View source for Discon 1 Guide: Introduction

==='''0.5 [[Hugos|HUGOS]]'''===

Assemble the [[Hugos]] (the awards themselves) early. (This advice has been passed from [[con committee]] to [[con committee]] for years. As far as I know, none has ever followed it. [[Chicon III]] [[Hugos]] were assembled during the [[con]]. With the [[Discon]], final assembly was done just 24 hours before the awards were handed out. [[Hugo]] assembly at [[Seacon]] was Thursday afternoon immediately preceding the [[con]], with the phone ringing about ten times per hour.)

Costs: the [[Hugos]] (plating, casting, machining and all) cost us about $90 for a set of seven. They'd have been lots more if it had not been for [[Howard DeVore]]'s contacts and hard work. Bases cost about $19 for another set of seven. The plaques, which were photo-engraved, cost about $30 for the set. They were glued, not screwed, to the bases, using epoxy glue.

A note on the rocket ships themselves: our set was cast in aluminum, and then plated with copper or nickel, and finally with chromium. Although there are advantages in the aluminum (less cost, less weight) the plating difficulty outweighs those advantages. For one thing, if anything goes at all wrong with the plating, blisters, stripped places, and the like, then it's impossible to strip the plating off and start over again, since anything that will get the chromium off will attack the aluminum with vast enthusiasm. For another thing, while a pit in an aluminum casting can only be sanded out (if it isn't too deep) a pit in a brass casting can be filled with solder before the final machining. Another point: the chrome doesn't look enough better than just nickel to be worth either the extra cost or the risk of the chrome blistering or peeling. For future [[Hugos]], we recommend either brass casting, plated with nickel only; or possibly an aluminum casting, either polished as is or anodized, but definitely not plated.

In addition to the [[Hugos]], the [[Discon I]] also gave two brass plaques: one to the [[GoH]], [[Will F. Jenkins]], and the other to the [[toastmaster]], [[Isaac Asimov]]. These were each about four inches across and about one inch thick, which made them very impressively heavy. The toastmaster's had "[[Toastmaster]] - [[Discon]] - [[21st World Science Fiction Convention]]" on the face, together with the witch-flask/scientist-testtube emblem from the [[membership cards]]. Both words and illustration were photo-engraved into the metal; more precisely, into an eighth-inch-thick slab of copper which was fastened to the copper with epoxy glue. The [[GoH]]'s was made the same way, with "[[GoH]] - [[Discon]] - [[21st World Science Fiction Convention]]", and the illustration was the owl-and-saturn emblem from the name-card [[badges]] used at the con itself. The plaques were expensive: photo-engraving and metal-milling are not cheap. Cost for the pair was about $40.

Now, for the [[Hugo Voting Process|voting]]: The rules that have been in effect since the [[Seacon]] leave the [[Hugo nominations|nominating procedure]] entirely up to the [[convention committee]]. The [[WSFS Constitution|constitution]] adopted at the [[Discon]] does not change this point. [[Chicon III]] accepted nominations from anyone who wrote in. Because of worries about possible ballot-box stuffing by fictitious names, the [[Discon]] restricted nominations to people who were either members of the previous [[con]], our own [[con]], or both (that is, people who had paid for membership in either or both). We had no trouble with nomination-stuffing. (We understand, from confidential remarks from previous [[con committees]], that ours was one of the few recent [[cons]] that was not troubled by ballot box stuffing attempts; [[Seacon]] was another.) On the other hand, we received only about 80 sets of nominations, which meant that the fourth and fifth positions on the list of final nominees were decided by very few votes indeed, and this is not good.

Final voting on the [[Hugos]] was limited to members of the [[Discon]] as of the date of the closing of the voting. To encourage voting, we used printed, return addressed, postage prepaid postcards with the names of the nominees thereon. This of course was expensive; about $16, plus printing. On the other hand, it did improve the number of votes (about 226 people voted in the final poll, not counting late votes) and it did insure against anyone not a member sending in a forged card. For future cons, I'd suggest prepaid postcards for both nominations and final votes. Be careful and proofread these final ballots; we left "Burn, Witch, Burn" off our postcard list<ref>If [[George Scithers|George]] wasn't accepting the principle of Collective Responsibility, this would read properly: "[[Dick Eney]] left 'Burn, Witch, Burn' off ..."</ref>, an omission which was very embarrassing indeed.

In calling for nominations (usually done in about your second progress report) we strongly advise printing the entire set of rules governing balloting and eligibility; it won't eliminate all complaints about who's eligible for what, but it'll reduce the complainers to a few notorious witwants who'll complain in any event.

Another problem - but a potential one, not yet realized: what if somebody with more money than morals buys enough [[memberships]] in the [[con]] for real and/or mythical friends for this set of friends' votes may throw the nominations or the election in some or other category. [[Dick Lupoff]] raised the question a little while ago, once in a [[fanzine]] article and once in an ad for [[Canaveral Press]], which suggested that all the [[E. R. Burroughs]] fans should Get Together and vote for that antique potboiler, ''Savage Pellucidar''. (No, he didn't call it an antique potboiler; I did.) What to do? Well, we don't know. All we can say is that the [[con committee]], by rule and by custom, has pretty wide powers to rule unsavory candidates off the ballot, and that all previous [[con committees]] will back you up if you do anything within reason.