When Did That Happen?

[kevin_standlee]

Well, I sure didn't notice until it was pointed out to us that Denvention Three raised their supporting membership price to $50 (from $40) on January 1, just in time for Hugo Nominating to open. That's rather unfortunate. It's legal, don't get me wrong -- the price cap is 125% of their $40 advance supporting membership ("voting fee"). I just think it's unfortunate, at least if you want to encourage people to vote. I have to say that this tendency to keep raising the prices on such low-overhead-cost memberships makes the prospect of requiring voting-rights-only (no publications) memberships at a relatively low cost a more attractive idea. I'm not going to launch a campaign for it, though, as I don't think there are enough votes for it. Business Meeting fandom is likely to be pretty happy with the status quo in this department.

Comments

[dinogrl.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. I haven't heard from the dealer's room about an application yet. He did email me back in October about snail mail.
Curious.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall hearing at SMOFCon that the person running the Dealers Room was not much of an e-mail person. I also remember suggesting that even if they're only accepting applications by paper mail, they should put PDFs of the application form on the web site.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

I think a large (and this is a 25%) increase in supporting membership costs violates the spirit of what a "supporting" membership was and is supposed to be -- a way for someone to help a Worldcon even though they can't attend.

We did some rough calculations for N4 about the cost of servicing a supporting membership. It worked out to less than $21. We never raised our $35 rates (and had fought tooth and nail with our bidding opponents to keep that rate down), because we recognized that 2/5 of every dollar paid to buy a supporting membership went into easing the financial burden of the convention for everyone. That doesn't amount to a huge offset as an aggregate, but it surely does in spirit.

Denvention 3, which has four fewer publications than did N4 so far, is tracking to cost less per supporting member serviced (roughly $15 or so from their plans) than did N4, even accounting for inflation.

Frankly, raising subscribing rates (when everything we know about costs tells us they are already a substantial money-maker) really cheeses me off. (And raising the rates to $50 -- more than 3X what it costs to service that membership? Particularly when you realize that they are not sending previously-published PRs to late joiners? Even more annoying.)

I vehemently dislike a voting-only membership...but I dislike what I see as price-gouging on supporting memberships almost as much.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

And this is going to get worse, as we see paper progress reports decline in importance and frequency. I expect that we'll see future Worldcons make "electronic copies of pre-con publications" the default, and that eventually the traditional progress report will disappear entirely. As you know, that will reduce the marginal cost of a supporting membership even more.

I would expect a $20 "voting only" membership to be attractive to Worldcons, as I figure it would cost less than $2 in direct costs to service -- even less if set up in such a way as to not requiring paper mail of any sort -- making it very profitable in percentage terms.

[dave-gallaher.livejournal.com]

Looks like Montreal's default is electronic copies of progress reports. Their membership application has a check box for receiving progress reports by mail, with a note saying "We will supply all PRs electronically unless you specifically request a paper copy. Only on PR per household will be mailed."

Dave

This has got to stop ...

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to stop giving conventions my email address. As part of my membership fee, I want the publications.

Re: This has got to stop ...

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

1. Then tell Anticipation you want them. They'll send them to you. They aren't saying they won't give them to you; they're saying you have to ask for them. Mainly they've just reversed the "opt-out" policy that most recent Worldcons have had regarding publications.

2. For every person like you, I'm pretty sure there is at least one person who doesn't want paper publications and is happy getting them electronically only.

3. In a few years, I expect Worldcons will stop publishing "progress reports" as we've come to know them. The number of such reports per unit time has been dropping anyway, as more and more information delivery shifts to web sites. Eventually, it's likely to stop completely.

[buddykat.livejournal.com]

Only on PR per household will be mailed.

René did tell me at Smofcon that they would send a PR for each member if you specifically requested it.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Not something I weigh in on often, but this is of some concern. The first question is why they felt a need to raise it at all -- the second is why just as Hugo voting opens?

I suspect the answer to the 2nd is that whoever figured Jan 1 wasn't thinking about when Hugo's open, but rather that Jan 1 is an easy date for folks to remember. It's unfortunate as hell and I would hope Montreal thinks about that as they set up their dates.

I'm more concerned, however, as Deb is, about why this happened at all.

As Deb, the idea of a voting-only membership offends me -- and not only because I'm enough of a historian to be bothered by what I see as a poll tax -- but perhaps some regulation more than currently exists over Supporting Memberships is in order to consider.

Something to think about.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

With fewer paper publications, the current supporting membership is edging closer to a voting-only membership already. The perceived benefits of a supporting membership continue to decrease.

I don't consider a voting-only membership to be a poll tax. You have to pay membership dues to be a member of an organization. It's not the same thing as having to pay a tax to vote for your government. Considering WSFS membership dues to be a poll tax presupposes that everyone has a right to vote in WSFS elections without having to purchase a membership.

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

But Supporting Memberships are already a poll tax. As Deb points out, the physical things that you get for your money account for less than half of the cost of the Supporting Membership, and that fraction is going to continue to go down as Worldcons move to electronically-distributed PRs. The only other point in buying a Supporting Membership (as opposed to acquiring one through voting in Site Selection) is so that you can vote in the Hugos. Voting Memberships would not create a poll tax, they would reduce the level of the existing poll tax (and along the way make a lot more money for the Worldcons).

[tkunsman.livejournal.com]

I tend to think of a supporting membership in that it shows a fens support fot the con, but for whatever reason can not make it to the con. I also think that trying to raise supporting membership now a days might be a bad idea.

In the old days IMO, I think people would get a supporting membership, and then as they could save money, get an attending membership.

Now, as it seems more and more Worldcons are adopting the payment plan method for attending memberships, increasing supporting memberships in the every increasing era of PDF publications should be looked at closer by concoms.

I just think that the Jan 1st increase was an oversight by Denver, and not really meant to discourage potential voters.

I can not see a voting only membership ever, and would vote against such a thing.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The initial attending membership price of a Worldcon is a function of the Advance Supporting Membership (voting) fee for that Worldcon's site selection election. This has historically led to pressure from bid committees to set the ASM fee high so they have room to set their initial rates high. We raised the function from 1X ASM to 2X ASM in order to try and put a damper on this tendency. It didn't work. An attempt to raise the function to 3X ASM failed, as the perception appeared to be that bids wouldn't lower the ASM, but would just increase their initial attending membership cost to the maximum amount allowed.

I suspect that Worldcons would not have supporting memberships at all if WSFS rules didn't require it and the site selection mechanism didn't create a pile of supporting memberships as a byproduct. Every contested Worldcon has a bunch of unhappy supporting members, consisting of everyone who voted for their opposition and who could not/would not attend anywhere but they place for which they voted.