This is one of a series of posts about the 2025 World Science Fiction Society Business Meeting. They are all tagged bm2025.
Section E of the 2025 WSFS Business Meeting agenda has nine items of Business Passed On, all of them constitutional amendments which were passed in Glasgow and require ratification at the Seattle Worldcon Business Meeting. I have already written about six of them. My views on the other three, in short:
E1 (page 26) has to do with the technicalities of transferring memberships. The proposer in Glasgow explained,
As the Seattle in 2025 people were working conversion of voters to members in their database, we noticed there were “guest of” memberships or people had purchased two WSFS memberships with the intention of giving one to someone else, and there was no reason not to give refunds to these members when there was a mistake, and did so on a case-by-case basis. This amendment simply says that until such time as a vote is taking place—whether it be Hugo Award-related or site selection, that these changes may be made.
This seems sensible and uncontroversial and I hope it can be passed quickly.
E2 (also page 26) reverses the recent change to the terminology of WSFS Membership and Attending Supplement from the old terminology of Supporting Memberships and Attending Memberships. It is supported by one of the proposers of the previous change who now thinks it was a mistake. I don’t really understand the arguments, but I too found the old system easier, so I will support this one also.
E6 (page 28) changes the criteria for Best Editor, Long Form from having edited four relevant works in the year of eligibility to having published four relevant works in one’s entire career, including at least one in the year of eligibility. It was approved without debate in Glasgow.
Personally, Best Editor, Long Form is the second category that I would abolish If I Ruled The Hugos (Best Series would be first for the chop) so I feel that the amendment is answering the wrong question. I don’t think Hugo voters are in a position to discern the extent to which a good book has been shaped by a good editor. There does not need to be a Hugo for everything.
It also seems to me that the main justification given, which is that the two Editor categories ought to match each other, doesn’t hold water. Why should they? Editing books and editing short fiction are two completely different activities. When the Long Form category was first proposed, the people proposing it knew perfectly well that they were demanding more of finalists in this category than in the Short Form category.
However I take the point that the current wording restricts the pool of candidates to those who work for the largest publishing houses, so I guess I will accept the change, especially if it can be dealt with as quickly as it was in Glasgow.
2025 WSFS Business meeting posts:
Mark Protection Committee Report
Investigation Committee on the 2023 Hugo Awards report
Software Committee
Hugo Administration Process Committee report
Business Meeting Study Group
C1, C2, C3, C4
C5
D1, D2, D3
D4
D5, D6
D7, D8
D9, D10, D11, D12
E1, E2
E3, E4, E5
E6
E7
E8
E9
F1, F2
F3, F4, F5, F6
F7, F8
F9, F10
F11
F12
F13
F14, F15
F16, F17, F18, F19
F20
F21
F22