So, the WSFS Business Meeting makes some decisions that I disagree with, and some that are stupid; and there is a mechanism to reverse a decision taken at an earlier session at a later stage called a Motion to Reconsider. This was used last year, for instance, when it turned out that one of the supposedly obscure films that had been granted an eligibility extension by the Business Meeting had actually only missed being on the 2025 ballot by a single vote, so had therefore lost fair and square.

We have another situation this year. The background is that a couple of years ago, the previous terminology of “supporting membership” and “attending membership” for Worldcons was changed to “WSFS membership” and “attending supplement”, to make it clear that you are buying two things, the right to participate in the Hugos and other WSFS business, and the right to attend.

A lot of people grumbled that this made things less clear rather than more, and that things should be put back as they were. A constitutional amendment was passed in Glasgow and ratified at the first of this year’s sessions, as item E.2 of the agenda, to do exactly that:

Replace WSFS Membership with Supporting Membership wherever it appears in the Constitution, and to replace Attending Supplement with Attending Membership, including all similar variations of the words (e.g., WSFS Memberships, WSFS members, attending supplement) to their grammatically correct replacements.

That looks simple enough. I confess that I voted for E.2 on the evening because the proposers put their case better than the opponents.

There has been a bit of a backlash in the circles that care about this sort of thing, arguing that the new change doesn’t make things better. (And the one guy who thinks he has the perfect solution and we should just wiggle the rules to allow it to be implemented.) I was frankly confused and not very excited by these discussions. But then Andrew January pointed out that Section 3.11.1 of the Constitution, which already referred to WSFS members before the first change, will now be affected by E.2. And that will be disastrous, because Section 3.11.1 says:

Final Award voting shall be by balloting in advance of the Worldcon. Postal mail shall always be acceptable. Only WSFS members may vote. Final Award ballots shall include name, signature, address, and membership-number spaces to be filled in by the voter.

Under E.2, that phrase “WSFS members” will become “Supporting Members”, and the third sentence of 3.11.1 will read:

Only Supporting Members may vote.

The Business Meeting has accidentally disenfranchised WSFS members attending WorldCon, whether physically or virtually, of the right to vote in the Hugos!!!!!

This is obviously unacceptable, and it’s equally obviously the effect of the plain words of E.2.

People have been fiddling around with various alternatives, but I think that there is only one option – tomorrow’s session of the Business Meeting must vote to reconsider E.2 and then repeal it.

Unfortunately I can’t attend myself, as I will be on the road at the relevant time tomorrow. But I do hope that others will be able to put this right.

Edited to add: The motion to reconsider was passed 99-29, and the ratification of E.2 was then reversed 31-108.