Worst System (Except for All the Others)

[kevin_standlee]

The WSFS Business Meeting is taking a fair amount of abuse for using a parliamentary rules manual (Robert's Rules of Order, the most common, but not the only such manual) for its formal decision-making process.

WSFS actually manages only two things of significant importance: The Hugo Awards rules and the rules for selecting future Worldcon sites. (There are other things, which I can detail upon request.) Everything else about how Worldcons are run is done by the individual Worldcon committees.

So, before I hit the road for El Paso, I leave this question before you all: Direct Democracy as WSFS practices it is extremely messy. If you were allowed to change things to suit yourself (other than simply saying, "I'm King and You'll All Required to do what I say when I say it"), how would you change the governance process for the Hugo Awards and Site Selection rules?

Come up with a better system that doesn't have the flaws you perceive are present in the current system. Please.

Comments

[billroper]

I am happily willing to concede that proxies can lead to undemocratic results.

However, the current situation also produces undemocratic results if we assume that Supporting Members should have rights similar to those of Attending Members. (You're allowed to make a different assumption, of course. :) ) As it stands, Supporting Members have no ability to participate in the Business Meeting and -- if we assume again that that's an important right -- then that's fundamentally undemocratic.

I agree that popular ratification would improve the situation.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

True, but at the moment, we've defined basic memberships as having every WSFS right except attendance of the Worldcon and the Business Meeting held therat. I'm sufficiently troubled by this to want Popular Ratification. I do not, however, think, it would be an easy sell at all.

Had Helsinki won, I think I might have had a better tactical shot at it, with two non-US Worldcons in a row voting on it (and then the 2016 Worldcon, which looks to be headed to Kansas City, voting on the final ratification by ballot).