MOVED, to amend the WSFS Constitution as follows:
In Section 3.1, delete the sentence starting "The minimum voting fee".
In Section 3.2, delete the first sentence.
Insert a new section between Secs. 3.1 and 3.2 as follows:
3.x: Voting shall be limited to WSFS members who have purchased at least a supporting membership in the Worldcon whose site is being selected. The supporting membership rate shall be set by agreement of the current Worldcon Committee and all bidding committees who have filed before the ballot deadline. If agreement is not reached, the supporting membership rate shall be twenty U.S. dollars ($20.00) or the equivalent.In Section 1.5.2, replace "voting fee" by "site-selection fee" (twice).
This motion would recast all references to the site-selection "voting fee" in terms of a "site-selection fee" or a "supporting membership" in the selected convention. (The same change appears in Items 2 and 5.) It proposes no other changes in current practice.
MOVED, to amend the WSFS Constitution as follows:
In Section 3.1, delete the sentence beginning "The minimum voting fee". In Section 3.2, delete the first sentence. Insert a new section between Sections 3.1 and 3.2 as follows:
3.x: Voting shall be limited to WSFS members who have purchased at least a supporting membership in the Worldcon whose site is being selected. The supporting membership rate shall be set by unanimous agreement of the current Worldcon Committee and all bidding committees who have filed before the ballot deadline. If agreement is not reached, the default fee shall be the median (middle value) of the US dollar fees used in the previous three (3) Worldcon site selections.This motion would change the default site-selection voting fee from the current $20 to the median of the actual voting fees in the previous three years, allowing the amount to change over time without the necessity of a Constitutional amendment.
(Item 2 adopts the "supporting membership rate" language of Item 1, and the portions common to both motions have been edited to have identical wording. If Item 1 should fail to be ratified, the language of Item 2 would presumably revert to the current "voting fee" terminology.)
MOVED, to amend Section 3.8.3 of the WSFS Constitution by replacing "the prospective candidates that file with the administering Committee" by "the administering Committee and all bidding committees who have filed before the ballot deadline".
The NASFiC voting fee/membership rate is set by the bids only, without the involvement of the administering convention. Presumably there is no real reason why the administering committee is included in Section 3.1 but excluded in Section 3.8.
This fixes that problem.
[Historical note: at the time of the original adoption of the current provisions, NASFiCs never performed any official function under the WSFS Constitution and the current provisions were consciously adopted to minimize complexity in setting NASFiC fees since it would make no difference to anything but that NASFiC if bidder(s) set NASFiC voting fees absurdly high or low. The situation has changed in that now NASFiCs may, under some circumstances, administer the selection of other NASFiCs. -dee3]
MOVED, to amend the WSFS Constitution as follows:
In Section 3.1, replace "Section 2.9" by "Section 3.4".
In Section 3.4.3, delete "and shall be the equivalent of No Award with respect
to Section 2.9".
In Section 3.4.4, replace ", and tallying shall proceed according to normal
preferential-ballot procedures." by ". If no majority is then obtained, the bid
which places last in the tallying shall be eliminated and the ballots listing
it as highest remaining preference shall be redistributed on the basis of those
ballots highest remaining preference, except that None of the Above shall never
be eliminated. This process shall be repeated until a
majority-vote winner is obtained."
In Article 3, there is more text explaining how the Site Selection count is different from the Hugo count than would be used in defining the Site Selection count separately. This amendment defines the site-selection voting system separately.
This motion would have the effect of eliminating the run-off between the winner and "None of the Above" from the site-selection count. Since we usually get a first-ballot winner in Site Selection, this is of little practical importance, but it will reduce the number of nightmare outcomes by one.
Actually, the first two parts of this motion will do the trick perfectly well by themselves, but the amendment to Section 3.4.4 is included as its easier to strike wording from a motion at the Business Meeting than it is to insert it.
MOVED, to amend the WSFS Constitution as follows:
Move Section 1.5.5 to become Section 1.8.2. Replace the remainder of Section
1.5 with the following new sections:
1.5.1: Each Worldcon shall offer supporting and attending memberships.
1.5.2: The rights of supporting members of a Worldcon include the right to receive all of its generally distributed publications.
1.5.3: The rights of attending members of a Worldcon include the rights of supporting members plus the right of general attendance at said Worldcon and at the WSFS Business Meeting held thereat.
1.5.4: Members of WSFS who cast a site-selection ballot with the required fee shall be supporting members of the selected Worldcon.
1.5.5: Voters have the right to convert to attending membership in the selected Worldcon within ninety (90) days of its selection, for an additional fee set by its committee. This fee must not exceed two (2) times the site-selection fee and must not exceed the difference between the site-selection fee and the fee for new attending members.
1.5.6: The Worldcon Committee shall make provision for persons to become supporting members for no more than 125% of the site-selection fee, or such higher amount as has been approved by the Business Meeting, until a cutoff date no earlier than ninety (90) days before their Worldcon.
1.5.7: Other memberships and fees shall be at the discretion of the Worldcon Committee.
This motion is primarily a rearrangement of the existing text for easier comprehension. However, it incorporates a change of "voting fee" to "site-selection fee" as in Item 1, and Sec. 1.5.1 is new. (If Item 1 is ratified, Sec. 1.5.4 here should really be recast, since Item 1 says that people who pay the fee are supporting members, whether or not they cast ballots.)
3.x: A site outside North America is eligible for selection in any year. A site within North America is eligible for selection if it is within the appropriate region, as defined below. The North American regions shall rotate in the order Western, Central, Eastern region. An site shall be ineligible if it is within sixty (60) miles of the site at which selection occurs.In Section 3.6, replace "sites, North America" by "sites within North America, it".
To quote the maker, this motion would change the Worldcon "from being a North American convention which occasionally happens elsewhere to being a worldwide convention with special provisions for North America." It proposes no change in current practice.
In Section 3.8.4, replace "deadline" by "deadline for the printed
ballot"; and replace "all voting fees collected" by "any voting
fees collected".
In Section 3.1, replace "deadline" by "ballot deadline".
This motion would specify that the "deadlines" referred to in the indicated sections are those for the printed ballot (since Sec. 3.5 now mentions two different deadlines). (This change has also been incorporated in Items 1, 2, and 3.) It would also make clear that no NASFiC election is to be held if no bidders file in time for the printed ballot. If Item 1 is ratified, "voting fees" here would become "supporting membership payments".
A NASFiC shall not be held on any of the dates that the Worldcon for that year is being held, based upon the dates specified in the Worldcon filing papers.This motion would forbid holding a NASFiC opposite the Worldcon (or at least opposite the Worldcon's originally scheduled dates). It would not affect the site selection for the 1999 NASFiC.
2.2.5: Best Related Book. Any work whose subject is related to the field of science fiction, fantasy, or fandom, appearing for the first time in book form during the previous calendar year, and which is either non-fiction or, if fictional, is noteworthy primarily for aspects other than the fictional text.This motion would widen the scope of the Best Non-Fiction Book Hugo (a) by including books that are "related to", rather than "whose subject is", SF, fantasy, or fandom; (b) by including books that are fictional, as long as they have significant aspects other than the fictional text (e.g., fictionalized art books such as Dinotopia); (c) by renaming the category.
This motion would clarify an ambiguity in wording now addressed by Standing Rule 13. It would have no substantive effect.
5.x: Standing Rules for the Governance of the Business Meeting and related activities may be adopted or amended by a majority vote at any Business Meeting. Amendments to Standing Rules shall take effect at the close of the Worldcon where they are adopted; this rule may be suspended by a two-thirds (2/3) vote.PROVIDED THAT upon ratification of this amendment, Standing Rule 33 shall be repealed.
This motion would place the authority for the Standing Rules in the Constitution rather than in the Standing Rules themselves. It would make no other change in current practice.
See the World Science Fiction Society Constitution, Sections
4.4 and
4.5
and the WSFS Standing Rules number
11 and
12.
Officers: Kent Bloom (Chairman), Scott Dennis
(Treasurer), Gary Feldbaum (Secretary)
Membership: elected until LoneStarCon 2: Kent Bloom,
Scott Dennis, Donald Eastlake 3rd; elected until Bucconeer: Tim
Illingworth, Kevin Standlee, Ben Yalow; elected until Aussiecon 3:
Stephen Boucher, Gary Feldbaum, Sue Francis; . Worldcon appointees:
Paul Dormer (Intersection), Robert Sacks (L.A.con III), Randall
Shepherd (LoneStarCon 2), Covert Beach (Bucconeer), -vacant-
(Aussiecon 3); NASFiC appointee: Wilho Suominen (DragonCon).
Postal address: P.O. Box 1270, Kendall Square Station,
Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
Email: <mpc@wsfs.org>
If you would like to report an apparent infringement on WSFS marks,
please contact to the committee.
The 1986 WSFS Business Meeting voted to create a special committee
to research and codify all resolutions of the WSFS Business Meeting
that are still in force. This committee has submitted reports to
Business Meetings since 1987, and has each year been continued to
report to the next Business Meeting.
Chairman: Donald E. Eastlake 3rd.
Postal address: 318 Acton St., Carlisle, MA 01741 USA.
Email: <dee@cybercash.com>
This committee was established by the 1989 WSFS Business Meeting,
and has been continued ever since. A new edition of the Worldcon
Runners' Guide was submitted at the 1996 Business Meeting; copies
are available for US$15 in person, US$18 by mail from
Ross
Pavlac, P.O. Box 816, Evanston, IL 60204-0816 USA;
Email: <76636.1343@compuserve.com>
In addition, a self-extracting .EXE of the manual in WordPerfect for Windows 6.1 format is
available for downloading from
<http://www.enteract.com/~rpavlac/home.htm>.
The 1995 WSFS Business Meeting considered the following motion:
MOVED, to amend Sec. 2.2.6 of the WSFS Constitution by replacing the second sentence with:
In the case of individual programs presented as a series, any of the following may be eligible: (a) a single program; (b) a sequence of installments constituting a single dramatic unit; (c) an entire season considered as a whole. In cases (b) and (c), eligibility shall be in the year of the final installment or program. Once a sequence of programs (including an entire season) has appeared on a final Hugo ballot as a collective nominee, no collective nominee including that sequence or any part thereof shall be eligible in any subsequent year. If two or more overlapping sequences are nominated in the same year, only the one with the most votes shall appear on the final ballot.Questions having arisen as to the inter it was voted to refer the motion for clarification to a committee directed to report at the 1996 Business Meeting; the committee failed to report, and was continued to the 1997 Business Meeting; the committee may also consider other motions on the same subject. The committee may be contacted through
The 1996 WSFS Business Meeting authorized Kevin Standlee to convene a
working group to draft a revision of the WSFS Constitution (similar
to the earlier Standing Rules Working Group).
The working group may be reached through
Kevin Standlee, P.O. Box 95, Sutter, CA 95982-0095, USA;
Email: <wsfs-rules@lunacity.com>
Items 17.A through 17.E can occur at any session of the Business Meeting.
Items 17.F through 17.I will be at the Site-Selection session.
17.A Financial report by
Intersection.
17.B Financial report by
L.A.con III.
17.C Financial report by
LoneStarCon 2.
17.D Financial report by
Bucconeer (may be combined with 17.G).
17.E Financial report by
Aussiecon Three
(may be combined with 17.H).
17.F Report of the 2000 site selection and presentation by the winner.
17.G Presentation by, and Question Time for,
Bucconeer.
17.H Presentation by, and Question Time for,
Aussiecon Three.
17.I Presentation by 2001 candidates (time permitting).
Two items of new business have already been submitted for the 1997 Business Meeting:
4.x: The Business Meeting may create or recognize sponsored publications that further the purposes of the Business Meeting or the Society. Status as a WSFS-sponsored publication shall continue until revoked. These publications may report to the Business Meeting, accept corporate aegis, and provide for their own organization and continuation, provided that changes to the organization of publications created by the Business Meeting must be reported. The Business Meeting may instruct and reorganize created publications, alter created publications into recognized publications, or appoint an officer or committee to restart a sponsored publication that has died.PROVIDED THAT initially the created publications are "Resolutions of Continuing Effect" and "The Worldcon Runners' Guide" (formerly committees of the Business Meeting) and the recognized publications are "W.O.O.F." and "Apa:WSFS".
[submitted by Robert E. Sacks, Covert Beach, Robert J. MacIntosh,
Samuel C. Pierce, B. Shirley Avery, A. Martin Gear, Michael Mason,
Tim Illingworth, Linda Ross-Mansfield, Glen A. Boettcher, Mike
VandeBunt, David A. Cantor, Martin Hoare, Ann A. Broomhead, Oz
Fontecchio, Judith C. Bemis, Lew Wolkoff, Sara Paul, Larry Ruh,
Richard S. Russell, and Victoria A. Smith]
[The Secretary notes that the use of italics for emphasis (as with
"created" above) appears nowhere in the
present text of the Constitution.]
Sponsors' argument: The temporary committee structure does not adequately provide for continuing work; it also does not provide for not-for-profit tax-exempt funding. At the same time, the independent apas do not have access to the Business Meeting.
the customs and usages of WSFS (including the resolutions and rulings of continuing effect);[submitted by Robert E. Sacks, Bob Matthews, Covert Beach, Robert J. MacIntosh, Samuel C. Pierce, A. Martin Gear, Michael Mason, Robert L. Hillis, Brian L. Burley, Elizabeth L. Gross, Ross Pavlac, Martin Hoare, Ann A. Broomhead, Lew Wolkoff, Richard S. Russell, and Victoria A. Smith]
Sponsors' argument: It has been asserted that Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised takes precedence over the customs of the Society. The Standing Rules Working Group has debated whether the Society usages on friendly amendment, objection to consideration, the taking and correcting of minutes, and the independence of Worldcon Committees are correct under the parliamentary authority. It is time to decide who is to be the Master and who the Servant.
Donald E. Eastlake III, Chairman
George P. Flynn, Secretary
1996 WSFS Business Meeting