There weren't actual rules excluding them. Compare the "about" page for the more mainstream Worldcon with the one for BasedCon: https://www.worldcon.org/about

There weren't actual rules excluding them. Compare the "about" page for the more mainstream Worldcon with the one for BasedCon: https://www.worldcon.org/about-worldcon/ https://www.worldcon.org/about-worldcon/ https://www.basedcon.com/?page_id=85 https://www.basedcon.com/?page_id=85 BasedCon's "about" has hot takes on guns, socialism, abortion, etc. Worldcon's "about" doesn't say anything about those topics at all. Here's the Registration FAQ for next year's Worldcon in Glasgow: https://glasgow2024.org/get-involved/registration-faq/ https://glasgow2024.org/get-involved/registration-faq/ There are no hot-button American political topics mentioned either way there. The last time I was at a science fiction convention there was a wide variety of political views among attendees, just as there have been among Hugo-winning SF authors. BasedCon seems unusual not in what sort of views it permits but in what it explicitly rejects.