But What If We Didn't?

[kevin_standlee]

On January 7, 2021, John Scalzi wrote an article entitled, "But What If We Didn't?" In it, he pointed out how the US Republican Party

...recognized there was a suite of political conventions and traditions that were designed to make it easier for things to get done, and that this suite of conventions and traditions were exploitable by denial.

They then proceeded to simply ignore conventions and traditions, and in some cases bright-line laws, and said, when challenged, "So what? Make me."

I am coming to the conclusion that on a much smaller scale, we're seeing this happen with Worldcon. Maybe not all Worldcons — not those run by people who actually care about the long history of the convention and its traditions and practices — but certainly by people who think that you're a fool to care about such things, and that Worldcon and the Hugo Awards are merely things to be captured and exploited.

I'm not solely speaking of the current year's Worldcon. I've seen this attitude among some conrunners in the past few years, and I've seen signs of it among people running Worldcon bids, where they openly scoff at things like WSFS, its rules, and its traditional practices and traditions. They don't care, and they think that anyone who does care is a fool.

If an individual Worldcon runs onto the rocks and doesn't have the sense to call for help before the ship goes down, WSFS can survive, albeit with damage to the ship of state. But if all would-be Worldcon runners think of the convention as a prize to be captured, rules be dammed, then I really don't know what happens after that. Auctioning off Hugo Awards to the highest bidder? Ignoring the WSFS Constitution and daring anyone to stop them?

It's not just the people bidding to hold Worldcon that worry me. The growing number of people who, since at least 2015 (and probably earlier, although I may not have noticed it at the time) who insist that if they don't like the results (of the Hugo Awards, or the Worldcon site selection), then those results should be ignored, the nominations or selections canceled, and the "right" people/sites selected. Who would actually do that and make those decisions isn't clear. But those people demanding Action Now are convinced that they are right, and I don't think they realize the harm they can cause by demanding that the rules be burned and decisions overturned just because they don't like them personally. Such calls for destructive action are just as bad structurally as an incompetent or venal Worldcon committee or people who want to hijack the Hugo Awards for their own ideological reasons.

In practical terms, if the members of Worldcon want to create an entity that would have the authority to unseat a Worldcon for defined causes, or to override the results of the Hugo Awards, they can do so, by changing the organization's rules. And if you say, "but that's too much work and it takes too long," well, I would remind you that by design, constitutions aren't supposed to be easy or quick to change. If you really can convince enough people in enough places that you're right, you can make changes. Ideally, you should be considering how to secure the barn doors before the horses escape and not depend upon "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But you had better be really sure you know for what you're asking. If you propose a new structure, ask yourself, "How easy would this be able to be turned against things I personally like?"

Comments

[billroper]

This is about the point where I usually end up quoting that other William Roper from "A Man For All Seasons".

Today, I suppose it's better to quote Asimov: "It's a poor atom blaster that won't point both ways."

[kevin_standlee]

Good one.

[solarbird]

That's authoritarianism for you. We're in a big surge of it and have been for a while. It doesn't stop at the top, with the big power questions - it goes up and down society.

[kevin_standlee]

The key thing here in WSFS is that it's not just right-wing authoritarians trying to break things. It's all sides now. If they don't get what they want right now, then the whole system should be burned to the ground and people should obey orders from [whoever is currently aggrieved].

[calimac]

If you're referring to the people who wanted to break the Constitution to stop the Puppies, it's ironic because the Puppies themselves were trying to exploit the Worldcon in just the same way.

[kevin_standlee]

The historical allusion is to the Puppies, while the current round are people who want Someone to pull Chengdu's franchise to hold a Worldcon for Reasons. Some of those reasons have to do with the three things a Worldcon is required to do, while others are due to their GOH choices and lack of communication and changing dates and venues without a long consultation with the members.

[vatine]

If they (Chengdu WorldCon, which probably has a name that I am forgetting) do not fulfil the minimum criteria for "things a worldcon must do", they're not a worldcon, and we're facing an INTERESTING problem in deciding where the 2025 worldcon will be. If they do, they're a worldcon, no matter how much they faff about with locations and dates (well, "to within limits" for the dates, I believe they will need to finish no later than 24:00 on December 31st, 2023, in local time zone).

As far as I am concerned, they are the 2023 worldcon, based on the will of the 2021 worldcon site selection voters.

Does that mean I am happy with their GOH? No. Nor am I happy with the switch of location and dates. But, then, I was also never going, so my happiness or lack thereof is on the whole kinda immaterial.

[kevin_standlee]

As it happens, there is a likely solution to site selection should Chengdu (and their name is "Chengdu Worldcon 2023") default. (It would oblige the only seated Worldcon left standing to take some strong, but legal, action, I think.) I'm more worried about the 2023 Hugo Awards, but even there I think there are possible options should Chengdu default. The Business Meeting can survive if we don't hold it for one year; after all, we only barely held it in 2020. But should Chengdu default on that, it means that all of the work that people did to get things first passage at the 2022 WSFSBM will have gone to waste and they'll have to start over.

It turns out to not be absolutely explicit that a Worldcon has to hold their convention in the calendar year for which they bid. There's an argument (I personally don't agree with it) that says they could hold it after the last day of that Calendar year.

Even if we agree that most of those voters from China who overwhelmed the electorate were enthusiastic Chinese students (this can't be proved or disproved), I find it ironic that most of them probably won't be able to attend the 2023 Worldcon on the currently announced dates, because it will not be during the school break during which all of those students planned on going.

[billroper]

I would be willing to argue that if there is no Business Meeting held in Chengdu, that under Section 6.6 everything that got first passage in 2022 would pass to the *next* Business Meeting.

[kevin_standlee]

The actual wording is

Section 6.6: Amendment. The WSFS Constitution may be amended by a motion passed by a simple majority at any Business Meeting but only to the extent that such motion is ratified by a simple majority at the Business Meeting of the subsequent Worldcon.

My interpretation of this is that if a Worldcon happens that doesn't hold a Business Meeting, then all business passed on dies due there being no "Business Meeting of the subsequent Worldcon" [emphasis mine]. If the Worldcon doesn't happen at all, then I'm more inclined to agree with you that everything skips forward to the next Worldcon that holds a Business Meeting.

Think of this in terms of a Worldcon committee who only cares about holding a big Hugo Award ceremony and blows off their other WSFS responsibilities as being too much of a hassle. Alternatively, you might have a Business Meeting that is unable to raise a quorum of WSFS members. Such a meeting wouldn't be able to vote on the business passed on, and thus none of it gets ratified.

[billroper]

(Back again, because I enjoy Bylaws wonking. :) )

I absolutely agree with you that a completely failed Worldcon has no Business Meeting and the business would be passed along. But I can get a couple of other sections of the Constitution to interact in a way that I *think* works to allow the business to be passed along in the case of a Worldcon that fails to have a Business Meeting.

If you go to Section 2.1 (sorry, my cut and paste skills are being defeated by this UI), you find that holding a WSFS Business Meeting is one of the duties of the Worldcon. If the Worldcon makes no attempt to hold a WSFS Business Meeting, then it has failed to execute its duties. That triggers Section 2.6, which kicks the problem of solving this to the other seated Worldcon committee (in this case, Glasgow) with a variety of prescribed methods for them to use to sort the mess out. If one operates on the principle of least damage, it's probably best to regard the missing Business Meeting as a nullity and pass the business along to the next properly constituted Business Meeting, but they *could* make some other decision.

That brings us down to the question of attempting a Business Meeting, but being unable to raise a quorum under Section 5.1.5. At that point, I am not enough of an expert on Robert's Rules to be able to say whether a meeting that fails for lack of a quorum was a Business Meeting that satisfies Section 2.1 or not. If it does not satisfy Section 2.1, then we iterate back to Section 2.6; otherwise, I agree that the business can't be ratified and fails.

(I'm also looking at Section 5.1.3 and figuring out how to drive a Mack truck through it if, for instance, a quorum of 12 is conducting the Business Meeting in Chengdu but is -- for understandable reasons -- somewhat reluctant to impose their judgment on the rest of WSFS on the business passed on from Chicon. But that's another thought altogether. :) )

Anyway, this is an interesting diversion. Thanks!

[kevin_standlee]

All good points, which I'd like to address. None of them have ever been tested within WSFS, so there are no precedents.

If you go to Section 2.1 (sorry, my cut and paste skills are being defeated by this UI), you find that holding a WSFS Business Meeting is one of the duties of the Worldcon. If the Worldcon makes no attempt to hold a WSFS Business Meeting, then it has failed to execute its duties. That triggers Section 2.6, which kicks the problem of solving this to the other seated Worldcon committee (in this case, Glasgow) with a variety of prescribed methods for them to use to sort the mess out. If one operates on the principle of least damage, it's probably best to regard the missing Business Meeting as a nullity and pass the business along to the next properly constituted Business Meeting, but they *could* make some other decision.

Maybe, and it's persuasive. But consider a Worldcon that did some, but not all of its WSFS functions, and probably held the rest of the convention. An argument could be made that they "held" the meeting but nobody showed up for it!

(Anything other than the WSFS functions is covered by section 1.6, and might be considered "devolved powers" to the hosting convention and beyond the scope of this discussion. That's why who a Worldcon's guests of honor are or what entities sponsor the convention are out of scope, regardless of how odious they may be to some people. But I'll include a further exception that Worldcon's can get a "name" sponsor for their Hugo Award ceremony, but not for the Hugo Awards themselves, or for the other two WSFS functions. Now you can, for example, accept sponsorship for coffee & tea at the Business Meeting and thank whoever sponsored it, and you can accept sponsorship for holding the Hugo Awards ceremony, but you can't engrave a sponsor logo on the Hugo Award trophy or something that crosses into stuff that involves the WSFS service marks. Worldcons license the service marks; they don't own them and they can't alter them or alienate them.)

That brings us down to the question of attempting a Business Meeting, but being unable to raise a quorum under Section 5.1.5. At that point, I am not enough of an expert on Robert's Rules to be able to say whether a meeting that fails for lack of a quorum was a Business Meeting that satisfies Section 2.1 or not.

I think it is a meeting that satisfies Section 2.1, albeit just barely. The Constitution and Standing Rules are silent on the matter, and there is no precedent on which to rely; therefore, we look at Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised. While a meeting without a quorum is a legitimate meeting, there are only three things it is allowed to do: Fix the Time to Adjourn (set up a continuation of the meeting, presumably to try and track down the required twelve people), Adjourn, and Recess (again, probably to go track down members). If the meeting adjourns without setting a continuation, then it has adjourned sine die (without date), the parliamentary "session" is over, and everything not acted upon dies.

(I'm also looking at Section 5.1.3 and figuring out how to drive a Mack truck through it if, for instance, a quorum of 12 is conducting the Business Meeting in Chengdu but is -- for understandable reasons -- somewhat reluctant to impose their judgment on the rest of WSFS on the business passed on from Chicon. But that's another thought altogether. :) )

Quite. It was this consideration that led CoNZealand — who did have at least twelve members physically present — to go through a little parliamentary maneuver whereby they unanimously approved the time-sensitive Hugo Award eligibility extension resolutions, rejected without prejudice all pending proposals, and re-adopted the same proposals just rejected without changes. That "reset the clock" on them and passed them on to DC3.

[madfilkentist]

I've been vocal in opposing the Chengdu Worldcon on human rights grounds, but I'd much rather fen treat it as a failed Worldcon than jimmy the rules to make it a not-Worldcon on some dubious rationale.

[kevin_standlee]

At the moment, my reading of the relevant rules leads me to believe that the only clear-cut way a Worldcon can default on its responsibilities is either to explicitly declare that they have defaulted (this has happened with a Westercon relatively recently) or by "sleepwalking into default" by having the dates of their convention pass without them doing anything.

Furthermore, while it may seem obvious that a Worldcon must be held during the calendar year for which it was bid (not necessarily on the originally contracted dates), there are people who have tried to make a case that a given Worldcon could just keep postponing their convention over and over again, even to the point of "overruning" their successor. I think that this is a flawed interpretation, but we may have to actually amend the WSFS Constitution to provide more explicit guidance on this. See once again "ignoring traditions and precedents" and just saying "But what if we didn't?"

[billroper]

If the dates of the convention pass and no place was designated for the Business Meeting to be held, would that be a default? (Assume that the rest of the convention happened and the other duties were carried out.)

[kevin_standlee]

Possibly. If the other two functions happened (site selection and Hugo Awards), then the other seated convention might try to designate a place where the skipped meeting could be held. However, they could just decide it was too much trouble that allow the consequences of a skipped meeting (all business passed on dies, nobody gets elected to the MCP, on the grounds that it's less trouble than trying to set up a meeting in isolation.

I really hope we don't have to test these hypothetical scenarios.

[billroper]

Me too. More trouble is not required.

[vatine]

I'd argue that the wording of 4.1.1 makes it impossible to hold a WorldCon that conforms with the WSFS constitution so that it falls entirely outside the calendar year for which it was formed. Doing so would end up with two worldcons setting "the future worldcon" for the same year.

It is not explicitly spelled out, one way or another, though (or, at least not as far as I can see).

[kevin_standlee]

Yes. This is one of those things where we just took it for granted that people would follow traditional practice. But What If They Didn't? Who would stop them?