I'm unclear how you reach this conclusion. What would a "no earlier than" clause mean here?
DisCon III is going against the way this rule has been interpreted since it first took effect in 1993. I was the WSFS division manager that year. I wrote the proposal that was put before the Business Meeting in 1991 and ratified in 1992. Every Worldcon for past thirty years except DisCon III has interpreted this as what I would consider to be the plain meaning: If you file your bid at least 180 days prior to the official opening date of the convention, it should be on the ballot.
Are you saying that WSFS hid some sort of tricksy meaning in those words and that it's taken thirty years for a Worldcon committee to discover it?
As of today (April 18, 2021), it is 241 days until the official opening of DisCon III. Therefore, if a bid were to file today, they would be filing 241 days prior to the convention. 241 < 180, so they would not be filing later than "180 days prior to the convention." What am I missing here?
Should we have actually written something in the constitution like:
To calculate the filing deadline, subtract 180 days from the official opening date of the convention. The result of this calculation is the date by which you must file a bid to be on the ballot. If the official opening date of the convention changes, you must recalculate the filing deadline by once again subtracting 180 days from the official opening date of the convention. This means that if a Worldcon changes the official opening date of its convention after it is originally seated, the filing deadline also changes. This also means that if a Worldcon moves its dates later than originally announced, even if the originally calculated filing deadline has passed, then any additional bids file by the new deadline also are eligible for the ballot.
Or is this still not enough words? How could we possibly state the rule so that it means exactly how it has been interpreted by every other Worldcon committee for the past thirty years, including Worldcons who have changed their dates after they were originally seated?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-04-18 04:46 pm (UTC)DisCon III is going against the way this rule has been interpreted since it first took effect in 1993. I was the WSFS division manager that year. I wrote the proposal that was put before the Business Meeting in 1991 and ratified in 1992. Every Worldcon for past thirty years except DisCon III has interpreted this as what I would consider to be the plain meaning: If you file your bid at least 180 days prior to the official opening date of the convention, it should be on the ballot.
Are you saying that WSFS hid some sort of tricksy meaning in those words and that it's taken thirty years for a Worldcon committee to discover it?
As of today (April 18, 2021), it is 241 days until the official opening of DisCon III. Therefore, if a bid were to file today, they would be filing 241 days prior to the convention. 241 < 180, so they would not be filing later than "180 days prior to the convention." What am I missing here?
Should we have actually written something in the constitution like:
Or is this still not enough words? How could we possibly state the rule so that it means exactly how it has been interpreted by every other Worldcon committee for the past thirty years, including Worldcons who have changed their dates after they were originally seated?