Alex Acks: Sound and Nerdery

• MPC Election: Don, Judy, and Steven are elected.
• Kent Bloom from the FOLLE Committee would like help finding good links to old WorldCon websites that have become defunct over the years. The FOLLE Committee will continue for the next year as currently constituted.
• New standing rules change A3 Update to Deadlines for Submission of Reports due to A2 from yesterday neglecting to update the deadlines in two of the rules sections. This passes, but there will be another standing rules change proposed for the second business meeting by Ben Yalow, who wishes to correct language in the sections affected by this change in a way that’s not related to the deadline.
• Business passed on from last year:
  • C1 What Our Marks Really Are is ratified with no discussion needed.
  • C2 The Reasonable Amendment is ratified with no discussion needed.
  • C3 Make Room! Make Room! is ratified with no discussion needed.
  • C4 Name That Award has Anna Blumstein, chair of the YA committee, give a rousing speech about why the name “Lodestar” was chosen for the YA Award. No one speaks against, and the amendment is ratified. The YA Award has a name!
• New constitutional amendments:
  • D1 Remote But Real is referred to committee, to be headed by Kate Secor.
  • D2 Adding Series to Series passes, to be sent on to Dublin next year.
  • D6 Comic Books and Graphic Stories passes, to be sent to Dublin next year.
  • D7 Notability Still Matters is amended so the threshold is 4% rather than 5%. After much debate, it passes and will be sent on to Dublin next year.
• Reminder that D5, which is the changes for the best artist categories, will be taken up on Sunday (today), no earlier than 11 AM.
• The meeting adjourns at 11:13.

I will just note how weird it was to be at a business meeting that adjourned so EARLY, as someone who only recently started going to business meetings. Terry Neill has assured me that this is how it used to be before the Fire Nation attacked. Like, what do you do with all this extra time? (If you’re me, you go to the dealer room and buy some t-shirts.)

• You can find a copy of the agenda here.
• Hugo Study Committee report here.
• Business meeting #1 liveblog 
• Preliminary business meeting liveblog | summary

You can find a copy of the agenda here.

Hugo Study Committee report here.

1009: Two minute warning. There is a new piece of business today: A3 Short Title: Update to Deadlines for Submission of Reports. Will change Rule 4.4 and 4.5 to come into line with A2 Deadline for Submission of New Business, which was passed yesterday.

1012: Here we go. First order of business is passing out ballots for the MPC election.

1012: PoI – what if you don’t have a pen? Borrow from your friend. Jesi Lipp: Pricking your finger and writing in blood is also acceptable. “No it’s not, I have to collect them!”

1013: Kent Bloom from the FOLLE Committee. They are currently looking for links for previous WorldCons that have disappeared from their radar. Mostly this is for really old WorldCon links. They would like to move to continue the committee as currently constituted. No object to the continuation.

1014: Tim one more thing about the Hugo Study Committee. No objection to the remit of the committee being extended as requested by Cliff Dunn.

1015: Petréa Mitchell: will there be info on how to sign up? – There will be a sign-up sheet later, and Cliff is the guy to talk to. (Or email, presumably, if you’re not here…)

1016: Standing rule change A3. Five minutes assigned for debate.

1017: Kate Secor for: The language changes here now tie everything to the deadline specifically in Rule 2.1 so it’ll make things neater.

1018: Ben Yalow against: For the most part, agree completely, but has one issue. WorldCon Annual Financial Reports are separate entities, and cannot be demanded by the business meeting like this. Yes, this was in the old 4.4 but he thought it was a mistake then too, so we might as well fix it now.

1019: Point of Order from Kevin Standlee: the member’s motion is outside of the scope of the original proposal.

1020: Tim says this is correct, so if Ben would like to draft it up and bring it in as a completely different proposal, he’ll put it on the agenda tomorrow.

1020: A3 passes not quite unanimously.

1020: Business passed on – motions for ratification from Helsinki.

1021: C1 What Our Marks Really Are – no one cares to speak for or against. Ratified.

1021: C2 The Reasonable Amendment – no one cares to speak for or against. Ratified.

1022: C3 Make Room! Make Room! – no one cares to speak for or against. Ratified.

1023: C4 Name That Award. Tim was on the committee, so he is recusing and handing over control to Jesi Lipp.

1024: Anna Blumstein, who served as chair of the YA committee. Tomorrow, we’ll present the first ever YA award. Currently the award does not have a name. They took a full year to solicit information, do research, and debate. She gives the reason why they chose Lodestar. “The stars have guided fantastic journeys in stories old and new.”

1025: No one speaks again. RATIFICATION OVERWHELMING! We have a Lodestar Award, everyone!

1026: Balloting now closed for the MPC. Tim asks for volunteers to count the votes, which are on the preferential system. Seth and Warren step up.

1027: Moving on to new constitutional amendments. First up is D1 Remote but Real.

1027: Kate Secor speaks as maker of the motion. Moves to send to committee, not to report back earlier than next year’s meeting. “I put this on the agenda so we could talk about it. I understand there are flaws, but I think a committee is the correct venue to have these conversations.”

1028: PRK against. Not hard against the committee, but thinks having some discussion in the meeting first would allow the committee some idea of the issues people might have.

1029: Still Ben Yalow says that in general, committees have to report back are pretty good at fixing technical things. However, for anything but technical things – and he believes the flaws in this are not technical – you really want a committee that has time to discuss. So a committee that will report back next year is very preferable than one for this year.

1030: Chris Hensley because this has specific technical aspects, hashing it out in the meeting would be unproductive. It’s better to let the committee hash things out and give us a report.

1031: Kevin Standlee with an inquiry – would it be right to assume that Kate Secor will be given the chair of the committee and have the discretion to hire or fire. The answer is yes.

1032: Motion to refer passes. Kate Secor will be in charge of the Remote but Real committee. Signups will be at the table at the end of the meeting.

1032: D2 Adding Series to the Series, which is a fix for an “oops.” No one speaking in favor or against.

1033: Quentin Matthews with a question – this is a technical fix, so why does it take two years to get into the constitution? Tim says this does not fall within the bounds of the secretary to correct because it does technically change the meaning of the constitution.

1034: D2 passes on to Dublin.

1034: D3 and D4 were postponed indefinitely, D5 was postponed definitely until tomorrow… we are almost done with the agenda for today. Wow. Anyway, ten minute break!

1041: Cliff has set up the email address hugo.study.committee at gmail.com, so contact him there if you are not at this business meeting but are interested in being on the Hugo Study Committee.

1050: Back in session. Tellers for MPC election give report. First round was Don, second round Judy, third round Steven.

1051: Ballots will be destroyed after the meeting.

1051: Two items of business remaining. D6 Comic Books and Graphic Stories.

1052: He remains Andrew Adams. This was an item that came up from one of the comics authors who was part of the Hugo Study Committee. The description of graphic story felt disrespectful to writers and artists in that genre because those in it refer to it as comics. We are aligning this to be more respectful to eligible artists, which was the intent in the first place.

1053: Elliot Mitchell against feels the constitution should avoid the comedy reading of “comic.”

1054: Cliff Dunn says this is the reason we have “comic book” instead of “comic,” to avoid that confusion.

1054: D6 passes on to Dublin next year.

1055: D7 Notability Still Matters, which is to tidy up some things around EPH.

1055: Dave McCarty (Hugo Administrator). When we adopted EPH, we changed the reporting to say we would basically report the 16 top items. Previously we could omit long tail nominations with only single digits, but EPH took that choice away. He prefers to not report the low numbers. This would bring the EPH reporting requirements back into line with how things were done previously.

1057: Kate Secor against: as we see the field get wider, the tail is going to get longer. Our field is awesome and it’s getting bigger, and we should be celebrating that even though the votes are more dispersed.

1057: Andrew Adams for: the optional wording in the amendments works with Kate’s concern. We should trust our administrators to know what the difference is between noise in the machine and information that should be given out.

1058: Jill van Acker got to see the sausage making from last year. Disagree with the amendment because we are at the point in participation where the 5% isn’t an issue any more. If someone makes it to the end of the ten rounds, they’re not going to be at the end of the tail any more. This is an important part of our history, about the things we found important enough to nominate.

1100: Don Eastlake moves to strike out 5% and replace with 4%. He feels 5% is a little too harsh and 4% would be better.

1100: No speech against, we amend it to 4%. Back to the main motion.

1101: Cliff Dunn: aside from the fan categories, the single nomination artifact is mostly in the retro Hugos. It is valuable to have the last handful of rounds so we can see how the distributions took place since it’s a runoff system. Also, the 5% rule got removed by the 5% Solution originally, not the EPH amendment.

1102: Ben Yalow says it’s not just the fan Hugos, it shows up in the retros. For retros, we had John Campbell with 75 nominations. The number two had 8 nominations.

1103: Martin Pyne moves to amend to remove 4% and replace with “fewer than ten ballots.” Since the problem is with single digit ballots.

1104: Debate time is extended by another two minutes on each side, because we’ve run out.

1105: Perrianne Lurie says that ten is an arbitrary number. Percentage of the total number of ballots makes more sense because it hinges on how many actual ballots there are.

1106: Elspeth thinks that using ten ballots does give a better idea of how many nominations there actually wee. A percentage can be any number. Saying ten ballots clarifies that we are not excluding the bottom percentage.

1107: Points of Information Gary Blog wants point of information from Dave McCarty. How often on the final ballot are there works that got ten nominations or fewer?

1107: Kevin Standlee with Point of Order – that’s technically debate. You can’t just ask a question and not have it count toward your time.

1108: Don Eastlake points out that this is still at the option of the administrator. The administrator is not required to omit these from reports.

1108: Joshua Kronengold says that as the long tail gets longer and the numbers involved get larger. The things were ignoring also gets bigger. Having a specific number rather than percentage means we cannot ignore the people in the long tail who are still making double digit numbers. And we’re talking about people with only a handful of votes. Ten, like ten fingers, is all our hands can hold.

1109: Dave McCarty says if you pore through the history, the participation varies by year and by category. A hard number does not serve this variation well. Asking this as an administrator who has always reported more than what is required. But believes we need to trust the administrators to decide where to draw the line.

1111: Amendment fails. It’s still 4% and not 10 ballots.

1111: Time to vote on the main motion. Overwhelming number of ayes. D7 will go to Dublin for ratification.

1111: D5 and the further standing rule amendment from Ben Yalow remain for tomorrow. …are we almost done for the day?

1112: Kate Secor clarifies that D5 is not until 11 tomorrow. Yep.

1113: We stand adjourned!

You can find a copy of the agenda here.

Hugo Study Committee report here.

The WSFS business meeting #1 liveblog will begin shortly in this space! I’ll update this post every 5-10 minutes.

1007: Five minute warning. Time for the instructional video about parliamentary procedure!

1016: Tim Illingworth is the chair of this business meeting. Staff are Don Eastlake (parliamentarian), Linda, Jesi Lipp, and Paul. Be aware that the business meeting will be recorded and posted later.

1019: Preliminary business meeting agenda: time setting, standing rule changes and resolutions, and MPC nominations.

1021: Kevin Standlee would like to call attention to as a proofreading error. Video crew (Lisa and Scott) will record in batches and there will need to be video breaks, and this year will not be livestreamed.

1022: Tim mentions one of the financial reports has the wrong year on it. All reports are accepted without objection with the acknowledgment that there is the incorrect year.

1023: Committee reports. First up is MPC.

1023: Kevin Standlee chair reports. MPC is the only permanent committee. Manages service marks. The written report is in the agenda. The only item called out is on page 35. Last year, the Flemish language portion of Belgian TV (VRT) launched a prize in honor of Hugo Claus, and were going to call it the “Hugo Award.” Nicholas Whyte made initial contact with them, and they agreed to rename the price the “Hugo Claus Trophy.” The committee believes that this was accomplished without attorneys is because “Hugo Awards” is one of the service marks owned by us in the EU, and this was a good use of money.

1026: Nominations for elections to the MPC…. except Tim didn’t ask for question.

1026: Question from Andrew Adams about Brexit and possible need to re-register marks in the UK.

1027: This has not been considered yet but will be.

1027: Nominations now. Judith Bemis asks to be nominated. Kevin Standlee asks for unanimous consent for incumbent members to remain and receives it.

1028: Terry Neill question – if we unanimously re-nominate the current members, is that the limit, or can we add more? We can have as many as we like. Means tomorrow we will have an actual election instead of “just a coronation.”

1030: Don with report from Nitpicking and Flyspecking committee. The committee recommends that item D2 be passed. The members of the committee are willing to serve another year. The committee is provided for in the standing rules.

1032: Jesi Lipp has a nitpick, which is that her last name needs to be corrected in the report.

1033: No one from the WorldCon Runners Guide committee to report. No one from the FOLLE committee to report. But there is one from the Hugo study committee. “Boy do they have a report.”

1033: Vince says he’s hopefully the outgoing chair of the committee. Report is included in the packet. Vince’s responsibilities for Dublin WorldCon mean that he can’t be chair next year.

1035: Question on how people can get on this committee. A new chair will be appointed who will be taking volunteers.

1036: Now we are on to standing rules changes.

1037: Tim proposes five minutes for everything but D5. I object and explain that after speaking with Marguerite Kenner, D4 needs more time.

1040: Tim tries again with 5 minutes for everything but D4 and D5, and then Terry objects because the Lodestar thing will need more discussion, which she’s probably right on.

1040: Kate Secor points out that when we went through items one by one we could object to consideration, etc. Can we do that if we’re doing them in a lump?

1042: 5 minutes for A1, Restricting Ratification of Amendments.

1043: Cliff Dunn on A1. Primary purpose of this is that there’s a tendency to try to amend things majorly at the ratification meeting. It would be better if members knew if big changes were coming. Concerns that business meeting could be ambushed by a small but dedicated crowd. Greater versus lesser change.

1044: No speech against. Voted on now. A1 passes.

1045: Martin Pyne with a parliamentary inquiry – can there be a motion to put it into effect immediately, when would that be timely? Tim says that in this case, then the person proposing the amendment would have had to do so two weeks ago, so it really doesn’t work.

1046: A2 Deadline for Submission of New Business gets 5 minutes. Kate Secor speaks for, because 2 weeks seems like too short of a time to let everyone deal with proposed business. A month out for new business would make things much easier for the staff and presumably if you have been working on your new business, you should have your ducks in a row that long.

1047: The standing rule changes will come into effect after this business meeting.

1047: Don Eastlake against. Didn’t think it was a problem when the deadline was actually at the business meeting. Simple things could work, complicated amendments proposed at the meeting usually went down in flames. If the deadline is too late for the secretary to get it into the agenda, then the maker of the motion has the burden of printing everything up and bringing it in.

1048: Linda Deneroff against. Having an earlier deadline works better for getting financial reports and such for the agenda. It would stop these last minute, sometimes trivial proposals that get made. An earlier deadline forces people to think what’s going to happen and what they want to accomplish, etc.

1050: Todd Dashoff moves to call the question. Seconded.

1050: Question is called, A2 is passed by majority.

1051: Time limits for business passed on.

1051: C1 What Our Marks Really Are gets five minutes. C2 The Reasonable Amendment gets 5 minutes. C3 Make Room! Make Room! gets 5 minutes. C4 Name That Award gets 10 minutes.

1052: 10 minute break time!

1109: We’re back!

1109: D1 Remote but Real. Five minutes proposed by Tim, ten by Kevin. Ten minutes it is.

1110: Andrew Adams proposes to refer D1 to committee. Point of Order from Kevin; the preliminary business meeting cannot refer to postpone anything beyond the main business meeting.

1111: Cliff asks if we could suspend the rules to do this?

1111: Dr Adams says no thanks, he’ll just do this tomorrow.

1112: Motion to postpone indefinitely, which is seconded. This is debatable at four minutes.

1112: For postponement: This is a complex issue, and we need time to figure it out, with or without a committee. This shouldn’t be taken up this year.

1113: Kate Secor: Agrees that the motion is missing some discussion. Urges not postpone indefinitely, but that we move it to committee tomorrow.

1113: Ben Yalow speaks against postponement as well. Can’t do this without discussing it, and we cannot form a committee by postponing it. Tomorrow when it comes to the floor and we can send it to a committee, let’s do that.

1114: Kevin Standlee thinks that this is a really bad idea in principle. We really don’t want to go here, and we don’t want to create an elected body separate from the business meeting.

1115: Terry Neill is broadly in favor of things that broaden WorldCon to serve more members and would like to see it thoroughly discussed.

1116: Parliamentary Inquiry from Seth. If the motion to postpone indefinitely, can there still be a motion to appoint a study committee to report back next year. Tim says that yes, we could do so.

1117: Motion to postpone indefinitely fails.

1118: Warren Buff with motion to suspend the rules and send this to committee.

1118: When would be the committee be expected to report? Next year.

1119: Point of Order from Kevin. This seems to have not come up before. There is a principle behind suspending the rules. Rules that affect the rights of absentees cannot be suspended. Members may take for granted that motions to create committees cannot be taken up until the main business meeting for that reason. Tim agrees, motion is out of order.

1122: Joshua Kronengold speaks for this motion; it is already known by absentees that a motion could be killed. A motion to move to committee is allowable because it is a lesser version of killing an item.

1122: Terry Neill says that we have a flow of the meeting that people expect. If we overrule the chair, we’re sticking a socket wrench in that expectation.

1123: Elspeth believes that assumption is incorrect.

1123: Seth with a PI. If we did overrule the chair, would it be in order for the main meeting to take it back from the committee and consider it. Tim doesn’t think so. Don says you can’t do by a normal motion, but can move to reconsider, etc.

1124: Kate Secor: there is a qualitative difference between the thought processes of killing a motion versus sending to committee. Not giving people a chance to know a committee is even being formed because they’re not here is pretty unfair.

1126: We vote on the appeal of the ruling of the chair, and that appeal is lost. D1 will proceed to tomorrow’s meeting and probably be referred to committee there.

1127: D2 Adding Series to the Series is given 5 minutes of time.

1127: D3 Counting Comics. 5 minutes proposed. 8 minutes proposed. 8 minutes is set.

1128: Dave McCarty (Hugo admin) to speak to the motion itself. This is not a technical fix; this is a substantial change to how we will count in this category. Moving to postpone indefinitely because he thinks it is ill conceived.

1129: Dr. Adams against the motion because he believes there should be a debate.

1129: Kate Secor this particular proposal is offensive to someone who nominates. She nominates what she nominates.

1130: David Brachman (former Hugo admin) says the reason for this is because this category has particular problems for administrators. There is ambiguity left, but in this case it should be clarified what will happen when they nominate something.

1131: He is still Ben Yalow and does not think this is guidance that should be given to Hugo admins, because this is not how things should be counted.

1132: John L (also a former Hugo admin) says the original rules were extremely nebulous, and this will clarify things.

1132: Terry Neill suggests we do with this what we did with D1 and take this on to tomorrow where it can be referred to committee.

1133: Kent Bloom says that whether it is postponed indefinitely or it goes back to committee, there is a committee already looking at these matters and it will be considered by them.

1133: PRK with PI. Would this prohibit the Hugo Study Committee if it was postponed? No, just the business meeting. The committee can consider it.

1135: Motion is voted… OH SHIT KIDS IT’S OUR FIRST SERPENTINE.

1137: More than two-thirds in favor of being postponed indefinitely, so D3 is toast. Tim remarks that the Hugo Study Committee should take note.

1138: Todd Dashoff points out that the remit of the Hugo Study Committee is section 3.2 and 3.3, and this is 3.8.

1139: Kate Secor points out that the language does not say it’s limited only to 3.2 and 3.3. So it can be considered by the committee.

1140: 10 minutes debate for D4 Best Podcast Hugo Award.

1140: Kate Secor moves to postpone indefinitely because people eligible for this award have expressed extreme concerns about this language. Better to postpone indefinitely so it can be reworked. Seconded, and postponed indefinitely by an overwhelming majority.

1141: D5 Professional and Fan Artist Hugo Awards. 20 minutes for debate.

1142: Ms. Dashoff points out that tomorrow the business meeting is set against the ASFA meeting, and proposes to postpone definitely until Sunday. (Kevin clarifies the motion should technically be to not be considered before 11 on Sunday.) Unanimous on that motion, so this will be considered at the WSFS meeting on Sunday.

1143: D6 Comic Books and Graphic Stories. 5 minutes for debate.

1144: D7 Notability Still Matters. 5 minutes for debate.

1144: Meeting stands adjourned until tomorrow morning! See you then.