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Resignations follow Hugo Awards controversy
The Worldcon Intellectual Property (WIP), the non-profit corporation which holds the service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, including the Hugo Award, has announced two resignations in its leadership following the controversy surrounding the Hugo Awards 2023.
In a statement released on 30th January, WIP announced that its director Dave McCarty and chair of the WIP board of directors Kevin Standlee, would be resigning. McCarty was "censured for his public comments that have led to harm of the goodwill and value of our marks and for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over". Standlee was also "reprimanded for public comments that mistakenly led people to believe that we are not servicing our marks" and will be succeeded by Donald Eastlake.
Ben Yalow, co-chairman of the Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention 2023, and Chen Shi have also been "censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon". The actions taken from WIP follow from the publication of nomination data for the 2023 awards which revealed that R F Kuang’s Babel (HarperVoyager) and Neil Gaiman’s adaptation of "The Sandman" were deemed ineligible for their respective categories at the Hugo Awards 2023, despite receiving enough nomination votes. Xiran Jay Zhao was also ruled ineligible for the Astounding Award even though the writer received the fourth most nominating votes in the category.
In response to the original outcry, McCarty took to his personal Facebook page to address hundreds of comments from angered authors.
The WIP "takes very seriously the recent complaints about the 2023 Hugo Award process", the statement reads, "and complaints about comments made by persons holding official positions in WIP". The release concludes by stating how "each year’s World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) is run by a separate organisation which administers the Hugo Awards for that year". The next Worldcon will be held in Glasgow from 8th August to 12th August 2024.
