Worldcon Supporting Memberships Aren't Pure Profit

[kevin_standlee]

[Originally intended as a short post on FB, but it grew, so when I got done with it, I brought it over here, which is my main journal.]

There are people on all sides of Puppygate who are talking blissfully about the vast sums of money that must be flowing into the coffers of Sasquan, the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention​. By the look of some of the comments, you'd think that the committee must be building Unca Scrooge's Money Bin on the banks of the Spokane River. Y'all need some perspective. I do not speak with inside information for this Worldcon on this subject. I speak as someone who chaired a Worldcon and had to sweat over a budget.

1. Despite what you may think, a Supporting membership is not 100% "profit" to the convention selling it. You may think, "Oh, it's money for nothing at all!" (which is the argument people use to say it should be $5 or free), but it does cost the convention resources to service the membership. This is what's known as variable cost: the amount the convention's costs go up every time they sell a membership. That includes paper publications and postage expenses for every member who requests them, and that's not trivial. In fact, for non-US-based members, it may well exceed the revenue realized on the membership. Another cost not considered is what the convention's payment-processing system charges per membership. There are others. So while in most cases, a Supporting membership does help support the Worldcon by helping to pay some of the huge fixed overhead cost, it's not like sending them $40 means $40 "profit."

(I suspect the concept that there are members not in the USA is likely going right over the heads of most Puppies. I despair of my fellow Americans sometimes.)

2. It currently takes about five Supporting members to equal the gross (not net) revenue of an Attending member. Thus the (as of April 12) 3,300 Supporting members of Sasquan are equivalent to only 660 Attending members. So the Supporting members (based on the April 12 numbers) may be 47% of the members, but they represent less than 20% of the revenue of the convention.

If we gave Supporting members voting rights in proportion to the amount of revenue they contribute to the convention, they'd only get one Hugo Award nomination per category, compared to five for Attending members.

Comments

[billroper]

I agree with a good bit of your analysis, having suffered through the Worldcon budgeting process too. :)

Putting my "work" hat on though -- and I think this is something that you understand intuitively, but which hasn't quite gotten said explicitly -- the thing about a Membership (Attending or Supporting) in this context is the amount of cash flow that it generates for the convention. You don't want to measure revenue to determine the contribution to the convention, but rather revenue less the associated expenses.

And then you need to measure who the benefits of the large (you bet!) fixed expenses of the Worldcon actually accrue to. Mostly, those layouts benefit the Attending Members, but not the Supporting Members. (Not always. Streaming the Hugo Award ceremonies has benefits to everyone (less so the Attending Members, who primarily benefit from the increased publicity for the awards), including non-Members, just to pick an example.)

Wasn't the idea of allowing Worldcon to not send paper publications to Supporting Members intended to reduce the expenses associated with those, thus allowing (in theory) for cheaper Supporting Memberships? Or for increased cash flow to the Worldcon. Either could be a good thing. :)

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit, but the point is that "revenue" by itself is not a good measure of what a particular member is contributing to the con's budget.

Thanks!

[drplokta]

Revenue minus expenses is profit, not cash flow. Cash flow is about how much actual cash you have at any one time, and can also cause problems for Worldcons if the main bills have to be paid before the con, and so you don't have the walk-in membership cash to pay them. It's true that Worldcons make a profit in supporting memberships which helps to defray the loss that they can make on attending memberships.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Cash flow usually is the problem, though. A lot of one-off conventions can make a profit at the end (usually by extremely tight budgeting), but flounder on not having the right amout of cash on hand or coming in when it's needed.

[billroper]

Well, yes, when I'm being pedantic, I should strive to be correct. :)

However, since a Worldcon does not usually carry substantial inventory nor depreciate substantial capital assets, cash flow and profit are going to be numbers that are pretty close to each other, except for the timing issues that you note.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Complicated things cause problems for uncomplicated brains.

In a similar vein, hotels actually are more profitable running below capacity than always being full - the additional costs of room cleaning, bed linen and having issues with people checking out late etc... all are bigger problems than running with 10-20% of rooms empty.

It isn't just about money coming in....

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

You mention "paper publications and postage expenses for every member who requests them," which reminds me that it's expected, or used to be, that the convention would post-con physically mail out the souvenir book to every member who didn't pick one up at the con, Supporting or Attending (if they wound up not being able to go). You want to talk about a non-trivial cost, those things are heavy.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Yes, and Loncon 3 is apparently so close to the edge financially by one reading that if they don't get some of their non-attending members to agree to not take paper publications, they'll have a financial loss overall.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

I will not be one of them. I do want a copy of the Souvenir Book. So far I have not received a printed copy of any publication from Loncon. Was it an "opt in" to get them?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The last I heard, they've not mailed anything to anyone. Money was that close. I know nothing more than that.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

If we gave Supporting members voting rights in proportion to the amount of revenue they contribute to the convention, they'd only get one Hugo Award nomination per category, compared to five for Attending members.

Which might be a way to derail slates.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

No. Just... no. Folks are members of Worldcon if they join, Supporting or Attending. WSFS already sets some uncomfortable limits on which sort of member can vote at a Business Meeting (Full Attending physically present), I really really don't want there to be first-class and lesser memberships for anything else, including the Hugo nominations and voting based on how much people pay.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

Get ready for a fight over this at the Business Meeting this year and/or next, though. The number and effect of the supporting memberships at Sasquan on the Finalists list and winners is likely to be one of the issues. I'm not going to propose it, but I would really not be surprised for there to be a motion or motions to the BM at Sasquan or MAII suggesting amending the constitution to:
1. Restrict nominating and voting, or perhaps just voting, to Attending Members only.
2. Restrict voting to Attending Members who actually turn up to the convention by some time early enough that the Hugo winners can be calculated (say by 9pm Friday for a Thurs-Mon Worldcon with the Hugo Ceremony on Friday night).
At this point I don't support these ideas a priori, but I think there is a case to be made about it and if the proposal is made, I'll listen carefully to the arguments.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

Is anyone actually circulating these ideas even as a trial balloon? I've not heard of anything like them mentioned and I expect anyone who might have suggested either idea has had them comprehensively knocked back. Creating a second-class WSFS membership isn't the way to move forward.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, certainly, both of those ideas are being tossed around. Whether any of them will get as far as an actual proposal is unclear. Makes the suggestion that Supporting members should have fewer nominations than attending look fairly tame by comparison.

[brgibbons.livejournal.com]

I think there's a sense in which the lengthy process of amending the constitution can actually encourage overreactions.

Consider:
* Some crisis erupts in 2015. A change is proposed at the 2015 Business Meeting, ratified in 2016 and then goes into effect for the 2017 Worldcon.
* If, however, it turns out that the change was inadequate, then tweaking the change can't be proposed until 2018, ratified until 2019, and then go into effect for 2020.

If you think that whatever you're responding to is a serious problem and a permanent change to the way things are (and, after all, if those things aren't true, you shouldn't be amending the constitution), then not going far enough to be sure you've fixed things means risking not only having to live with the problem for the next two years, but writing off the next five.

It's like steering with a built-in delay; the longer it takes for a course correction to go into effect, the larger a correction you'll need to make (and the more bitter might the fights will be, between those who disagree about how far off-course you are).

I would tend to think that the extra year tacked on by Popular Ratification would actually exacerbate this: If that were in place now, changes proposed this year wouldn't take effect until the 2018 Worldcon, and then any round of revisions after you see how those changes work wouldn't kick in until 2022.

That seems to me like an atmosphere that would lead to amendments trying to solve not only the problems of today, but preempting the problems of next year, because if you don't, you run the risk of them becoming the 'new normal' by the time any fix can be implemented.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

Those are terrible ideas and I hope they don't make it into the Business Meeting.

Yes ... I understand that the slate for this year's Worldcon has become a whirlwind in a bucket, but I hope [however futile the hope is] that those interested in future Worldsons will -learn- from this.

It could encourage -more- attending and supporting memberships in future. This would dilute the affect that 'voting PACs' would have on nominations. Honestly, more people being more involved in Worldcon is a -good- thing, isn't it?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The argument that "more votes always means slates lose" is that with the current five-highest-pluralities, if nobody else engages in counter-slates (mostly considered a bad idea except by people who have already given in to the Puppies, if you ask me) the Puppies still dominate by maintaining "party discipline."

I think the idea behind 4/6 is to concede up to 4 seats to a disciplined Puppy slate, let the members on the whole No Award them, and repeat until they get tired of always losing and either go away or acculturate, which is what we've always done before with Young Turk invasions. (Including bumptious me back in 1990.)

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

"but I hope [however futile the hope is] that those interested in future Worldsons will -learn- from this."

Who are these people though? There are tens of thousands of people involved in Gamergate. Vox Day's threats about "No Award" are predicated on the possibility of generating a backlash amongst such people and getting them to stump up $40 per year to vote.

Whether they "make it into the BM" or not depends on someone wanting to propose it. I also expect someone will put forward a motion "remove the Hugos entirely" or "remove the Hugos except for a committee award to keep the name and service mark alive to avoid expropriation of the historic prestige". Whether the BM will entertain the ideas or "object to consideration" (the big mallet) or "postpone indefinitely" (the small mallet) the ideas at the preliminary business meeting is up to those who turn up to the BM.

I have heard people on mailing lists suggest each of the ideas above (except the "rump award" which I've come up with in case there's any serious prospect of blowing them up entirely). Remember, the idea that a cheap (e.g. $5-10) Hugo voting membership might be offered by a future Worldcon (there is currently nothing in the rules to prevent a Worldcon doing that) was enough to cause the creation of a committee in 2012 to report back in 2013. That committee didn't do anything because the appointed chair got caught up in Real Life, so the committee was continued for another year. While no one at that point was saying "restrict voting to attending members" there were lots saying "no cheap voting membership" and given this year's debacle, and the threats made by the Rabid Puppies to continue, there is a serious chance of something like the above being brought forward.
It all depends really on what you think the Hugos are and should be. When Supporting Members were 10% of the overall membership and most of them were regular supporting members who mostly managed to attend once in a while (eve if that was only when it was local to them) that was fine. Thousands of complete outsiders (and we don't know who these thousand plus people who've joined Sasquan recently are) joining just to fsck with the Hugos? Should we do nothing and have the Hugos become nothing but a political football with finalists and winners decided by who can trawl up the most online supporters to stump up $40 (or even who can afford to persuade hundreds of people to join while being paid for by a third party - yes, someone online has said their supporting membership is being paid for by someone else to get them to vote)...
Don't just say "this is a terrible idea". You have to make the case that this current problem will go away on its own and/or propose some other solution.
I think this problem isn't going away on its own any time soon. Perhaps other proposals (4/6 for example) will do it, perhaps we need to drop the Hugo Packet, or drop the novels from it.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

"but I hope [however futile the hope is] that those interested in future Worldsons will -learn- from this."

Who are these people though? There are tens of thousands of people involved in Gamergate. Vox Day's threats about "No Award" are predicated on the possibility of generating a backlash amongst such people and getting them to stump up $40 per year to vote.

Whether they "make it into the BM" or not depends on someone wanting to propose it. I also expect someone will put forward a motion "remove the Hugos entirely" or "remove the Hugos except for a committee award to keep the name and service mark alive to avoid expropriation of the historic prestige". Whether the BM will entertain the ideas or "object to consideration" (the big mallet) or "postpone indefinitely" (the small mallet) the ideas at the preliminary business meeting is up to those who turn up to the BM.

I have heard people on mailing lists suggest each of the ideas above (except the "rump award" which I've come up with in case there's any serious prospect of blowing them up entirely). Remember, the idea that a cheap (e.g. $5-10) Hugo voting membership might be offered by a future Worldcon (there is currently nothing in the rules to prevent a Worldcon doing that) was enough to cause the creation of a committee in 2012 to report back in 2013. That committee didn't do anything because the appointed chair got caught up in Real Life, so the committee was continued for another year. While no one at that point was saying "restrict voting to attending members" there were lots saying "no cheap voting membership" and given this year's debacle, and the threats made by the Rabid Puppies to continue, there is a serious chance of something like the above being brought forward.
It all depends really on what you think the Hugos are and should be. When Supporting Members were 10% of the overall membership and most of them were regular supporting members who mostly managed to attend once in a while (eve if that was only when it was local to them) that was fine. Thousands of complete outsiders (and we don't know who these thousand plus people who've joined Sasquan recently are) joining just to fsck with the Hugos? Should we do nothing and have the Hugos become nothing but a political football with finalists and winners decided by who can trawl up the most online supporters to stump up $40 (or even who can afford to persuade hundreds of people to join while being paid for by a third party - yes, someone online has said their supporting membership is being paid for by someone else to get them to vote)...
Don't just say "this is a terrible idea". You have to make the case that this current problem will go away on its own and/or propose some other solution.
I think this problem isn't going away on its own any time soon. Perhaps other proposals (4/6 for example) will do it, perhaps we need to drop the Hugo Packet, or drop the novels from it.