More Business Posted

[kevin_standlee]

New proposals have been posted to the Business Meeting Page on the Renovation web site, including the two competing proposals to "fix" the Fanzine category (the "Podcast Problem") and the YA Hugo proposal. As Colin Harris said when he announced this on The List That Shall Not Be Named, it looks like a busy year at the Business Meeting. And I expect more proposals to be submitted. We may well end up using a significant portion of the three hours at the first two meetings, and I wouldn't be that surprised if substantive business overflows to the third meeting on Saturday.

Comments

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

3 meetings at 3 hours each means a substantial number of people won't go - because they don't want to a) wake up that early or b) miss that much of WorldCon.

Is there a way you can give folks a heads up when certain issues are likely to come up so they can go to the part they really care about rather than just blowing it all off?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

It's difficult. Business will be taken up in order, but there's no guarantee of when things will be specifically scheduled, and the meeting and also rearrange the order in which things happen. There's no easy way to schedule things like a tennis tournament ("Not Before ##:##")

The agenda order for Thursday is, roughly thus. If something is a resolution (not a constitutional amendment), it will be dealt with at the Preliminary Meeting. Constitutional Amendments can be amended at this time, and new ones can be killed by a 2/3 vote (Objection to Consideration), but otherwise the Preliminary Meeting will deal with setting debate time limits for consideration on Friday.

• Call to Order


• WSFS Mark Protection Committee Report: This includes nominations for members of the MPC (three seats open). Voting will happen on Friday.


• Other WSFS Committee Reports: There may be motions originating from these reports


• Worldcon Financial Reports: Sometimes there are questions arising from these reports


• Business Passed on From Aussiecon 4: Mostly this will be setting debate time limits since the PBM can't handle these directly


• Resolutions: This is where it starts getting interesting, because the PBM can handle resolutions right away. At this point we'll get the resolution reversing the MPC's policy decision from last year. I'm guessing this will start at roughly 30 minutes after the meeting starts, but it may happen sooner.


• New Constitutional Amendments: Because amendments to new proposals are in order at this time, this will probably take longer than the debate-limit setting.

Let's consider the main classes of proposal expected as new business:

• Proposals coming out of the Semiprozine committee: they're likely to generate a lot of discussion since there's a main committee report plus multiple minority reports, and it would be in order to decide which, if any, of the minority reports will be considered at the Main meeting. This could take 30-40 minutes by itself, maybe more if people are really riled up.


• YA Hugo: This either will get killed by OTC or there may be many attempts to amend due to the issues on it. Time unpredictable.


• Fanzine Hugo/Podcast Problem: There are at least two overlapping proposals, and the PBM may well attempt to reconcile them into only one proposal for consideration on Friday. Skip this discussion and you may show up on Friday to discover the thing you expected to see isn't there.


• Writing the MPC restrictions into the constitution: If this proposal appears as I expect it will, I have a bunch of amendments I intend to offer to it, and that will take time.

Again, that's just considering the stuff I'm pretty confident of seeing. There may be other stuff I don't know about yet. The "front matter" of committee reports sometimes thoroughly bores people but it's necessary.

This is also only the Preliminary Business Meeting on Thursday. It's job includes trying to get the agenda in order for Friday. I'll discuss Friday in my next reply because I'm running out of characters.

The Preliminary BM could (but rarely has) set the agenda for Friday in the "not before XX:XX" format, saying that specific items won't be considered before a certain time. Doing so annoys the regular attendees, who (a) think it's wasting their time in case all other items are exhausted before then and (b) don't like single-issue voters and want people to attend the whole meeting if they want to vote on any item happening at that meeting.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The Friday Main Business Meeting's agenda will look like this, roughly. Remember that the Preliminary BM will have set debate time limits on each item, and it may reorder the agenda or (not likely) set "not before" orders on any specific item.

• Call to Order


• Mark Protection Committee Elections: I intend to speak about the candidates and others may also do so as well. You have to be there to vote, so basically I'm hoping people who support my position are there at the start of the meeting.


• Change the Membership Rate Limitation Amendment: Ratification of change of voting fee multiplier from 2x to 4x. This could take a while based on how much debate there was at A4. I estimate a 20 minute debate limit, but it could run long or short


• Electronic Voting: Confirming that e-voting is permitted for the Hugos, and for Site Selection if all the bids and the administering convention agree to it. I think we might have hashed this all out at A4, so maybe it will take less than 10 minutes.


• Electronic Distribution of Rules. I have no idea whether this will still be a hot button or no. Estimate 5 minutes


• Expand Hugo Nomination Eligibility: Allows the following year's Worldcon's members to nominate. I'm unclear on how controversial this one will be. Estimate 10 minutes


• Run-Off Referneces. Technical Change. 2 minutes


• Mark Revision Notices. Technical Change. 2 minutes

That deals with the Business Passed on and we've probably used up at least an hour. If so, the meeting might take a short recess before moving on to New Business.

• Fanzine Hugo/Podcast Problem: Whatever survives the PBM gets debated. Estimate 30 minutes


• YA Hugo: Assuming it gets out of the PBM, estimate at least 20 minutes


• MPC Hugo Eligibility: if this happens at all, I estimate at least 20 minutes and maybe more

On the surface, this doesn't look so bad. (And this is where the value of the Preliminary Business Meeting is: it tries to reconcile conflicting proposals and handle as many technical matters as possible to that the Main Meeting can focus on substance.) But those nominal debate time limits don't count the time in between speakers, so you can add at least 20% to everything. There's also usually surprises that I can't directly address here.

So unless people can convince the PBM to write in "not before" scheduling for specific items, it's going to be pretty difficult to say "Be there at 10 AM for ten minutes, then you can go away until 11:15, then come back again at 11:50."

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

My crystal ball shows a few of the proposals being sent to a 1-day committee between the preliminary and main meetings. But I doubt that will shorten the debate any...

Can it be any worse than the Westercon meeting?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Worse? I don't think so. Longer in aggregate? Oh, most definitely. There's a lot more business to be handled, rather than just one mega issue.

Lots of people blow off the Preliminary Business Meeting, because it's "only agenda setting stuff." But just like the US Congress where a whole bunch of important stuff happens in the Rules Committee, the PBM is where a lot of things that are ignored at the time but important in the long run, like the nominations for the MPC, happen. Also, since the PBM, when it gets to constitutional amendments is a de facto committee of the whole on Rules, it's where most really substantive changes to proposals are apt to happen, since the Main Meeting has shown a marked disinclination to try and tinker too much with the substance of a motion one it makes it that far.

I don't expect any of the meetings individually to be longer than the Westercon Business Meeting, however. The scheduling is deliberate, and we have the time available. There's actually almost twelve program-hours set aside over four days as I recall, and we'll probably only use around six or seven of them over three days.

[lindadee.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I had to laugh at your first sentence. But I agree, since I was the one taking the minutes.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

As a former Worldcon and Westercon BM Secretary, I'm quite sympathetic. I hope that the recordings we make are potentially helpful.

[crookedfeet.livejournal.com]

You don't expect to need the extra meeting then?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Nope. Considering that the last time we needed the fourth meeting was 1992, and that was only because of a "snap NASFiC" election (not required anymore), I think it unlikely unless there's a lot more business submitted than I've heard of. That doesn't mean the first two meetings won't use up all or most of their allotted time, though.

[crookedfeet.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I wondered, because of the semi-prozine reports, if you thought stuff might run over.