I am pleased with the outcome of the 2026 WSFS business meeting so far. I have marked up my previous post by including the results of the votes; basically everything that came to the meeting that I really wanted to get approved was passed, and the things I thought were really stupid were rejected. Octothorpe’s latest has a reflection on the first sessions, including a firm staffing recommendation to the Brisbane 2028 WorldCon bid, with which I concur.

Later today the Business Meeting will convene again to discuss what actions to take regarding the fiasco of the 2023 Hugos. These proceedings are confidential, though it is public that the Trial Committee has proposed four resolutions to the meeting. The resolutions themselves, and the reports of the Trial Committee which proposed them, and the Investigation Committee which reported last year, have not been made public, and the reports probably won’t be. (I was a member of the Investigation Committee, though not of the Trial Committee, and I also participated in the January 2024 Worldcon Intellectual Property meeting which formally censured several people for what happened at Chengdu.) 

I have seen some criticism of the way in which this has been handled. However, there was not really a choice to be made. Until WSFS decides otherwise, its procedures are governed by Robert’s Rules of Order. I would like to change them to something better but we have not yet seen a proposal of what that would be. For all its many flaws, Robert’s Rules do have provision for how to conduct disciplinary procedures. 

We should also bear in mind that this is not a criminal trial, but something more akin to a HR process taken by an employer, or a convention responding to a Code of Conduct violation. WSFS actually has a duty of care to those who are accused of damaging our reputation, as well as to the rest of us whose reputation has been damaged. If you think that sort of discussion should be conducted in full view of the public, I wish you luck next time you escalate a dispute with your boss and have the argument in front of your entire workplace.

There is also the very real risk of legal action. A senior Canadian politician once reminded me that the USA has 5% of the world’s population but 50% of the world’s lawyers. The 2018 WorldCon, WorldCon 76, spent $100,000 defending itself against a largely frivolous lawsuit. The reality is that freedom of speech only goes so far in practice, and we need to be sensitive to that. Loose talk can cost a lot of money.

That all said, the damage done to the reputation of WorldCon and the Hugos by the Chengdu fiasco was very real. The arbitrary disqualification of a large number of otherwise qualified finalists, combined with the obviously cooked voting statistics and a disrespectful and combative public posture from one of those involved, were a grave scandal. It was covered by, among many others, the New York Times, the Guardian (twice), Foreign Policy, NBC News, The Hill, Salon and Esquire. The disqualification of R.F. Kuang’s Babel even turned up as a question on the British quiz show University Challenge in December 2025. 

It is not an exaggeration to describe the Chengdu Hugo affair as the worst reputational crisis to hit WorldCon in its 87 years of history, and part of dealing with that is accountability for those responsible, to set the standards of behaviour that we expect of people in senior roles in Worldcons, particularly Hugo administrators, and hold them to account. As someone who loves Worldcon and the Hugos, I am personally bitterly disappointed by the behaviour of some people who I used to respect, and I am still angry about it.

As I said above, four resolutions have been proposed by the Trial Committee for consideration at today’s meeting. The Business Meeting can accept these resolutions, reject them or water them down; it cannot increase their force. Personally I am likely to support in full the four resolutions that have been proposed, though I will listen to reasoned amendments. If anything, I wish the measures proposed had been even stronger. But we are where we are.