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An Idea In Search of a Problem
Aug. 25th, 2022 09:39 pmHaving mentioned this to some of my local convention-going friends who were quite horrified by this, I write now to point out one of the proposals from last year's Worldcon that has been passed along to Chicon 8 for ratification. That is "Short Title: Non-transferability of Voting Rights".
I am of the opinion that at a minimum this amendment is an example of drafting malpractice, in that it changes some key concepts revolving around Worldcon membership without actually going through and fixing all of the rest of the affected verbiage in the WSFS Constitution. Yes, I understand that there is a "Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee" that does clean up, but I believe this is beyond Nitpicking and Flyspecking.
It's also not clearly written. As the intent of this amendment was explained to me, what we currently call an "Attending Membership" in Worldcon will be converted by this proposal into a "WSFS Membership" and an "Attending Supplement". You may transfer your "Attending Supplement" to someone else, but not your "WSFS Membership" and in order to attend the Worldcon that someone else will need to pay for an additional "WSFS Membership".
Just to put some sample numbers on this, let's say that you might have paid $150 for an Attending Membership (early on in the process before rates rose), but now you are going to pay $50 for your WSFS Membership plus $100 for your Attending Supplement. Before, if you discovered that you could not attend the Worldcon, you could lay off that Attending Membership for some amount of money quite possibly in the neighborhood of $150, but now it's going to be $100 or less, because you can't lay off the WSFS Membership.
What do you get for your WSFS Membership? Well, not the ability to participate in the Business Meeting remotely and decide questions like this. You need an Attending Supplement for that.
As nearly as I can tell, your WSFS Membership gets you the Worldcon publications, the right to nominate and vote for the Hugo Awards, and the right to pay more money to participate in the site selection balloting for future Worldcons and NASFiCs. If that seems like a good deal to you, then you are clearly the target audience for this amendment.
I spoke to one person (who I respect) about this amendment and he pointed out that this is how real professional organizations commonly handle their membership and annual meetings. I am not convinced that WSFS is comparable to, for example, the American Chemical Society, but it's an argument that I suppose can be made.
The people that I've spoken to around here have said things like "That's crazy!" and "So much for buying a Worldcon membership in the hope of being able to attend."
If you have an opinion on this and are attending Chicon 8, you can go to the Business Meeting. This is not a small commitment of time. The first session is on Friday at 10 AM, scheduled for 2.5 hours. If I understand the writeup correctly in the Pocket Program, the item I refer to above will be discussed on Saturday at 10 AM in the Main Business Meeting, scheduled for three hours. I am not absolutely sure of that, however. A third meeting is scheduled for Sunday at 10 AM for three hours to receive the results of Site Selection and keep hashing through anything that isn't done yet. And if that doesn't exhaust the topics, there's a fourth meeting on Monday at 10 AM for another three hours.
That is a whole lot of meeting. I have a dealer table, so I am unsure if I will make it to any of the meetings. We'll see.
I am of the opinion that at a minimum this amendment is an example of drafting malpractice, in that it changes some key concepts revolving around Worldcon membership without actually going through and fixing all of the rest of the affected verbiage in the WSFS Constitution. Yes, I understand that there is a "Nitpicking and Flyspecking Committee" that does clean up, but I believe this is beyond Nitpicking and Flyspecking.
It's also not clearly written. As the intent of this amendment was explained to me, what we currently call an "Attending Membership" in Worldcon will be converted by this proposal into a "WSFS Membership" and an "Attending Supplement". You may transfer your "Attending Supplement" to someone else, but not your "WSFS Membership" and in order to attend the Worldcon that someone else will need to pay for an additional "WSFS Membership".
Just to put some sample numbers on this, let's say that you might have paid $150 for an Attending Membership (early on in the process before rates rose), but now you are going to pay $50 for your WSFS Membership plus $100 for your Attending Supplement. Before, if you discovered that you could not attend the Worldcon, you could lay off that Attending Membership for some amount of money quite possibly in the neighborhood of $150, but now it's going to be $100 or less, because you can't lay off the WSFS Membership.
What do you get for your WSFS Membership? Well, not the ability to participate in the Business Meeting remotely and decide questions like this. You need an Attending Supplement for that.
As nearly as I can tell, your WSFS Membership gets you the Worldcon publications, the right to nominate and vote for the Hugo Awards, and the right to pay more money to participate in the site selection balloting for future Worldcons and NASFiCs. If that seems like a good deal to you, then you are clearly the target audience for this amendment.
I spoke to one person (who I respect) about this amendment and he pointed out that this is how real professional organizations commonly handle their membership and annual meetings. I am not convinced that WSFS is comparable to, for example, the American Chemical Society, but it's an argument that I suppose can be made.
The people that I've spoken to around here have said things like "That's crazy!" and "So much for buying a Worldcon membership in the hope of being able to attend."
If you have an opinion on this and are attending Chicon 8, you can go to the Business Meeting. This is not a small commitment of time. The first session is on Friday at 10 AM, scheduled for 2.5 hours. If I understand the writeup correctly in the Pocket Program, the item I refer to above will be discussed on Saturday at 10 AM in the Main Business Meeting, scheduled for three hours. I am not absolutely sure of that, however. A third meeting is scheduled for Sunday at 10 AM for three hours to receive the results of Site Selection and keep hashing through anything that isn't done yet. And if that doesn't exhaust the topics, there's a fourth meeting on Monday at 10 AM for another three hours.
That is a whole lot of meeting. I have a dealer table, so I am unsure if I will make it to any of the meetings. We'll see.