After writing the post “So, You Want to Vote on Worldcon Location? Yay!” I’ve been asking various friends and associates if they can help translate the info into their native languages, to get the word out. You can find the Finnish version here, the Swedish info here, and now we have a Chinese translation! (More to come, as well, I believe!)
那么，你想投票选择世界科幻大会的会址吗？当然！
Worldcon is historically kinda bad at getting the vote out on site selection(aka “voting on where Worldcon will be in the future”). Last year, there were 6130 total members of LoneStarCon3. Of these, 1348 members voted on site selection, or not quite 22% of the membership. And that was a highly contested race!
在世界科幻大会的历史上，一直没那么多人参与选址投票（或者说，选出未来的世界科幻大会举办地）。去年的LoneStarCon3共有6130位会员，其中有1348人投票选了会址，还不到总人数的22%。那还算一场激烈的比赛呢！
I don’t think low voter turnout is the intended outcome, but I do think Worldcon voting isn’t the easiest system to understand. Worldcon is a big endeavor, and big things are unwieldy, and site selection voting hasn’t often made it to the top of the list of things to make sure the public is knowledgeable about. Plus, according to the Sasquan report I read last month, the previous five Worldcon races were uncontested. Maybe it’s pretty understandable that it wasn’t a huge focus in the past. I think I was on Worldcon staff for at least two years before I knew we could vote on Worldcon location.
我不认为低投票率是预期的结果，但是我真的认为世界科幻大会的投票系统不那么容易让人理解。世界科幻大会是一个巨大的项目，巨大的事情都难以掌控，而且选址投票并没有常常被放在公众必知的列表顶部。另外，根据上个月我读到的Sasquan的第一期报告，前五次世界科幻大会竞争都不那么激烈。这很好理解，因为这在过去并不是一个热点。我当了至少两年世界科幻大会的工作人员之后才知道我们可以投票选会址。
But this is how we decide where Worldcon will be! Which has a huge impact on the con in the long term (more on that later)! And it’s the least expensive option for getting a membership to Worldcon! So I’m going to attempt to explain it.
但这是我们决定世界科幻大会在哪里举办的唯一方法！这在长期来说会对大会产生巨大的影响（稍后详述）！而且投票选会址可以让你以最便宜的价格参加世界科幻大会！待我细细道来。
After losing Worldcon 2015 by only 35 votes, I truly believe that only YOU can bring Worldcon to Helsinki! You, and many others voting with us …
以仅仅35票之差输掉世界科幻大会2015年的举办权之后，我才真正相信，只有你能把世界科幻大会带来赫尔辛基！你，还有许多其他给我们投票的人……
Prerequisite: Worldcon Membership
先决条件：世界科幻大会的会员
The first thing you need to vote on Worldcon location is a membership to the Worldcontwo years prior to the year you want to vote on. It can be a Supporting (aka non-attending) membership, or an Attending membership. But it’s required before you can go further on voting. I cannot stress the two years prior part enough — having a membership to Loncon3 this summer won’t allow you to vote on Helsinki for 2017, sadly, because it’s the wrong year. (You can vote for Kansas City in 2016 or Beijing in 2016 this year, though.)
参与投票选出世界科幻大会会址的第一件事情是：你要成为所投选会址举办年之前两年的那届大会会员。可以是一个支持(Supporting)（或称：非参会）会员，也可以是参会会员。只有进行了这步，你才能继续投票。我在举办年之前两年这部分上怎么强调都不嫌多 ——比方说：今年夏天在Loncon3上具有会员资格并不足以让你为2017年的赫尔辛基投票，真遗憾，因为年份不对。 （但你可以在今年投给2016年的堪萨斯或者北京。）
You can get your Worldcon membership a couple of different ways, but if this is your first time, I’d suggest purchasing online. The membership prices periodically increase, so you don’t want to wait long if you’re sure you want a membership. If you are at a convention in person, and if the Worldcon has a presence there, you can also usually purchase membership at their fan table (basically, a table where fan-organized groups talk about their conventions, activities, etc.). Sometimes that comes with an at-con discount, sometimes not. Online, though, the Worldcon website should have a “Membership” or “Registration” tab that will get you where you need to go.
购买世界科幻大会的会员资格有很多不同的方式，但如果这是你第一次购买，我建议你在网上买。会员资格的价格会阶段性上升，如果你确定想买就别拖延太久。如果你参加某个大会上，而且世界科幻大会在那儿有个展台，你也可以在展台上买会员资格（展台就是幻迷组织介绍他们的大会、活动等等的地方）。有时有特别折扣，有时没有啦。在网上，世界科幻大会的网站上总有一个“会员”或“注册”的选项钮，引导你如何买票。
SIDE NOTE: HUGO VOTING
边注：雨果奖投票
The Hugo Awards are the premier fan-selected awards in science fiction and fantasy. All Supporting and Attending memberships come with Hugo nomination and voting rights. If you get your membership early enough, you can nominate works for the Hugos to the year prior, the year of, and the year after your membership. So if you have a membership to Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, and if you got it early enough, you could nominate works for the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Hugo ballots. You also get to vote on the final nominated ballot for the year of your membership. For members of Sasquan, we will get to vote on the Hugo Award nominees next summer, and help select the winners. The Hugos are a huge thing unto themselves, and something I love, but that’s not the point of this post, so I’m going to leave it at that for now.
雨果奖是科幻奇幻界由幻迷投票选出的最高奖项。所有支持和参会成员都拥有雨果奖的提名权和投票权。如果你拥有会员资格够早的话，你可以在你拥有会员资格的前一年，当年以及后一年为雨果奖提名作品啦。比如，如果你有Sasquan，2015年世界科幻大会的会员资格的话，而且你买的够早，你可以为2014年，2015年和2016年的雨果奖提名作品。在你获得会员资格的当年，你参与最终选票。对于Sasquan的会员来说，我们可以为明年夏天的雨果奖提名人投票，并且选出最后的获奖者。雨果奖本身是巨大的荣誉，也是我喜欢的，但这不是这篇文章的重点啦，所以我就此打住。
Also Required: Site Selection Fee & Ballot
次级要求：选址费及选票
The next step may involve some waiting, depending on what year you want to vote on. Please don’t give up! We want your voice to be heard! (Or at least, I do!)
进行下一步之前也许要等上一阵，这取决于你想为哪一年投票。请不要放弃！我们希望听到你的声音！ （至少，我想！）
At some point around July 15th or so, the Worldcon coming up (“the seated Worldcon”) will publish a ballot for the site options being voted on at the con. This is also the point at which the con will tell people how to pay their site selection fee in order to vote. The fee amount is frustratingly different every year, but for somewhat understandable reasons. This fee turns into a supporting membership for whichever bid wins the convention, and therefore the bids in question are required to agree on what the fee amount will be. If they can’t agree together, there’s a formula to which it reverts, according to the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) constitution: “If agreement is not reached, the default fee shall be the median (middle value) of the US dollar fees used in the previous three (3) Worldcon site selections.” Generally, this fee has ranged from $30 to $70, I think, recently. There was a bit of politicking (which I personally thought was bullsh*t) last year about trying to make it higher, but we prevailed with $40 to vote on the 2015 Worldcon, which meant more fans could afford to vote. All site selection fees paid are given to the winning bid as seed money to start working on their convention.
大约7月15日左右，该年世界科幻大会将公布大会上用于会址投票的选票。同时大会也会告诉来投票的人们如何支付他们的选址费。令人沮丧的是，出于某些可以理解的理由，该费用数额每年不同。不管哪个城市赢得申办权，这笔费用都会变成支持会员会费，因此各个申办城市必须在数额上达成一致。如果他们没有达成最终一致，有一个公式帮助解决问题。根据世界科幻协会（WSFS）章程：“如果协议没有达成，则默认世界科幻大会选址费应为之前三（3）届的大会选址费的中位数（中间值）。”一般情况下，最近几年这项费用大概在30至70美元之间。去年曾经有些政治活动（我个人认为是瞎扯淡）要把费用抬高，但我们成功把给2015年世界科幻大会的选址投票的费用定为40美元——这意味着更多幻迷能买得起门票。所有选址费用所得将移交给中标的城市作为种子基金，以开始他们的准备工作。
So you need to pay a fee in order to vote on Worldcon site selection, but “fee” is possibly a misleading word. It turns into a Supporting membership of whichever bid wins. This is the absolute cheapest way to become a Worldcon member, and the bid that wins is required to offer an upgrade fee for those who voted and want to change their membership from Supporting to Attending. The exact fee for upgrading is up to the convention; the WSFS constitution only requires that “this fee must not exceed four (4) times the site-selection fee and must not exceed the difference between the site-selection fee and the fee for new attending members.” Hence, cheapest option for membership, whether you want a Supporting or Attending one.
所以，为了给世界科幻大会选址投票你需要支付一定的费用，但也许“费”是一个误导性的词。它会转化为获胜城市的支持会员资格。这是成为一个世界科幻大会会员最便宜的方式，获胜的城市得定一个升级费用，让那些投票了并且想成为参会会员的人可以从支持会员升级到参会会员。具体的升级费用取决于大会；在WSFS章程中只规定，“这个费用不得超过选址费用的四（4）倍，不得超过新参会会员资格费用和选址费用之差”，因此，无论你是想成为支持会员还是参会会员，这都是最便宜的选择。
(You can see how this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle for some fans — membership plus voting on site selection turns into having a membership every other year, at the least expensive rate possible. Maybe that’s okay, but you have to know about it to take advantage of it, which means new fans are hugely disadvantaged, here. That’s also probably a different post unto itself, particularly as I have some ideas on how it could/should be mitigated. But I do acknowledge it, and part of the point of this post is to help fix that if I can.)
（你可以看到对一些幻迷来说这是如何成为死循环的——会员费加上投票选址费逐渐变为每一年都成为会员，这样花的钱是最少的。但你得知道这个事实才能从中获利，这对新幻迷不怎么友好。我有一些减轻这种现象的想法，但那是题外话。我也承认，这篇文章也是部分为了帮助解决这个问题。）
Filling Out the Ballot
填写选票
So! Once you’ve got your membership, and you’ve paid your site selection fee (which hopefully the convention has allowed you to do online), you get to fill out a ballot! We’ve not yet had a site selection ballot be available electronically, but I’m hoping that’ll change for voting on the 2017 bids. Regardless, a paid site selection fee means you’ll at least be able to download and fill out a paper copy, which can then be mailed to the convention or sent with someone you trust who is themselves attending the convention, if you can’t be there. Your ballot needs to be received well in advance of the con if you’re mailing it, so be sure to check the website for deadlines on this. (For example, site selection ballots last year had to be received by August 15th if mailed, or presented on site at LoneStarCon3 by 6 pm on August 31st.) At con, site selection hours will be posted, and all ballots must be cast by the day and time publicized. This is usually 6 pm on the evening of the Masquerade event, so the results can be announced during the WSFS Business Meeting the next morning.
所以！当你买好了会员资格，而且支付了选址费（希望你能在网上支付），你现在就能填写选票啦！我们目前还没有电子版的选址选票，但我希望在投2017年的票时会有所改变。不管怎样，付选址费意味着你至少可以下载并填写一张纸质选票。如果你不去会场的话，可以邮寄到大会或交给你信任的会参加大会的人。如果你使用邮寄方式，你的投票需要在大会之前寄到，所以一定要检查网站上提到的截止时间哦。（例如，去年的选址选票要在8月15日之前邮寄到，或在8月31日下午6时之前提交到LoneStarCon3现场）。大会现场将公布选址截止时间，所有选票必须在公示日期和时间前提交。通常是截止于化妆舞会活动的当天下午6点，这样的话结果能在第二天早上的WSFS会议中宣布。
The ballot for site selection, as with the Hugo ballot, utilizes an instant runoff voting system, also sometimes called the Australian system for preferential voting. This means that you vote for your top choice as number 1, your next favorite choice as number 2, and so on. When ballots are being tallied, first they’ll count number 1 choices. If there’s a majority (over 50%) vote allocation at that point, we’ve chosen a Worldcon location and everyone can get to the partying part of the evening. If there isn’t yet a majority, the least popular site for number 1 votes will have their ballots reallocated to number 2 choices, and we’ll see if that gives someone a majority. This goes on until ballots reallocated give someone more than 50% of the ballots (as with last year, when Spokane won by 35 votes over Helsinki in the third round of voting — prior to that, Helsinki won the first two rounds, but didn’t have a majority yet). If there’s never a majority, or if “None of the Above” wins more than 50% of the votes, there is mass mayhem and hysteria. Also possibly recounting and gnashing of teeth. That’s never happened, though, and the statistical likelihood is infinitesimally small. Hopefully we will avert disaster and proclaim a winner, instead!
For a video explanation of the instant runoff vote, take a look at the video our team produced last year:
选址投票与雨果奖投票一样，使用了排序复选制，有时也被称为澳洲偏好投票制。这意味着，你要选出你的第一选择，第二选择……填在1,2……边上。当选票汇集到一起时，他们会首先数第一选择。如果这时有多数（超过50％）投票选择相同的话，我们就已经选定了世界科幻大会的会址，然后每个人都可以去晚上的派对啦。如果没有过半数的候选城市，第一选择得票最少的候选城市会被淘汰，然后将其得票依第二选择重新分配给其他候选城市，然后我们将继续看是否有某地占多数。这将一直持续到某地的选票超过50％（去年的时候，斯波坎在第三轮投票中压倒赫尔辛基35票——在此之前，赫尔辛基赢得了前两轮，但并没有过半数）。如果永远没有过半数，或者“以上皆非”赢得的票数超过50％，会造成极大的混乱和恐慌，也会有重新计算和咬牙切齿。这种情况从未发生过，这在统计上的可能性是无穷小。希望我们会能避免灾难，选出赢家！
对于排序复选制的讲解，看看我们的团队去年制作的视频：
So in order to vote for Helsinki’s 2017 Worldcon bid:
为了投票支持2017年赫尔辛基申办世界科幻大会:
- Get a membership (Supporting is currently USD $40, though they may raise it) to Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon.
- Set a reminder in your calendar for around July 15, 2015, which is around when there should be a site selection ballot for the 2017 bids.
- Go to the Sasquan site again to pay the site selection fee.
- Fill in your choices for Worldcon 2017 locations in order of preference.
- Send your ballot by snail mail, by attending the convention in person, or possibly by electronic submission — it’s unclear if Sasquan will enable this function for the 2017 site selection.
- Emailinfo@helsinkiin2017.org to tell us we should make sure your vote has been received, and/or to get further help if you run into difficulty, and/or to hear our gratitude for your participation in this election. 🙂
- 成为Sasquan，2015年世界科幻大会的会员（支持会员的价格目前是40美元，也许他们会涨价）。
- 在2015年7月15日周围设置日历提醒，在那时应该会有2017年选址投票的选票。
- 至Sasquan网站，支付选址费。
- 按偏好顺序填写你对于2017年世界科幻大会会址的选择。
- 通过邮寄寄出你的选票，或者亲临会展，也可以通过电子方式提交（如果Sasquan启用此功能的话，目前还不清楚是否可以）。
- 发送电子邮件到info@helsinkiin2017.org来告诉我们，我们会确保已收到你的投票，并提供进一步的帮助，，同时感谢你参与这次选举。🙂
Past Worldcon locations continue to have an impact, coloring the conventions for years to come, so I think voting on location is an important thing to do, particularly in such a highly contested race as we’re currently in.
过去的世界科幻大会会址会持续产生影响。使未来几年的大会更加丰富多彩，我想投票选举场地是非常重要的事情，尤其是在目前这样一场激烈的竞争中。
CrystalVisits 
