Section 1.1: The name of this organization shall be the World Science Fiction Society, hereinafter referred to as WSFS or the Society.

Section 1.2: WSFS is an unincorporated literary society whose functions are:

Section 1.3: No part of the Society’s net earnings shall be paid to its members, officers, or other private persons except in furtherance of the Society’s purposes. The Society shall not attempt to influence legislation or any political campaign for public office. Should the Society dissolve, its assets shall be distributed by the current Worldcon Committee or the appropriate court having jurisdiction, exclusively for charitable purposes. In this section, references to the Society include the Mark Protection Committee and all other agencies of the Society but not convention bidding or operating committees.

Section 1.4: The Membership of WSFS shall consist of all people who have paid membership dues to the Committee of the current Worldcon. Within ninety (90) days after a Worldcon, the administering Committee shall, except where prohibited by local law, forward its best information as to the names and postal addresses of all of its Worldcon members to the Committee of the next Worldcon.

Section 1.5:

Section 1.6: Authority and responsibility for all matters concerning the Worldcon, except those reserved herein to WSFS, shall rest with the Worldcon Committee, which shall act in its own name and not in that of WSFS.

Section 1.7: Every Worldcon Committee shall include the following notice in each of its publications:

Section 2.1: Introduction. Selection of the Hugo Awards shall be made as provided in this Article.

Section 2.3: Extended Eligibility. In the event that a potential Hugo Award nominee receives extremely limited distribution in the year of its first publication or presentation, its eligibility may be extended for an additional year by a three-fourths (3/4) vote of the intervening Business Meeting of WSFS.

Section 2.4: Name and Design. The Hugo Award shall continue to be standardized on the rocket ship design of Jack McKnight and Ben Jason. Each Worldcon Committee may select its own choice of base design. The name (Hugo Award) and the design shall not be extended to any other award.

Section 2.5: "No Award". At the discretion of an individual Worldcon Committee, if the lack of nominations or final votes in a specific category shows a marked lack of interest in that category on the part of the voters, the Award in that category shall be canceled for that year. In addition, the entry "No Award" shall be mandatory in each category of Hugo Award on the final ballot. In any event, no Award shall be given whenever the total number of valid ballots cast for a specific category (excluding those cast for "No Award" in first place) is less than twenty-five percent (25%) of the total number of final Award ballots received.

Section 2.6: Nominations. Selection of nominees for the final Award voting shall be done by a poll conducted by the Worldcon Committee, in which each member of either the administering or the immediately preceding Worldcon as of January 31 of the current calendar year shall be allowed to make five (5) equally weighted nominations in every category. The Committee shall include with each nomination ballot a copy of Article 2 of the WSFS Constitution. Nominations shall be solicited for, and the final Award ballot shall list, only the Hugo Awards and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Assignment to the proper category of nominees nominated in more than one category, and eligibility of nominees, shall be determined by the Worldcon Committee. No nominee shall appear on the final Award ballot if it received fewer nominations than the lesser of either: five percent (5%) of the number of nomination ballots cast in that category, or the number of nominations received by the third-place nominee in that category.

Section 2.7: Notification and Acceptance. Worldcon Committees shall use reasonable efforts to notify the nominees, or in the case of deceased or incapacitated persons, their heirs, assigns, or legal guardians, in each category prior to the release of such information. Each nominee shall be asked at that time to either accept or decline the nomination.

Section 2.8: Voting. Final Award voting shall be by mail, with ballots sent only to WSFS members. Final Award ballots shall include name, signature, address, and membership-number spaces to be filled in by the voter. Final Award ballots shall standardize nominees given in each category to not more than five (5) (six (6) in the case of tie votes) plus "No Award". The Committee shall, on or with the final ballot, designate, for each nominee in the printed fiction categories, one or more books, anthologies, or magazines in which the nominee appeared (including the book publisher or magazine issue date(s)). Voters shall indicate the order of their preference for the nominees in each category.

Section 2.9: Tallying.

Section 2.10: Exclusions. No member of the current Worldcon Committee nor any publications closely connected with a member of the Committee shall be eligible for an Award. However, should the Committee delegate all authority under this Article to a Subcommittee whose decisions are irrevocable by the Worldcon Committee, then this exclusion shall apply to members of the Subcommittee only.

Section 2.11: Retrospective Hugos. A Worldcon held 50, 75, or 100 years after a Worldcon at which no Hugos were presented may conduct nominations and elections for Hugos which would have been presented at that previous Worldcon. Procedures shall be as for the current Hugos. Categories receiving insufficient numbers of nominations may be dropped. Once retrospective Hugos have been awarded for a Worldcon, no other Worldcon shall present retrospective Hugos for that Worldcon.

Article III - Future Worldcon Selection

Note: Section 3.2 is new; all subsequent sections and cross-references have been renumbered appropriately.

Section 3.1: WSFS shall choose the location and Committee of the Worldcon to be held three (3) years from the date of the current Worldcon. Voting shall be by mail or ballot cast at the current Worldcon with run-off ballot as described in Section 2.9. The current Worldcon Committee shall administer the mail balloting, collect the advance membership fees, and turn over those funds to the winning Committee before the end of the current Worldcon. The minimum voting fee can be modified for a particular year by unanimous agreement of the current Worldcon Committee and all bidding committees who have filed before the deadline. The site-selection voting totals shall be announced at the Business Meeting and published in the first or second Progress Report of the winning Committee, with the by-mail and at-convention votes distinguished.

Section 3.2: Voting shall be limited to WSFS members who have purchased at least a supporting membership in the Worldcon whose site is being selected. The supporting membership rate shall be set by unanimous agreement of the current Worldcon Committee and all bidding committees who have filed before the ballot deadline. If agreement is not reached, the default fee shall be the median (middle value) of the US dollar fees used in the previous three (3) Worldcon site selections.

Section 3.3: Voting shall be limited to WSFS members who have paid at least twenty U.S. dollars ($20.00) or equivalent towards membership in the Worldcon whose site is being selected. "No Preference" ballots may be cast by corporations, associations, and other non-human or artificial entities. "Guest of" memberships must be transferred to individual natural persons before being cast for other than "No Preference", with such transfers accepted by the administering convention.

Section 3.4: Site-selection ballots shall include name, signature, address, and membership-number spaces to be filled in by the voter. Each site-selection ballot shall list the options "None of the Above" and "No Preference" and provide for write-in votes, after the bidders and with equal prominence. The minimum fee in force supporting membership rate shall be listed on all site-selection ballots.

Section 3.5:

Section 3.6: To be eligible for site selection, a bidding committee must present adequate evidence of an agreement with its proposed site’s facilities, such as a conditional contract or a letter of agreement; and must state the rules under which the Worldcon Committee will operate, including a specification of the term of office of their chief executive officer or officers and the conditions and procedures for the selection and replacement of such officer or officers. Written copies of these rules must be made available by the bidding committee to any member of WSFS on request. For a bid to be allowed on the printed ballot, the aforementioned rules and agreements, along with an announcement of intent to bid, must be filed with the Committee that will administer the voting no later than 180 days prior to the official opening of the administering convention; to be eligible as a write-in, a bid must file these documents by the close of the voting. If no bids meet these qualifications, the selection shall proceed as though "None of the Above" had won.

Section 3.7: A site outside North America is eligible for selection in any year. A site within North America is eligible for selection if it is within the appropriate region, as defined below. Worldcon sitesThe North American regions shall rotate in the order Western, Central, Eastern region. A site shall be ineligible if it is within sixty (60) miles of the site at which selection occurs.

Section 3.8: To ensure equitable distribution of sites, North America sites within North America, it is divided into three (3) regions as follows:

Section 3.9: A Worldcon site outside of North America may be selected by a majority vote at any Worldcon. In the event of such outside Worldcon being selected, there shall be a NASFiC in the region whose turn it would have normally been, to be held in the same year as the overseas Worldcon, with rotation skipping that region the following year. If the selected Worldcon site is not in North America, there shall be a NASFiC in the North American region eligible that year. Selection of the NASFiC shall be by the identical procedure to the Worldcon selection except as provided below or elsewhere in this Constitution:

Section 3.10: Each Worldcon Committee shall provide a reasonable opportunity for bona fide bidding committees for the Worldcon to be selected one year hence to make presentations.

Section 3.11: With sites being selected three (3) years in advance, there are at least three selected current or future Worldcon Committees at all times. If one of these should be unable to perform its duties, the other selected current or future Worldcon Committee whose site is closest to the site of the one unable to perform its duties shall determine what action to take, by consulting the Business Meeting or by mail poll of WSFS if there is sufficient time, or by decision of the Committee if there is not sufficient time.

Section 4.1: Business Meetings of WSFS shall be held at advertised times at each Worldcon. The current Worldcon Committee shall provide the Presiding Officer and Staff for each Meeting. Meetings shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of (in descending order of precedence) the WSFS Constitution; the Standing Rules; such other rules as may be published in advance by the current Committee (which rules may be suspended by the Business Meeting by the same procedure as a Standing Rule); and Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised. The quorum for the Business Meeting shall be twelve members of the Society physically present.

Section 4.2: Each future selected Worldcon Committee shall designate an official representative to the Business Meeting to answer questions about their Worldcon.

Section 4.3: Except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, any committee or other position created by a Business Meeting shall lapse at the end of the next following Business Meeting that does not vote to continue it.

Section 4.4: There shall be a Mark Protection Committee of WSFS. The Mark Protection Committee shall consist of one (1) member appointed to serve at the pleasure of each future selected Worldcon Committee and each of the two (2) immediately preceding Worldcon Committees, one (1) non-voting member appointed to serve at the pleasure of each future selected NASFiC Committee and for each Committee of a NASFiC held in the previous two years, and nine (9) members elected three (3) each year to staggered three-year terms by the Business Meeting. Of the nine elected members, no more than three may be residing, at the time of election they are elected, in any single North American region, as defined in Section 3.7. Newly elected members take their seats, and the term of office ends for elected and appointed members whose terms expire that year, at the end of the Business Meeting. If vacancies occur in elected memberships in the Committee, the remainder of the position’s term may be filled by the Business Meeting, and until then temporarily filled by the Committee.

Section 4.5:

Article V - Constitution

Section 5.1: The conduct of the affairs of WSFS shall be determined by this Constitution together with all ratified amendments hereto and such Standing Rules as the Business Meeting shall adopt for its own governance.

Section 5.2: In all matters arising under this Constitution, only natural persons may introduce business, nominate, or vote, except as specifically provided otherwise in this Constitution. No person may cast more than one vote on any issue or more than one ballot in any election. This shall not be interpreted to prohibit delivery of ballots cast by other eligible voters.

Section 5.3: The WSFS Constitution may be amended by a motion passed by a simple majority at any Business Meeting but only to the extent that such motion is ratified by a simple majority at the Business Meeting of the subsequent Worldcon.

Section 5.4: Any change to the Constitution of WSFS shall take effect at the end of the Worldcon at which such change is ratified, except that no change imposing additional costs or financial obligations upon Worldcon Committees shall be binding upon any Committee already selected at the time when it takes effect.

Section 5.5: Standing Rules for the Governance of the Business Meeting and related activities may be adopted or amended by a majority vote at any Business Meeting. Amendments to Standing Rules shall take effect at the close of the Worldcon where they are adopted; this rule may be suspended by a two-thirds (2/3) vote.

Section 5.6: Within two (2) months after the end of each Worldcon, the Business Meeting staff shall send a copy of all changes to the Constitution and Standing Rules, and all items awaiting ratification, to the next Worldcon Committee.

Section 5.7: The Constitution of WSFS, together with an explanation of proposed changes approved but not yet ratified, and the Standing Rules shall be printed by the current Worldcon Committee, distributed to all WSFS members at a point between nine and three months prior to the Worldcon, and distributed to all WSFS members in attendance at the Worldcon upon registration.