WSFS Business: First Main Meeting Summary

[kevin_standlee]

The First Main Business Meeting had to pick up where the Preliminary Meeting left off, which meant dealing with the Resolutions first, and that, along with a discussion of the two Hugo-nominating-related proposals, meant that we only just barely got started on the actual constitutional amendments. Once again, you'll need to refer to the Sasquan WSFS Business Meeting agenda pages to follow this.

The three special committees (FOLLE, YA Hugo, and Membership Rates & Types) were continued with the same memberships.

The two Hugo Award eligibility extensions (I Remember the Future and Predestination) passed; these works are now eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards.

The Hugo Nominating Data Request resolution passed, modified to extend the request to the 2016 Hugo Award Administrators as well. The 2015 Administrators have indicated that they will release anonymized nominating ballot data after the 2015 Hugo Awards ceremony; contact the 2015 Hugo Administration directly through the Sasquan website.

The Open Source Software resolution was rejected.

The WSFS Mark Protection Committee withdrew (with the meeting's consent) the MPC Funding resolution, in light of the crowded agenda and the fact that Sasquan has already set aside $10,500 as a donation to the MPC for this year. We'll discuss it further and resubmit a recommendation next year, possibly with less material to compete for the meeting's limited bandwidth.

The Nitpicking & Flyspecking (Rules) Committee was reappointed as currently constituted, as was the Worldcon Runners Guide Editorial Committee.

The meeting spent about 30 minutes in Committee of the Whole discussing the "technical" aspects of the 4/6 and E Pluribus Hugo proposals. The only recommendation that came out of the Committee of the Whole was that amendments to the 4/6 combinations should be considered at the Sunday Business Meeting by the method of Filling Blanks.

And after all of that, we finally got to debate and vote directly on a constitutional amendment: Popular Ratification. This proposal, which received first passage last year in London, would allow all members, supporting and attending, to vote on the ratification of constitutional amendments. After a spirited but polite debate, the motion was put to a vote and was defeated 69-99.

All other constitutional amendments (three pending from last year and seven remaining new items; Two-Year Eligibility was killed at the Preliminary Meeting) roll over to the Site Selection Business Meeting, except for 4/6 and EPH, which are scheduled for Sunday.

Anything we don't get to on Saturday goes on to Sunday. Anything that is still pending as of adjournment on Sunday dies. We do have a lot more time on Sunday, but I don't think the members really want to stay in session until 5 PM!

I am of course disappointed that Popular Ratification, which Warren Buff and I co-wrote, failed of ratification, but I'm not surprised. The Hugo controversy this year has given a lot of people the vapors about allowing anyone except the people physically present a chance to vote, and others are unhappy that it takes two years to amend the constitution now, let alone the three it would take under Popular Ratification. Oh, well, I tried. Don't expect me to try again anytime soon, though.

Comments

[billroper]

The people who are unhappy that it takes two years to amend the constitution fail to realize that a shorter period would allow things that they disapprove of to be passed by packing a single Business Meeting. Of course, you could always back it out by packing a subsequent Business Meeting, but...

I'm sorry Popular Ratification failed. It struck me as a good idea.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

others are unhappy that it takes two years to amend the constitution now, let alone the three it would take under Popular Ratification

So that really did operate, in the end, as a wrecking amendment?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

In effect, yes. I was caught on the horns of a political dilemma. Last year, if we didn't agree to the "2+1" amendment last year and a five-year sunset clause, we wouldn't have been able to get it past last year's meeting at all. But with it, we couldn't get it ratified this year.

The SMOFs were genuinely split over this. Ben Yalow spoke in favor of it, saying that while he wasn't certain it was a good idea, with 45 WSFS business meetings under his belt, it didn't think it would do long-term harm to attempt this as a five-year experiment.

[buddykat.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that it failed, I thought it was an excellent idea. If you decide to present it again in the future, it might be a good idea to do a bit more lobbying in advance to get people to understand it, and why it's a good idea.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

It's a shame, it would have been a great way to allow people who can't get to Worldcon every year to engage with WSFS business. I wonder whether the vote would have gone the other way if it had happened after we got the Hugo result breakdown?

[vnehring.livejournal.com]

Kevin:

Nice job on Friday. That's a lot of stuff to plow through. I do have a concern, though, about release the nominatring data before the end of the Sunday business meeting. The highlighted parts refer to the voting data, but also the nominating data. I have emailed this to the info@sasquan address and posted it on the sasquan Facebook page. Unless the con ends on Saturday night?

3.11.4: The complete numerical vote totals, including all preliminary tallies for first, second, … places, shall be made public by the Worldcon Committee within ninety (90) days after the Worldcon. During the same period the nomination voting totals shall also be published, including in each category the vote counts for at least the fifteen highest vote-getters and any other candidate receiving a number of votes equal to at least five percent (5%) of the nomination ballots cast in that category, but not including any candidate receiving fewer than five votes.


Again, nice job.

Viktor Nehring

[billroper]

Unless there's verbiage to prevent it elsewhere, before the end of the con is within 90 days after the con.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

As I replied to you directly, "90 days after the Worldcon" does not and never has meant "you must wait for the convention to end before you release the result." I'm aware that you think this is so, but it is not. If you insist that you are right and that every other person is wrong, and thus every Worldcon committee since the current rule was passed is also wrong, I will help you craft a constitutional amendment that prohibits Worldcons from releasing any data until after the convention's closing ceremonies. However, I caution you that given the legislative history of the current rule, such a proposal is unlikely to be very popular. Convincing the members of two consecutive Worldcon Business Meetings that they've been wrong for twenty years and that you alone are right is going to be difficult.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I was sorry to see Popular Ratification failed but I kind of understand why this year was particularly unfortunate in terms of timing, for reasons that really couldn't be predicted last year.

[amysisson.livejournal.com]

Kevin, do you have a link handy so I can get more information on the reasoning and specifics behind the popular ratification proposal? Even though it didn't pass, now that I'm more aware of it I'd like to know the reasoning behind it.

Thank you for all of your work. I have now attended my first business meeting, and plan to do so again next year. I appreciate all that you do!

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Well, you could read about it here on my LJ entries from last year when we launched the campaign originally:

http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/1350599.html
http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/1443037.html
http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/1370067.html

That's a start. Search my LJ for "popular ratification" and you'll find more entries.

[amysisson.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Kevin! (I assumed you'd have prior entries but did not think to look for a tag -- I should have known!)