Sensing that sentiment at the WSFS business meeting might be running against them (from the dearth of speeches in the affirmative by anyone but themselves), the sponsors of the amendment to abolish the Best Semiprozine Hugo Award category tried to make their proposal more attractive by postponing the effective date: The category would not expire until 2013, and then only upon ratification of the amendment again at the 2012 business meeting. A similar ploy (expiration after 2012 unless re-ratified) helped the new Best Graphic Story category gain majorities in its favor last year and this.
The reprise of the tactic didn’t work. The effective date proviso was added to the amendment, but the whole package then went down to defeat by a solid 73–32 tally. As a follow-up, a committee was established to propose revisions to “Best Semiprozine and related categories”. Some modification is obviously necessary in light of the ratification of a separate amendment explicitly making Web publications eligible for awards in the fiction, related work, semiprozine and fanzine categories. The old semiprozine criteria, designed to distinguish Locus from Analog don’t fit the Internet age very well.
Comments