There are shades of grey between direct and representative democracy. For instance, most of the US has some form of citizen-initiated petition ballot measure system whereby some things are put to the masses and others worked out in a smoke filled room. Parts of the US even have ballot measures which don't themselves contain law but simply direct the representatives to draw something up (business meeting measures not having to also contain all of the followon renumbering is a baby step in this direction). One expectation of ballot measures is that you'll have a reasonable amount of time between when the final form of the measure is known and the vote; amendments that substantially change the meaning of a measure can't happen.
Concretely, a bunch of things we could do that wouldn't mean throwing out everything we're doing now:
- Allow participation in the BM by proxy - Disallow amendments that are "hostile to, or even defeat, the spirit of the original motion" (RR11 163:18) - Second ratification of constitutional amendments by mail (with ballot distributed in a PR for the next Worldcon, as with the Hugos) instead of at the next BM - Require new business to be referred to a committee appointed at the relevant BM, perhaps with only single ratification (and no amendments) if a committee reports positively - Generally do more business in committees, reserving the BM or paper mail for providing direction to the committees and not for specific spelled out rules changes
Keeping the BM short is currently at odds with having any debate, and so the BM procedure is fundamentally at odds with letting people feel they have been heard. We have a few adaptations that might help people get that out of their system beforehand except that arcane wording is a barrier and then the amendment system twists things beyond all recognition. If we weren't working out the wording of motions in the meeting there'd be more time for talking about whether we liked them or not. This could happen by committees working out that wording for us, or it could happen by letting motions be general ("Moved to direct the Hugo committee to bring an amendment introducing a best YA Hugo") so that we could talk about the substance instead of the form.
no subject
Concretely, a bunch of things we could do that wouldn't mean throwing out everything we're doing now:
- Allow participation in the BM by proxy
- Disallow amendments that are "hostile to, or even defeat, the spirit of the original motion" (RR11 163:18)
- Second ratification of constitutional amendments by mail (with ballot distributed in a PR for the next Worldcon, as with the Hugos) instead of at the next BM
- Require new business to be referred to a committee appointed at the relevant BM, perhaps with only single ratification (and no amendments) if a committee reports positively
- Generally do more business in committees, reserving the BM or paper mail for providing direction to the committees and not for specific spelled out rules changes
Keeping the BM short is currently at odds with having any debate, and so the BM procedure is fundamentally at odds with letting people feel they have been heard. We have a few adaptations that might help people get that out of their system beforehand except that arcane wording is a barrier and then the amendment system twists things beyond all recognition. If we weren't working out the wording of motions in the meeting there'd be more time for talking about whether we liked them or not. This could happen by committees working out that wording for us, or it could happen by letting motions be general ("Moved to direct the Hugo committee to bring an amendment introducing a best YA Hugo") so that we could talk about the substance instead of the form.
(edited to change userpic)