Tag: hugo awards

Categories
science fiction this shit is fucked up worldcon wtf

Well, I sure don’t like this (I’m talking about the Hugo stats)

First, go read Jason’s roundup of info, because he is more measured, cogent, and informative than I could hope to be: Genre Grapevine on the Hugo Awards “not eligible” problem (ETA: Cora really digs into the irregularities at her blog.)

(And you really should consider supporting Jason, because he does solid work all around.)

I don’t necessarily have anything new to add, but I have been reminded that, particularly in such a relatively small group, it can be very worth it to speak up even if the response boils down to a rousing hear, hear! It is all too easy for silence to be read as either assent, consent, or disinterest, and I also know I have my own association with WSFS nonsense as a dedicated meeting attendee.

My thoughts, then, are thus:

  1. This is really fucked up and really upsetting. People being marked as “ineligible” for no cogent reason I’ve yet encountered, despite a plethora of nominations and obvious eligibility. While some of the “ineligibles” are pretty easy to read as politically motivated–and that is already not okay in the slightest–others (I specifically mean here my friend Paul Weimer) make absolutely no goddamn sense in that framing. Not that it would be okay either way. Absolute fucking bullshit, top to bottom.
  2. It’s a massive stain on the Hugo Awards themselves, I would argue far worse than the Sad Puppy nonsense because at least there were no questions there about the admin tampering with the Hugos. So I reiterate: what the actual fuck.
    1. Cheryl Morgan makes an interesting point about this, by the way. The thought that releasing stats with problems as a deliberate act to draw attention is certainly a possibility. Though I find myself wondering why, if this was intended as a deliberate act of whistleblowing, one of the American members of the Hugo Admin hasn’t out and said something.
  3. I am pissed, I’m horrified and… I’m honestly also not surprised that there were some kind of bullshit shenanigans. I chose not to participate in Chengdu WorldCon as a panelist or anything else because of the policies and acts of the Chinese government; while I certainly know the people are not their government, I had massive concerns about either top-down political interference or protective self-censorship. I am deeply saddened and disappointed to have that choice vindicated.

You can consider the above 3 points to be squared, as my housemate Corina shares these opinions. (And doesn’t have a blog of her own, because she is wiser than me.)

I’ll admit, after my initial what the actual fuck, this is fucked reaction, my second thought was, oh boy, the Glasgow business meeting is going to be spicy as hell. Which: good. Deservedly so, if it pans out the way I imagine.

With that in mind, I want to draw attention to another post by Cheryl: Decoupling the Hugos. Please give it a thorough read, and take a look at the draft resolution.

I had a similar thought on hearing the news. Making the Hugo Admin independent of WorldCon could prevent uneven application or different interpretations of rules, say, and provide more continuity. Election administration is only as good as the honesty of the people in charge, but as we in America got educated on thoroughly in 2020, if you have officials and administrators who are answerable primarily to the rules themselves and deeply invested in the process regardless of their potential personal feelings about the results, it can shield you from a lot of interference.

I also, for reasons of my current planned participation in the Glasgow 2024 WSFS Business Meeting, don’t feel I can personally push this proposal forward–and I may very well not be able to debate on it. But I can sure say I think it’s a good idea, and Kevin has crafted some solid starting language, and I hope I get a chance to vote on something like this in August whether I’m sitting on a chair out in serpentine territory or at the table.

We already showed once that, for all its required two-year timeline, WSFS can react to deeply troubling occurrences within the Hugos. I have high hopes that we can do so again.

Categories
worldcon

I didn’t feel personally belittled until this moment: George’s Hugo Losers Party explanation

Over my years of being on the internet, I’ve learned a thing or two about apologies. It’s mostly been incredibly hard-won knowledge, informed by me giving shitty apologies and then learning the how and why of their shittiness when someone explained why they still felt hurt. Or me giving a shitty non-apology on purpose because I didn’t feel sorry, but wanted someone off my back. (I’ve modified the latter stance now to, “if I don’t actually feel sorry, I’ll do everyone involved the honor of not pretending badly that I am.”) A few of the lessons I’ve learned:

  1. Shorter is always better.
  2. If the explanation you feel the need to give implies that the injured party was wrong for being upset, then it’s not really an apology.
  3. If the explanation you feel the need to give implies that the injured party may have been injured but also behaved badly, then it’s not really an apology.
  4. If your apology involves passive-aggressive devices, then it’s not really an apology.
  5. If you make your apology about yourself, it’s not an apology.

I mention these in particular because I just finished reading the extremely long post George R.R. Martin wrote over at File770, which is kind of an apology about the Hugo Losers Party in Dublin in the sense that he admits a couple of times to having made mistakes, but not really.

If you’re not up on this particular WorldCon drama, here’s the Twitter thread I wrote while I was in the middle of it. The summary of it is that I was one of the Hugo Losers who had an invitation to the party. I was in the second bus, which was a double decker, that took a crowd of us over there after the ceremony. I arrived at approximately 23:40. This large load of people were informed by the door person that we would not be allowed into the venue due to the occupancy being at capacity. Which was then modified to thirty of us could be let in, first without our +1s, then with. There were way more than 30 of us standing out in a pretty chilly night. I have joint problems so that standing on cobblestones for any period of time puts me in some serious pain. I decided that rather crowd in and elbow my fellows to try to be one of the 30 allowed in I was going to leave with some of my friends. I was pretty upset about all of this, because invitations had been given out, and when one is invited to a party, one has a reasonably expectation of being allowed into said party.

We all on the same page, here? Good. There are a few things in particular I’d like to respond to in George’s epic non-apology.

I do not know that anything I can say will appease those who did not get into the party… but I can at least explain what happened, and why.

We’re writers. Words and word choice matter, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. I do not need to be appeased like a tantrummy child, and I don’t appreciate the implication. I wanted an apology for those of us left out in the cold.

I actually do appreciate the explanation of the communication issues, of how things got so messy. The party is a large undertaking. It’s also George’s party, and as I have stated before, he can invite who he bloody well pleases. I also do appreciate this:

We knew the capacity of the floor we were renting well in advance, and worried whether the 450 limit would be a problem for us.   The possibility was there, we all saw that.    But there was no easy answer, so in the end we decided to go ahead as planned in the hopes that things would work out.   The final decision was mine.   It was the wrong decision.

Which is then rather deflated by:

A number of the louder Twitterers have stated SOMETIMES IN SCREAMING CAPS that it is simplicity itself to calculate the number of attendees at a party.   That makes me suspect that none of them have ever organized one, at least not one as big as the Hugo Losers Party.

Feel free to name me if you have a problem with me. I certainly used screaming caps because I was, I would hope understandably, upset. And you’re right; I’ve never organized a party as big as the Loser’s Party. I just did my own wedding, which was more than big enough. And the number one piece of advice that every party etiquette book will give you, the solid bedrock of planning, is that you don’t give out more invitations than you have space or food for. You assume that everyone will show up–because the minute you don’t do so, invariably they will. So yes, George has my sincere sympathies that it is not easy to figure out how many people will show up. It is actually an emotionally wracking thing to be a party host and decide who to invite and who to not, because you want everyone to have food and fun and feel welcomed.

But in the aftermath of messing up? Taking time out to tell us how hard everything is really does just make this about you and your feelings, and not the people left out in the cold.

And then there’s this moment of what-aboutism that’s particularly egregious:

(I do find it curious that, with all this Twitter talk about people being “turned away” from the Hugo Losers Party, no one is mentioning the far larger number of people turned away from the Hugos themselves.   I’ve been attending Worldcons since 1971, and in all those years all you ever needed to get into the Hugos was a con badge…  but this year, that was not enough.  You also needed to queue up and get a wristband.   As it happens, some people did not get that message, and others were unable or unwilling to queue).

Apparently I ought not complain about being turned away from a party I was invited to, because other people didn’t get into the Hugos themselves… with the Hugos notably not being an event that involves an invitation. This is another statement that serves to minimize any hurt myself or those in my position might have felt. It’s a pattern that continues on as the post progresses.

 I don’t doubt that the people on the door said, “You can’t go in” or some variant thereof.  That was, in fact, the case.  I doubt very much that this was all they said, however.   I would hope that they also added the word “now” and explained the reasons.   “You can’t go in now, we are at capacity, but as soon as some people leave, you will be welcome to enter.”   That’s what should have been said.   With such a large number of people descending on them all at once demanding entrance, however, it is possible that the fans on the door felt overwhelmed and defensive.   If any of them were rude or dismissive, that should not have happened, and I am deeply sorry for it.   By the same token, however, I would hope that the new arrivals were patient and understanding, once the situation had been explained to them, and that they treated the folks on the door with courtesy.   None of this was the fault of the fans who had agreed to man the door.   They were doing what they had to, to prevent the party from being shut down.   They were obeying what we were told was the law.

I will state in fairness that I have no idea what was said to the Door Dragon once I left, so maybe the implication that those left waiting were rude or nasty is true. I can only speak for when I was there. (And I have been a Door Dragon myself in the past for parties that are not in this series. I know it’s not fun.) What I can say is that we were not initially told that we’d be let in if we waited. My imperfect recall of the night says that eventually, that did get communicated–but with the fair caveat that no one had any idea how much waiting would be involved. However, while I was there many of us were not happy, but no one was taking it out on the poor person left guarding the door. I’ve certainly done my time in customer service; I know what it’s like to face an irate person and have no power to help them.

So again, maybe things got mean after I left. Knowing who was waiting there, I find that difficult to believe, but I also have no idea who showed up after me. But since the entire paragraph is so speculative (“I would hope that the new arrivals were patient and understanding…”) this ends up feeling like it’s being implied that we were being entitled dick bags about the whole thing. Something else I certainly do not appreciate.

At least one person decided the world needed to hear of this outrage and began to tweet furiously from the parking lot.

Hi, George.

The finalist who had first started blasting us on Twitter, angry that he was denied entrance, seemed to become even angrier when the door admitted thirty people… on the grounds that more than thirty were waiting, and somehow this was ‘playing Hunger Games.’

You want to know why we felt that way? Because in a large group of people, we were told 30 of us could come in. Which 30? Up to us. There was an absolute crush at the door. It was going to be first come, first serve, which meant that if you wanted in, you were basically in competition with the other people who had been left waiting. Personally, I had no interest in elbowing my way through a crowd in the hopes of getting in the door. A slightly dramatic statement? I’ll cop to it. Does it deserve to be so sarcastically dismissed? No.

And here’s the important thing, the crucial fact that none of the Twitter reports seem to mention: eventually everyone who waited got in.  They had to wait, yes, and I am sorry for that, and it should not have happened, and a number of mistakes were made, most by me.   But my minions and the Kiwis, and even the Guinness folk, did everything they possibly could under the circumstances, and sometime between 12:30 and 12:45, they cleared that parking area.   Yes, a certain percentage of those denied entry had left, some departing with a shrug and others with a snarl, but those who simply waited were all admitted eventually and were able to enjoy the last hour and a quarter of the party.

If everyone was let in by 12:45, that means, for example, I would have had to stand out in the chill, on cobblestones, for an hour. That is not something I can physically do. I know I’m not the only one who was in that boat. So, this is a particularly unhelpful for your guests who may have disabilities or health problems that prevent them from standing for lengthy periods of time. “You should have just waited.” Well, I can’t. Sorry.

I’ve known Joe and Gay Haldeman since my first con in 1971.  They arrived, could not get in, and chose to head back to their hotel.   The next day they joked with me about it; no anger, no recriminations, they had seen overcrowded parties before.

Ah, the classic, “other people didn’t mind, so obviously if you minded, you were wrong.”

But the same thing happens every weekend at nightclubs all across the country.

Funny enough, when the waiting game at the door started, I actually did say to those with me that it felt like being barred entry at a nightclub. And I have never particularly wanted to go to a nightclub. But the difference is this: when I go to a nightclub, I know that’s what I’m going to get. I come with the expectation that I might have to wait in line, and so on. Because maybe I’m doing it wrong, but I’ve never actually received an invitation to go to a nightclub. The difference here is, when one gets an invitation to an event, the invitation itself comes with the expectation that you are a guest, it’s known you’ll be showing up, and thus there will be space and food and drink for you. Because you were invited.

If you want to avoid this in the future, another easy fix might be to put on the invitation: “Space is limited and entry not guaranteed.” Set the right expectations, and there’ll be a lot fewer complaints.

We provided free transportation… and CoNZealand provided a lot more of same.    My minions worked for months planning the event, and even harder on the night.   So did the Kiwis.    To see them being pilloried on Twitter just confirms the sad fact that no good deed goes unpunished.   They deserve some thanks instead.

We were, indeed, provided free transportation that dumped us at the venue and then refused to return use to the convention center; thankfully, the smaller bus eventually returned and that’s how I got out of there. Other people got taxis. But the bigger point here is that, while I understand how much it sucks to feel unappreciated, it’s a bit much to expect appreciation from people who didn’t get into your “successful” party because of the planning problems. I’m also not going to thank a chef for the glorious meal they prepared if I was not allowed to even be in the same room as it.

The Hugo Losers Party is not intended to honor or celebrate the current year’s cop of Hugo finalists or exalt them above all others.  

If Hugo Losers aren’t welcomed into the party named “The Hugo Losers Party,” maybe it’s time to name it something else. I will also note that I don’t expect to be “exalted.” This is another implication I do not appreciate; add this to some other phrasing–because we can agree we are writers and we understand that words have meaning–and it is a beautifully subtle attempt to cast those of us who did not get in and were grumpy about it as entitled assholes who are childishly sullen that something wasn’t all about us. It’s a beautiful piece of utterly nasty writing, and I guess at this point, I do feel a bit charmed to have been insulted by a master.

But I will say this: None of those left in the cold that I spoke to expected this party to be entirely about us. None of us went there thinking we were the only people allowed in. We were all excited to be joining the larger club of Hugo losers. And when you’ve started off your night losing an award, it’s truly the cherry on the shit sundae to get told that you can’t even join the other losers. Too much of a loser, I guess.

In a wider emotional context, perhaps consider this: Most of us writer types grew up as the excluded, introverted nerds. I think it’s understandable that we have particular feelings about, in our glorious nerd convention, being excluded from the party where all the cool kids are. I’m not claiming that’s rational, but the whole point about emotions is they aren’t. And maybe it’s worth considering why this whole thing has felt so entirely hurtful instead of minimizing it or telling people who lack your fame and reach, “No, you’re the meanies here.”

Also this?

Also, whereas in the past categories like fanzine and semiprozines only had one editor, and therefore one nominee (Andy Porter for ALGOL, DIck Geis for ALIEN CRITIC, Charlie Brown for LOCUS, Mike Glyer for FILE 770, etc.), now most of them seem to be edited by four, five, or seven people, all of whom expect rockets and nominee invitations.

“Expect” rockets. Expect. As if they shouldn’t for being part of a team that did good work and got an award.

What a thing to say.

Regarding the future parties, I don’t think I have a dog in that fight because I sincerely doubt I will be getting nominated for another Hugo any time soon–or due to my daring to squeak in capslock on Twitter, get invited again. It’s George’s party, and he can invite who he bloody well pleases. I just sincerely hope in the future, he’ll manage expectations a bit better; honestly, just putting on the invitation that admission is not guranteed, is first-come, first-serve, etc, would have headed off a lot of the hurt feelings from this year. If you want to run the place like a nightclub, say it up front. We can save troubling discussions about social status and popularity contests for another time.

Now that I’ve written all this out, let me tell you what I’m definitely not looking forward to: The commentariat who will doubtless frame my response as “chiding” or “lashing out.” I know how this works, and me calling it out in advance won’t change anything. But as I’ve said multiple times in this post, words matter. Watch how things are framed. In this moment, I’m a grown-ass adult having a disagreement with another grown-ass adult about how he ran his party and has chosen to not-apologize. I am not a child attempting to school a parent. George’s experience, fame, and money make him a lot of things, but those are neither “someone too exalted for me to disagree with” nor “my dad.”

Categories
worldcon

Hugo Category Thinking, Best Editor Edition

So, Best Editor, Long Form. I’ve been hearing a lot about this category this year. Honestly, when I’m wearing my reader hat, it’s a category I don’t often vote in because I have no idea what any of the editors have done unless someone’s told me. I’ve also noticed it’s a category that tends to be on the low end of the nominating ballot numbers, probably for similar reasons. If you are an industry professional or pay close attention, you can probably make some informed decisions. Otherwise, it’s a big shrug.

(The conspiracy theories that spring up around this category, by the way, are impressive for their baroque twists and utter venom. It’s one hell of a rabbit hole.)

I also think it’s unlikely for Best Editor to get dropped as a category any time soon, since there’s been pretty strong support for it in the WSFS meeting every time it’s been brought up.

And no, Best Novel doesn’t really act as an award for editors. The editor’s name doesn’t get put on the nomination, and the editor sure ain’t the one who picks up the little rocket statue if they win and give a speech. We generally only hear about who edited a novel if the author thanks their editor or the editor mentions it later.

I think the easiest way to make the category more accessible to the people voting (if not people nominating) is if the finalists for Best Editor, Long Form had the titles for two or three of the books they edited that were released in the last year listed by their name. Because of course, the weird thing about being an editor is that probably what they were working on during the nominating period isn’t even out yet, and certainly isn’t the reason anyone nominated them. Thank the lag time in publishing for that one.

I also think it’d be a good idea if the finalists for Best Editor, Short Form had the title of their magazine or anthology by their name. For some reason, I thought this was already the case until I double checked. Probably because short form editors tend to be much more easily identifiable with their publication, be it a magazine or anthology. And I would argue that giving an award to a magazine or anthology is a bit different from giving it particularly to the editor; when you’re putting an award on a magazine as a whole, that’s not just the head editor, it’s really an award for the entire team, down to the slush readers and whoever does the ebook layout conversion. Sort of like the difference between a Best Director award and Best Picture award.

I’ve also heard it proposed that we should have some kind of “before and after” work example for the editors, but I don’t think that would quite work. A big part of the editing job is acquiring the work to begin with—seeing something that they think readers will love and often fighting to get it published. To a certain extent, we’re awarding the editors for having good taste and finding things for us to read.

Because this isn’t “best copy editor.” A before and after wouldn’t be a few pages of a word document with a bunch of tracked changes. For example, if you wanted some kind of before and after of my own novel (Hunger Makes the Wolf) what you’d end up with is two complete versions of the novel to compare, plus a set of notes that I took off an editing phone call—and to be honest, as a writer I would not feel terribly comfortable with people being given those things for several reasons.

So I think the best way to make the category more accessible and meaningful would be to at least link the names of the editors with examples of what they’ve edited. Preferably, what they feel are the titles that best exemplify their work that got published in the last year. (In an ideal situation that would mirror the Best Director idea, they’d be getting the nod for a specific piece of work – but since it can be rather difficult for readers to find out who edited a book depending on how the publisher does the front matter and what the writer said in the acknowledgments, that might be too big of an ask.) That would at least give us context and stop Best Editor, Long Form from becoming something of a name recognition contest.

Thoughts? If this sounds like a workable or useful idea, I’d be happy to work up a proposal on it and seek a cosponsor.

I’m also still trying to figure out some kind of workable solution for smaller films that get released at festivals, but don’t have a wide theatrical release until the next year, which really screws up their eligibility…

Categories
worldcon

Falling Out of Love With EPH

In 2015, I was pretty clearly on the EPH train. I sure did vote for its passage. And now it’s 2016, and I’m tweeting out stuff like this:

So yeah, I am not surprised that got some confused reactions.

To be perfectly frank, this year I voted with the minority against ratification of EPH. I’m not going to claim that the passage of EPH is going to Destroy Life As We Know It And The Cats And Dogs Will Play Shuffleboard Together. I am not upset that it passed. But I’m no longer convinced that it’s the great solution I thought it was in 2015, because I’ve been doing a lot of listening and thinking.

First of all, we had some data to look at with how EPH would have processed this year and previous years.

  • It’s become very obvious that EPH isn’t the silver bullet that will slay all slating that I think a lot of us convinced ourselves it was. For the most part, it would have only made a 1-2 nominee difference in this year’s categories, and a weaker difference in 2015, which seems very counterintuitive considering the slating was much stronger last year. (This year there were actually more nominating ballots than final voting ballots, which is weird.) So yes, it’s better to have one or two “genuine” nominees in a category than none at all. But having categories that are still composed mostly of shit is really not a workable long-term solution.
  • I’m extremely concerned how EPH will affect the dramatic presentation categories, which were not included in the report on Sunday just because they were such an unholy mess to figure out. But one point we can’t ignore is that for those categories, there’s so much less on offer that people are likely to cluster around certain works in ways that will act as a natural slate—and considering that this is all about trying to stop the deliberate manipulation by the shitbag faction of the fandom, I don’t think it’s fair that the organic growth of something that would appear slate-like to the un-nuanced eye of an algorithm be treated in the same way.
  • Looking at the previous year’s data, EPH would have eliminated one of the Hugo winners from 2014. In the meeting, Dave mentioned this as something of a surprising aberration. And if it’s a thing that only happens once, good. But I find myself very concerned that similar unintended consequences could happen. The rule should really be first do no harm, here.

After talking to a lot of people and listening, I’ve also got some concerns about how EPH as a system will affect voter confidence in the process.

  • It’s still damn complicated. Yes, I’m aware that you can boil an explanation of EPH down to a single powerpoint slide. And if you grasp it well enough to explain it from that slide, good for you. I know I can’t, and I rarely have a powerpoint at hand when this comes up in conversation. I don’t think this is terribly good when it comes to trying to promote participation in the process. (Seriously, it’s hard enough to explain how the ranking works for the final voting.)
  • And considering all the points above? If I’m concerned and I’m among the group of high information voters when it comes to the mechanics, how is someone who hasn’t gotten to go through the all the presentations and question times and the like going to feel?
  • EPH is effectively a black box. It doesn’t really allow for simple hand verification. That doesn’t help efforts at transparency, which is the number one thing that encourages people to have any kind of faith in the system. And let’s not forget the conspiracy-mongering, just-repeat-something-until-it’s-true shitbag that made all this necessary. It’s not that I give a crap one about actual comic book villain Theodore Beale’s good opinion, but the less transparent something is, the easier it is to make up things about it.

I’ve become a convert to the Three Stage Voting proposal. We get told again and again that the practice has always been to leave it to the voters and have faith in them. And we’ve seen over the last two years that the voters as a whole have definite opinions about people who try to manipulate them, the system, and their beloved award. So I’m willing to have faith that the voters can decide in a semifinal if they think someone doesn’t have any business being one the final ballot with a purely up or down vote.

That said, I think we’re going to be fine. EPH has been amended so that it can be easily suspended for a year by the business meeting if there’s something going really haywire with it. We’ll see what 2017 brings.

By the way, Cheryl Morgan has written a good post that covers this and other WSFS stuff. You should read it.

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Business Meeting #3 Summary

Greetings from the McDonald’s in Russell, Kansas. Writing a summary whilst eating chicken mcnuggets. As you do. Today was the final business meeting, which was one hell of a ride. You can get granular detail of The Amazing Adventures of the Committee of the Whole from the liveblog.

NOTE: I will be referring to all amendments by their working titles. If you want to know the substance of these, refer to the WSFS agenda linked to from this page. Or I have my quick and dirty readings of them here, with some helpful clarifications provided by people in the comments.

There was a lot of arcane Roberts Rules of verbal fisticuffs shit that went on today that is best left to the complete liveblog. Here’s the highlights:

  • Three Stage Voting started the day. The amended language that was sent to committee yesterday was reported back, then defeated. The amendment is voted on with its original language, passes, and will be up for ratification in Helsinki.
  • The rules are suspended with unanimous consent to re-form the YA committee with all the same people, just a different chairperson.
  • A clause is added to EPH to allow the WSFS business meetings each year to vote to suspend it, if so chosen. Due to debate time running out, we went into first a question time with Mr McCarty and Mr Quinn, and then a committee of the whole so we could discuss the issue in more detail. EPH was then ratified and will take effect next year.
    • A resolution was passed to request that the Hugo Administrators provide the meeting data next year about what the ballot would have looked like without EPH so we can compare. Note that this is a request, because we don’t actually get to tell the administrators what to do.
    • Shit got intense here, people.
  • I named my newly-evolved Electrode Mr Dashoff because I’m pretty sure the chair was making that exact face at several points.
  • 4 and 6 is amended to become 5 and 6 instead at the request of its author. This means that everyone will get to make five nominations, and six slots will be on the ballot for finalists. The new 5 and 6 then passes.
  • EPH+ passes with shocking speed considering the incredibly labyrinthine state of the rest of the morning, and will be up for ratification in Helsinki.
  • We adjourned with 12 minutes to spare, if you can believe it. I still don’t.

And that’s it for this year, guys! Tomorrow, assuming I can brain things, I will be writing a blog post to explain this tweet. My feelings on EPH have… shifted.

Previous days:

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Main Business Meeting #2 Summary

I am so very sorry that this is so late. It has been one hell of a day today and I only just got time to sit down and write this summary. Tomorrow might be a late as well depending on how things work out. Anyway, here is the summary of today’s liveblog.

NOTE: I will be referring to all amendments by their working titles. If you want to know the substance of these, refer to the WSFS agenda linked to from this page. Or I have my quick and dirty readings of them here, with some helpful clarifications provided by people in the comments.

Today got rather fractious on a lot of fronts. I’m going to just stick with the cut and dry summary. If you want deets, go read the liveblog.

  • The most wonderful time of the year — site selection!
    • WorldCon 2018 will be in San Jose! website
    • NASFiC 2017 will be in San Juan! website
    • Both cons will have paper publications available at no extra cost, but which will require an opt-in. And both will be going with the room party model rather than the fan village model. For more details, please see the websites.
  • Mark Protection Committee special report: “Hugo Award” has now finished being registered in the EU.
  • Nominee Diversity up first. After a lot of wrangling that I cannot summarize without shaking out a mountain of salt, the amended language from the committee assigned yesterday was accepted. Nominee Diversity is then ratified and will be in the constitution.
  • Two Years Are Good Enough passes and will be up for ratification in Helsinki.
  • There was a lot of very excellent debate on the YA Award, I think. (Starts around 1144 on the liveblog.) The ayes have it, and the YA Award will be up for ratification at Helsinki. It should be noted that there are certain portions of the award (including the fact that it currently has a blank instead of a name) that will need to be amended in Helsinki. Depending upon if the chair rules that to be a minor or major change, it might take another two years for ratification rather than one year. The YA Award committee will be considering over the intervening year until Helsinki matters like the naming and will report there.
  • Three Stage Voting was sent to committee, to be reported back tomorrow, after amended language was proposed for it that was too complicated to be fully considered by the meeting at the time.
  • The three items for Retrospective Improvements were next.
    • Item #3 passed and will be sent on to Helsinki — this amendment will add a note to the Retrospective Hugos to make it explicit that they were retrospective when awarded.
    • Item #1 passed and will be sent on to Helsinki — this amendment is mostly to clean up the language of the Retrospective Hugos and allow for them to be awarded for the WWII years.
    • Item #2 FAILED. This would have added a category Retrospective Hugo, which would have effectively empowered future WorldCons to overrule the No Award  giving in a category by running a new set of nominees. The committee of the whole found this very objectionable.
  • Universal Suffrage passes and will be sent on to Helsinki for ratification.
  • Non-transferability of Voting Rights was taken up despite an attempt to adjourn the meeting because we were almost out of time.  I had to leave before directly observing how this one went, but I was told that the amendment failed after a extremely abbreviated debate.

Previous days:

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Business Meeting #2 Liveblog

AND WE ARE LIVE. I have tea. You can all stop worrying about me now.

Same rules as usual apply. I am sorry in advance if I misspell or don’t catch a name. Newer stuff at the bottom, I’ll update about every five-ish minutes.

1002: The business meeting will be in order! Many thanks and introductions. We’re starting with site selection today.

1004: 2018 site selection question time will be dispensed with so we can move on to the agenda after that’s done. 2017’s time is constitutionally protected, but there is unanimous consent to skip over that too.

1006: And here comes the report! 1,321 valid votes. New Orleans had 594. San Jose got the other votes (didn’t catch the number). So it’s San Jose in 2018!

1007: Motion to thank the tellers, finalize the results, and destroy the ballots. Unanimous consent.

1009: Kevin Roach who has amazing hair holy crap. Thanks the New Orleans bid committee for a wonderful and friendly campaign. Many people in the New Orleans campaign will be involved in San Jose. Their website is worldcon76.org. If you find any typos and come tell them about it, they will give you a new t-shirt.

1012: Information about guests, etc. Refer to the website if you want the deets. It should be going live very soon.

1015: Note, if you want paper publications for WorldCon 76, you will need to opt-in, but it will not cost extra.

1017: Mr Lee recognized for run-down of 2017 NASFic Results. 425 votes total, San Juan wins the bid!

1019: Mr Vasquez with the presentation for San Juan. Starting with a hearty, “Buenas dias, familia!” He gets a buenas dias back. Oh I am excited about this bid! This is going to be great.

1024: PLANTAINS AND RUM god I already wanted to go, now I MUST.

1025: NATIONAL PARK RAINFOREST.

1026: This will be the first major fan-run convention in San Juan. Oh my gosh.

1027: Mr McCarty comes up to say ChiCon 7 set aside $1000 for the winner of the NASFiC bid.

1027: Gary Blog asks if there will be room parties or fan village for 2017 NASFiC and 2018 San Jose. Answer is that both will have room parties.

1028: Mr Kovalcik asks when hotel reservations will be open for NASFiC — in the next few months. Charging extra for paper publications by mail? No.

1032: DetCon passes on $6000 to San Juan!

1033: Mark Protection Committee report. The registration of “Hugo Award” in the EU has now been completed.

1037: 2 minute recess.

1040: Back to order. Report from the Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee.

1041: Mr Illingworth reports that both the major change and sunrise/sunset clauses are feasible. Question of if the sunrise/sunset is preferred. Motion is made and seconded.

1045: But this resolution wouldn’t be binding. But we pass it anyway.

1046: Committee on Nominee Diversity report. The report will come out of the 8 minutes of debate time. Dr Adams reports. They have modified the language to a lesser change that will put the amendment more in line with the original intent.

1053: The Chair rules that this is a lesser. Kate Secor appeals the ruling.

1054: Kevin Standlee suggests that the procedure for dealing with an appeal be reviewed, because it’s different from everything else we do. Let’s go down the parliamentary rabbit hole. Process: Chair gives an opening statement. Everyone else can speak for or against, but only once. Then Chair gets to give a closing statement. Then the floor gets to vote if we think the ruling is correct by majority.

1057: Debate time is running out, proposal to add 4 minutes evenly divided. Approved by 2/3 vote.

1102: Proposal to walk the mic around to those with accessibility issues. It failed.

1103: Now we’re going back and forth on the ruling.

1109: Ben Yalow points out that under current practice, we do not notify someone that if they withdrew their work, another of their works would pop on. Until they withdraw one, they don’t know.

1111: The question is called and seconded so we can get out of this. Motion is made to close debate other than 30 seconds for the Chair to make a closing statement.

1113: Now we are voting on the ruling. The ayes have it, the chair’s ruling is sustained.

1114: Ms McNeil motions to extend debate by 4 minutes, equally divided. Debate is not extended.

1115: Question is called. We will now vote on the amended language. Maybe. Maybe not.

1116: Jason Spitzer has objections/questions. Proposes rewording it again and sending it back to committee.

1117: Mr Eastlake says that if it’s not clear, it’s up for the administrators to decide from year to year.

1119: Voting on amendment from the committee now. The amendment passes. Language is accepted. AT LAST.

1119: Back to the underlying motion (Nominee Diversity). We have 15 seconds of debate left for and three minutes thirty seconds debate left against.

1121: Discussion of if finalists would be told how many nominations each of their works has. Dr Adams says that this came up in committee and a finalist could just say “please pick the two with the greatest number of nominations.” Mr Eastlake points out that this is the equivalent of the author not withdrawing anything at all.

1123: Try to call the question, but Ben Yalow points out that there has been no actual debate on the amendment. Kevin Standlee motions that we erase all debate times and give one minute to each side, to be limited to one person.

1124: Mr Eastlake as author of the amendment, for: “This is a great constitutional amendment. It does wonderful things… and boy golly everyone should vote in favor of it.” Oh, we needed this, Don. I’m afraid I didn’t catch the name of the person against.

1126: Mr Kronengold moves to amend by adding a sunrise and sunset clause. The amendment fails.

1126: “I’d now like to vote on the underlying motion. I’d really like to do that now.”

1127: The motion is passed. Nominee Diversity is ratified. We are taking a five minute break. I hope someone gives the chair a chocolate bar and a hug.

1140: The meeting is now back in order — for what purposes does the member rise? Proposal to move the YA Award up in discussion. Do we really need to debate this? NO.

1141: Ayes have it. B.2.3 then B.2.11. We will address Two Years Are Good Enough now.

1142: Warren Buff for. The number of new nominators gained from the work of tracking the N+1 memberships is relatively small, but requires a ton of administrative overhead. It’s a recent innovation that we’ve found to be impractical from an administrative standpoint.

1143: No debate against. Question is called.

1144: The ayes have it, Two Years Are Good Enough will be sent on to WorldCon 75.

1144: Now we are on to the YA Award.

1144: Katie Rask for the YA Award. The YA committee was voted in again for next year to discuss some of the remaining issues. The work this year was to addressing the feasibility of the award. Did not want to put award administration specifics into the constitution because that is not normal practice. There is a three year sunset clause for after ratification. The first provision for the insertion of the amendment provides that the naming of the award will not be considered a major change for the purposes of ratification. Next year’s committee will address the naming issue.

1147: Kate Secor, speech against. Not actually against the idea of a YA award. But objects to the specific proposal. Thinks it’s bad for YA. Creating a non-Hugo YA award would ghettoizing YA. There are a lot of authors to whom winning a Hugo-branded Hugo is very important to them.

1148: David Peterson for. They have spoken to a number of YA authors, including ones who are here. All of those authors have had the same opinion–it would be great if there was a Hugo award, but understanding the feelings of those who vote to put the Hugos on, a Campbell-like award is not a bad alternative. We have heard your objections to YA, with the Hugo being voted down again and again and again, so this is the best alternative that addresses it.

1150: Colin Harris is in favor of this proposal. Against it this year, but for one simple reason because the name is left blank. Administration is not finalized. If we pass this now, we’re going to put something into the constitution that will require major modifications next year. Against is just for that purpose.

1151: Mike Stern proposes an amendment to make it the Gernsback award. Not seconded.

1152: Chris Barkley in favor of the award. Thanks the committee members and the loyal opposition. Urges people to please vote for this, even in an incomplete form, it is the best way forward.

1153: Dr Adams says awards are currently under attack and this is not a good time to be adding a new one. (So where was this argument against Best Series?)

1154: Warren Buff asks that as we did yesterday with Best Series, let’s use the YA Award to bring the awards closer to the state of the industry.

1155: Mark Olson, parliamentary inquiry. The part that would affect the business meeting next year isn’t in the constitution and thus cannot dictate for the next business meeting. Speech against is now that, like Colin, he believes this is half baked.

1156: Cat Faber for, if there’s a major change, it’ll be a major change. If we kill the amendment and bring it back next year, it’s still going to take three years.

1157: Rene Walling would rather have a fully-baked solution.

1157: Kevin Standlee, last 20 second speech in favor. “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” If we don’t move ahead now, we may never move forward.

1158: Seth Breidbart moves to add a sunrise clause to go with the sunset.

1159: Mr Kronengold has speech against the sunrise clause. A sunrise clause is useless here. If we make a major change, it’s delayed anyway. (Yep.)

1201: Question is called — one year sunrise clause amendment. Amendment fails.

1201: Question is called on underlying motion. Ayes have it over objections, we are voting on the YA Award. The Ayes have it on the motion BY A LOT! YA AWARD IS PASSED ON TO HELSINKI!

1204: Next business: Three Stage Voting. Colin Harris speaks for. Points out that the reputation of the Hugos is on the line; methods like EPH will make sure there are a couple good finalists, but does having a couple good ones in a field of puppies really save the awards from damage? Asking that we pass this now, so that it is poised for ratification next year if needed. This is not about looking for edge cases, “oh I don’t like Dr Who.” This is about the committee as a whole standing up and saying “we don’t want this.” (Similar to the mass No Award of last year.) Understands that 3SV looks rather bad, but running it as a ranked Semi-final would be unrealistic and too much of a burden on both readers and administrators. Historically people wouldn’t put things under No Award because it wasn’t their taste. They’d just not rank them. No Award has been used when something is really not deserving, as was used last year. The intent of the makers is that nominators should vote yes on anything in 3SV unless the work shows up due to an abuse of process and is something they would be absolutely No Awarding in the future.

1207: (Colin, you may have argued me around again, you silver-tongued bastard.)

1208: Kate Paulk points out that this is a vote of all the membership. Since some of the membership are highly committed to playing the slate. So how does this prevent a group from taking membership and knocking out worthy candidates? Where are all the massive numbers of voters that we should have that would dilute the effect of a dedicated group.

1210: McCarty, 3SV does something unintended that does a great good. This crowd-sources eligibility assessment in a way that doesn’t damage the Hugo reputation.

1211: Mr Rosen proposes to amend this to keep the accept/reject voting, but rejected entries are not removed from the finalists, but the ballot is lengthened to keep through the 5th non-rejected entry and keep the rejected ones down to that number on there too. Motion is seconded.

1216: I ask if in this extended list, the rejected items would be marked. The answer is no. So the finalist list would just be unusually long and we wouldn’t know if it was because of ties or whatever.

1217: We’re trying to get the text up on the screen so we can all see what we’re debating, as the chair feels we should know what we’re talking about before we get a speech against. “The hell you say!”

1218: Mr Eastlake moves to refer to committee. He feels this is too complicated to get through today. The motion is referred to committee. Three Stage Voting will now be addressed tomorrow.

1220: We are now moving on to the three Retrospective Improvement items. Motion to reorder the items so that we start with item 3 first and then move to 1 and 2.

1222: Mr Eastlake for item number three. This would add a note for the retrospective Hugos that they are retrospective and when they were awarded.

1222: Motion to make this a resolution rather than an amendment because it’s specific instructions about administration. Do we need to debate? “NO. Good.” Motion fails.

1223: Me: We haven’t had a serpentine yet today. Immediate calls for division on that motion. But before we do the serpentine, Kevin Standlee calls for a vote for division, which requires 20%. It fails. Kevin, you beautiful killjoy.

1224: Retrospective Improvement #3 passes. On to #1.

1225: Mr Eastlake says that this cleans up the language. Also allows awarding of Hugos for during the WWII years.

1225: Speech against, because who read what was good in WWII? Most of the people who were reading during that year are dead.

1226: Speech for, “I found the retrospective Hugos this year to be much easier to nominate for than the regular Hugos this year.”

1227: Stacy Helton against, this removes the restriction so we could go back 200, 500, whatever years.

1228: For: The Hugos exist as a larger cultural heritage, so it doesn’t matter if there’s a writer alive to appreciate the award.

1229: Mark Richards against. He doesn’t want to see the retrospective Hugos entrenched forever. Right now, once we get through 75 and 100 year cycles, they’re done.

1230: Voting on motion. Ayes have it for Retrospective Improvement #1.

1230: Time for part 2. Mr Eastlake for this one. More controversial, but hey we have a small debate time! This adds the concept of a category Hugo rather than a year Hugo. If in the previous year No Award was given in a particular category, if the WorldCon believes there was something peculiar in that particular year, they may decide to run a category retrospective Hugo. (Oh Don, this is fabulous.)

1232: Don clarifies that nominations would be completely open.

1233: Ben Yalow believes that this motion is completely inappropriate. We do not judge the decisions made by the voters under any circumstances. No Award is listed just like any other candidate, and if the votes choose No Award, we should not second guess them.

1234: Priscilla Olson, in 24 years we can rerun Sasquan, this would be so cool. We’re all gonna be around in 25 years to do this.

1235: Elspeth Kovar against; no award means that category has been voted on, it cannot be voted on against.

1235: Kevin Standlee against; this is a fatally flawed proposal for administrative purposes. It would be impossible to recreate the rules used in that year.

1236: Mr Quinn against; this is a good idea, but it’s not the time to do this.

1236: We are out of time. Mr Kronengold moves to change 25 to 50 years. No second, so we’re voting.

1237: Question is called. Retrospective Improvements #2 fails.

1238: Two minute videography recess.

1239: Meeting is back to order. For the record, we will have coffee tomorrow. CHEERING ALL AROUND!

1239: We will now be considering Universal Suffrage.

1240: Ron Oakes speaking for. As he went through the constitution, he discovered that there was nothing in there to prevent a future WorldCon from violating all tradition and creating a membership class with no rights.

1241: Mr Walling against. The economics of the matter would force the committees to not create such a membership.

1241: Ms Olson is concerned the word sell because she knows this WorldCon gave away many free memberships that did include voting rights. Motion to change the word sell to provide.

1245: Elspeth Kovar, we’re not selling, we’re providing. Provide is a simple, one-word change that will clarify what is going on.

1246: Lenore Jones against, points out that the current motion doesn’t say anything about free memberships to people such as the CART operator and ASL interpretor. The amendment would force us to offer voting memberships to them.

1250: Motion fails to change sell to provide.

1252: A few more speeches for and against, my apologies that my attention is wandering a bit, because I need to zoom to a panel really soon.

1253: Universal Suffrage passes and will go on to Helsinki.

1253: We’re going to do one more item, but I can only give it two more minutes.

1254: Ben Yalow would asks that we put this off to tomorrow because he has something he needs to go to at 1300. Motion to adjourn.

1254: There is an objection. We vote. Adjourning fails. Argh.

1255: Sorry guys, I have to go. :( Not going to be able to cover the last bit.

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Main Business Meeting #1 Summary

Summary and highlights of today’s liveblog of the main business meeting, for those who prefer their business meetings to be low-sodium and use only fake sugar.

Just remember, unlike Aaron Burr, everyone is welcome in the room where it happens.

NOTE: I will be referring to all amendments by their working titles. If you want to know the substance of these, refer to the WSFS agenda linked to from this page. Or I have my quick and dirty readings of them here, with some helpful clarifications provided by people in the comments.

  • Committee reports were given for Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee, WorldCon Runners Guide Editorial Committee, YA Award Committee, and Best Series Hugo Committee. I’m not going to summarize the reports here, you can find them all in the agenda. But I would particularly encourage you to read the YA Award report, which starts on page 37 of the pdf.
  • Financial reports accepted for previous WorldCons. ChiCon 7 is finally done, they have left the building, buh-bye!
  • Business passed on from previous WorldCons, excepting the items definitely postponed until Sunday (EPH, 4 and 6)
    • Best Fancast is re-ratified as a category, so it’s here to stay!
    • The Five Percent Solution passes and goes into the constitution, so yay no more 5% threshold for short story! (One argument for this measure provided by actual statistician Mr Quinn.) There was a minor change made to the language of this amendment that removed a section that didn’t actually have anything to do with nominating thresholds and got put in by mistake, giving us all a lesson on the dangers of global find and replace.
    • Nominee Diversity is referred temporarily to committee, to be reported back tomorrow. The committee will address some questions about how it should be dealt with if someone gets more than two nominations in a category and has to withdraw the extra works from consideration.
    • Electronic Signature passes.
  • There was a major parliamentary kerfuffle about if it would be possible to pass something this year and then delay the ratification an additional year (so it would be set to be ratified in 2018 rather than 2017). That got referred to committee as well, because a nitpicker and flyspecker’s work is never done.
  • New business for this WorldCon:
    • The committee’s modified language for Best Series was accepted. A sunset clause was added, set to expire in 2021. Best Series then gets first passage and will be up for ratification in Helsinki.
    • December Is Good Enough receives first passage and will be up for ratification in Helsinki.
    • Unanimous consent given to take up Defining North America since it was likely to be a less contentious item and we were running short on time. The measure then received first passage and will be up for ratification in Helsinki.

We got a lot done, as you can see! Tomorrow we’ll be going through site selection, and then more of the new business.

Previous days:

Preliminary meeting liveblog | summary

Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Preliminary Meeting Summary

For those to whom the liveblog is too long or too confusing, I shall summarize.

The Preliminary business meeting is for setting the agenda for the main business meetings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I will be referring to all amendments by their working titles. If you want to know the substance of these, refer to the WSFS agenda linked to from this page. Or I have my quick and dirty readings of them here, with some helpful clarifications provided by people in the comments.

Highlights:

  • All amendments from the 2015 business meetings were successfully put on the agenda with debate times set.
  • EPH and 4 and 6 were both postponed definitely to the Sunday meeting, so that they could be considered in light of the results of this year’s Hugos. We’ve been promised a report particularly on how EPH would have affected the nomination outcomes for the last five years at Sunday’s meeting. After much back and forth, EPH will be considered before 4 and 6 because if the former passes, the latter should be considered for modification.
  • There will be an informal discussion about EPH after the meeting tomorrow.
  •  Best Series will be debated in the general meetings, with a report from a committee (which I was on) with some recommendations to modifying the language. (Spoiler here: In committee, Colin Harris eloquently talked me down from what I was trying to do, but we did come up with some necessary clarifications.)
  • The proposed amendment to turn Two Years Is Enough into This Year’s Hugos, This Year’s Nominators was defeated. Two Years Is Enough (which will remove the current right of year N+1’s WorldCon attendees to nominate for the Hugo) will be considered in the main business meeting.
  • Additional Finalists is postponed indefinitely and will not be considered this year.
  • December Is Good Enough, Three Stage Voting, EPH+, Retrospective Improvements, Universal Suffrage, Non-transferability of Voting Rights, and Young Adult Award will all be considered during the main business meeting. (YA Award with the rather surprising statement from Mr McCarty that though he has thoroughly objected to YA proposals in the past, he feels that this one deserves to be debated.)
  • EPH+ will be considered on Sunday after EPH due to definite postponement.
  • Retrospective Improvements has been split into three separate parts, each of which will be debated and voted on in the main business meeting.
  • No change to the Mark Protection Committee; all retiring members are nominated again.

If you have any questions/corrections, please feel free to leave a comment, I promise that I do go through and deal with the moderation queue.

Categories
sfwa silly

FAQ: What is SFWA in charge of?***

Things SFWA is in charge of:

  1. The Nebula Awards!
  2. Writer Beware!
  3. SFWA.org
  4. GriefCom!
  5. The SFWA Emergency Medical fund
  6. The SFWA Bulletin and other publications that say “SFWA” on it like that one awesome cookbook with the super alcoholic Irish coffee recipe in.

Things SFWA is not in charge of:

  1. Worldcon
  2. The Hugo Awards
  3. The success or failure of your book
  4. Bees! (OR ARE THEY  AREN’T THEY?  AREN’T? ENGLISH IS HARD HELP)
  5. This thing
  6. The Hugo Awards
  7. Any member’s personal website like this one oops
  8. George RR Martin’s beret
  9. People who pronounce nuclear like “nuke-YEW-ler.”
  10. The Hugo Awards
  11. The second law of thermodynamics
  12. The way Cat Rambo’s hair keeps changing color, as if there’s nothing dependable left in this world and we’ll all just go spinning off into the void at any moment
  13. The Permian extinction
  14. El chupacabra
  15. The way cilantro tastes soapy to some people and not to others
  16. The Hugo Awards
  17. Chemtrails
  18. The really shitty traffic on the local highway you have to use every day
  19. The Hugo Awards
  20. Quantum entanglement
  21. That mysterious glowing substance that you shouldn’t have licked but you did it anyway because you were a dumb teenager and in fifty years you’re probably going to die of eyeball spleen cancer
  22. March Madness
  23. The fact that we STILL do not have a Black Widow movie and yet Ant Man? Seriously?
  24. HAARP
  25. That garbage music kids these days listen to
  26. The Hugo Awards
  27. This guy
  28. The fact that chocolate is so fattening goddammit SFWA why
  29. Bacon, cats, or John Scalzi
  30. That you can never find a pen when you need one
  31. Or that you finally find a pen and IT IS ALWAYS OUT OF INK
  32. Rainbow suspenders (or “embarrassingly enthusiastic weather braces” for our British readers)
  33. That thing on Donald Trump’s head
  34. The Hugo Awards
  35. THE MOTHERFUCKING HUGO AWARDS

I hope this clears things up.

 

 

*** – I am not an officer in SFWA. I am not speaking in an official capacity for SFWA. This website is not sanctioned by SFWA. I keep trying to text SFWA and it won’t return my texts any more either, I don’t know, maybe it’s just busy? Call me, baby.