Who Rules the Worldcon Rules?
20. Aug, 2009 
15 Comments
Kevin Standlee, Chairman of the WSFS Business Meeting (held at every Worldcon) recently posted video coverage of Anticipation’s Friday Preliminary session.
If you have ever wondered ‘what’s up with Robert’s Rules of Order?’ – or even – ‘what’s Robert’s Rules of Order?’,
If you have ever thought that business meetings are dry, dull, boring affairs in which uninteresting people drone on and on and on and on and on and on (cue Monty Python)
of if you have ever wondered what could possibly be of interest at an – of all things – business meeting at a science fiction convention
prepare for shock and awe.
Surprisingly gripping, full of drama, useful information, famous fan personalities and a practical demonstration of real democracy in action, this video could very well find itself on the ballot for Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form at next year’s convention. (Only a slight exaggeration that…)
The real fireworks begin at about 27 minutes in during discussion and debate following the Formalization of Long Lists Committee report. (The Long Lists are the official historical record of things like Worldcons – attendance, Guests of Honor and the Hugo Awards – nominees, winners, award categories.)
A political expression that has come into some common usage of late is “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” (Voltaire, probably). I hate that expression because I believe it can be used as an excuse to eliminate striving for the perfect.
The business meeting video demonstrates exactly what I’m talking about. These folks are taking the time necessary to strive for perfect but move things along by accepting good.
Check it out. FAR more entertaining than watching grass grow and, I think, better produced than at least 90% of anything seen on SkYFfY tube.
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Excellent point about “perfect is the enemy of the good” being used as an excuse against striving for perfection. What I use it for is to get people to stop hesitating going to press with something “good enough” because they’re trying to get it perfect.
For example, the Hugo Awards web site isn’t perfect, and it never will be; however, it does most of what we want it to do and isn’t trapped in single-point-of-failure-land the way so many sites are. We keep working on it as necessary.
On the radar: Applying a similar process to Worldcon.org and WSFS.org.
Thanks Kevin.
It is clear to me that you operate in that manner, as does WSFS.
I work the same way too on ‘projects’. I once came within 1 penalty point of running a ‘perfect’ paintball tournament; staff was very excited and wanted to know why I wasn’t as well…I was satisfied – but it wasn’t perfect.
I fixed the hole that led to that one penalty point at the next event.
Striving for perfection (even though we know it will never come to be) is, in my opinion, what keeps you moving forward. The website is good – not perfect. OK – we got it to a good, stable point. Next…?
IJWTS that I’m still lunatic enough to have just watched and listened to the entire video.
I’d suggest, however, that a note be attached to the web page stating the total length of time of the video.
Also, can we expect similar videos of the remaining Business Meetings at Montreal to go up, if so, when, and can we hope for this to become a regular feature of Worldcon BMs?
(Note my use of “hope,” since I know that future Worldcons have not committed, and no one is a seer.)
I think there’s considerably useful educational value in making such videos available for those who want to understand how the BM works, and what it takes to get something passed, as well as in being a valuable historical record of the intent and trends of the debates and motions.
And whom do we have to thank for making the video and posting it, specifically?
“Perfect is the enemy of good enough”, — Soviet Admiral Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov
When I worked at IBM they liked to repeat this. I wanted to get out the last bugs in a program and they would quote Gorshkov at me and the product would go out the door with known fixable bugs. The economics of finding these last bugs made it cheaper to ship buggy software than to pay me an extra week to fix them.
Keith – yep, very familiar with that mentality. I ran a QA/QC shop at AT&T in the 80s for emerging technologies. ‘Testing’ (ummmm – making sure the product was what the customer had paid for) was rarely given enough time and resources to get its job done properly (even though it had been proven time and time again that we were a major asset and significantly contributed to refining and making the process more cost-effective) – and of course, if some other department went over time or over budget – guess who got cut?
Gary:
Expect one meeting per week. I don’t want to pay for a premium Vimeo account, and the free accounts limit you to 500 MB/week. (And the videos are close to 500 MB; I nearly had to split the Main meeting in half to get it to fit.)
Before anyone else asks “Why not YouTube?” — YouTube has a ten-minute maximum for uploads. I don’t have the time to edit the meeting into ten-minute pieces.
The videos were shot by my wife Lisa, who is listed in the convention staff as BM official videographer. She’s taped previous meetings, but there were concerns raised about “privacy” in the past. The List that Shall Not Be Named had previously suggested that such recordings were okay as long as only the Right Sort of Fans were allowed access. (Some folks said, “Only members of that meeting,” but that fell apart when Right Sorts of Fans who weren’t members of the current Worldcon were cited.)
In reaction to the privacy concerns, the BM passed what is now Rule 1.6, and that’s why I started the meeting by warning everyone in the room that the meeting is being recorded and might be distributed. What you don’t see is that there was a sign outside the room that also warned people about taping, and that the convention publications also warned people that if they show up here, their image and voice might end up posted online. How much of the privacy concerns were real and personal and how much were people showing concern for hypothetical other people, I don’t know.
I also hope that future Worldcons will tape and distribute their meetings, but that’s up to the individual Worldcons and their meeting staff. We were able to do it this year because there was a person eager, willing, and able to do so, including hauling her camera gear across the continent in our luggage on the trains we took from Oregon to Quebec and back.
“Before anyone else asks “Why not YouTube?” — YouTube has a ten-minute maximum for uploads. I don’t have the time to edit the meeting into ten-minute pieces.”
Surely someone in fandom can be found? Spread word around the fannish blogs and mailing lists and clubs and ask for volunteers? YouTube is crammed with stuff that’s hours or couple of hours, long, and cut into ten minute splices.
If all else fails, I, though completely unfamiliar with video editing equipment, might be willing to take a shot at it, if you can’t find anyone else.
That is, if you’re saying that you can only have one video at a time up at Vimeo. If they’ll stay there “permanently,” but can only be *added* once a week, then I’d agree it’s not worth also going to YouTube (though it’d be nice).
But I’m reading “the free accounts limit you to 500 MB/week” as holding, rather than adding, though your wording is a touch ambiguous.
But there are a number of fans who do a lot of video work, and likely wouldn’t see this as a big job, I’d think.
Ceemage (Peter Sullivan), leaps to mind, for instance.
I just posted this, by the way, and assume you know about this?
Why have people taken to the usage of “The List that Shall Not Be Named,” btw? I assume this is the same email list I was on with you that I dropped off of in 2001? Is there some reason I shouldn’t use the name? I’ve certainly mentioned it online a number of times, since no one ever told me not to, and it’s only since I’ve recently seen Steve engage in that usage that I’ve ever seen it at all.
Email me if this is something you’d prefer not to answer in public, for some reason. gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com.
Gary,
I guess they liked it…it maintains that ’secrets of SMOFdom’ air, while still being just plain silly
thanks for the heads up on the Prof in Canada
and
Kevin – I’d be happy to host the video on The Classic Science Fiction Channel site, inside the ‘educational’ section
Okay, folks, I’m sorry that I didn’t speak in even more footnotes than I usually do.
Vimeo allows its free accounts to upload up to 500 MB/week. Once something is uploaded, it stays there until the user deletes it. The next week (sometime on Monday morning), the upload limit resets. That means you can upload a 500 MB file today, then another one next week, and both files will be up there. This does not mean that when I upload the Main Business Meeting next week that the Preliminary BM video will go away. Both files will be there.
If you go to My Vimeo Uploads page, you will find not only the PBM, but also the other videos that I’ve uploaded, including the Worldcon Chairs Photo session and also all six episodes of the two amateur Doctor Who videos I made in college, one of which features me as The Doctor. None of these videos were pushed aside by later uploads.
Vimeo’s storage policy is 500 MB per week, not 500 MB total. I hope this clarifies the question. I appreciate the offers to host the nearly 1.5 GB of video — it would have been more if we’d shot in higher definition — but it’s not necessary.
Gary:
Regarding The List That Shall Not Be Named: It’s just that there are people on that list who tend to treat it as if it were really secret. FWIW, as membership to the SMOFS e-mail list is moderated, I think it’s a bad idea to quote someone directly — attributed — from there unless the poster gives permission. But I am willing to indirectly quote in the way we’ve done so here. Think of it as “speaking on background.”
“Once something is uploaded, it stays there until the user deletes it.”
Oh, very good, that’s fine, then. Thanks for clarifying, Kevin.
“FWIW, as membership to the SMOFS e-mail list is moderated, I think it’s a bad idea to quote someone directly — attributed — from there unless the poster gives permission.”
I think that’s right, since the protocol in treating mail from the membership in any invitational mailing list should be more or less no different than any private e-mail: don’t quote in public without permission. (If someone posts the same thing to the web, on the other hand, they’ve already made it public.)
Anyway, if people find it fun to call “smofs” The List That, etc., fine, everyone has injokes; I’m just pleased to get it clarified that it’s not a Serious Protocol for some inexplicable reason. I mean, trying to keep its existence secret would be silly. (IMO.)
I probably agree with Kevin’s general ideas, though I’d like to say some things about how I personally apply those ideas.
The SMOFs list has upwards of 300 participants (or did last time I counted). These are the leadership and core organizers of a great many of the events of greatest significance to our field.
Some kinds of news, like announcements about a death in fandom, a new convention bid, are clearly intended for public dissemination.
What’s not? When someone’s critical health situation is aired on the list, my view is that it’s just been told to 300 people, it’s no longer a secret, but I still have to decide if it’s something the person would object to seeing in print. Print is a big thing to some, even after SMOFS has spread the info all over fandom.
Debate and other SMOFs fodder I generally quote directly only after obtaining permission. Which sometimes isn’t forthcoming, so I’ve never run any of those amazing comments Paula Lieberman makes which are practically fanzine articles in their own right.
Since the subject has come up – is it your considered opinion that what I’ve had on the blog concerning SMOF discussions has violated those rules?
I have (to the best of my memory) treated things from there as take off points for my own discussion of various topics, don’t quote (paraphrase and concatenate). I treat things from the list as ‘heard around the water cooler’ – or at least that’s what I think I’ve been doing