I am not willing to agree that we, with the internet and an engaged fandom that is -not- a few people with entrenched power can't do better than fans in fandom's infancy 75 years ago.
Obviously we'd want to put in place methods of governace that acted to avoid entrenched and corrupt power. First, we'd want the seated worldcon and WSFS.org (because let's face it, by whatever name that's what we'd be resurecting) to act as checks on one another.
Second, we'd want them to have different but democratic forms of appointment. The way the MPC is appointed sets up a decent enough pattern (3 set of delegates, each elected in successive years and removed on the same schedule) but it's flawed in numerous ways -- the same people tend to be elected again and again (not least because it's lots of work with very little upside, and because until recently fandom was relatively happy with the people elected), only the BM and the conventions have a say in who is elected, and there can be a large overlap in the membership of the MPC and the seated worldcon.
But all of those are fixable problems. WSFS can be elected in 3 year terms by the membership of WSFS (not the BM), so no single year can overturn and corrupt its membership; it can have strict rules about conflict of interest, requiring that members elected not be also staff members of the seated worldcon (and recuse themselves if they wish to volunteer for same; a process can be set up to select alternative deligates), and we can have voting rules (proportional tabulation with ranked ballots, mostly) that avoid favoring one segment of fandom strictly over the rest. And, of course, we can strictly enumerate the powers that WSFS will have, such that it -is- signficant enough that people actually want positions on its board, but isn't significant enough that it becomes the tail trying to wag the dog of fandom -- our professional niblings in arms, SFWA, handle just fine with a centralized org; surely we can do as well.
We can even have term limits, if fandom desires it.
I'm leaving out the other extremely important reasons that some amount of (limited) centralization are crucial because they're secondary to the issues I discussed in this blog -- not least that leaving WSFS as an unencorporated association that owns real, substntial property (the marks) worth millions of dollars leaves it open to rather extreme sorts of liability without the corporate shield that lawyers traditionally reccomend fro such things. There's a reason that the MPC recently reorganized its marketing subcommittee to be -under- its corporate sub-entittiy rather than, as before, outside it, and it's not that the fears bandied about regarding this on bluesky a few weeks ago are without merit.
This all, of course, leaves aside the point that fandom as nearly hundred-year old entity is dying, being replaced by a generational divide that isn't easily making the jump to new ways to do fandom and new fans who feel (justly) excluded by existing practices. It's important that the Hugos and WSFS remain tied to the worldwide community of active fans -- but as the community changes and mutates, that can also require changes no our part -- and an active WSFS that does more than "be the membership of Worldcon and vote on the Hugos" could be part of this.
no subject
Obviously we'd want to put in place methods of governace that acted to avoid entrenched and corrupt power. First, we'd want the seated worldcon and WSFS.org (because let's face it, by whatever name that's what we'd be resurecting) to act as checks on one another.
Second, we'd want them to have different but democratic forms of appointment. The way the MPC is appointed sets up a decent enough pattern (3 set of delegates, each elected in successive years and removed on the same schedule) but it's flawed in numerous ways -- the same people tend to be elected again and again (not least because it's lots of work with very little upside, and because until recently fandom was relatively happy with the people elected), only the BM and the conventions have a say in who is elected, and there can be a large overlap in the membership of the MPC and the seated worldcon.
But all of those are fixable problems. WSFS can be elected in 3 year terms by the membership of WSFS (not the BM), so no single year can overturn and corrupt its membership; it can have strict rules about conflict of interest, requiring that members elected not be also staff members of the seated worldcon (and recuse themselves if they wish to volunteer for same; a process can be set up to select alternative deligates), and we can have voting rules (proportional tabulation with ranked ballots, mostly) that avoid favoring one segment of fandom strictly over the rest. And, of course, we can strictly enumerate the powers that WSFS will have, such that it -is- signficant enough that people actually want positions on its board, but isn't significant enough that it becomes the tail trying to wag the dog of fandom -- our professional niblings in arms, SFWA, handle just fine with a centralized org; surely we can do as well.
We can even have term limits, if fandom desires it.
I'm leaving out the other extremely important reasons that some amount of (limited) centralization are crucial because they're secondary to the issues I discussed in this blog -- not least that leaving WSFS as an unencorporated association that owns real, substntial property (the marks) worth millions of dollars leaves it open to rather extreme sorts of liability without the corporate shield that lawyers traditionally reccomend fro such things. There's a reason that the MPC recently reorganized its marketing subcommittee to be -under- its corporate sub-entittiy rather than, as before, outside it, and it's not that the fears bandied about regarding this on bluesky a few weeks ago are without merit.
This all, of course, leaves aside the point that fandom as nearly hundred-year old entity is dying, being replaced by a generational divide that isn't easily making the jump to new ways to do fandom and new fans who feel (justly) excluded by existing practices. It's important that the Hugos and WSFS remain tied to the worldwide community of active fans -- but as the community changes and mutates, that can also require changes no our part -- and an active WSFS that does more than "be the membership of Worldcon and vote on the Hugos" could be part of this.