Rule 2: The Preliminary Business Meetings may not pass, reject, or ratify amendments to the Constitution, but the motions to "object to consideration", to "lay on the table", to "divide the question", to "postpone" to a later part of the Preliminary Business Meetings, and to "refer" to a committee to report later in the same Annual Business Meeting are in order when allowed by Robert's Rules. The Preliminary Business Meetings may alter or suspend any of the rules of debate included in these Standing Rules. Motions may be amended or consolidated at these Meetings with the consent of the original maker. Absence from these Meetings of the original maker shall constitute consent to amendment and to such interpretations of the intent of the motion as the Presiding Officer or the Parliamentarian may in good faith attempt.
Rule 3:
3.1: Nominations from the floor for election to the Mark Protection Committee
shall be allowed at each Preliminary Business Meeting. To be listed on the
ballot, nominees must, before the end of the last Preliminary Business
Meeting or such later deadline as the Secretary may specify, submit to the
Presiding Officer, in writing, their consent and regions of residence.
3.2: Elections to the Mark Protection Committee shall be a special order of
business at a Main Business Meeting. Voting shall be by written preferential
ballot with write-ins allowed. Write-in candidates who do not submit their
written consent and regions of residence before the ballots are collected
shall be ignored. The ballot shall list, with the nominees, their regions of
residence and shall omit all nominees who can not be elected due to the
regional residence restrictions in the Constitution. In interpreting said
regional residence restrictions, members of the Committee shall represent
their region of residence at the time of their election for their entire
3-year term, i.e., the phrase "at the time of election" in the Constitution
means "at the time at which they were elected."
3.3: The first seat filled will be filled by normal preferential ballot
procedures. That person's votes, as well as votes for any other nominee who
has now become ineligible (because a region's quota is filled), will be
eliminated, and the procedures will be restarted from the beginning. This
continues until all places are filled.
Rule 4: The deadline for the submission of non-privileged new business shall be two hours after the official opening of the Worldcon or eighteen hours before the first Preliminary Business Meeting, whichever is later. The Presiding Officer may accept otherwise qualified motions submitted after the deadline, but all such motions shall be placed at the end of the agenda. The Presiding Officer will reject as out of order any proposal or motion which is obviously illegal or hopelessly incoherent in a grammatical sense.
Rule 5: Two hundred (200) identical, legible copies of all proposals for non-privileged new business shall be submitted to the Presiding Officer before the deadline given in Rule 4 unless they have actually been distributed to the attendees at the Worldcon by the Worldcon Committee. All proposals or motions shall be legibly signed by the maker and at least one seconder.
Rule 6: Any main motion presented to a Business Meeting shall contain a short title.
Rule 7: Debate on all motions of less than fifty (50) words shall be limited to six (6) minutes. Debate on all other motions shall be limited to twenty (20) minutes; if a question is divided, these size criteria and time limits shall be applied to each section. Time shall be allotted equally to both sides of a question. Time spent on points of order or other neutral matters arising from a motion shall be charged one half to each side. The Preliminary Business Meeting may alter these limits, to any positive whole number of minutes, for a particular motion by a majority vote.
Rule 8: Debate on all amendments to main motions shall be limited to five (5) minutes, to be divided as under Rule 7.
Rule 9: Unless it is an amendment by substitution, an amendment to a main motion may be changed only under those provisions allowing modification through the consent of the maker of the amendment, i.e., second-order amendments are not allowed except in the case of a substitute as the first-order amendment.
Rule 10: A person speaking to a motion may not immediately offer a motion to close debate or to refer to a committee. Motions to close debate will not be accepted until at least one speaker from each side of the question has been heard, nor will they be accepted within one minute of the expiration of the time allotted for debate on that motion. The motion to table shall require a two-thirds vote for adoption.
Rule 11: In keeping with the intent of the limitations on debate time, the motion to postpone indefinitely shall not be allowed.
Rule 12: A request for a division of the house (an exact count of the voting) will be honored only when requested by at least ten percent (10%) of those present in the house.
Rule 13: Motions, other than Constitutional amendments awaiting ratification, may be carried forward from one year to the next only by being postponed definitely or by being referred to a committee.
Rule 14: These Standing Rules, and any others adopted by a Preliminary Business Meeting, may be suspended for an individual item of business by a two-thirds majority vote.
Rule 15: The sole purpose of a request for a "point of information" is to ask the Presiding Officer or the Parliamentarian for an opinion of the effect of a motion or for guidance as to the correct procedure to follow. Attempts to circumvent the rules of debate under the guise of "points of information" or "points of order" will be dealt with as "dilatory motions" as specified in Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised.
Rule 16: Citations to Articles, Sections, or other parts of the Constitution or Standing Rules, in amendments thereto, are for the sake of easy reference only. Changes in the enumeration of Articles, Sections, Rules, and parts thereof and correct insertions, deletions, renumbering, and changes to internal cross references, when required by adopted amendments, will be provided by the Secretary of the Business Meeting in the Constitution, Standing Rules, and Business Passed On certified to the next Worldcon. Therefore, motions from the floor to renumber or correct citations, because of an adopted amendment, shall not be in order. Unless otherwise ordered by the Business Meeting, the Secretary will adjust any other provision of the Constitution and Standing Rules equally affected by an amendment to the Constitution, and will adjust any other provision of the Standing Rules equally affected by an amendment to the Standing Rules. Resolutions and rulings of continuing effect may be repealed or amended at subsequent Business Meetings by majority vote without notice, and shall be automatically repealed or amended by applicable amendments to the Constitution or Standing Rules and by conflicting resolutions and rulings subsequently adopted or made. Any correction of fact to the Minutes or to the Constitution or Standing Rules as published should be brought to the attention of the Secretary and to that of the next available Business Meeting as soon as they are discovered.
Rule 17: At all sessions of the Business Meeting, the hall will be divided into smoking and non-smoking sections by the Presiding Officer of the Meeting.
Rule 18: The motion to adjourn the Main Meeting will be in order after the amendments to the Constitution proposed at the last Worldcon Business Meeting for ratification at the current Business Meeting have been acted upon.
Rule 19: At the Site-Selection Meeting fifteen (15) minutes shall be allotted to each of the future selected Worldcons. During the first five (5) minutes, their representative may make such presentations as they may wish. The remaining time shall be available for questions to be asked about the representative's Worldcon. Questions may be submitted in writing at any previous session of the Business Meeting and if so submitted shall have priority (if the submitter is present at Question Time and still wishes to ask the question) except that under no circumstances may a person ask a second question as long as any person wishes to ask a first question. Questions are limited to fifteen (15) seconds and answers to two (2) minutes. Any of these time limits may be adjusted for any presentation or question by majority vote. If time permits at the Site-Selection Meeting, bidders for the convention one year beyond the date of the Worldcon being voted upon will be allotted five (5) minutes each to make such presentations as they may wish.
Rule 20: These Standing Rules shall continue in effect until altered or rescinded by a motion from the floor of any Business Meeting made by any WSFS member and adopted by majority vote of the Business Meeting. An amendment to the Standing Rules shall be effective immediately after the end of the Business Meeting at which it was passed.
Rule 21: Before voting on a motion to call the question, the Presiding Officer shall, without debate, ask for a show of hands of those persons wishing to speak on the matter under consideration.
Rule 22: All committees are authorized to organize themselves in any lawful manner and to adopt rules for the conduct of their business, which may include mail ballots, subject to any contrary provisions of the Constitution, the Standing Rules, or instructions of the Society.
Rule 23: The setting, for any item of business, of a specific time limit after which debate will not be in order does not prohibit the consideration, without debate, of subsidiary motions after that time.
Rule 24: In the version of the Constitution and Standing Rules provided by the Business Meeting staff for publication prior to the following Worldcon, all changes and deletions shall be clearly indicated.
Rule 25: If a Worldcon Committee adopts a parliamentary authority for the Business Meeting other than that specified in the Constitution, it must in timely fashion publish information about how to obtain copies of the manual in question.
Kevin Standlee, Chairman
George P. Flynn, Secretary
1995 WSFS Business Meeting