You Only Get One Shot at the 2015 Hugo Awards

[kevin_standlee]

Among all of the shouting over the 2015 Hugo Awards "Puppygate" and the calls to vote No Award is floating around something procedurally pernicious and that I encourage anyone who sees it to stamp out. That is the assumption that if the members of this year's Worldcon vote "No Award" on everything or substantially everything on the Hugo Awards ballot, that's okay because "the Retro-Hugos will cover it" or "Worldcon can hold a new election for 2015 next year." Both of these wrong.

ETA: This post is written based on the WSFS rules as they stand in April 2015. It does not anticipate rule changes. Look, it's technically possible to change any rule, so every comment below that has an implicit or explicit "But if you change this rule..." in it, I'll stipulate. I'm attempting to refute people who are assuming that as the rules stand right now certain things can be done that simply aren't true.

The Retrospective Hugo Awards are something that a Worldcon held 50, 75, or 100 years after a Worldcon was held that did not hold the Hugo Awards. The actual wording in Section 3.13 of the current WSFS Constitution is:

Retrospective Hugos. A Worldcon held 50, 75, or 100 years after a Worldcon at which no Hugos were presented may conduct nominations and elections for Hugos which would have been presented at that previous Worldcon. Procedures shall be as for the current Hugos. Categories receiving insufficient numbers of nominations may be dropped. Once retrospective Hugos have been awarded for a Worldcon, no other Worldcon shall present retrospective Hugos for that Worldcon.

For example, this year's Worldcon is 75 years after the 1940 Worldcon, Chicon I. The Hugo Awards were first held in 1953, and thus Sasquan could have held a 1940 Retro-Hugos election (for works first published in 1939). Spokane chose not to do so. (I expect many committee members are now breathing a sigh of relief for this decision.) So the 2040 Worldcon will have a chance to do so. (Had Sasquan exercised it's Retro-Hugo right, the 2040 Worldcon would not be allowed to do so.)

Aside: If there was no Worldcon in a given year, there was no opportunity to hold a Hugo Awards election. Therefore, the years 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945 are off-limits. Nobody will ever be able to hold Retro-Hugos for those years because there were no Worldcons in those years due to the World War II gap between the 1941 and 1946 Worldcons.

The 2015 Worldcon is holding a Hugo Awards election. Therefore, there will never be an opportunity to hold Retro-Hugos for 2015 under the current rules, even if the members vote No Award in every category. At best, I think people are thinking that No Awarding means the "no Hugos [were] presented] at that previous Worldcon" rule would apply. This is clearly and obviously not the intent of the rule. It surely wasn't intended to mean that you could re-run the race for the 1977 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic presentation in 2027 just because the members of the 1977 Worldcon voted No Award in that category.

If a Worldcon holds a Hugo Award election for a given year, that year's "rights are exhausted" forever, even if the members select No Award in any or all categories. That's clearly the legislative intent of the rules.

Similarly, the WSFS Business Meeting has no authority over a single Hugo Award election. The WSFS Constitution is very clearly written to deny the Business Meeting this authority. The Meeting can't order a specific Worldcon to do much of anything. It can change the rules to affect future Worldcons, and that takes multiple years. This is a feature.

I'm aware of how frustrating it is to want something done Right Now. WSFS rules were written by people who distrust quick action and put all of the "executive power" into the hands of individual Worldcons, with only a few procedural limitations. This is absolutely deliberate and not something you can override. You could have 5,000 screaming Worldcon fans voting to Suspend the Bylaws, void the Hugo Awards results, and order the 2016 Worldcon to redo them, and it wouldn't mean a thing. MidAmeriCon 2 would ignore the order, and rightly so. The WSFS Mark Protection Committee, to the extent that we have the responsibility to protect the service marks of WSFS jointly on behalf of all Worldcons and all WSFS members, wouldn't recognize the legitimacy of extra-legal Hugo Award elections.

So don't let people talk you into voting No Award solely because you think that there will be some sort of do-over in 2016 or 2065 or whatever. It's not going to happen. As with any Hugo Awards election, I would encourage any member to use his/her right to vote No Award when you think that the candidates you rank below it or leave off your ballot don't deserve to be on that ballot, but don't do it just because you think you'll get a second chance with a new set of nominees.

Comments

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

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[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

"This is clearly and obviously not the intent of the rule.

I disagree, but it doesn't matter which of us is right.

The plan already has to amend 3.13 to add a "3, " to the list of years eligible. Adding a statement that years where the entire ballot resulted in No Award were explicitly eligible for Retro Hugos would add *exactly* 0 days to the process as contemplated. The same motion that does one can do the other.

When the process demands 3.13 change, and you're objection is saying 3.13 doesn't allow it, well, it's easy to reconcile those two.

In the face of an immutable 3.13? Sure, but 3.13 isn't immutable. It can change in 2 years, maybe 3, depending on the result of your 2+1 proposal, but it's changeable, it *has* to be changeable for the Do-Over proposal to work, and if there's something else in the Constitution that would need to be altered to allow the Do-Over, we can amend that as well at the same time.

Again -- part of the process involves amending the WSFS constitution. That's why I know that if this actually worked, it will have a large backing of fandom behind it, because it requires a massive vote of No Award *plus* the agreement of two Business Meetings *plus* possibly ratification by the members of a third world con. If all of those people agree? Who are *you* to say it's not kosher?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I didn't say we couldn't change the rules to allow it later. I'm saying that the rules as currently written do not allow it in my opinion.

[rogers cadenhead (from livejournal.com)]

You did say it won't happen in 2065. Pessimist. I am confident that my 50-year campaign to allow a Retro-Hugo vote for No Awarded categories in 2015 will be successful. I just have to get buy-in from my sons' children after they are born.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Note that should Popular Ratification pass, it will not affect anything receiving first passage this year. Anything passed this year and ratified in 2016 takes effect for 2017. Only changes receiving first passage in 2016 or later would be affected by the three-year process. This is not a secret. It's written into the proposal.

[brgibbons.livejournal.com]

I will be curious to see how these events affect Popular Ratification.

Given that the change would tack on an extra year to any attempts to fix situations like this *and* (assuming I understand the change correctly, in that it would allow supporting members to vote) provide an opportunity for groups that don't actually attend Worldcon to have an impact on the WSFS Constitution, I'm a little dubious about its chances for survival.

... though, I'll admit, I never quite got Popular Ratification. What was originally described to me as a way to streamline things (instead of having to go through two business meetings, a proposal goes to just one business meeting, then gets voted on by the membership the next year) somehow turned into something which makes the process more cumbersome (a proposal still goes through two business meetings, and then we add an extra year's delay for it to be voted on by the membership too).

[drplokta]

If six or more categories do win No Award this year, I think there might be some kind of process that kicks off around 2060 to let them be re-run in 2065. The rules don't permit it now, but the rules can be changed. But I don't think that really changes anything about the situation now -- I for one will be 102 around the time of the 2065 Worldcon.

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

Indeed, adding to 3.13 that you could award Retro Hugos to categories where No Award won is perfectly possible, and if you added a "3" to the list of years, you could redo 2015 No Awards in 2015. If Kevin's 2+1 passes, you might want to make that a "4" to give the extra year for ratification.

The WSFS constitution is slow to amend, but it is not hard to amend -- if it was, we wouldn't have so many amendments happening every year! It's far easier to amend than, say, the US Constitution.

[drplokta]

I think your second "2015" should probably be "2018". Redoing the 2015 Hugos in 2015 would be hard.

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

Move to make 2018 2015 again?

Yeah, messed that up. "you could redo 2015 No Awards in 2018"

Thanks.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I suggest that any proposed change that would allow Retro-Hugos in the situation described use the formulation "more than one-third of the categories that existing at the time of the original election" rather than a hard number.

I'm three years younger than you are. The one good thing about such a Punt To The Future Amendment is that it's highly unlikely that a significant number of the original participants would be part of the redo. It certainly seems like a Nuclear Option to me, except that it calls for you to drop the bomb on yourself.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

You can if you want, but that's what you get when you use a title that's rock-hard absoluitist.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

Not to mention wrong.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

And apologies for posting this under the wrong comment.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

If I vote No Award it is in the clear knowledge that is my plan.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

Therefore, there will never be an opportunity to hold Retro-Hugos for 2015 under the current rules, even if the members vote No Award in every category.

The rule says "a Worldcon at which no Hugos were presented" so it seems to me that if No Award wins in all categories, then no Hugos would be presented at Sasquan, and 2015 would be eligible for the retro-Hugos in 2055, 2090 and 2115.

I'm not advocating that as a course of action, because it would require voting No Award over deserving non-slate nominees in Best Novel, Best Fan Artist, and other categories.

Pedantically yours,
0&

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

then no Hugos would be presented at Sasquan

Unless David "Noah Ward" Gerrold appropriates them all to himself, as he's said he will do.

- even more pedantically yours,

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

That...sounds technically correct. It's probably not a good idea to do that but I think a sound argument could be made. Certainly something odd is going on if No Award is given across the board.

That, and I belive David Gerrold is deserving of Hugos that read "David Gerrold" on them.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I will not expect a do-over.

This does not alter my feelings about No Award.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

"Aside: If there was no Worldcon in a given year, there was no opportunity to hold a Hugo Awards election. Therefore, the years 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945 are off-limits. Nobody will ever be able to hold Retro-Hugos for those years because there were no Worldcons in those years due to the World War II gap between the 1941 and 1946 Worldcons."

Au contraire. You should know by now to never say never. All it would take for that to happen is for the WSFS Business Meeting to amendment to the section of the Constitution that describes the Retro Hugos, allowing them in those years. Never mind that it wouldn't be in the spirit of the Awards. All it would take is enough people raising their hands.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Must I preface everything I say with long disclaimers that I'm talking about the rules as they stand as of this year, not as of some hypothetical event that hasn't happened and that cannot take effect for at the earliest two years from now?

[billroper]

Apparently. :)

Being a Rules Wonk is hell.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

Kevin ... you never can tell. People are perverse enough to try and I wouldn't put it past an organized group to try amending the Hugo rules with malice aforethought.