It Takes a Village to Raise a Hugo

I realized when asked for a citation to the story below that I'd never posted it to my LJ, which is my "journal of record" as compared to things like Facebook.

I went a little long on a reply from someone insisting that the Solution to Puppygate was for the Worldcon to show proper Executive Leadership by ignoring those tedious written rules and taking unilateral (and unauthorized) action like Real Corporate Leaders. Here's a version of what I wrote:

( Worldcon is Like a Small Town )

I don't have a problem with Executives or Big Business. I work for a large corporation and know the president of my 5000-plus employee company decently well from the days when he was a director and I was a junior analyst. What I do have a problem with is people who try to apply Big Business Dictatorship solutions to Small Town Democracy problems.

Worldcon Site Selection

This year's Worldcon has a Site Selection Frequently Asked Questions, but it's apparently still ambiguous to some people based on a recent Twitter exchange. I'm going to try and explain it again, for the benefit of people who possibly have never voted on a Worldcon Site Selection before. Bias Alert: I am a director of the Montreal in 2017 bid committee's parent non-profit corporation and am listed as one of their committee on the ballot.

( Skip This If You Don't Care About Worldcon Site Selection )

I think Site Selection nearly always sounds confusing to people first coming to the process. The process is primarily designed for the convenience of the people who vote every year. If you vote in every Site Selection election, then in any given year, you're only paying for the membership in the two-years-hence Worldcon because you paid for your membership to this year's Worldcon two years ago. If a site you plan to attend wins, you then immediately convert to an Attending membership (at the lowest possible rate); if you don't plan on attending the winning site, you don't convert, but you already have a Supporting membership in that convention, so you're all paid up and will be able to participate in the two-years-hence Worldcon as a Supporting member, including the Hugo voting that year and (upon payment of another ASM) the election of the Worldcon site two years after that.

ETA: Apparently at least one person thought that the two conditions were OR instead of AND, so I've clarified that you must be a member of both the current Worldcon and of the 2017 Worldcon by paying the ASM. It's both, not either.