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

[delosharriman]

I'm not going to argue in favour of general proxies, but I think there's an argument to be made for a form of restricted proxy. Whether there's any practical way to implement such a thing, I'm still considering. The gist of the idea is simply (hah!) that someone could introduce proxies designated for a specific item of business. Now, it's entirely possible that this would require a total rearrangement of WSFS procedure, perhaps to the extent of holding the Preliminary Business Meeting at the end of the previous Worldcon, or advancing the deadline for submissions a couple of months so that they could be printed in the Progress Reports. In the latter case, at least, the restricted proxy might be limited to "interposition" votes, either for or against the Objection to Consideration. Thus, if there are enough people who feel that an item either should or should not be considered by the Business Meeting, they can get their way. This would provide a significant palliative to perceived disenfranchisement, since it seems that the quashing of business via the OtC is a matter of greater complaint than the resolutions actually reached by debate, but on the other hand it is a very useful bit of procedure..

Actually mail-ballotting might work as well as proxies in this application.