Sour Notes

[kevin_standlee]

To me, Aussiecon 4 was an enjoyable symphony with some sour notes in the final few bars. I'm trying not to let those closing problems color my entire experience, but in light of how hard I worked on these things, I'm not feeling particularly good.

Those of you who follow me know that I made a big issue over the election to the Mark Protection Committee being a policy referendum on my own performance and leadership abilities. The attendees of the Business Meeting itself responded by returning me to office, apparently (I haven't seen the details) overwhelmingly.

The MPC itself, however, chose to ignore any signal this may have sent. The MPC has 14 members, and thus a quorum of eight. The MPC finally managed a quorum on Monday morning, just barely. I put forward my name for the Chairmanship, but the members voted 5-3 to give it to Ben Yalow.

The MPC then voted to adopt a policy (I certainly don't agree with it, but I'm outvoted) that says than anyone who accepts election/appointment to the MPC or to any of its subordinate committees (which includes the Hugo Awards Marketing Committee) must agree to decline nomination for a Hugo Award in the subsequent year.

Although the MPC continued the Hugo Awards Marketing Committee (HAMC), appointing Rene Walling as Chair, and although the MPC offered all of the incumbents re-appointment, I'm sure nobody is surprised the Cheryl was obliged to decline reappointment to the HAMC under those circumstances. This leaves me, the website assistant maintainer, responsible for doing all of the work. I don't blame Cheryl at all about this. The newly-adopted policy makes it impossible for anyone who is a potential plausible Hugo Award nominee to volunteer to help with the committee to market and promote the Hugo Awards or any other MPC subcommittee.

From my discussions with a number of the principle players in the little drama in the SMOF-filled backroom this morning, I think it pretty clear that a number of the individuals involved hadn't heard my speech on Saturday or anything else I'd said earlier. At least two of them appear to me to have been completely unaware of the issues. To that extent, I did a bad job of communicating.

Lest anyone claim I'm leaking privileged information, note that the MPC meetings are open to the membership (a couple of members attended), and that I've already sent the MPC (including the members not present at Aussiecon) a summary of actions taken in Melbourne, and I've also advised the members of the Hugo Awards Marketing Committee of the changes.

I'll have more to say about this when I've had more time to think about it, but I'm not at all happy. But right now, I need to repack my luggage and get some sleep.

Comments

[thirdworld.livejournal.com]

The problem seems to be there are plenty of people who want and have power, but not plenty who are willing to do the work. That act could be seen as targeted against Cheryl... in fact, who else could it be aimed at? Unwittingly, a major volunteer on the Worldcon.org site is now also about to quit my team, and since I am writing again and do have some dreams, I might have to quit as well. We've just slashed an already too-small group of volunteers.

We appear to be shooting ourselves in the foot, hell, in the head, all because of destructive politics and stupid power plays. People seem to be putting themselves and their petty rivalries ahead of Worldcon. But here's the thing, only you and Cheryl have been willing to do the Hugo website work and the worldcon.org work has been a huge fight too. Those with the power are not doing this work and do not appear to be considering the repercussions. Further, if, as you say, the BM wanted you in charge, then they are also ignoring the membership. And is that not Worldcon Inc thinking? This seems to be the worst kind of self-sabotage.

I like Ben, but he predicted that Worldcons will not last much longer and that there is little that can be done about it. Now he's in charge of the MPC and I have to wonder if someone with a more constructive outlook was needed. WTF is going on? Where TF is Worldcon going?

Or am I misreading all this? If so, someone please, set me right on this.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Grant, I think you're pretty close to the right track here. And it will keep happening as long as the membership (and the appointing Worldcons) ignore the MPC. For all that it seems like a minor thing, the MPC has a huge potential power, since the responsibility to protect, defend, and register the WSFS marks logically includes the authority to promote said marks.

The MPC has effectively repudiated the last few years' work. Fortunately, some of that work is now sufficiently entrenched that they are unlikely to undo it; for instance, The new MPC Chair has asked me to move forward on the registration of the WSFS marks once I get home, in part because this year's Business Meeting gave initial approval to add the logo (and the rocket design) to the official list of claimed marks.