WorldCon trying a consultative online vote

Scrolling Mastodon on Dec. 19, I saw a post from Nicholas Whyte about the 2024 Glasgow WorldCon planning a consultative (nonbinding) online vote about a proposed change to the Hugo Awards, which would add two categories.  

I was pretty excited about this, and posted threads about it on both Mastodon and Bluesky. I got a few favorites on Mastodon and a lot of favorites and boosts (and a few new followers) on Bluesky. I'll recap here:

This is pretty exciting and potentially important for SFFH fans! Glasgow Worldcon is holding a consultative ONLINE vote between the close of award voting and the start of the convention, about a proposal to create two more Hugo Award Categories. But this will also test online Hugo voting in general.

The onsite-only voting process does require a demonstration of true commitment from voters (I can attest to this, having attended several lengthy Business Meetings). But as I noted, it's far from inclusive.
Per @nwhyte 's press release for Glasgow2024 Worldcon: "In 2016, the idea of an approval vote for Hugo finalists, as a third round in the nomination process, was passed at the Business Meeting but not ratified in 2017. We therefore propose to test the operation of a consultative vote..."

So while this consultative online vote will be nonbinding for this particular Hugo Awards resolution, it could help to eventually lead to WSFS members voting online as a *part* of a future three-step ratifications process (with the other two steps presumably being on-site votes at successive cons).

I'm excited by this idea, which would help make the World Science Fiction Society amendment-ratification process more inclusive every time, instead of swinging between the populations of whoever can make it to the onsite, multi-day WSFS Business Meetings at two successive Worldcons for each change.

I think trying to move to online-only voting (with no onsite steps) would be far too drastic a change to the WSFS amendment process for now. But adding an online voting component absolutely seems appropriate to me. Participation in this nonbinding vote will help bring that future possibility closer.

On a personal note, I'll certainly be participating in this vote. I'd been planning to attend the Glasgow Worldcon this summer, and participate in the business meetings, until I found out that neither masks nor vaccinations will be required. Now I'm torn, but at least my opinion will be seen online.

For the record, I'll be voting against the proposed change to the Hugo Awards, which would add two more categories to an already long list of awards. But I think adding an online component to the voting process is a great idea.

Duolingo 2023 Year in Review

 Duolingo sent me its 2023 Year in Review assessment (despite there being nearly a month left of 2023, grrr). I'm a top 1% Spanish learner! My streak of days in a row doing language exercises now stands at 576. 

This year, I focused on Spanish. In 2022, I had started off dabbling in Latin and German, then switched solely to Spanish after being laid off, partly in hopes of making myself more marketable. That hasn't produced any professional results yet, but I'm enjoying the process and keeping my brain sharp with this course.

The chart says 3,838 words learned, but that's a bit ambiguous. First of all, it's total words learned, not just Spanish; second, I think Duolingo means individual words, not lexemes (e.g. "be" would be a lexeme that includes am, are, is, was, were, etc.). So female and male versions of adjectives would each count, as well as each variant (person and tense) in a conjugation. Spanish also has declensions in pronouns, for subject vs. object vs. possessive. So what I really have learned so far in Spanish is probably between 2,500 and 3,000 word variants. 

Experts differ on how many words it takes to be considered fluent; I've seen anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 words for basic conversational functionality, from 4,000 to 10,000 words to live and work in another country, and 10,000 to 20,000 to be considered native-level fluency. I am not sure whether this means words or lexemes. Anyway, I have a long, long way to go toward fluency, but I am confident I could visit a Spanish-speaking city and get around as a tourist without too much trouble, after adjusting to whatever accent is prevalent there and getting people to "hable más despacio, por favor" (speak more slowly, please).

Besides Duolingo, I've started watching some shows and movies with closed-captioning in Spanish, where that's available, to try to increase my familiarity with the sounds of the language. So I'll hear the dialogue and try to match it with what's printed on the screen.

Meanwhile, my phone has started showing me some ads in Spanish. Sometimes I understand a whole sentence, but more often I'll just catch a word or two. I think it'll be quite a while before I try the reverse audio exercise of watching an English-record show in Spanish with English captions -- unless I start watching something made originally in Spanish. I'd rather not just try random telenovelas, so recommendations are welcome!