Jesi Lipp

When asked to choose one format for the 2026 Business Meeting: 73% picked an online meeting held on distributed dates prior to the main convention dates, 16% picked a hybrid meeting, and 11% picked an in-person meeting.

When asked which Business Meeting formats they would be willing or able to attend: 92% said they would attend a fully online meeting held on distributed dates prior to the main convention dates, 60% said they would attend a hybrid meeting during the main con dates, 47% said they would attend an in-person meeting during the main con dates, and 34% said they would attend a fully online meeting during the at-con dates.

Barriers to In-Person Attendance: 61% of respondents would not have been able to attend an in-person meeting this year. When asked what has prevented them from attending the Business Meeting in past years (if that has ever been the case): 69% said inability to travel to Worldcon, 41% said a time conflict with the convention dates, and 45% said serving as a volunteer/panelist/dealer.

When asked "Why did you attend this year's Business Meeting" - 64% were interested in the virtual meeting, 55% were interested in a specific item or item(s) of business, 44% said they always attend the Business Meeting.

Feedback survey demographics: 132 responses, which is 50% of attendees; 64% of respondents attended all four sessions. 42 people reported they were first-time Business Meeting attendees. 40% of respondents consider themselves a "Business Meeting Regular."

Attendance information, based on logins to the Lumi platform: 262 total attendees, 119 members who attended all four sessions, 160 average attendance.

Title image reads "2025 Virtual WSFS Business Meeting: by the numbers" with the Seattle Worldcon 2025 logo.

Behold! Survey data! Have some shiny infographics about this year's virtual Business Meeting for @seattlein2025.org

That sounds vaguely correct.

I am desperately trying to get more talent in the pool. I've got my eyes on about 5 people. 2 are, I think, ready to preside after 2026. 1 prob needs more time in the cooker, and idk if they would ever actually want to. The other 2 I don't think are even aware that I have my eye on them lol.

This list is missing Darusha Wehm who did 2020. Which, yes, was a weird one, but also they did it very well and I bet they could do it again, and would be willing to do online. (One of my biggest regrets is that the timezone scheduling meant it wasn't reasonable for them to be on staff this year)

Correct. And while I hope we never need to go into Exec Session again after 2026, the last few years have made me very firm on the fact that we need a gated, credentialed videoconferencing platform. Basic Zoom webinar won’t cut it.

Virtual WSFS Business Meeting Survey We are collecting feedback about the virtual WSFS Business Meeting for Seattle in 2025. This survey is meant for those who attended at least one session of the online meeting. This survey will be ope...

If you attended the virtual WSFS Business Meeting, please fill out the survey if you have not already done so! We've had a great response rate so far, but I want as much data as possible to poke! forms.gle/AyQ7cHxPtBFW...

And, to be clear, "we" here means "fandom, and specifically the programmers in fandom." It does not mean "me and other people" because I Am Not A Programmer. Except for in Excel, which counts, but very much not for this.

And would also be nearly impossible to test at scale until you are live. And "live" for this would be very different than "live" for Planorama. You can't rollout an update while the meeting is happening. It needs to be 100% there from the moment you gavel in the meeting. 95% won't cut it.

A system like Lumi, or even better? Well, there's a reason we paid over $20k for Lumi. Maybe it's possible for us to create in-house. We did create Planorama, after all. But it would be A LOT of work.

A simple system where you can only submit one request at a time with no text field to add more info and no ability for the staff to respond - I think that's decently doable for us to create, if we have the people points. But that's going to be a very clunky experience.

#3 is where things get complicated. It depends on how fancy you want it to be, knowing that fancier = harder to implement, but much easier for staff to use and much better experience for participants.

#2 is the easiest bit. Making a thing that handles voting is trivial (once again, to my understanding and IANAP)

My understanding is that #1 is fiddly but doable. This is also the piece that would need to interact with the Reg system, which opens up the discussion that have been had elsewhere about the fact that we never use the same Reg system more than, like, 3 times.

With the caveat that I Am Not A Programmer....depends. There are basically 3 pieces here (setting aside the chatting/Discord piece, because that can be tacked on). 1) Credentialed Zoom, 2) Voting, 3) Speaker Pool.

Business Meeting Agenda and Recaps The 2025 Business Meeting Agenda, along with the instructions for the virtual meeting platform, may be downloaded from the 'Documents' section of this page.

Missed the last virtual WSFS Business Meeting or want a recap? The notes are now available for review!

Catch up on the discussion and decisions from the Third Main Meeting, held July 25:
seattlein2025.org/wsfs/busines...

#WSFS #SeattleWorldcon2025

Also, I am really sorry about the lack of Presiding Doggo for all of the online sessions. Unfortunately, Kaylee's recent health issues mean she sleeps a lot more and is way less interested in Why Is The Boss Talking To Someone Who Is Not Me.

The final online session of the 2025 WSFS Business Meeting is complete. And now, I'm going to go crawl into some fanfic and pretend that I don't still have an in-person meeting to preside over in 3 weeks.

Today's virtual meeting is finished, and I'm really freaking tired. Presiding with a headcold is a *challenge.*

But hey, presiding with a headcold also gave us the WSFS Unicorn Sparkle Committee, so.

Business Meeting Agenda and Information The 2025 Business Meeting Agenda, along with the instructions for the virtual meeting platform, may be downloaded from the 'Documents' section of this page.

We’ve posted a summary of Friday’s Virtual WSFS Business Meeting! Catch up on what was discussed and stay informed ahead of Seattle Worldcon 2025.

Read the recap here: seattlein2025.org/wsfs/busines...

I have never been more proud of the nerds, we did it nerds

The first virtual WSFS Business Meeting has wrapped up, and I'm really happy with how that went. Now I'm gonna go eat ice cream.

If you’re excited about the idea of the virtual Business Meeting allowing more folks to participate in WSFS governance, I really hope you’ll join the meeting tomorrow and show your support!

It's 3 days away now, and I hope to see folks there! There's a decent chance you'll get to meet my dog at some point!

Hi! I'm this year's Presiding Officer - the biggest thing is to be there, so that you can participate in debate and vote, and encourage anyone else who is a stakeholder to do the same.