Category: worldcon

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[WorldCon] Quick Summary: WSFS Preliminary Business Meeting and Business Meeting 1

Liveblog of the preliminary meeting here.

Liveblog of business meeting 1 here.

Preliminary Business Meeting Summary

  • Standing Committess gave their reports and were re-appointed for the following year. If you’re curious about the reports, find them here.
  • Special committees also gave their reports.
    • The subcommittee that was supposed to address fan artist/professional artists did not turn in a report and was dissolved, to be folded back into the Hugo study committee, at request of the chair.
    • No report from the remote participation committee, with a promise that shit will be gotten together in the coming year, as shit was most definitely not together this past year. On that understanding, committee was re-appointed for another year.
  • San Jose WorldCon gave a brief report and brought pass-along funds to be distributed. They will be holding more funds in reserve pending the resolution of the lawsuit. Current status of that is four of the five claims have been dismissed with prejudice (leaving only the defamation claim), and all those named in the complaints except the WorldCon itself have been freed from this mess as well.
    • My opinion, which does not in any way reflect what was said by the WorldCon chair, who was very circumspect and remarkably restrained: JDA remains, miles ahead of the depressingly robust competition, science fiction’s most pathetic piece of shit, and I hope he ends up having to pay every penny of legal fees for this frivolous nonsense.
  • A standing rules change is made to allow the Committee of the Whole to extend its discussion/debate time without having to ask the meeting for permission, to save us from the absolute mess we had last year.
  • Eligibility of the films Prospect and Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin were extended via resolution.
  • Resolution to suspend 5 and 6 for 2020 was definitely postponed until after we deal with the proposed amendment (“Five and Five”) that would render it moot.
  • Debate time is set for all of the many new constitutional amendments. Mostly.
    • “Best Translated Novel” is postponed indefinitely.
    • An attempt is made to postpone “Five and Five” indefinitely, which fails.
    • An attempt is made to postpone “Best Game or Interactive Experience”  indefinitely also fails, possibly due to the argument that even if the amendment might fail, it deserves the courtesy of debate.
  • Serpentine Count: 1

 

Business Meeting 1 Summary

  • Two amendments passed on from last year are ratified: “Adding Series to the Series” and “Comic Books and Graphic Stories”
  • The third amendment passed on from last year, “Notability Still Matters,” fails to be ratified on a Serpentine, 41 for to 44 against. There is also an explosion of parliamentary wrangling and total confusion.
  • The broadside of Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee amendments proceeds:
    • “Clarification of WorldCon Powers,” “A Problem of Numbers,” and “The Needs of the One” are unanimously passed on to the next business meeting for ratification.
    • “Disposition of NASFiC ballot” and “That Ticket Has Been Punched” are passed on to the next business meeting after some wrangling about wording and meaning.
    • “The Forward Pass” is referred back to the Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee after a series of amendments ate all of the debate time. (Leaving me clutching my stopwatches and unable to scream, “You have now made this completely noncompliant with GDPR!”)
      • Cue more parlimentary confusion during this item, though not nearly as severe as what we had during “Notability Still Matters.”
  • After the absolute mess that was “The Forward Pass,” the business meeting wisely conceded that maybe “Five and Five” was going to be a little too rough to try to get through in one day… so after failing to adjourn, we decided to take up “No Deadline for Nominations Eligibility” instead, because that was definitely going to be a cause for much less emotional debate*. Debate was started, and then the meeting was adjourned after a motion to amend the amendment with a sunset clause was offered, because the wordsmithing needed to be done. Debate will resume with its time refreshed tomorrow.
    • * yes, sarcasm.
  • As a note, the “Best Game or Interactive Experience” amendment will be taken up as the Business Meeting 2 immediately after Site Selection is finished and we clean up the mess we started and didn’t finish on “No Deadline for Nominations Eligibility,” as the creator of that amendment will not be able to attend on Monday.
  • Serpentine Count: 2
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worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Business Meeting 1 Liveblog

The agenda is available here.

Alex: Sorry that I didn’t get a summary of the preliminary done for y’all yesterday. My schedule was kind of a garbage fire–thankfully today is a bit calmer. I’m hoping to catch up on things this evening and get you TWO whole summaries. Also, I appreciate your patience on spelling corrections, etc. Liveblog will commence shortly under normal rules, courtesy of my super awesome housemate Corina, long may she reign.

 

0959: GOOD MORNING BUSINESS MEETING FANS! I have been told I should direct you all to my Twitter, which is @Zeteram. Mostly I post pictures of my cats.

1007: Business meeting commences a little late as the head table was having a discussion about something. A new Resolution is added to the meeting called B4: Credit to Translators of Written Fiction, to say that when a work in translation for Novel/Novella/Novelette, and Short Story wins a Hugo, that a Hugo is also awarded to the credited translator.

1009: Kent Bloom has a response from Helsinki regarding surplus funds.  There are funds, and they will consider the applications but have not currently made any grants.  He cannot find anyone representing MidAmericon II for the same question.

1012: Commentary on item C3 (A Response to the Proposal to Eliminate the Membership Deadline for Hugo Award Nominating Rights) is distributed. Ballots for MPC membership voting are distributed.

1017: Voting for MPC completes. Tellers will count the ballots.

1020: The meeting moves to Business Passed On. Debate for item C1, Adding Series to the Series, commences. Jo Van Eckeren states it is a tidying-up measure. No speeches against. Motion passes unanimously.

1026: Item C2: Comic Books and Graphic Stories. Kate Secor explains that the Graphic Story category should include “or Comic” as a clarification for comics fans. Rene Walling crunched the numbers and explains that 54% of the winners and 63% of the finalists have been comics.  Also, manga fans may feel excluded as may other fans of similar media. It should not be our responsibility to list everything. Joshua Kronengold speech for, explaining that “Graphic Novel” has been used by people who dislike comics and it is a sign that we don’t dislike comics if we use the term “comics”. Perianne Lurie for, the title makes no difference compared to the substance so if the title is offensive we should fix that. Chris Barkley for, explains there was initally a debate to add Comics in the first place and that it was always his intent to do so eventually. Motion passes.

1035: Item C3, Notability Still Matters. Dave McCarty speech for, explains it would lower the burden on administrative staff as many administrators publish a long “long list” anyway. B y getting rid of the “must”, it leaves this open. Cliff Dunn moves to amend the motion by adding “Notwithstanding the 4% rule, any round that affects the elimination of a candidate that either appears on or changes the final ballot shall be included in the results”.  Chairperson refers the question of whether this is a lesser change or greater change to the body of the meeting. Motion to refer the amendment (and thereby the entire motion) to committee to report back tomorrow. There is some confusion as to whether this is permissible and whether it is a lesser or greater change.  Chairperson declares a pause to consult with the head table.

1043: Confusion about parlimentary procedure abounds.

1047: Motion is referred to committee after reading aloud from Robert’s Rules of Order. Cliff Dunn and Dave McCarty will be on the committee along with anyone else they choose.

1048: MPC election results reported. Kevin Standlee, Ben Yalow, and Jo Van Eckeren are elected to the MPC for the current year. Recess to reconvene at 1100.

1100: Meeting reconvenes. Now with more coffee! Or tea, as the case may be.

1108: The committee that was told to report back tomorrow is now finished and reports back. Dave Wallace points out if the committee reports back tomorrow we will reset the time limits, but if they report today we have no time left. Chair says we can extend the time today if necessary. Vote to allow the committee to report today (passed). Cliff Dunn reports. The intent was to avoid a situation where something had not made 4% but had made the final ballot, but due to the way EPH works this would have effectively done nothing. Amendment withdrawn.

1112: Debate time on C3 reset to six minutes. Speech against, Dave Wallace. Summarizes the handout as he was a co-author, largely that the Short Story category is disproportionally affected and that it would have left off many excellent stories by well-known names in the field. As this helps Hugo voters to discover new works, the harm of leaving this information off outweighs the benefits of the proposed amendment.

1118: Ben Yalow in favor, less than 4% nominations are noise not signal. Kate Secor against, statistically they may not be significant but emotionally they are.  The field is full of great material and any attention paid to outstanding works is helping promote them, and this is a good thing. Rene Walling in favor, “may” be withheld is not binding and he trusts the Hugo administrators on this. Dave McCarty in favor, as an administrator it is unlikely this would ever be used on a “live” Hugo and would benefit administering single-digit nominations, mostly for Retros, because we use the same rules for both. Leave the judgment to the administrators, who care deeply abvout the awards. Lisa Padel speech for, recognize that administrators are human and this places a tremendous burden on them. Vote to adopt C3. CLOSE CALL…HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS!

1121: Serpentine results show 41 for, 44 against. C3 fails.

1124: Moving on to new constitutional amendments. If these pass, they will be passed on to next year’s Business Meeting to be ratified. Item D1, Clarification of Worldcon Powers. Kevin Standlee explains the reasoning for the amendment – the Worldcon for each year has the authority over Hugos for that year, and a future Worldcon cannot affect the Hugos for any other year, to make it mechanically impossible for a future Worldcon to “take away” Hugos from a previous year. Motion passes unanimously.

1130: D2, Disposition of the NASFiC Ballot. Would resolve Site Selection if it crashes at a NASFiC, which has never happened, but this would allow for a safety net and call a Business Meeting at a NASFiC solely to deal with site selection. Couple questions clarifying this take up the time allotted for debate in favor. Kent Bloom speech against as he believes it is unnecessary as the NASFiC rules currently stand, and that it would only encourage recreational parlimentarianism. Motion passes.

1133: D3, A Problem of Numbers. Technicalities to clarify that you can vote in the Final Hugo Awards and the Site Selection even if you do not know your membership number or it has not yet been assigned, as the staff may supply it for you. Joni Daschoff relates a personal experience when it was difficult to find that number, so she supports the amendment. Motion passes unanimously.

1135: Item D4, The Needs of the One. Clarifies that an item can be moved around on an individual ballot, while the other clauses in the line item applies to categories as a whole. Motion passes unanimously.

1142: Item D5, The Forward Pass. Clarifies that the pass-along of member information to future Worldcons must be done in compliance with all appropriate laws such as GDPR. Perianne Lurie believes it is unnecessary because site selection is purchasing a membership, and if you did not want this information transferred you do not want your membership and should not vote in site selection. Kate Secor argues it is not our job to keep people from being stupid, and as we are written we are not in compliance with the law, so it is important to explicitly state this. Move to divide the question – it should be part of the ballot process, so 2.7 amendment and 4.1.3 amendment should be voted on separately. Are we really going to call a division on dividing the question.  Are we really.

1144: A division on dividing the question is not called. The question is not divided. The Chair cracks down on people rising for non-privileged questions.

1155: Rene Walling moves to change the wording of “addresses” to “contact information” as we live in a rapidly-changing informational technology society. New wording approved. Dave Wallace would like to further amend 4.1.3 to give permission to reject payment of those who do not choose to pass along their information. Several people rise to speak against this amendment – we should allow people to give a donation to the winning Worldcon, as it were. This amendment fails. Kate Secor wishes to amend the 4.1.3 to say “to those who have not opted out” rather than “to those who have given permission for”. (As the liveblogger understands it, that would violate GDPR, but the liveblogger is by no means an expert in privacy laws.)

1200: Todd Daschoff notes that 4.1.3 does not have the language about local law so we may be requiring something illegal and should not do this. Donald Eastlake says we should put in “as the agent of the winning committee” and suggests moving the pending amendment and motion to a committee to report next year. Item is referred to the Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee. Ten minute break.

1212: Meeting called back to order with item D6, That Ticket Has Been Punched.

1222: Jo Van for, explains the intent of the motion. Kate Secor against as it introduces an inconsistency, as the same rules do not apply to Novel.  Understands the intent, but the result is troubling. Terry Neill speech for, it is not inconsistent with Novel as if a novel was a finalist when originally published it is not eligible again with a second international publication. Movement to add the words “in English” (did not catch name of mover) to the amendment. Jo Van against amendment as it is not fair to recognize a series twice on the merits of a single work even if the work is not in English. PRK for amendment as a single work in translation can substantially change the series (although methinks this is missing the point of the original motion). Dave Wallace thinks amendment is unnecessary. Joshua Kronengold likes intent of amendment but dislikes the effects. Ben Yalow points out we have a lot of inconsistencies and special cases, no reason to argue against this just for that reason. Vote on the “in English” amendment. Results unclear, so. SERPENTINE!

1226: Movement to add “in English” to the amendment has 39 for, 29 against. Vote on the amended motion passes.

1229: D7, Five and Five will take significant time to discuss and debate, so there is a motion to adjourn for the day. Motion fails. Todd Daschoff suggests we take up D8 instead, which passes.

1240: Nicholas Whyte speaks to D8, No Deadline for Nomainations Eligibility. It was originally proposed to facilitate three-stage voting, which did not pass at that time.  Being as this was unnnecessary, as a two-time Hugo administrator he now understands Dec 31 is a bad deadline as it is holiday, etc. It is easier to allow any members to nominate until nominations close. He understands there are problems with this, but we shouldn’t be scared of the bad guys and should try to run the best awards we can. Terry Neill is against as she has been the Hugo Helpdesk person for several Worldcons. We are still facing slating. Ira Alexandra is for the amendment as there are economic reasons people may hold off on buying memberships until after January 1. Jo Van against as it helps keep entryism down; the Christmas issue is a non-issue if they vote in site selection. Cathy McMahaffee speech for as she buys membership in Jan as she has no money in the summer, and does not participate in site selection. It is the will of the community, so we should encourage people to nominate rather than discourage them. Martin Pyne moves to add a sunset clause for 2024. We will adjourn for today and take this up tomorrow with proper wording of the sunset clause.

1242: Meeting adjourned. Important note: we will be moving to address D13, the video game amendment, immediately after Site Selection and D8 tomorrow, as the maker of D13 cannot be here on Monday.

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worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Preliminary Business Meeting Liveblog

The agenda is available here.

0923: Welcome to the liveblog for the WSFS business meeting! Actual updates will come about ever 5-10 minutes starting around 10-ish local time ; we’ll see when the meeting gets called into order. Things will be a little different this year, because I’m actually sitting at the head table as the timekeeper (oh god) so we will have a guest liveblogger. My housemate Corina deserves many thanks, for not only continuing to attend the dog and pony show that is the WSFS business meeting, but being willing to liveblog in my place.

1005: Good morning, all. Start of business meeting slightly delayed to give time for members to find the location of the meeting, as it is not in the main convention center area but in a hotel adjacent to the secondary convention space.

1018: Meeting called to order by Mx. Jesi Lipp, Chair.

1021: Don Eastlake, parliamentarian. Absent is Jared Dashoff, Business Liaison. Deputee presiding officer, Kevin Standlee. Alex Acks (hi!), timekeeper. Lisa Hayes, videographer.  Sergants-at-Arms: Terry Neill, Jo Van Ekeren, Anne Davenport. All introduced with preferred pronouns. No captioning service available this year.

1023: Terry explains how to get to the mic or have the mic come to you. Don goes over parliamentary information.

1025: WorldconEvents youtube channel will have video recording as soon as it can be uploaded. Meeting will not be livestreamed.

1028: Schedule for the Preliminary Business Meeting is presented, as well as for the rest of the meetings. Bulk of amendments will be Saturday as well as MPC elections. Sunday is SIte Selection Meeting, presentations for 2022 as well as announcement and presentation for 2021. If necessary, meeting on Monday.

1029: First-time business meeting attendees recognized, as well as 10+ time-attendees.

1032: Any objections to reports? Terry questions Worldcon 76 about financial information due to the lawsuit. Kevin Roche reports they are still in litigation which reduces the pass-along funds, but he has brought three checks for Dublin, CoNZealand, and the 79th Worldcon. First four complaints dismissed with prejudice, defamation claim still pending.

1035: Kent Bloom questions Roach about surplus to give a donation for preserving the Worldcon memorabilia. Roche will check his budget, but they anticipate prevailing in the lawsuit however it is a hope not a guarantee. Same question for MidAmeriCon II and Worldcon 75. No representative available for either, but this will be addressed.

1040: Committee reports. Kevin Standlee reporting for MPC. Report in packet. Highlights: a few challenges including a misuse of the Hugo Award logo. All dealt with, wishes to thank Etsy for being so responsive. Alexis Layton question about a budget report. Standlee states average expenditures about $1700-2000. Financial report included in the packet. They may ask for money if a large suit comes up, but this is uncommon.

1043: Nominations for MPC members. Tim Illingworth, Ben Yalow, Kevin Standlee are current members. Ask for unanimous consent for those three to be nominated again (given). Ask for nominations. Jo Van Ekeren interested in participating. (Second not needed, but appreciated.)

1046: Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee report by Don Eastlake. A few amendments proposed, detailed in the Agenda. Unanimous consent to reappoint committee to serve another year.

1050: Worldcon Runner’s Guide Editorial Committee report. Mike Wilmoth reports. Incremental progress is being made. They will continue to work on it until Hell freezes over. Current committee approved to serve another year.

1054: Formalization of Long List Entries (FOLLE) committee. Kent Bloom reports. Research continues. Some changes were made, but he doesn’t think they did anything major. Would like to be endorsed for another year.  No objections. Cliff Dunn reports for Hugo Awards Study Committee. Would like to continue for another year with the ability to add/remove members. Proposes move to a wikia instead of email. Jo Van asks about art committee to be recombined with main committee as it did not meet nor produce a report.  Seconded. Ben Yalow raises a concern that the other committee is not on the floor and therefore cannot object to this and should not be discharged although we can still expand the main committee. Standlee says yes we can because they all report to us! Vote on expanding now, will discharge when it is on the floor. The committee chair is in the room and says this is an excellent idea as long as Cliff doesn’t kill it. Cliff (reluctantly) agrees.

1058: Seeing no objection, it is done. Lisa Padol thanks Cliff for herding the cats. Perianne Lurie asks about continuing the committee again for another year. Approved.

1102: The Remote But Real committee reports. Kate Secor apologizes that there was no report/committee meeting.  Requests continuing for another year, willing to turn over chairship to someone else. Committee continued (no one else volunteers to be another chair). Alan Tipper asks about joining the committee. Secor accepts email addresses.

1103: Professional Artist and Fan Artist Study Committee disbanded with no report. Cliff Dunn gives sign up sheet to join Hugo Study Committee. Ten minute recess to convene at 1113.

1115: Meeting reconvened. One standing rule change to vote on: item B3. Debate time 4 mins.

1123: B3 reclassified as A1. Kate Secor summarizes the issue (giving Committee of the Whole the ability to extend itself rather than the labyrinthine maneuver from last year). Kent Bloom objects that this is not he right way to do it, because now we know the right method to do it because the rules for the Business Meeting and Committee of the Whole are different and this would make it too easy for the Committee of the Whole to extend itself. Martin Pyne, Parliamentary Inquiry about debate time, Chairperson clarifies.

1133: Terry Neill speech in favor because the Committee of the Whole is exactly the same people as the Business Meeting so it is ok to extend their own time. Don Eastlake amendment to clarify a 2/3 vote is needed to extend time. Seconded. Joshua Kronengold asks if 2/3 is what the Business Meeting requires (yes, so it is the same). Martin Pyne inquiry as to whether the Committee could limit its debate time, but there is an existing standing rule to clarify that already. Jo Van inquiry to clarify the original motion.  PRK inquiry to ask if 2/3 majority should be referred to the constitution, but as this appears in Robert’s Rules of Order this is rejected.  Motion to extend debate by 2 mins, seconded. Vote fails. Someone appeals ruling of the chair since there has been no opposing speech, but there has so it is withdrawn. Vote on amendment passes. Vote on standing rule change adopted. Cliff Dunn motions to give it immediate effect, which is seconded. 2/3 majority needed, passes.

1136: Item B1: Hugo Eligibility extention for Prospect. Olav Rokne speaks in favor due to limited distribution during the eligibility period. Vote in favor passes.

1137: Item B2: Hugo Eligibility for Worlds of Ursula K LeGuin. Jo Van speaks in favor due to limited release during eligibility period but wider distribution since. Vote in favor passes.

1140: Item B4: Suspend “5 and 6” for 2020. Cliff Dunn moves to postpone definitely until after item D7, seconded. Vote passes.

1143: Moving on to business passed on from last year. Debate times set. Come back tomorrow for the fun stuff.

1155: New Constitutional Amendments. Debate times are set for D1-D6. D7 moved to postpone indefinitely. It is too early to dismantle the bulwark. Kent Bloom says we have no evidence this has deterred anything. Jo Van in favor, ensures that an extra non slate finalist gets in. This was done in 89 as well, while it has increased the workload on the administrators, does ensure that the people who should be on the balance get to be on the ballot. Ben Yalow against, because the threat decided to go away. Protections there serve no useful purpose and make the process less transparent and fair. Kathleen Mahaffy – they have not gone away, we still see evidence of slates. Needs to be protected. Elspeth Kovar inquiry as to what we’re debating. Moved to vote. SERPENTINE CALLED!

1158: 46 in favor, 30 against. Motion to postpone indefinitely fails.

1204: D8-D10 debate times set. Motion to refer to committee for D11 made and then withdrawn. Joshua Kronengold wants to take out the word “forever”, but it is not substantive and is dismissed. Debate time set for D11.

1210: D12 motion to postpone indefinitely (this is Best Translated Novel). Cliff Dunn speaks in favor of postponing indefinitely. Chris Barkley speaks against, as the amendment seems like the road we will eventually end up on so we should discuss it now.  It is a matter of diversity to support it. (Still) Ben Yalow speaks in favor as we do not have the authority to pass it now, suggests a committee report. Jo Van in favor as it needs more work. Mark Richards against, as it has a sunset clause so we can use it as a trial of viability. Movement postponed indefinitely.

1218: D13 (Best Game or Interactive Experience) moved to postpone indefinitely. Kate Secor in favor because the Hugo nominating base is not ready for the cost of entry. Lisa Padel against having seen the reports, enough research has been done that it deserves a debate, even if we decide against it. Periann Lurie agnostic on the topic but believes the proposal is flawed and needs revision before we consider it as things like Bandersnatch and choose your own adventure books are unclear. Ira Alexandre proposal maker against, because the issue is worth talking about whether you are for or against, wants to hear what people think so we should debate it. Martin Pyne would like to see it trialed as a category before the business meeting considers it.  Jo Van against because Ira has done a lot of work so it deserves debate time. Corina (me!) speaks against.  Vote is not a 2/3 majority so the item is not postponed indefinitely. Time set at 12 minues.

1218: Meeting adjourned.

Categories
convention worldcon

WorldCon Dublin schedule

Busy busy!

IMPORTANT NOTE! This year I’m actually participating in the WSFS Business Meeting as the timekeeper (god help us) so I’m obviously not going to be able to liveblog the meeting. That said, I’m going to see about having one or two guest bloggers who share my love of pedantry and serpentines take over that task for this year, so stay tuned.

Thursday, August 15

  • Understanding the WSFS Business Meeting (13:30-14:20)

Friday, August 16

  • WSFS Business Meeting (10:00-12:50)
  • Can Fiction Convince People When Facts Can’t? (14:00-14:50) [Wicklow Room-2]
  • Autograph session (16:00-16:50) [Level 4 Foyer] (PLEASE COME SEE ME SO I DON’T DIE IN SAD LONELINESS!)
  • Reading (18:30-18:50) [Liffey Room-3] (PLEASE OH PLEASE I’M SO ALONE)

Saturday, August 17

  • WSFS Business Meeting (10:00-12:50)
  • Beyond Binary (14:00-14:50) [Wicklow Room-1]

Sunday, August 18

  • WSFS Business Meeting (10:00-12:50)
  • Kaffeeklatsch (16:00-16:50) [Level 3 Foyer]
  • HUGO AWARDS CEREMONY!

Monday, August 19

  • Stroll with the Stars (09:00-09:50) [Ground Floor Foyer]
  • WSFS Business Meeting (10:00-12:50)
  • Holy Forking Shirtballs: The Good Place Panel (13:00-13:50) [Wicklow Hall 2B]
Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Main Business Meeting #2 Summary

  • Utah will be hosting NASFiC in 2019
    • Please note that since there will also be a NASFiC in 2020, you must be a member of the convention in Utah in order to vote for the 2020 NASFiC site.
  • New Zealand will be hosting WorldCon in 2020.
  • Hotel reservations for Dublin 2019 will open on January 9, 2019. There will be earlier reservations opened for people with accessibility needs, on December 8, 2018.
  • Washington DC will be putting up a bid for WorldCon 2021.
  • Chicago will be putting up a bid for WorldCon 2022.
  • D5 Professional and Fan Artist Hugo is taken up. After a lot of sturm und drang, it is referred to a NEW committee. Dave McCarty will head this committee, so contact him if you want to be involved.
  • Standing rule change proposed by Ben Yalow referred to the Nitpicking and Flyspecking committee to ensure no unintended consequences.

And that’s it for this year! The meeting adjourned sine die at 12:21, until Dublin in 2019.

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Main Business Meeting #2 Liveblog

You can find a copy of the agenda here.

Hugo Study Committee report here.

1003: Meeting comes to order. This is the site selection business meeting.

1004: Final committee called up for report. The WorldCon Runner’s Guide Committee. Mike Willmoth speaking. Report has been submitted. Incremental progress continues. There’s a URL from wsfs.org where you can see what’s been uploaded. They have uploaded the backup before the catastrophic crash from last year and the team is working on updating these. wsf.org/comittees/worldcon-runners-guide is the URL.

1005: No objection to continuing the committee as currently constituted for another year.

1006: Warren Buff as the NASFiC administrator. 192 ballots cast for NASFiC selection. 7 for none of the above, 1 for Christmas in Boston 2020, 1 for Olive Country, 1 for Minneapolis in ’73, 1 for Bristol, and 171 for Utah. As 92 were needed for elect, Utah is the winner.

1008: Currently some issue on who did or didn’t get the slides for the presentation from Utah.

1008: Kate Hatcher, chair of Utah 2019 NASFiC: I will wing it. 150th anniversary of transcontinental railroad and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. July 4-7. This combines Westercon with NASFiC. Layton is north of Salt Lake City. Guests include Susan Chang, Vincent Villafranca (artist guest of honor), Dragon Dronet. Guests of honor: Laurell K. Hamilton, David Weber. Master/mistress of ceremonies, which are Bjo and John Trimble. PR 1 is being handed out; up until now they’ve been doing updates as Westercon. Linda Deneroff as fan guest of honor.

1014: Moving on to WorldCon site selection.

1014: Kevin Standlee asks unanimous consent to thank the tellers and instruct that the ballots be destroyed.

1014: 726 ballots cast. 33 no preference. 8 none of the above. Single votes for Aotearoa, El Fabuloso Bungalo, Grantville WV, Wakanda, Marsopolis, Minneapolis in 74, Slab City. 2 for Olive Country, 2 for Minneapolis in 73, 3 for Peggy Rae’s House, 22 for Christmas in Boston 2020, and the overwhelming majority for New Zealand. As only 347 were needed, New Zealand will have WorldCon in 2020.

1017: Video will be played introducing the WorldCon.

1018: Technical difficulties.

1019: Guests: Mercedes Lackey and Larry K Dixon, Rose Mitchell, George RR Martin, and Greg Broadmore. (Also this video is HILARIOUS.) July 29-August 2 in Wellington, NZ.

1023: George RR Martin will say a few words as toastmaster. He’s thrilled to return to NZ again and tells us about some of the cool stuff around. There’s a lake of sulfuric acid and a volcanic island. (So the writer of this liveblog is very excited, I assure you.)

1025: NZ is given $10,000 from KanSMOFs. WorldCon 75 gives €12,000 in pass along funds to New Zealand.

1029: Note, there’s something air bnb-esque in NZ to be had. (“serviced apartments.”) Kevin Standlee asks for the appointee to the MPC, which will be Daniel Specter.

1031: Unanimous consent to thank the tellers and destroy the ballots.

1031: Anyone from Dublin? James Bacon, chair of 2019 WorldCon. He’s hoping everyone will join them at the closing ceremonies because they’ll have some info then. Otherwise you can find him and others at the Dublin table in the dealer room.

1032: Stephen Cooper head of facilities. Hotels will open on ninth of January 2019. On 8th of December, hotel booking will open early for people with access needs.

1033: Any 2021 bidders who wish to present? Colette F for DC in 2021. They don’t have a presentation, but they want to give basic details. That would be August 25-29 in 2021. Location is the Marriott Wardman Park, which contain all of the function space, 1000 hotel rooms, and 100 suites. Overflow hotel is set up too. This would be a Wednesday-Sunday con.

1035: Question from Sue Francis: will there be overflow days before and after con? Yes, there are shoulder days for at least two, if not three pre- and post-event. Have some exciting plans for people who come to the convention early.

1036: Kim Williams for the 2020 NASFiC. Congrats to NZ! August 20-23 at the Hyatt Regency Columbus Ohio. There is a table in the bid area and they will be happy to answer questions.

1037: Judith Bemis: Who is the chair who had to go home early? Answer – Lisa Garrison is both bid chair and will be convention chair if they win.

1038: Kevin Standlee to remind everyone that in order to do site selection for 2020 NASFiC, that will be done at 2019 NASFiC and you will need to be a supporting or full member of the 2019 NASFiC in order to vote for the 2020 NASFiC bid.

1040: Ben Yalow will be the site selection administrator for the Westercon and NASFiC 2020. All info will be on the webpage.

1041: Dave McCarty, co-chair for Chicago in 2022. They are talking to hotels and have exciting offers. It will likely be on the labor day weekend.

1042: Q – will you participate in pass-along funds? Dave – we have every other time, so I’m advocating for it now. I will beat up anyone who ties to stop us.

1042: Site Selection portion is closed.

1043: Recess until 1100.

1102: And we’re back. We are now taking up D5 Professional and Fan Artist Hugo.

1102: Perianne Lurie makes a motion to refer to committee, not to be reported back until next year. Seconded.

1103: Point of Order from Kevin Standlee. The maker of the motion gets priority unless they yield to the motion to refer. So motion to refer is out of order until then.

1104: Cliff Dunn isn’t quite sure what they will achieve with another year to go around on this, but they can try.

1104: Motion to refer to committee of the whole. (This will put it into a freer form of debate.) Motion is passed. Tim hands the chair over to Jesi.

1107: Time spent here will be taken out of the debate time for D5. Time will be charge equally for both sides. D5, D5.1, and referral to committee are all germane to this.

1107: Joshua Kronengold who was on the committee. What we have is an additional question of direction. We need direction from the business meeting. Currently, professional and fan artist and split with professionals being a group that makes money selling an art, and we define fan artist as “who is not professional.” Instead, we want to privilege fan artist as a very limited set and define who is not fan artist as professional, which privileges fan artist instead. The other option is to strictly define professional and fan, and anyone who doesn’t fit into that definition just can’t compete. Joshua does not like the latter because it’s exclusionary. So do we want to exclude, do we want to privilege fan artist, or do we want to privilege professional artist?

1110: Ben Yalow agrees with most of Joshua’s summary, but one key point not raised is that we are referring to professional art work and fan art work, and saying that you are eligible in fan artist if you create fan work, and professional artist if you create professional art. The key is that we are not talking about a PERSON as being professional or fan, but saying the art is. Thus the same person can create both kinds of art.

1111: Ben Yalow continues that both D5 and D5.1 make clear that we are not classing persons because that is wrong; rather, we are classing the work itself.

1112: Question for Ben from Terry Neill: isn’t there something in the constitution that says you can’t have the same work in more category, but is it okay for a person to be in more than one category as long as it’s for different works? Ben – that is correct.

1113: Elspeth Kovar asks if there are any examples of this kind of thing in the last fifty years. Ben – no, because shortly after, the constitution was amended to say you couldn’t win in both fan and professional, and Ben introduced an amendment to undo that only a few years ago because he felt that decision was wrong. (The “Gone, gone” amendment.)

1115: Kate Secor speaking. Wanted to make sure that people in other media (eg jewelry, sculpture) were eligible. And this also removes the requirement for publication in a semi prozine and fanzine, because the art world has moved on and there are many other ways people publish. They want to expand definition to allow people to be eligible more broadly and not restrict how they are published. Has concerns about D5.1, because it brings in questions of income, which is confusing in some ways and also someone’s income is none of our business.

1118: Question for Kate from Jerry Lohr and it’s not actually a question so never mind.

1119: Kate Secor says there was a sculptor nominated last year, and they were ruled ineligible because they did not meet the strict display guidelines. Not having the explicit language in means the Hugo Administrators will have more discretion.

1120: Joni Dashoff was on the committee because she’s organized a lot of art shows and is on the ASFA board. Publication and display has gone far beyond physical displays and books, and while we’ve updated publications for writing, but not for art. We do not have as clear a wording that includes online as part of “publish” and “public display.” I want to correct that. Some points about artists guests who donate art that I don’t quite understand (sorry).

1122: Dave McCarty – the act of fanart is importantly making the art for use by conventions and fannish things. They have to make it available for fannish things in lieu of compensation.

1124: PRK – the in lieu of compensation thing is not in any of the other fan categories. Why do we require this of fan art, but no other fan things? A clause for giving away rights is not appropriate.

1125: Debate time is almost up. Cannot extend debate time because committee of the whole does not have that power. Seth Breitbart says no time limit was put on the committee of the whole, so we can keep going until we are done. Jesi confers with the parliamentarian.

1127: Parliamentarian says that the time comes from the debate time.

1129: Kevin Standlee commits and act of witchcraft for get us out of these weeds.

1130: The committee of the whole resumes for another 16 minutes.

1131: Warren Buff points out that we postponed to allow artists to speak, so let’s get an artist.

1131: Maurine Starky, Hugo Winner from 2012. The thing that links the fan artist with WorldCon is fanzines. Does not want to see that diminished in any way, but doesn’t want to see that be the end all and be all for any fan artists. Points out the really cool tower in the exhibit hall is an amazing piece of fanart; it was done at someone’s expense and not compensated. Don’t want to say that they can’t be part of this.

1133: Terry Neill sounds like we’re more interested in awarding to a body of art, not a person. Do we want this to be a WSFS-con-fan-linked fan artist, or a celebration of any kind of fandom anywhere? We need to tell the committee which side of the seesaw they should come down on when they take this up again.

1134: Kent Bloom seeing this is much more complex than originally thought, particularly when defining the line between fan and professional art. We are giving awards to artists, not to the artwork. That didn’t work well in the past However, not convinced that there’s a good definition for this yet. Need a better and simpler definition of professional versus fannish art, motion to refer back to the committee with this direction.

1137: Andrew Adams is not sure without a significant input of new people with strong opinions that the committee can come up with something better. Need people who were not already on the committee with new info and new opinions who would be willing to put in the time. Asks for show of hands of people who can do this. Sees enough that he withdraws his objection.

1138: Todd Dashoff says we have to be careful about our terms – professional vs nonprofessional vs fan. If we don’t get guidance as to what is more important from the membership, we’re going to not come up with anything really different.

1139: Kate Secor says the only substantive change she’s really heard is wanting to link fan art back to fanzines, and she will fight that with every fiber of her being. Opposes sending it back to the committee because there hasn’t been really substantive changes suggested from what is currently being presented.

1140: Lou Walcof – suggests that a new committee be created for specifically this issue. That motion is currently out of order, but can be brought up when we’re out of committee of the whole.

1142: Cliff Dunn says that there will be a subcommittee on it from the Hugo Study Committee if this comes back. Repeats that if we don’t get guidance, nothing new is going to come. Also says that with the state of things and necessary nuances, he doesn’t think a simpler definition is possible.

1144: Elspeth Kovar notes that at the moment, very few artists know this is being debated. In the next year, make more artists aware of this and you will be able to get more input.

1144: Petréa Mitchell – referring this back committee will allow the different issues to be separated out for debate.

1145: Maurine Starky – I don’t want fanzines to go away. Computers are a fairy gift. If there’s no electricity, there’s nothing there. Think about that for the future of what will be represented. An artist is known by their work.

1147: The committee of the whole will recommend that the main business meeting refer the motion back to a committee, not specified which.

1148: Tim is back as chair. Question is to refer D5 and D5.1 to refer back to the Hugo Study Committee.

1148: Motion to extend debate fails. We barely get out of a serpentine because Tim remembers it’s a 2/3 majority.

1149: Motion to amend to refer to a new committee rather than the Hugo Study Committee. Which passes.

1150: I have to get a panel so Corina is going to take over. THANK YOU CORINA.

1151: Clarification: both a new committee and the Hugo Study Committee could independently come up with additional advisements.

1153: Serpentine to determine if a new committee is to be formed!

1157: 41 in favor of a new committee.  In favor of sending it to the existing Hugo committee, 30. Motion D.5 to modify Best Professional and Best Fan Artist is sent to a new committee to be reported next year.

1158: Dave McCarty to chair the new committee.

1200: Motion D.8 assigned 5 minutes.  This is the motion to amend the standing rules to have more explicit language regarding deadlines (referring rule 4.4 and amendment 2.9.1 to rule 2.1).

1202: Objection to the movement as financial reports are often late and we do not want the situtation of waiting a while year to get a financial report if it is not ready 30 days ahead of time when current practice may allow it up until the end of the current business meeting.  Kevin Standlee moves to refer the motion to the Nitpicking and Flyspecking committee and to come back next year.

1204: (correction to previous statement)  Motion to end the meeting sine die.  Kevin Standlee delays because they need to take the Worldcon Chair Heads photo.

1205: Terry Neill proposes the secretary and chair contact the LeGuin estate with our respects about the kerfluffle with the naming of the Lodestar award (having been a proposal to rename it to LeGuin).  We do not want the estate to be hurt by the actions of WSFS because we love, adore, and miss her.

1210: Point of order: we cannot do this as after this meeting the secretary and chair will no longer exist.  Chris has perhaps already contacted the LeGuin family but he does not have the authority to speak for WSFS.  Is the motion in order?

1211: Amended to resolve to contact the LeGuin estate regarding any distress caused by the Lodestar award naming process and directs the business meeting staff to send this letter.  Should this actually come from the Mark Protection Committee, Lodestar being a Mark?

1214: Kent Blum does not think that members of the business meeting should be apologizing.  Terry Neill says she did not prefer an apology, but a communication of regret.

1216: Motion to communicate regrets to the LeGuin Estate is a narrow margin.  Division requested!

1218: 23 for, 31 against.  Motion fails.

1219: Kevin Standlee states the Mark Protection Committee meets tomorrow in this room.

1220: Deputee Chair Jessie Lipp presented with a ceremonial crab mallett.

1221: Motion to adjourn sine die, in honor of Milt Stevens and Julian May. Business meeting adjourned until Dublin 2019.  See you all next year!

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Main Business Meeting #1 Summary

  • 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.)

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Main Business Meeting #1 Liveblog

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!

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Preliminary Business Meeting Summary

Liveblog here.

  • You can find a copy of the agenda here.
  • Hugo Study Committee report here.
  • Standing rules changes:
    • Restricting Ratification of Amendments (A1) passes. This will make it more difficult to amend a constitutional amendment that’s in the ratification stage.
    • Deadline for Submission of New Business (A2) passes. This requires that new business for the Business Meeting must be submitted 30 days in advance rather than the current 14.
  • Business passed on:
    • What Our Marks Really Are (C1), The Reasonable Amendment (C2), Make Room! Make Room! (C3), and Name that Award: The Second YA Amendment “Young Adult” Award (C4) are all assigned debate times and will be debated in the main business meeting.
  • New constitutional amendments:
    • Remote But Real (D1) is assigned time for tomorrow after some debate. Most likely, this will be immediately referred to committee because it’s a pretty contentious issue.
    • Adding Series to the Series (D2) is assigned time for tomorrow; it’s a Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee proposal.
    • Counting Comics (D3) is postponed indefinitely. (Likely will be taken up by the Hugo Study Committee.)
    • Best Podcast Hugo Award (D4) is postponed indefinitely. (Likely will be taken up by the Hugo Study Committee.)
    • Professional and Fan Artist Hugo Awards (D5) is assigned 20 minutes for debate and postponed definitely to be taken up on Sunday, so it doesn’t conflict with the ASFA meeting.
    • Comic Books and Graphic Stories (D6) and Notability Still Matters (D7) are assigned time for debate.
Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Preliminary Business Meeting Liveblog

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.