There Is No WSFS Inc.

[kevin_standlee]

In light of recent political developments, I have heard some variations of "WSFS should relocate the 2018 Worldcon outside of the USA" in more than one place. I'm afraid that such sentiments make an implicit assumption that WSFS can order seated Worldcons to relocate, which I don't think they can do.

Once a Worldcon committee has been enfranchised by the site selection process described in the WSFS Constitution, they are virtually sovereign. They have a non-exclusive license to use the WSFS service marks, ("Worldcon","Hugo Award," etc.) and an exclusive license to use those marks to organize a World Science Fiction Convention in their licensed year. As long as they obey the WSFS Constitution, there is no cause for WSFS (through its Mark Protection Committee) to revoke that license.

"Well, what if the Business Meeting unanimously voted to withdraw their franchise?" you might ask. My answer is that no single WSFS Business Meeting has jurisdiction over an individual Worldcon. The Business Meeting could certainly vote to modify site selection so that future Worldcons couldn't be held in a given place, but that can't retroactively disenfranchise a seated Worldcon. Besides, such an amendment would take two years to pass (meaning the ratification would be in 2018 in San José). Furthermore, the WSFS Constitution already has a clause that effectively says that Worldcons may choose to ignore any changes ratified after they are seated if those changes would impose additional financial burdens upon those committees. Requiring a seated Worldcon to relocate or cancel certainly would be an "additional financial burden!"

In the end, assuming they obey the WSFS Constitution and don't abuse the licensed service marks, only a Worldcon committee can relocate a Worldcon. This has happened. It's never been a move to a different country (or even a different state), but it has happened.

I am personally sympathetic to people saying how awful the US government is about "foreigners." Cheryl Morgan isn't allowed into the USA, and she hasn't done anything wrong at all. This isn't recent. It's how the USA treats people at its borders and has been for a long time.

Beyond all of that, let's look at this "move the Worldcon out of the USA because non-Americans can't attend it" thinking more closely. Right now, assuming the unopposed bidders for the next two site selections remain unopposed and win their bids, we're actually looking at an unprecedented situation: three of the next four Worldcons will not be in the USA. (Indeed, they won't even be in North America; there's no Canadian Worldcon in that mix.) I know from my own experience working on non-US Worldcons that there are American fans who insist that they cannot possibly attend Worldcons outside of the USA. It's not just the travel; they say they can't leave the USA, even to cross into Canada. Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal were out of the question for them.

Worldcons move around. Some people are privileged enough to be able to attend all of them. (I have been, since 1989.) The movement means that for people with travel restrictions of any sort, be they political or financial or whatever, sometimes you might not be able to go, and sometimes it might be very convenient to attend. For the person who lives in San Francisco and has limited travel range, the 2017 Worldcon might as well be on Mars, but the 2018 Worldcon is within commuter train range, and she'll actually be able to attend.

Am I happy with what's happening in my country? No. Does it mean that "someone" has to move Worldcon? Also No.

Comments

[akawil]

Assuming the 2019 and 2020 unopposed bids do indeed win, 2019 will also have the unprecedented situation of NASFic site selection happening at a NASFic, yes?

Since NASFic doesn't have a business meeting, how will results be formally announced? Is there any way to have the resolution for votes to be destroyed, or to figure out what to do if there's a tie?

I wonder if there needs to be a WSFS constitutional amendment to hold a site-selection-only business meeting in this circumstance.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Having a NASFiC select a NASFiC is not unprecedented. Back in the days when NASFiCs were selected two years in advance, the 1985 NASFiC in Austin TX (1985 Worldcon was in Australia) selected the site of the 1987 NASFiC (1987 Worldcon was in UK).

There is no provision for a NASFiC Business Meeting. The procedural motion "that the ballots be destroyed," which is the nominal point at which an election becomes final, doesn't apply. But Worldcons haven't always followed that process, either. With NASFiC, once the administering convention declares the results official, they are official.

Note also that when NASFiC selects NASFiC, members of the Worldcon in that year are not eligible to vote on the NASFiC site selection (unless of course they are also members of the administering NASFiC).

[akawil]

Ah, okay, that does make sense.

I do think there's a problem if a NASFic-at-NASFic vote ties, since the constitution says ties are broken by the business meeting. This is of course extraordinarily unlikely, but perhaps it's something for the Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee to work out a procedure for?

[clothsprogs.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

I've only ever attended one non-Europe-site WorldCon, it happened to be at a US site (I could attend because it happened to be taking place while I was already in the area for an extended visit).

WorldCon 1987 (Brighton, UK) was also my first convention of any sort.
WorldCon 1990 (The Hague, Netherlands)
WorldCon 1995 (Glasgow, UK)
WorldCon 2005 (Glasgow, UK)
WorldCon 2012 (Chicago, US)
WorldCon 2014 (London, UK)

So, in almost 30 years of attending conventions and WorldCons, I've been able to get to 6.

I've sold on my membership to WorldCon 2017 (Helsinki, Finland) because To was iffy about wantign to attend and the convention treating a friend badly tipped the scales against going.

We were/are hoping to attend WorldCon San Jose but with the current political climate we're holding off deciding about that one as long as possible.

I'm pinning my hopes on Dublin in 2019 and I've presupported New Zealand for 2020, but the chances are we won't attend because the travelling from the UK would be horrible for me (San Francisco is the farthest I've done and neither trip has been good for me (I can't sleep while travelling and that much flight time would be unbearable)

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that WorldCon moving around is the fairest way of doing it (I could personally do with a few less US based WorldCons, but that's the way the voting goes) and I agree with your summary of the situation.

Teddy

[nojay.livejournal.com]

Discussing the perils of travel to far-flung parts, for some reason I am reminded of Ian Watson's post-Collapse story "The Science Fiction Worldcon of 2080"...

"I had thought my own journey from South Scotland on foot, on horseback, by canal longboat, and finally for five weeks by sailship across the stormy Atlantic (our mortars loaded against raiders) was eventful enough!"

[clothsprogs.livejournal.com]

{GRIN!}

That would certainly add an exra dimension to the travel problems.

Teddy

[tuwr.livejournal.com]

Also, travel restrictions go both ways. I am in the US and there are possible near-future politics developments that would cause me not to travel outside of the country simply because I'd be scared we wouldn't be allowed back in afterwards.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Because of health problems, we don't fly any more. So anything off of the continent is out of range. So no WorldCon or NASFic for us this year. San Jose is right down the street. But 2019 & 2020 are out of range. I hope the NASFics are better situated. Harold isn't getting any younger.