eyeheartawk
#1 Enworld Jerk™
Yeah, agreed.
The community did what they were supposed to do, they voted and raised the point of improper votes and the committee ignored them. That's on the organization to fix.
Hugo Awards controversy
The community did what they were supposed to do, they voted and raised the point of improper votes and the committee ignored them. That's on the organization to fix.
Ah, but note - "Worldcon" is not a standing corporate organization.
At each Worldcon, there's the "business meeting" (typically, it happens on three consecutive mornings at the convention). And anyone who has paid for a membership to attend the convention can show up and vote on the issues before the business committee.
If the fans, the people who attend Worldcon, really cared about the ethics of site choice, they could go to the business meeting, and get something done about it.
The people who are members of Worldcon get to vote on the business, get to vote on where the future cons will be, and get to vote on the Hugos (there are "supporting memberships" that allow you to vote on the Hugos, but not attend the convention and vote on business matters). So, in the long run, it is hard to place responsibility to fix things on "the organization" when most of its decisions are the results of member voting processes.
It's a little pedantic, but I will disagree with this. While Worldcon as a convention is organized independently each year, there is, in fact, a standing (non-profit) corporate organization that owns its name, IP, etc. A couple of its board members have resigned over this issue.
I agree that that Worldcon probably shouldn't have been held in China due to the issues of censorship, and that the voting members are to blame for that. However, "responsibility" is not a finite resource. The members have responsibility, yes. But so do these board members. And the organizers. And anyone else with leadership roles. Saying that the voting members are responsible does not negate the culpability of those who organize and run the event.
Here's the press WSFS has made about this drama (emphasis mine): https://www.wsfs.org/category/mark-protection-committee/worldcon-intellectual-property/
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Worldcon Intellectual Property
Announcements from Worldcon Intellectual Property
January 31, 2024 ~ Kevin Standlee ~ Leave a comment
Worldcon Intellectual Property, whose board of directors is the members of the Mark Protection Committee of the World Science Fiction Society, has issued the following announcement:
Worldcon Intellectual Property
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 January 2024
Worldcon Intellectual Property
Post Office Box 61363
Sunnyvale CA 94088-1363 USA
Worldcon Intellectual Property (W.I.P.) is a California non-profit corporation that holds the service marks of the World Science Fiction Society (www.wsfs.org) including the mark “Hugo Award”. W.I.P. takes very seriously the recent complaints about the 2023 Hugo Award process and complaints about comments made by persons holding official positions in W.I.P. In connection with these concerns, W.I.P. announces the actions listed below. There may be other actions taken or to be taken that are not in this announcement.
Dave McCarty has resigned as a Director of W.I.P.
Kevin Standlee has resigned as Chair of the W.I.P. Board of Directors (BoD).
W.I.P. has censured or reprimanded the following persons, listed in alphabetic order, for the reason given:
Dave McCarty – censured for his public comments that have led to harm of the goodwill and value of our marks and for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.
Chen Shi – censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.
Kevin Standlee – reprimanded for public comments that mistakenly led people to believe that we are not servicing our marks.
Ben Yalow – censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.
Donald Eastlake has been elected Chair of the W.I.P. BoD.
Please note that each year’s World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) is run by a separate organization which administers the Hugo Awards for that year. The Chengdu 2023 Worldcon has asked that any specific questions about the administration of the 2023 Hugo Awards be sent to hugoteam@chengduworldcon.com.
(For media inquiries on topics related to W.I.P. other than the specifics of the 2023 Hugo Awards, you may contact info@thehugoawards.org.)
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demoss
Explorer
Lots of people made that case, and there was such a campaign.
Turns out most fans dont't give a f*ck Uighurs, rule of law, due process, or universal suffrage.
Yep. They exist primarily so that the trademarks can be defended. But that group does not generally muck in on the Worldcon Constitution, or operations at any particular convention. In fact, the Worldcon Constitution stipulates the process for amending the Constitution, and it does not include any overriding powers of WIP.
I think that technically, the WIP licenses the marks to each convention organization in turn, and the WIP could impose restrictions on that license.
For example: The Worldcon Constitution already stipulates that only natural persons can vote, and each natural person only gets one vote. The WIP might stipulate that the licensee must take some steps to ensure that provision is enforced, or have the license withdrawn or be sued for damaging the reputation of the mark.
I have to ask - are you trying to address my point, or make a separate point of your own?
If the former, then you missed what I was saying. If the latter, carry on.
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
So ... sci-fi community manifests dystopian reality? Ironic.
demoss
Explorer
I clearly missed your point, and despite going back I can't seem to manage to unread my previous reading, so help me out?
Really short version: The Hugo Awards were held in China. A bunch of works (some that probably would have won) were removed last minute from the Awards with no reason given. In many cases, the works had no obvious reasons for being removed (i.e. the works were not directly controversial at all). The people in charge have not really given an explanation, although the real reason is kind of obvious: they were pre-emptively removing things on the chance that it may rile up someone in China. There was some social media drama, and some people who work on the Awards resigned, or were reprimanded.
