (Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form), The Sandman (“The Sound of Her Wings”) (Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form), and Paul Weimer (Best Fan Writer) were arbitrarily and capriciously excluded from the Hugo Awards finalist list for the 2023 Worldcon for reasons not found in the Constitution; and

WHEREAS the invalidation of these nominees voided not less than 1,834 nominations; and

WHEREAS in not less than four categories, the Hugo Award nomination results listed more votes in the ninth-to-last round of nominee elimination than nominating ballots cast; and

WHEREAS an unknown and unquantifiable number of ballots for other works, mostly by Chinese authors or creators, were excluded because of alleged “slate voting”; and

WHEREAS the Chengdu Hugo Administration Committee choosing to cite “the rules that we must follow” with no further elaboration is unacceptably vague; and

WHEREAS upon being confronted with these irregularities, neither the Chengdu Worldcon Concom nor the Hugo Administrator for the Chengdu Worldcon offered a satisfactory or acceptable explanation for these irregularities;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

The World Science Fiction Society apologizes unreservedly to all nominees, finalists, and winners of the 2023 Hugo Awards for the improper conduct of the Chengdu Worldcon Hugo Administration Committee and any harm which may result from that; and

The World Science Fiction Society specifically apologizes to R.F. Kuang, author of Babel; Congyun “Mu Ming” Gu, author of Color the World; Hai Ya, author of Fongong Temple Pagoda; Neil Gaiman, author/writer for The Sandman; Paul Weimer, and Xiran Jay Zhao for their arbitrary, capricious, and extra-constitutional exclusion from the Hugo Award Finalist ballot and/or Astounding Award ballot; and

The World Science Fiction Society apologizes unreservedly to the nominators and voters of the 2023 Hugo Awards for the improper conduct of the Hugo Awards process;

The World Science Fiction Society declares that notwithstanding their extra-constitutional exclusion from the Final Ballot, R.F. Kuang, author of Babel; Congyun “Mu Ming” Gu, author of Color the World; Hai Ya, author of Fongong Temple Pagoda; Neil Gaiman, author/writer for The Sandman; and Paul Weimer shall be considered to be valid finalists, and furthermore that said Finalists should be included in all official lists of Hugo Award Finalists and shall otherwise be considered Finalists for all other purposes related to the World Science Fiction Society and/or any Worldcon hereafter; and

The World Science Fiction Society requests that Dell Publications permit Xiran Jay Zhao to be added to the list of finalists for the Astounding Award for Best New Author.

SPONSORS: Kristina Forsyth, Cliff Dunn

DISCUSSION:

While there are practical constraints to what the WSFS Business Meeting can do with respect to the 2023 Hugo Award fiasco, unreserved apologies are within our remit.  We recognize that some damaged parties, specifically those whose nominations “evaporated” due to the removal of an unknown number of ballots from the nominations process, may never be known.  But we do know, in specific, those whose works were excluded under dubious grounds and we can offer apologies there.

In the event that other names become known, we would of course encourage the WSFS Business Meeting to offer similar apologies to them.

Please note: This resolution proposes approaching Dell Publications to ask their permission to list Xiran Jay Zhao as a finalist because of the technical ownership of the underlying award (WSFS merely administers it, rather than “owning” it as with the Hugo Awards).

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SHORT TITLE: CHENGDU CENSURE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS the first stated purpose of the World Science Fiction Society in its constitution is to choose the recipients of the annual Hugo Awards (Science Fiction Achievement Awards); and

WHEREAS the Hugo Awards are the most prominent and lasting work of any year’s iteration of the World Science Fiction Society; and

WHEREAS the sense of the Business Meeting of the World Science Fiction Society, as expressed in the debates surrounding the Non-Transferability Amendment in 2021 and 2022, is that members join the Society to support the business of the Society; and

WHEREAS many members of the World Science Fiction Society join the Society primarily or exclusively to participate in nominating and voting on the Hugo Awards; and

WHEREAS Babel (Best Novel), Color the World (Best Novelette), Fongong Temple Pagoda (Best Short Story), The Sandman (Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form), The Sandman (“The Sound of Her Wings”) (Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form), and Paul Weimer (Best Fan Writer) were arbitrarily and capriciously excluded from the Hugo Awards finalist list for the 2023 Worldcon for reasons not found in the Constitution, and in the process not less than 1,834 nominations were voided;

WHEREAS Xiran Jay Zhao was arbitrarily and capriciously excluded from the Astounding Award finalist list, voiding another 178 nominations;

and

WHEREAS no announcement prior to the initiation of the 2021 Site Selection process indicated that rules other than the WSFS Constitution would be used in the Hugo Awards selection process; and

WHEREAS the leadership of the bid committee for the Chengdu Worldcon (generally known as Chengdu in 2023) repeatedly asserted that free speech rights would be respected in the convention and denied that censorship would occur; and

WHEREAS the above election irregularities cannot reasonably be interpreted as anything but censorship; and

WHEREAS Dave McCarty, as Chair of the Hugo Administration committee for the Chengdu Worldcon, has officially declared that he is responsible for all such decisions; and

WHEREAS in not less than four categories, the Hugo Award nomination results listed more votes in the ninth-to-last round of nominee elimination than nominating ballots cast; and

WHEREAS as of the submission of this resolution, no meaningful, public, official explanation has been given by the Hugo Administrator for either above irregularity; and

WHEREAS an unprecedented “cliff” in the number of nominations between the top 5-8 nominees and the remaining nominees in multiple categories was without precedent; and

WHEREAS these irregularities, in their totality, raise substantial and unresolvable doubts as to the propriety of the Hugo Award election process;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

The World Science Fiction Society censures the Chengdu in 2023 bid committee in whole and individually for misleading behaviour during the bid campaign; and

The World Science Fiction Society censures the Chengdu Wordcon committee in whole and individually for failing to uphold the promises expressed during the bid campaign; and

The World Science Fiction Society censures the Hugo Administration committee of the Chengdu Worldcon for improper conduct; and

The World Science Fiction Society censures Dave McCarty, specifically, for removing works from the ballot for reasons not listed in the Constitution; and

The World Science Fiction Society further censures the Hugo Administration committee of the Chengdu Worldcon in whole and individually for discrepancies in balloting; and

The World Science Fiction Society expresses the opinion that, as the primary, if not sole, purpose of many members joining the Chengdu Worldcon, as the 2023 iteration of the World Science Fiction Society was to participate in nominating and voting for the Hugo Awards, these irregularities mean that the Chengdu Worldcon failed to provide its members with the rights and privileges in the Constitution, and therefore owes those members a refund of their WSFS Membership fees.

SPONSORS: Terri Ash, Kevin Sonney, Cliff Dunn, Kristina Forsyth

DISCUSSION: While most of this resolution is self-explanatory and discussion of this affair can be found anywhere from File770 to The Guardian to other submissions to this year’s Worldcon Business Meeting, we wish to elaborate on a small number of points:

First, we recognize the non-binding nature of this resolution.  There is only so much that the WSFS Business Meeting can do, particularly in retrospect.  Another resolution has been submitted to make the irregularly excluded works finalists, so this resolution is focused solely on reprimanding the Chengdu Worldcon Committee.

Second, we feel compelled – given the debates of the last few years – to begin marking a line in the sand around what the “business of the society” is.  The Non-Transferability Amendment got rid of a major avenue for members of a given year’s WSFS to “bail”, but if a major purpose of people joining WSFS is to participate in and support the “business of the society” then we must acknowledge that there is some minimum standard to reasonably consider that the business in question has been executed – and that Chengdu didn’t meet that standard.  We don’t want a Worldcon Committee to be able to “have it both ways”, with WSFS memberships being non-refundable and non-transferable but the Committee having no actual responsibility to carry out that business.  We cannot force Chengdu to refund anybody’s money, but we can make it clear that they ought to do so.

Finally, our intent is to “name and shame”.  Prominent members of our community chose to participate in a process which became grossly corrupted.  They presented the illusion that everything was alright until it was too late to fix the problem.  And several of those members have taken the position that they did nothing wrong.

We wish to make it clear, beyond all doubt, that we hold what they did to be wrong.  Excuses about protecting the process from getting worse or refusing to publicly disagree with a committee that is misbehaving have limits, and we want to make it clear for the record that we do not accept their excuses as sufficient to excuse what transpired.

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SHORT TITLE: MAKE THEM FINALISTS RESOLUTION

Be it Resolved That: Notwithstanding their disqualification by the Hugo Administrator Team of the 2023 Worldcon, Babel (Best Novel), Color the World (Best Novelette), Fogong Temple Pagoda (Best Short Story), The Sandman (Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form), The Sandman (“The Sound of Her Wings”) (Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form), and Paul Weimer (Best Fan Writer), are deemed to have been designated as [finalists] by the Worldcon community for the 2023 Hugo Awards; Xiran Jay Zhao is deemed to have been designated by the Worldcon community as a finalist for the Astounding Award; and

Therefore, the aforementioned people and/or works shall be entitled to be listed as being finalists for a Hugo Award and/or Astounding Award, and shall be formally indicated as Hugo Award Finalists and/or Astounding Finalists in any and all relevant publications.

SPONSORS: Terri Ash, Kevin Sonney, Cliff Dunn, Erica Frank

DISCUSSION: The listed works and creators were all listed in the nominations report for the 2023 Hugo Awards as having enough nominations to make the Final Ballot and were excluded for reasons not stated beyond being deemed not eligible for reasons not found in the Constitution.  While we cannot run the vote again and we cannot be sure that other works were not excluded through the improper exclusion of ballots or via other methods, these irregular exclusions were explicit.   These works objectively qualified for the final ballot, and the historical record should respect this and the authors/creators be duly honored.  Should further clear evidence of other victims of irregular exclusions be provided, we would support adding them to the official lists of nominees as well.

We acknowledge that Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman will receive dual finalist slots – one for the individual episode and one for the full season – when it would not normally be on the ballot in both places.  As both the full season and the individual episode had sufficient nominations to make the ballot, we cannot predict which one Mr. Gaiman would have chosen to go forward.  However, we feel it is safe to consider that the irregular exclusion of “The Sound of Her Wings” should have made the full season eligible and therefore consider both to be victims of this.

We also acknowledge that aside from correcting the record, this resolution does not right the other wrongs wrought by their exclusion.  We would encourage the 2025 and 2026 Worldcons to take steps to right what other wrongs might be (such as providing them with Finalist pins, attempting to arrange a photo op for all the folks in the relevant category from 2023, and so on), but we do not wish to prescribe what actions those committees ought to take.