This is one of a series of posts about the 2025 World Science Fiction Society Business Meeting. They are all tagged bm2025.
I’ve covered all the C. D and E items of the Business Meeting agenda so far, but that still leaves fifteen of the proposed new constitutional amendments to talk about. I’ll take four of them here.
F1 (page 31) is a clarifying amendment that is itself a bit unclear. The word change proposed is to refine the definition of an “active” Worldcon bid, but the explanation provided talks only about “valid bids”, a term that is used nowhere in the constitution. Assuming that “active” is intended, I suppose it makes sense.
F2 (also page 31) 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.
F3, F4, F5 and F6 are all proposed by me and Tammy Coxen, and everyone should vote for them, but you can read about them here.
F7 (pages 36-37) spells out a proposed charter of rights for WSFS members. I’m not sure that this is needed and would prefer to see it referred to a committee if we discuss it at all.
F8 (page 38) proposes that any work released after 17 December should count as being released in the following year for Hugo eligibility purposes, provided it doesn’t make the immediately following long list. Two cases where this rule could have made a difference are given. One is a film released over the 1937/38 Christmas holiday, which as far as I know is several years before the Hugos were a thing and therefore hardly relevant.
The other case given is one which I remember well from being on that year’s Hugo subcommittee, where unfortunately the writer had vigorously promoted their own work on social media, not realising that it had been released in late December of the wrong year, too early to be eligible. I regret the upset caused to that writer, but I don’t think it is worth changing the rules over that one case.
This proposal is a solution that will be burdensome to implement, for a problem that barely exists. It creates more work for administrators and will lead to more mistakes being made, with inevitable damage to the reputation of the Hugos. Oppose.
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