This is my own take on the items on the agenda for this year’s WSFS Business Meeting, whose first (virtual) session will take place this coming Friday. The full agenda is available here. At 109 pages, it is still rather long, and I also have to admit that of the 19 pages of proposed new constitutional changes, more than half (11 to be precise) are occupied by proposals that I myself have signed (though it’s only three of them, one of which requires a long explanation).
The meeting will be held online again following last year’s successful experiment. We are advised to expect the business to be dealt with as follows:
- Preliminary Business Meeting, Friday July 17, 2026: Committee reports, Standing Rule changes (Section C), Resolutions (Section D), Mark Protection Committee nominations, setting debate times for Business Passed On and New Constitutional Changes
- First Main Business Meeting, Sunday July 26, 2026: Balloting for committee elections, ratifications of Business Passed On (Section E)
- Second Main Business Meeting, Saturday August 1, 2026: Results of committee elections, New Constitutional Changes (Section F)
- Third Main Business Meeting, Sunday August 9, 2026: Report from the Trial Committee on the 2023 Hugo Awards
- Site Selection Business Meeting, Sunday August 30, 2026 (in person in the Anaheim Convention Center): Results of 2028 Site Selection, Question and Answer Time for Future Seated Worldcons.
Personally I hope that the 26 July session will deal expediently with the Business Passed On from 2025, and move to the first few proposed new constitutional changes. However there are 15 items of Business Passed On, so my hopes may not be fulfilled.
C. Standing Rule Changes
C.1 Calling the Question At Any Point
C.2 Minimum Substantive Debate on Main Motions
Both of these are proposed by the Nitpicking & Flyspecking Committee, and on the face of it seem to speed up procedures, if only slightly. Support.
C.3 Business Meeting Dislocation
Removes ambiguity about the constitutional status of virtual Business Meetings. Support.
D. Resolutions
D.1 Clarifying Hugo Award Authority Delegation
Very important – tidies up the Constitution after last year’s decision to enshrine the practice of Hugo administration being carried out by a subcommittee rather than by the Worldcon committee as a whole. I can’t see any future Worldcon committee wanting to return to past practice here. Support.
D.2 WSFS Code of Ethics
D.3 Whistleblower Policy
D.4 Interim Ombuds Office
All proposed by the Ethics and Whistleblower (“Sparkle Unicorn”) subcommittee in the wake of the Chengdu Hugo debacle, to set up new structures to safeguard the Hugo process against ethics breaches. I will need to reflect on this to be honest. Would these changes have made any difference, if they had been in force in 2023? Do they place an extra burden on the system, greater than the benefit gained? Most of all, is the Mark Protection Committee really best placed to supervise these new processes? I am not convinced, but open to persuasion.
D.5 Bidding Trust & Safety
Proposes creating a committee to look at how to oblige bids to formally state whether or not they are in safe countries. I don’t honestly think this will help in any way, and will probably vote against.
D.6 Resolution Brought by Trial Committee (A)
D.7 Resolution Brought by Trial Committee (B
D.8 Resolution Brought by Trial Committee (C)
D.9 Resolution Brought by Trial Committee (D)
The last outworking of the WSFS investigation into the Chengdu Hugo debacle. I have not seen these resolutions, though I gave some very minor input to the Trial Committee. I hope and expect that the committee will propose long-term bans from WSFS activity for some of those involved.
E. Business Passed On
E.1 Clarifying Active Bids
I wrote last year: The word change proposed is to refine the definition of an “active” Worldcon bid… I suppose it makes sense.
E.2 Clarifying Hugo Award Administrator’s Discretion
I wrote last year, “makes it clear that Hugo administrators must act within the constitution, citing claims on social media that this is not the case. I did not see any such claims, so I am surprised that the proposers felt we needed to spend time on this, but since it has been proposed, I hope that it can go through quickly.”
E.3 Clarifying Best Graphic Story or Comic
E.4 Clarifying Best Series
E.5 Clarifying the Best Dramatic Presentation Categories
E.6 Clarifying Nominee Diversity
These were all proposed by myself and Tammy Coxen last year, and all tidy up parts of the constitution whose imperfect drafting has been a source of annoyance to Hugo administrators. I don’t believe that any of them is a substantial change to current practice, but I do believe that they are all important for clarification and improvement.
E.7 Clarifying WSFS Membership Rights (A)
Enumerates a list of rights that come with WSFS membership. I am not sure that it makes sense to encode what may be a moving target in this way. I remain to be convinced.
E.8 Clarifying WSFS Membership Rights (B)
This on the other hand clarifies that virtual Business Meetings are a legitimate part of WSFS proceedings, so I firmly support it.
E.9 Hugo Award Software Source
Mandates Open Source software for counting Hugo votes. If it weren’t for the fact that the people who I have relied on for Hugo software have endorsed this, I would be firmly against it; I don’t think that WSFS should be tying itself to external standards without good cause.
E.10 Site Selection Concordance
Gives all bids a veto on site selection software. On balance I think I am against this; it creates an opportunity for spoilers.
E.11 Mandated Hugo Award Admin Reports
Instructs Hugo administrators to publish a detailed summary of any eligibility rulings made during the process. I did this in 2017 and 2024, and wrote a large part of the 2025 report, so it would be odd if I opposed it.
E.12 Speculative Poetry Hugo Award
Creates yet another new category without getting rid of any of the existing ones. I recognize that there is a wave of sympathy for this one from the community, but I am voting against. I’m also not wildly impressed by the participation numbers in the special Hugo category for Best Poem from last year and this.
E.13 Retire NASFiC
Support. I wrote about this last year. I think it looks very weird that North America alone should get special geographical treatment in the form of an extra WSFS-validated convention in compensation if WorldCon is elsewhere. I am all in favour of everywhere having their own regional convention, as Europe has done for years; I just don’t see why WSFS needs to be involved, or what value WSFS accreditation would add.
E.14 Unnecessary PII
Support. Restricts Worldcons from gathering too much personally identifying information about members. Essential in this day and age.
E.15 End the False Binary!
A proposal to amend the Best Artist categories which was sneaked into the in-person Business Meeting last year after the meeting was extended by a 43-42 vote. I don’t like the way it was handled by the original proposer and would be inclined to vote against as it stands. However I understand that some improving amendments will be proposed at the Business Meeting which will make it much better. If they are passed, I will probably support, though I don’t like the renaming of the Best Professional Artist category.
F. New Constitutional Changes
F.1 Ethics Ombuds Office
Established a new supervisory body to monitor ethics breaches. Am not convinced that it is needed or that the MPC is the right body to oversee it. Will probably vote against its creation; however if I lose that vote, I would be interested in serving on it.
F.2 There’s No Business Like Virtual Business
Support. Again, one of the amendments which clarifies the legitimacy of online business meetings.
F.3 Conversion Rights
Resubmitted from last year. This seems to me a good example of a change that isn’t really needed, fixing a contingency that has never happened, isn’t well thought out and is not a good use of Business Meeting time.
F.4 Fixed Bid Deadlines
Resubmitted from last year. Would have prevented the Winnipeg bid in 2021. I am not convinced that entrenching the management of Site Selection into the Constitution is a solution to whatever problem there may be. Voting against.
F.5 Advance Notice of Business Meeting Deadlines
Also absurdly constrains Worldcons’ freedom of action in how to run the Business Meeting. There is no need to put this in the Constitution. Oppose.
F.6 Responsive Late Business
Worries that if a committee fails to report then people who were holding back on proposals because they expected that committee to report will not have time to make their proposals. Ridiculous over-engineering. Oppose.
F.7 Limitation on Listed Contributors for Hugo Award Finalists
This one has my name on it, and has been the subject of much online discussion. I understand why large teams want to see everyone celebrated if they get a spot on the Hugo final ballot; I don’t think it is sufficiently appreciated that each new name on the list means an extra burden on convention resources, particularly volunteer time, and I don’t think that voters particularly appreciate large chunks of ballot paper real estate being taken up with a list of names. And I really don’t see why anyone needs to list their pet necromancer, as one finalist this year has done. What is wrong with requiring publications to simply list their senior editorial team? And what is wrong with capping that list at eight? Support. (Though I understand that it may be withdrawn for further consideration.)
F.8 Purposeful Proportionality
OK, I have a real bee in my bonnet about this one. The current system of conducting WSFS internal elections for multiple winners is flawed. There is a serious risk that a single large faction of voters can sweep the board, giving the election an unrepresentative result. Arguably this has already happened – in the MPC election of 2025, one candidate endorsed two others, and all three were elected to the three vacant seats thanks to the transfers of the votes for the leading candidate. (Disclosure: that candidate was, er, me.)
We should instead use the multiple seat transferable vote system of election currently used for parliamentary and other elections in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Malta, Tasmania, the Australian Senate and municipal elections in Scotland, New Zealand, Cambridge Massachusetts and Portland Oregon. It’s a well established system which will bring transparency and representation to WSFS internal processes. Please support.
F.9 The Tie that Doesn’t Bind
This also has my name on it – a brilliant spot by Andrew January that, in case there is a tie for last place and you end up with more than six finalists in a category, under the current rules if one of those withdraws or is ineligible they must be replaced, keeping the number of finalists at more than seven. That’s not what we thought we were passing back in 2015-16, but it seems to be what we have unintentionally ended up with. It’s a straightforward and simple fix for a theoretical and admittedly improbable situation. Support.