Kevin has posted his own thoughts about the Preliminary Business meeting here.
He has also posted video of the whole of the meeting here. Most of the debate on the YA Hugo is in Part I. I’m interested to see who the five people who vociferously opposed the Eligibility Extension were.
I also suggest that you read this post by the person responsible for moving the YA Hugo motion. You’ll probably see lots of posts over the next few days complaining about how Evil SMOFs used trickery and cheating to kill off the YA Hugo. Given the way things have gone this year, it would not surprise me to see Kevin fingered as the ringleader of those Evil SMOFs.
Obviously I wasn’t there, so I have to rely mainly on other people’s reports of what went on, but I do know Don Eastlake fairly well. He’s by no means a boring conservative. Indeed, as far as I know he is the only person ever to have chaired the Business Meeting and won Best In Show at the Worldcon Masquerade. But, as Kevin notes, he does tend to run the meeting more quickly, with less explanation, than Kevin does. That makes him popular with the regulars, who tend to think that Kevin wastes their time, but it makes things harder for newbies.
What effectively happened here was a primitive form of representative democracy. Kevin, as someone who is well versed in how the BM works, acted on behalf of Aiglet and others to help them get what they wanted out of the meeting.
WSFS is very proud of being a participatory democracy rather than a representative democracy, and given the way that modern national politics work I can see why people have little trust in their elected representatives. But equally, the larger a community becomes, and the more sophisticated its governing processes, the harder it becomes for ordinary people to play a full part in the decision-making process. Consequently, other forms of democracy become necessary.
There is no right answer to how WSFS should be governed. Democracy is a messy business, and no system will suit everyone. However, I do think we need to think carefully about how best to involve more people in decision-making. In the meantime we’ll be reliant on people like Kevin voluntarily helping newcomers through the process.
Please accept my apology. I have been busy with Worldcon and have not been paying as much attention to social media as I might otherwise.
I would like to state for the record (and I will make this clear on my own LJ too) that I would not name Kevin as some evil ring-leader or whatever you said above. If someone makes such a claim please feel free to point them at this comment or re-paste it in full.
For the record, when I witnessed what I posted about in my complaint, I started a very active SMS conversation with Kevin saying that I felt that the lady had been treated unfairly, and I asked Kevin to find some method within the rules to make the situation better. I believe Kevin also received other comments from other people based on things he told me later. Kevin did step up and find a way within the rules (and his acceptability to Donald for whatever reason that the lady was not) to achieve her stated goal.
In my mind, Kevin would not be an evil ringleader but a hero in this exchange. I cannot fathom why anyone would feel otherwise.
I do not believe Kevin did anything wrong in that meeting for any reason. I make this statement with the full understanding that Kevin disagrees with me about Donald’s motives, and is so mad at me for posting what I did that I doubt that Kevin will ever speak to me again. That does not change how I feel about Kevin’s actions, and FWIW I admire him for standing by his beliefs. I hope someday this exchange becomes something useful between us.