kevin_standlee | Worldcon 2016 Day 5: And So It Ends

I love Worldcon, I really do. But with a couple of exceptions, by the time we get to Day 5, I've had about all I can take and I'm ready to wrap it up. This year was one of those years.

At 3 PM, the "Volcano" erupted for the last time, turning the Swanwick River (crossed by the Nielsen Hayden Bridge) into a river of lava. That was the sign to start breaking down the convention.

Several hours later, the fourth and final session of the WSFS Business Meeting gathered in Room 2104. Lisa and I (and others, particularly

rono_60103, the only person who beat us to the room) were there around 8 AM for the 10 AM meeting for setup. It was much less stressful that way.

The final meeting did the following things:

Gave first passage to "3 Stage Voting," which, if ratified at Helsinki next year, will oblige San José and future Worldcons to include an additional Qualifying Round after the initial nominations, where the members of the current Worldcon only (not the previous/following years' members) will vote to accept or reject each of the top 15 nominees

Ratified "E Pluribus Hugo", the attempt to deal with slate voting tactics with voting mathematics. This becomes part of the WSFS Constitution and first affects next year's Worldcon.

Ratified "5 & 6" (originally 4 & 6), a proposal that originally would have limited voters to four (changed to five just before the final vote) nominations per category and expending the number of finalist positions on the ballot from five to six. The amendment to change "4" to "5" was a "lesser change" (and thus the proposal doesn't need to be re-ratified) because the current Constitution is effectively 5 & 5 and thus anything between or including the proposed new values of 4 & 6 and the original values would be a lesser change

Gave first passage to "EPH+", a "patch job" on the original proposal ratified today intended to improve its behavior based on how historical data behaved when run through the original model.

The items given first passage move on to Helsinki for adoption. As one of the co-sponsors of 3 Stage Voting, I'll have to recuse myself from presiding over it.

The Sunday Business Meeting videos (16 segments of roughly ten minutes each) start with this one.

The Business Meeting adjourned sine die about 12:45.

In the same room maybe 30 minutes later or so, I convened the organizational meeting of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee (also technically the Annual General Meeting of Worldcon Intellectual Property, Inc., a California non-profit public benefit 501(c)(3) corporation). The officers were re-elected, so I'll be chairing the MPC for another year, with Linda Deneroff as Secretary and Bruce Farr as Treasurer.

I made a point of thanking on the record Cheryl Morgan's efforts at last night's Hugo Awards ceremony to save the live text-based coverage when our bandwidth proved insufficient for the first 30 minutes of the ceremony.

The MPC discussed generally what our projects for the coming year will be. Our big projects of the past year are done, as the websites are reorganized and the Hugo Awards service mark has been registered in the European Union. I'll have more to say about this at a future date.

As the MPC met, the Tech Team started tearing down all of the audio-visual tech. Lisa packed up the video camera. All that was left was my computers, as I couldn't do video uploads while running the MPC meeting. As quickly as I could, I finished the uploads (that's why Part 13 was initially private and part 15 was initially mislabeled), tore down the computers, and took them back to the hotel.

Stowing our gear in the minivan, we returned to the convention center as fast as our abused feet could carry us, claimed our groats (volunteer vouchers), and dashed off to redeem them for lunch at the convention food services. Except that the only one left was the hamburger stand, which was out of burgers and hot dogs and had only a few weak sandwiches. The pizza and BBQ stands were done. We redeemed the vouchers for what we could get — we had to eat now! — and made the best of it.

We went to the San Jose Tower, which was mostly torn down by then, and did what we could to help, which included Lisa guarding the stuff while some of us (like me) went off to Closing Ceremonies. I also reclaimed the computer that I'd loaned Worldcon 76 (San José) Registration. We agreed to carry back some of the SJ gear in the minivan, which complicated our packing for the trip home, but Lisa says she can make it work.

I took a bunch more photos, and would like to write about them, but it's late and we're checking out in the morning to start driving west. If time permits tomorrow, I'll write the postscript of the post-closing ceremony part of the final day of the 2016 Worldcon.

I am knackered. Lisa and I spent six hours a day, four of the days of Worldcon, and then put in a full day (and full evening into late night) each day. It's no wonder that we wish we had scheduled an extra day here in Kansas City just to sleep.