Heretical Hugo Thought

[kevin_standlee]

I don't think I'm the first person to every think of this, and I may be simply be remembering something someone else suggested, in which case I apologize for not giving credit.

There are thousands of members of the current and past Worldcons who are eligible to nominate for this year's Hugo Awards and who never cast a ballot. Conversely, there are many -- an unquantifiable figure -- people who would like to nominate but who cannot afford $50 to join a convention in Australia or something like that. If you're a voter who has no use for his/her ballot, why not partner up with someone who has the desire but no money? If you're a would-be nominator who can't afford the membership (and it's too late to join before nominating anyway), why not look for a "Hugo buddy" among people who have memberships but won't use them.

Now before y'all start yelling "Fraud! Ballot Box Stuffing!" let me point out that the effect of what I'm suggesting is that person A is transferring his/her membership to person B, who then uses that membership's Hugo voting rights and then transfers the membership back to person A. None of those transactions is illegal, and all are consistent with current practice.

Yes, I know, I'm a dangerous lunatic who wants to Destroy Us All. But I don't see any real harm in this. For that matter, I expect it's already going on, quietly and under the radar of those people who want voting to be Pure And Unsullied by anyone other than my personal friends voting. So for those of you who want to nominate but can't, you have at least one possible option, although of course finding someone willing to informally transfer his/her membership to you temporarily will be a bit of a challenge.

Comments

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

I don't think it is a bad idea. I won't be practicing it because I have an associate membership and will be using my nomination and vote for the Hugos.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

I don't really see the idea getting off the ground. It is too much work for something that offers no benefit to the person without the membership. Both parties would have to deal with the paperwork of transferring the membership, and the assumption is that the person doing the voting would remember to transfer the membership *back*.

The possibilities for screw-ups and outright fraud are pretty amazing.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

What if A and B don't bother with the intermediate paperwork? B just fills out A's ballot and A sends it in. Same result, less paperwork, less chance for an administering Worldcon to scramble something. That's what I really expect happens right now. I was just pointing out that when it does happen, it's equivalent to a back-and-forth transfer without the paperwork.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

So? This probably does, as you note, happen now. That doesn't mean that it's a practice worth encouraging. Because it doesn't seem to me that there's a very great difference between voting someone else's ballot and buying them a membership so you can vote their ballot.

I think we all benefit if the culture assumes, as a default, that "your name goes on your ballot." That's why we want either written signatures or PINs (a sketchy form of digital signature), because they implicitly identify the voter.

But I also have never had a problem with requiring a supporting membership in order to vote for the Hugos. Indeed, I am firmly on the pay-to-play side.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I also have no problem with requiring a membership to vote; however, I think we're charging too much for those supporting memberships -- approximately twice what I think we should be. And we're doing it for a bad reason; it's primarily because of the close coupling between the Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) Fee and the initial attending membership. If we decoupled these and allowed Worldcons to charge whatever they wanted for their initial attending memberships, they would have far less of an incentive to overcharge for voting/supporting. As it is, they have an incentive to raise the voting cost.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

I think we're charging too much for those supporting memberships -- approximately twice what I think we should be.

It happens that I agree with this wholeheartedly. During site selection in 2001, we refused to allow the site selection voting fee/supporting rate to rise, as our competitors had insisted it should. Had it been possible, we would have insisted that it *decline.* And at no point after we won did we ever increase the supporting membership rate.

I have watched the rapid ascent of the rate with no little annoyance, and I would *happily* decouple the rate from the initial attending rate.

However, I do not believe that the rate should be viewed as the rate to vote in the Hugo Awards. Voting for the Hugos is one of the rights of a member of the Worldcon. If people aren't interested in Worldcon, I'm not interested in improving their ability to vote.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Aha! Would you co-sponsor a constitutional amendment to decouple the ASM/Voting fee from the initial Attending rate? I've been thinking of drafting one for introduction this year (ratification at Reno should it pass, first affecting 2014 election in 2012).

Should it pass, I would start lobbying bid committees about their planned ASM, since the bids get to set the rate in cooperation with the administering Worldcon, and it thus could become a pressure point the same way "Will you participate in Pass-Along Funds?" has become.

I tend to think of the supporting membership as your actual membership dues in the World Science Fiction Society, with the difference between it and the attending membership being the "convention supplement." That's how lots of organizations set their dues, and I don't see it as particularly unusual: "You have to be a member of WSFS to attend their annual convention, but your WSFS membership is included in the money you pay to attend the convention. You can also join WSFS without having to attend the convention."

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

I would sponsor a constitutional amendment for that. I am also a member of Renovention and Aussiecon IV.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I will make an announcement when I'm ready with language. Thanks!

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Aha! Would you co-sponsor a constitutional amendment to decouple the ASM/Voting fee from the initial Attending rate? I've been thinking of drafting one for introduction this year (ratification at Reno should it pass, first affecting 2014 election in 2012).

Yes, of course. We had discussed this on Smofs two or so years ago, but nothing came of it. I'd like to see the language worked out so that we can decouple supporting from initial attending. In these days when a lot of people are getting their pubs electronically, the average cost of administering a supporting membership has probably *de*creased, making it even more onerous to have the rates so high.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I couldn't carry legislation while presiding, but I'm not on the head table this year and therefore have an opportunity to switch roles from gamekeeper to poacher, you might say. I'll announce on my LJ when I have something drafted. Maybe after I'm no longer working 7 day-weeks as I have been since mid-December.

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

The way I see it is that we are encouraging long term interest in WSFS and Worldcon. Every year when we hold Worldcon somewhere between 1500 and 6000 people attend, and between 500 and 5000 of those people won't attend the following year because the convention is too far away. There are people all over the world who follow the Hugos, but have never been to Worldcon and never will go because it never goes anywhere near their country. If we can find a way to get them involved in Worldcon every year then we get a much bigger fannish community and it is much more likely that they'll start looking at their finances and saying to themselves, "this year I'm going to go."

[nojay.livejournal.com]

He's not suggesting a real transfer (after all, I'm eligible to nominate as a member of Anticipation but I can't transfer that membership to someone else now the convention is over).

If I don't want to nominate for the 2010 Hugos, I could advertise for a "buddy" who does want to nominate. They tell me what to write in on my ballot and I do so, then send in the form under my name.

Taking it a step further, why not have multiple buddies? Offer each of them the chance to make one nomination in each category and then amalgamate the results. This wouldn't work very well for voting later in the year but it would be fine for nominations. There's a problem with confidentiality in that you know what other people are nominating; the Hugo admins know what's on your nomination form under your name but that info is closely guarded.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I don't see why you can't transfer your Anticipation membership. (OK, Anticipation probably doesn't want to handle the paperwork, but that's a minor issue; if you wrote a letter stating that you transfer your Anticipation membership to JoePhan, would Aussiecon take that plus a nominating ballot?)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Playing Devil's Advocate for my own position: I can see a legitimate line of reasoning that says the the language in the WSFS Constitution is intended to mean the person of record owning the membership as of the deadline date, and thus any post-January 31 transfers could be considered invalid for nominating purposes.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

I think it's a marvelous idea. As you said, I'm sure it goes on all the time at a very small scale. I'm not sure about "encouraging" it, but pointing out once in awhile that it's not illegal, isn't ballot-box stuffing, or whatever is not probably a good idea.

It might also be useful to point out you could have a "mixed" ballot. For instance, there are categories I would like to vote for, but others I wouldn't mind not voting for. Allowing someone else knowledgable to give me "advice" on how to fill in those blanks would be a good thing.

This is kind of a personal version of the Hugo Recommendation community and the BASFA list.

I always hate it when I have to leave lines blank because I'm unaware of deserving candidates in a category.

Thanks for your comment on my blog and for this suggestion

[lawrencesantoro.livejournal.com]

Kevin, I saw your note on my blog with regard to suggesting that the Hugos honor podcast sites such as StarShipSofa.com. I probably should have stated it differently. Rather than suggesting that "the Hugos" should consider, I should have said that those casting ballots should consider. However, I believe it is only with this year's round of balloting for nominations that the wording of the rules have been shifted such that podcasts are even eligible for consideration. It would be a good move if the wording were such that podcasts were given a specific welcome to the process.

As the person who wrote LORD DICKENS'S DECLARATION, the story that was auctioned off this past year for the benefit of Spider and Jeanne, as well as a frequent contributor of content and a narrator for the work of others on StarShipSofa.com (SSS), I can't help but agree with the round of people who are now proposing that SSS deserves Hugo consideration in particular. Reiterate: This podcast site -- among many worthy places on the web -- deserves special plaudits, AND a Hugo, for its ability to form and maintain a community of fans and professionals. This site is a 21st century echo of the family/community of the past known as The Futurians, which created the core of the Golden Age of s.f. in the 40s and 50s. Stop by my blog at http://blufftoninthedriftless.blogspot.com/ for a longer take on this.

Podcasts and Hugos

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

It would be a good move if the wording were such that podcasts were given a specific welcome to the process.

If you mean that the documentation that went with the Hugo Ballot said, "Remember, podcasts are now eligible," then I disagree. Remember, the change to the rules wasn't in the form "these specific types of things are now eligible" but was actually in the form of "equivalent things in non-print media are eligible."

In drafting rules, you have to be extremely careful when you give an enumerated list, such as "A, B, and C are eligible" because by implication "Anything that isn't A, B, or C is not eligible." So, for example, if we said only, "Podcasts are now eligible," we're implicitly saying "non-print media other than podcasts aren't eligible," which isn't the intention at all.

This isn't easy, I admit. It's very easy to get focused on a specific medium and say, "I want an explicit statement saying my specific thing is eligible," but that is very unlikely to happen. Instead, we have a general statement and it is up to the voters (and to a lesser extent the administrator) to decide what they think is eligible.

You're doing the right thing to bang the drum for your favored works and to try and gain the attention of the potential voters. And if it doesn't get enough votes to make the ballot this year, keep it up if you still feel it's eligible. The voters have shown themselves to be relatively slow-moving on many things and it might take a while to get their attention.

Also, if by some chance a podcast got enough votes to make the ballot and then were disqualified, then would be the time to take specific legislative action to explicitly opt it in. But until the constitutional wording has been tested by a real case, it's all speculation anyway.