Michael Rapoport — from the Wall Street Journal — contacted me to ask me if I would be willing to offer any immediate thoughts on the results of the 2015 Hugo awards, which are being given out in Spokane tomorrow. Because I don’t know how much of anything I say to the media will ever actually make it to print, I wanted to put here what I essentially told Michael:
I am 10 hours ahead of the U.S. West Coast. I am also working 12-hour afternoon-through-evening duty shifts. the Hugos will be announced when I am off-duty, and asleep in my trailer. I won’t know the results until long after the fact.
Because people will be gloating and/or gnashing their teeth (alternately) I’ve not been much inclined to make any after-the-fact statements. My “job” with this thing, finished the minute the door shut on the voting.
But I want to re-emphasize something I told WIRED magazine’s Amy Wallace: it doesn’t necessarily matter who wins or loses a Hugo award this year, as much as it matters that participation keeps increasing.
This year there were a record number of memberships, and a record number of ballots cast. This is very, very good. A democracy (any democracy) is only as worthwhile as those who keep their end up by actively participating. Past Hugo voting has tended to be remarkably anemic. Sad Puppies has changed this significantly — for two years running. If the participation (beyond 2015) declines, the Hugos are diminished. If participation grows, the Hugos mean more. That’s the real bottom line (in my book) and it goes way beyond which “side” can construct victory narratives.
So, that’s my statement.
Speaking personally, I am definitely rooting for people to take home trophies. Especially some of my professional associates who have labored long and hard in this industry for many, many years, and who finally got their shot at the award because more fans decided to put their money where their mouths were. I can’t guarantee any of those pros will win. But then, that’s been part of what makes this year so interesting: all bets are off. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. It’s a huge point of speculation.
Not knowing what will happen, is also very healthy in a democracy. It encourages people to keep having their say, because they believe their voices will count.
I’d like to think this will become a feature of the Hugos — the unknown! — for years to come.
Brad R. Torgersen 
To the day that there are hundreds of thousands of voters and no taste-makers or insiders can sway things noticably.
Stay safe, and get back in one piece so you can keep writing more stories!
I don’t care to make any Hugo predictions. I honestly have no idea. I underestimated the success of Sad Puppies 3, so anything I say could be way off base.
The internet and right-wing conspiracy nuts and those opposing them have now turned the awards into their private battlefield, their platform, their private joke and feel-good bubble. This is ridiculous, those people from both sites, the sad puppies and the ones opposing them have destroyed the Hugo Awards, and are turning the awards into a political rostrum, distracting from what the awards exclusively should be about. The quality of the books and nothing more.
This is why in my opinion the organizers should think about abolishing the system of popular vote and having a jury instead.
I am really saddened that you’re part of abusing the awards for pushing your personal agenda, really really sad, most people who voted for the slate the puppies recommended, probably didn’t even read most books they voted for but followed blind with the masses as is often the case. This is an incredible sad affair destroying the Hugo awards bit by bit.
@seranju
so it was just fine when only one side was pushing their personal agendas and claiming that there were no agendas?
There are already awards given by the professionals, the hugo’s claim to be different. They are free to change the rules, but they need to remember that puppies will have just as much a right to vote on the proposed changes as any other members of worldcon.
Yeah, Seranju, the only appropriate response to that is imagining Guy Fleegman giving you his “Did you guys ever WATCH the show?” look to you, cause clearly you haven’t been reading what we’ve been saying.
Especially given what Brad just said in this very post.
@davidelang
Rules changes can only be voted on by someone with an Attending Membership who is not only at the meeting but is actually physically at the business meeting. So while you’re correct in saying that puppies have just as much right to vote as anyone else, there’s a MUCH higher barrier to get over in order to vote for a rules change than there is to vote for the Hugos.
Seranju: Since you say “both sides”, I assume you left a similar tirade in the comments at anti-Puppy blogs as well, right?
Seranju, it is obvious that you have not been following this story. Past Hugo voting numbers from the last ten or fifteen years have revealed suspicious nomination and voting patterns, while the last couple years of Sad Puppies have shown that Sad Puppy voters nominate and vote all over the place. Sad Puppy voters (and Rabid Puppy ones, too) are the classic “like herding cats” sf fans, whereas the suspicious vote folks tend to vote and nominate nearly in lockstep.
But thank you for supporting free opinions and voting, even if you point your accusations in the wrong direction.
The sinister anti-woman agenda of Sad Puppies 4 revealed!
Sarah A Hoyt: “Next year Sad Puppies 4 headed by my good friend Kate Paulk will try to make the number of voters so many that no suggestion list – not even ours – can hold sway and so that the award will be representative of what the public at large is likely to enjoy. That way “Hugo Winner” will become a “buy signal” for most people again. Kate intends to call it Sad Puppies 4, the Embiggenning.”
Diabolical misogyny!
Sarah has created a new motto “Sad Puppies 4: Release the Bitches”. [Evil Grin]
Note, for people with a sever lack of humor “bitch” means “female dog”. [Big Evil Grin]
Might as well pre-empt the inevitable Puppy-kicker attack.
The first “tell” in terms of who some of the new WorldCon members might be: Helsinki won the 2017 WorldCon site with an absolute majority of votes on the first round. So I think the folks who thought that no one would register just to vote for the 2017 site were probably wrong.
Why wouldn’t someone vote for Helsinki? Are you assuming that people who registered to vote on the Sad Puppy side of things wouldn’t also vote for Helsinki? And… I sort of hesitate to suggest this here… might not RPs vote for Helsinki?
@julieapascal
Helsinki has nothing to do with Sad Puppies and anti-Sad Puppies. That’s exactly my point. Helsinki won in a landslide, which suggests to me that, for many people, site selection was their top priority for registering for the con.
Too bad that slates mean that the only voice that gets heard is the voice of the slate maker.
Too bad that slates mean that the only voice that gets heard is the voice of the slate maker.
This again? Seriously? You’re saying that American democracy is useless because we all don’t individually write in a candidate in the election. You’re ignoring that the Sad Puppy slate is nothing more than a recommendation list, and we all nominated what we individually wanted.
“This year there were a record number of memberships, and a record number of ballots cast.”
Yep. Whatever happens tonight, our gains are secure.
“Helsinki has nothing to do with Sad Puppies and anti-Sad Puppies.”
Doesn’t Dark Lord Vox live in Finland?
My mistake, he lives in Switzerland. But Castalia House is based in Finland.
What if VD’s goal wasn’t getting Hugos, but influencing where the con is held?
Frank… “has nothing to do with” is not in dispute. Of course the site selection has nothing to do with Sad Puppies. But how does a strong showing for Helsinki indicate that people joined World Con just to vote for Helsinki? Is there some reason that a majority of Puppies of any sort wouldn’t go… “Helsinki? Cool beans. I’m voting for Helsinki.” Is there some reason that a majority of anti-Puppies wouldn’t go… “Helsinki? Cool beans. I’m voting for Helsinki.”
I guess I just don’t see how Helsinki couldn’t be something that both sides (as sides go) like and thought was a good idea.
Christopher… I truly think that’s in weird conspiracy territory which is why I hesitated to mention it but what are the chances that he’s NOT going to push for a big show for a Finland based science fiction and fantasy publisher? How many of them do you suppose there are?
Bottom line though… I truly hope that the Finish woman who’s a regular on Sarah’s blog (can’t spell her name, no one can spell Finish names, starts with a P) will be able to attend and meet people. She’s talked about how little there is in Finland when it comes to promotion of science fiction. I really really REALLY want her to go and have a great time and hopefully some of her favorite authors can make it over there too.
I could be utterly wrong, but I thought I should share it just in case.
Re: Helsinki. Because the alternative was DC. And things are already paralleling too close to “The Hunger Games” for comfort: why would ANYONE want to come to Capital District (grin)
“Too bad that slates mean that the only voice that gets heard is the voice of the slate maker.”
When the voting pool is small, slates have a better chance of succeeding. When a voting pool is large, slates don’t do as well.
But, if your best/preferred solution to stop slates is to come up with a rule proposal that needs 76 pages to explain it, by all means, go right ahead. Surely thats got to be easier than gtting people to vote…
@julieapascal and @Keith Glass
The other North American option was Montreal. I think the Helsinki win means that a lot of the voters were European and wanted the Con back in Europe. And the whole Puppies/anti-Puppies has been mostly an American squabble (despite the fact that Vox Day lives in Europe). I was at Archipelacon (in Finland) earlier this year, and the vibe there was mostly along the GRRM line: Regardless of how we got here, we should vote on the merits of the nominees.
Oh it’s *definitely* mostly an American squabble.
One thing though… a lot of supporting memberships means a lot of votes from people for whom a trip to Helsinki is no more impossible than a trip to DC or Montreal. I might be able to go to KC if I plan ahead and am very careful about saving my money and I drive. The idea that Americans will vote for the convention to be in the US so they can attend has merit, but for a whole lot of people who signed up this year, it’s probable that attendance isn’t a remote possibility no matter where the convention is held.
@julieapascal
You have to pay extra to vote on site selection. I’m surprised that as many people voted as they did, and even more surprised that Helsinki got it right out of the gate–it won an absolute majority on the first vote.
Extra money to vote is a different story. Still seems like a good result though.
@julieapascal
I don’t think it’s a bad result. I just think it might (and emphasis on the MIGHT) signal that the whole Puppies/anti-Puppies skirmish isn’t going to be as important as many of us thought.
Well, the Puppies don’t WANT it to be important… which is a point that so very many deliberately miss.
This is what Sarah Hoyt sent as a reply to a WSJ inquiry… “Next year Sad Puppies 4 headed by my good friend Kate Paulk will try to make the number of voters so many that no suggestion list – not even ours – can hold sway…”
She meant it.
Ah well. Requires Hate is not just a pseudonym any longer, it’s now the mantra.
Had to quit watching the stream after they strutted around celebrating their anti-Jew, anti-Female bigotry.
When I was in the Philippines at Clark AB there was a baby… it was born with horrible medical problems and would surely die without care. An American couple wanted to adopt it in order to get the baby access to the military hospital resources and American medical resources so the baby might have a chance to live. The mother couldn’t give it up. It died.
I understand the mother’s decision. But it was a selfish one.
We won. Fuck you.
By rigging the noms for your buddies, all you did was deny a Hugo to writers (5 of them) who would’ve otherwise been nominated and who deserved an award. That’s your legacy, asshole.
Thanks for wasting your $ on the con though. I’ve enjoyed the free drinks that have come my way.
I’m pretty sure that the people who voted no award are the ones who screwed 5 writers out of an award, and not the people who nominated said writers for said awards. Isn’t that how the voting is counted?
I wouldn’t have had to beat you if you didn’t burn my dinner.
Classic.
Looks like the Sad Puppies got their noses rubbed in it. This makes me happy. Set up your own award then you can have exactly the stories you want win prizes.
Your behaviour has made me ashamed that I ever thought well of you Brad.
I can wish you well for the future, because, yeah, Sasquan just peed on your past.
Go soak your head, Ebbs. Your “side” won, to the extent that anything about this sorry affair counts as victory, by burning everything to the ground, by pulling in clueless, lazy allies in the news media, by slandering hundreds of people and smearing their own audiences, and by establishing once and for all that science fiction officially belongs to a small group of white leftists who all agree with each other about everything. You have nothing to feel smug about.
Ebbs…
It is pathetic that the people who voted for no award are the ones saying it’s the other guys fault for someone not winning the award.
Not very Tolerant, Not very Tolerant at all.
Thirteen – the point obviously that you missed is that ‘No Award’ won in categories where there was literally *noting good enough to vote for* – I could have scrawled my name in the dirt with a stick and it would have been more worthy of a Hugo than anything your Sl(H)ate Mongering friend threw up.
You don’t want to believe that people voted for what was worthy ok….Then why did Guardians of the Galaxy win? Why wasn’t that ejected into the Sad Puppy Black Hole? I’ll tell you why, because people voted for what was good, and placed No Award above stuff that did not deserve to win anything.
HTH.
Anjewierden…
Nope. Still here.
Your behaviour has made me ashamed that I ever thought well of you Brad.
Says the childish gloater.
Nope. Still here.
Please do continue revealing your true nature. So even the blind and deaf will notice.
It is pathetic that the people who voted for no award are the ones saying it’s the other guys fault for someone not winning the award.
“Look at what you made me do!”
You’re stating that every single Hugo voter, including the ones rallied in by loudly, virulently anti-Puppy bloggers and authors, read all the candidates and voted on nothing but quality? And that all those slanderous articles in the news media, endless social media campaigns, accusations of racism and sexism and whatever-ism, and appeals from major figures had absolutely no effect on these sterling paragons of objectivity? I just want to be clear about this.
Anybody who voted No Award has exactly proved the Sad Puppies point.
In most of the categories, you couldn’t even get 25% of the # of votes “No Award” got. So embarrassing.
The Sad Puppies work was TRASH. It deserved to be burned in a bin. It stunk. Was written by infants.
Remember this: Hugos only go to GOOD work. Not trash. Stop writing. Stop reading., You suck. You are all idiots who can’t read, and don’t know what’s good.
You are pathetic losers.
“No Award” 3,495
“One Bright Star to Guide Them” 556
You’re fucking losers. Stop nominating shit. Leave it to liberals — educated folk who know what’s good. You fucking losers.
Well, the protectors of propriety have decided to go M.A.D. on the award. I was tempted to delete the trolls in this thread. But then, no. Let the trolls display themselves and their sentiment. I said it several times this year: this is not Sad Puppies on trial, this is Worldcon and its culture on trial. Frankly, I think even some of the people who really hated Sad Puppies, didn’t think it would come down to scorched Earth. But when you mobilize heaven and earth to destroy the village — in order to save the village — it’s one of those, “Be careful what you wish for” things.
Brad you basically the conducted the longest suicide mission in history.
Again if Guardians was your nomination, why wasn’t it buried? It clearly wan’t buried because people voted for the stuff the thought was good. Your slate, the majority of which I tried to read, was not (with a couple notable exceptions like Chuck Gannon) – when will you and your Hatey McHate friends get it into your heads that you were rejected because your arguments were terrible and the the material you put forward and uniformly appalling. Chaplain’s War should have been up there duking it out for a Hugo because it was worth the punt – but the other dreck? No.
You want to dismiss that as trolling, go ahead. But you’re the one waking up to failure.
Congratulations on your victory. Enjoy the Hugos’ continuing slide into irrelevancy.
@Hugo Himself
@Paul Ebbs
Your attitude is both hilarious and ridiculous. I’m an avid sci-fi / fantasy reader, not an author, and seeing your smug, condescending, self-congratulating pseudo-elitism makes me think you might not be spending nearly enough time outside of your little echo chamber.
You don’t seem to realize that a scorched earth “victory” is no victory at all for you. Frankly, it looks more like an admission of defeat. You nuked your own awards! You didn’t like the nominations? Boo-freaking-hoo. You’re like the little kids on the playground throwing a tantrum and then taking his ball home because he didn’t get to dictate the rules for everyone else. Then you go “neener-neener, nobody gets to play now!” all the while hiding behind the skirts of slanderous media. Oh yes, what great professional writers you are, telling us poor unwashed masses what we can and cannot like, what we should find good or not.
At this point, I can only say good riddance to the Hugos, to this clique of posers who pretend with much self-importance to represent the entirety of a whole genre of literature only to then turn around and say “oh no no no, you don’t understand it’s only for us and no one else!” when the results don’t suit them. Which is it?
At least now I have a whole new bunch of authors to discover instead of wasting my time with this drivel.
@Brad R. Torgersen
This year was the first time I hear about the Sad Puppies. I was seriously skeptical at first, but to me you’ve proven your point. Good job, and keep writing.
Well, I’m not here to gloat. I’m here to give credit where it’s due. I have to say, I’m amazed at the perspicacity and foresight of the man who orchestrated all this.
Brad, you said the media exposure would galvanize people who really care about good SF/F to come together and jam a stick in the eye of the cliquish, holier-than-though, obnoxious, reactionary fanatics, in the process repudiating those who would use nefarious means to rig an award for their friends and the books they like for political and demographic reasons.
And that’s just what happened.
Job well done, Brad! You can hold your head high knowing that you did exactly what you set out to do. Who among us can say the same?
The Usual Suspects were VERY smug about No Award in the days leading up, so I suspect there was a lot of co-ordination behind the scenes.
So, you say you didn’t come to gloat, and then you gloat. Very classy Erin. Give yourself a hand.
Just getting a look at the numbers. Toni Weisskopf pulled over 1,200 first-place ballots. That’s amazing. Consider that Lou Anders got 207 first-place ballots in 2011. So, Toni Weisskopf rocked the professional long-form category. Unfortunately, the Trufans and their politically-aligned allies decided that destroying the village was necessary to save the village. It was more important for the Trufans that people lose, and get nothing, than that the “wrong” people win. If that’s worth gloating over — you who gloat — look into yourselves and see the black, shriveled, grinchy hearts that beat.
She HAD to be punished. Not only is she a Sad Puppy pick, but she runs Baen.
And remember this quote the next time the Usual Suspects try and claim there’s no bias:
“Phil Sandifer @PhilSandifer · 4h4 hours ago
Phil Sandifer retweeted Supperdude9
Politics is a form of quality. Effing morons.”
You know what’s hilarious about this whole thing?
We’ve sat through months of ‘You’re ruining our fun out of spite!’ comments from the APs, but they seem to be having the time of their lives. On the other hand, our side is also largely happy with the result (admittedly, not as happy as we would have been if this Noah Ward guy didn’t do so well) because it proves our point about how insular and cliquish the Hugos are.
Sad Puppies spread happiness to all!
https://www.blackgate.com/2015/08/23/dear-puppies-your-taste-sucks/
Black Gate used to be one my favorite blogs. But my taste sucks, apparently.
@BobbyB
“You don’t seem to realize that a scorched earth “victory” is no victory at all for you.”
Better a live Roman than a dead Carthaginian.
There seems to be an assumption being made that this was the result of votes for no award. Do we know for sure? I’ve pasted a copy of my post on Mobileread below:
I have not hitherto taken a personal position in the whole Sad and Rabid Puppies saga, simply because I am not familiar with enough of the Nominations/Winners over the period concerned. I will add that I read Ancillary Justice which I enjoyed and thought was a deserving winner in its category and year. I was also unimpressed with the Puppies nominations this year which I thought were very good stories but lacked that something extra which should be present to win such an Award. However, if what has happened is what I suspect has happened then I am about to side with the Puppies out of sheer disgust and the credence that the Puppies allegations have been given by the apparent conduct surrounding the cancellation of these awards. The Hugo’s site at:
http://www.thehugoawards.org states so far as relevant:
“The members of the World Science Fiction Society rejected the slate of finalists in five categories, giving No Award in Best Novella, Short Story, Related Work, Editor Short Form, and Editor Long Form. This equals the total number of times that WSFS members have presented No Award in the entire history of the Hugo Awards, most recently in 1977.”
I have had a quick look at the Constitution of WSFS and the only provision that I could find dealing specifically with the cancellation of awards in a category is as follows:
“Section 3.6: “No Award”. At the discretion of an individual Worldcon Committee, if the lack of nominations or final votes in a specific category shows a marked lack of interest in that category on the part of the voters, the Award in that category shall be canceled for that year.”
Looking at nomination and votes cast in the no award categories would seem to indicate that this rule could not apply.
Alternately, there is a business meeting at each Worldcon with a quorom of 12 members physically present. Only attending as opposed to supporting members can vote at this Business Meeting. There does not seem to be any specific power given to the Business Meeting to cancel awards in particular categories though a specific power may not be necessary. There are also Standing Rules and other guidelines I have not looked at. It appears, however, that a small minority has managed to frustrate the wishes of the majority. The Minutes of this Business Meeting will also make interesting reading as that Meeting seems to have authority to alter the Constitution.
If this is in fact what has happened then I am disgusted by it. A small group who consider themselves to have superior taste have apparently managed to subvert a democratic process.
UPDATE: There seems to be some suggestion that large numbers of voters actually voted for no award. I don’t know off the top of my head whether such a vote would even be valid. However, if this is the case it may provide a justification for the application of Rule 3.6 I quoted above. However, I think the wording of the announcement as the decision to cancel being the vote of the members rather than just the Committee concerned and the “reasons” tend to indicate that the decision was taken by the business meeting. I suppose we will have to wait and see.
Here’s a full look at the numbers I find most interesting:
Toni Weisskopf got 1,216 first-line #1 votes. Arguably the most of any editor in the history of the Hugo awards.
Sheila Gilbert got 754 first-line #1 votes. Again, second only to Toni, arguably the most of any editor in the history of the Hugo awards.
By contrast, Patrick-Nielsen Hayden won a Best Editor Hugo in 2010, with just 140 first-line #1 votes.
2011 saw Lou Anders take a trophy with 207 first-line #1 votes.
2012 got Betsy Wolheim a trophy, with 333 first-line #1 votes.
2013 gave yet another trophy to Patrick Nieslen-Hayden with 209 first-line #1 votes.
2014 was Ginjer Buchana getting a “going away present” retirement trophy with 359 first-line #1 votes.
Now, because of the way the Australian ballot works, the person with the most first-line #1 votes is not always the winner. But that’s usually the way to bet. Whoever gets the most first-line #1 votes is almost always the winner.
Except for this year.
#TrufandomProud
“Arguably the most of any editor in the history of the Hugo awards.”
I think you’ll find that Noah Ward did better. Democracy is such a beautiful thing, isn’t it? The free peoples of the world casting their votes with majestic dignity for a plucky new-comer like Noah… it brings a tear to the eye and a song to the heart!
I was pretty disappointed at the raucous applause that came after every No Award was announced. Some of those nominees were probably sitting right there in the front rows. They were just formally told that their work was undeserving of a Hugo. There was no need to rub salt into the wound.
Hey Brad –
Here is a number I find interesting. Your slating kept Andy Weir off the nomination list for the Campbell Award. You should be so proud.
Brad said:
“I said it several times this year: this is not Sad Puppies on trial, this is Worldcon and its culture on trial. Frankly, I think even some of the people who really hated Sad Puppies, didn’t think it would come down to scorched Earth. But when you mobilize heaven and earth to destroy the village — in order to save the village — it’s one of those, “Be careful what you wish for” things.”
So you aligned yourself with the white privilege culture warriors to effect a Denial of Service attack on the nominations and you don’t like how the fans reacted to your nominations. Really? It always comes down to “Wrong Fans” having “Wrong fun” and voting for “Wrong messages”. Even when it is a record number it is still “Wrong fans”.
Well… you could start your own convention. Or you could realize that not everyone has the same taste as you do, Brad. And certainly not that of your Tea Puppy friends.
Frank: they cheered people losing. Trufandom loves science fiction so much they would rather see nobody win, than the “wrong” people win. This is why I’ve been saying — for far longer than the existence of Sad Puppies — that the shelf date on Trufandom is close to expiration. It’s also worth noting that Trufandom screwed several women out of Best Editor awards — women who would have been on the ballot regardless of Sad Puppies. But those women got screwed anyway. But hey, it’s all good, right? The forces of evil were defeated, right? Trufandom doesn’t love science fiction. Trufandom loves . . . itself.
“Frank: they cheered people losing.”
They cheered because your attempt to force badly-written dreck onto the ballot as the only choice was roundly defeated. If the choice is shit sandwich or nothing, sane people are always going to cheer when nothing wins out.
First time Hugo voter. Did not nominate anyone.
What the Hugo voting showed is that 3,500 voters out of a legion of SF readers decided to vote lockstep to no award anything nominated by people they dislike who voted in lockstep during nominations.
The irony is hilarious! SJWs voted a slate to protest slate nominees! And then they pat themselves on the back for being “open-minded!” Awesome!
Worldcon is a tiny, tiny con with a small number of voters. For the Hugos to regain any real meaning as a “fan award” the voting should be moved to a much bigger con – DragonCon or Comicon would do.
I read everything. I “no awarded” several winners this year because I did not like the work. I guess that puts me ahead of the “slate voters” (both Puppies and SJWs) because I read and actually voted. The “no awards” I gave were based on my assessment of the work – not the political affiliation of the nominee.
Goblin Emperor was my #2 vote behind the Jim Butcher work for novel.
I would not delete any of the trolling posts. They prove the sad puppies thesis.
I’m not at all surprised by the crass behavior, Frank. At least one nominee specifically said that she turned down the nomination because she imagined sitting next to her mother through just that scenario.
As for you, SJW… It takes no effort and no integrity to attempt to silence opponents by accusing them of being bad people. Being slandered is not the responsibility of the targets. Not being able to avoid the slander doesn’t magically make it true. It just makes you, personally, someone without honor.
We have a fan based vote that is larger already. It is the Goodreads Choice Award. It had over 3M votes. You guys don’t do well there either.
The guy that won the SF award was Andy Weir. Your nose to tail follow the leader slate voters managed to keep him off the list for a Campbell award. Good job Airhead.
*Yawn*
It’s so tough to find decent trolls nowadays, as opposed to the ones who can only regurgitate talking points fed to them from above.
Same mewling pejoratives, used regardless of applicability. Same drivel from “Rules for Radicals”.
It’ll be fun watching them attempt to discredit, dehumanize, and otherwise blather about the ladies of SP4. No doubt, screeds are already being prepared regarding sockpuppetry, ‘internalized misogyny’, and other feats of logogami wherein well-to-do white people tell a Portuguese woman she’s actually a middle-aged white man for committing the Cardinal sin of failing to ‘know her place’ and attempting to think for herself instead of following the script written by those More Enlightened than her.
Meanwhile, the Hugo joins the Nebula as a ‘Do Not Buy’ flag.
Fans are not attempting to silence opponents. There is a meeting today with part of the agenda to review proposals to make voting representative of all points of view – including white privilege activist. And to make it representative in proportion to each groups actual numbers.
Julie, you have a strawman argument.
@Frank
re: voting for the location
you can look at it as having to pay more, or you can look at it as paying sooner. If you paid to vote for the worldcon location in 2017, you get a supporting membership in that con.
since it was $40 to pay for voting, and already $50 to get a supporting membership in the 2016 worldcon, it’s an obvious win to pay the $40 to vote for the location of the 2017 woldcon (even if you don’t cast a ballot)
@brad torgersen You say tomato, I say tomahto. You say people were cheering someone losing an award, I say that they were cheering a rejection of the attempt to strong arm people in giving a beloved award to nominees who only got on the ballot due to a slate. Can you atleast acknowledge that both possibilities (both tomatoes) are possible interpretation of what happened last night?
MadProfessah, NO. The Puppy Kickers called Sad Puppies Haters but showed themselves to be the True Haters.
Random thoughts after reading the detailed voting pdf:
1. The anti-SP/RP sentiment is even more striking in the numbers than it was in the actual ceremony (with people applauding for No Award). It looks to me (haven’t had much coffee yet, so feel free to check my numbers) that when No Award won, it won on the First Pass, meaning No Award got an absolute majority of #1 votes for that category.
2. In the Novel category, The Three Body Problem led from the start against The Goblin Emperor (though it was close), with the other three noms WAY behind. I had previously speculated (sarcastically) that some of the new Supporting Memberships may have been fans of Cixin Liu (who is a rock star in China) who registered simply to vote for him here. I don’t really believe it was a lot of people, but it might have been enough to put him over the edge.
3. I have repeatedly asked people to tell me what worthy works they think that the SP/RP slates might have pushed off the ballot, and I’m not seeing much. Trial by Fire was a Nebula nominee, so I suppose you could say that one. The eventual Nebula Award winner (Annihilation) is literally the last thing on the list, so it wouldn’t have been nominated in any case. Andy Weir was edged out of a Campbell nomination, which I think he probably would’ve won, but I think Andy Weir is probably set for life with all of the money he’s made (and will make) for The Martian, so I don’t really think that’s too big of a deal.
4. Now we come to the big question: What happens now? It looks like ~3,000 people came out and voted No Award to the all-SP/RP writing categories. Whatever happens at the business meeting today, it won’t change the nominations process for next year. I suspect that there will be enough people in that group of ~3,000 who will simply show up at the door when SP4 gets off the ground, just so they can throw in potential noms. (GRRM has even suggested that people do this.) I have no idea how Kate Paulk is going to handle it. My big prediction for next year is that the nominations portion of the Hugos is going to be a big huge nasty mess.
@Orgell
I’d disagree on this year’s pick for Novel, which won the award in a bizarrely circuitous way. The Three Body Problem got on the ballot only after two other people declined their noms (Larry Correia and Marko Kloos). I think that even Vox Day said he would’ve put it on his slate if he’d have read it in time. And Cixin Chu is wildly popular in China. I’d never heard of the book before the Hugo noms were announced, so I’d say that this is one where the Hugos led me to a book (a trilogy, actually) that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise noticed.
Hugo Himself on August 23, 2015 at 4:02 am said: The Sad Puppies work was TRASH. It deserved to be burned in a bin. It stunk. Was written by infants.
That’s way overstated, but it’s true to the extent that there were some nominees whose work, while adequate, certainly did not rise to the level of getting an award.
However, there was one bit of dreck which won an award – that world turned upside down nonsense. It’s the dinosaur love of 2015. It actually provides a benchmark for the number of hard core SJWs who voted, because it was, well, just plain sophomoric.
Like airboy, I read all the nominations, voted for the ones I liked, and placed No Award above some of the nominations. But in my view, there were simply NO categories lacking any nominee whose work did not deserve an award. This is particularly true of the editing categories.
What this suggests to me is that the real “winners” of this fracas were the Rabid Puppies, whose aim, unlike that of the Sad Puppies, was to provoke the SJWs into “destroying the village in order to save it” – which is the result of No Awarding five categories.
As for me, I wouldn’t have participated at all (I just voted, not slated) were it not for Sad Puppies. Sad Puppies pulled me back into reading SF with more attention to the possibilities, and introduced me to writers and magazines I would not have known about. I got a nice packet of good reads for a nominal price. I will be participating next year, perhaps even voting in the nomination phase.
In short, although I sympathize somewhat with the RPs, I think that I am the personification of the goal of the SPs, and for that, I thank Brad Torgersen. Mission accomplished!
I wrote: But in my view, there were simply NO categories lacking any nominee whose work did not deserve an award.
What I meant to write was: But in my view, there were simply NO categories lacking any nominee whose work deserved an award.
I need some coffee…
And the slander rolls on:
https://archive.is/JzGme#selection-2381.184-2381.318
At least GRRM is being somewhat transparent RE: Giving Awards To The Right People.
Mad: when people cheer the fact that the woman who got the most first-line #1 votes for Best Editor in history loses to NO AWARD, sorry. That’s a celebration of darkness, not lightness. That’s a celebration of “club” members having successfully slammed all the doors and windows shut, and hanging out a giant “NEENER NEENER” sign on the club door. That might make the “club” happy . . . but how does that look to everyone on the outside? Especially people who are not politically inclined to be against the Sad Puppies for political reasons?
I note SJW that you’ve doubled down on the “white privilege activist” thing. It apparently bothers you not at all to win by lying so long as you can publicly position yourself as a right thinker. Social status is a powerful drug. Without people to be morally superior to, would you have any status at all? And without all those other people who need your help and advocacy… What would the poor dears do? Those of us who SEE equals… Yes, it’s true we don’t see the need to treat them like supplicants. You and yours seem to see only people down there below you who need your help.
“White Privilege ” is an ideology of superiority that makes sure that white people remain the center of a very important issue. The” activists” are the ones demanding public confession and tossing slurs and slander at those who oppose their toxic self centered philosophy.
It will be curious to see how they try to spin Sad Puppies 4, with Kate Paulk and Sarah Hoyt and so many others doing the heavy lifting.
Administrative note: Ebbs is a “fan” who latched onto me on Facebook. One of several people who ultimately amounted to being a Concern Troll. I don’t think he’s ever bothered to bring his concern trolling to this space, but I am still ignoring him.
This was John O’Neill’s response to my comment on his Sad Puppies post:
“Thank you. If you want to hep the Puppy cause, I urge you to keep quiet, stay away from Black Gate, and let the adults talk.”
The Worldcon clique should be saying today what King Pyrrhus said after the Battle of Ascalon: “Another such victory and we are lost.” Alas, they are less perceptive than Pyrrhus.
So Ebbs you have stated your support for Slate Voting. Or didn’t you realize that all that “No Award” voting was a slate vote? Given that how are you going to handle Sad Puppies 4: The Embitchening? Run by Kae Paulk with support by Sarah Hoyt and Amanda Green?
Slate voting is perfect when Trufans do it. If anyone besides Trufans do a slate, it’s boos and kazoos. Just as running recommended lists and getting a buddy system vote going is A-OK when Trufans do it. When un-Trufen do it . . . boos and kazoos. “Seek not to square the logic of it, sir, for ye shall find none here.”
I know that Brad. But it is so amusing to see their hypocrisy on such public display.
They care nothing for sci fi. They care everything for controlling who gets to be Approved As Cool.
Did they love middle school so much that they never want to grow up? Idiots.
TomT: I think hypocrisy was given a world-wide tour last night, no question about it.
Nightfly: pretty much. The Trufans don’t love the field, they love themselves. They love their perception of themselves as the only ones who “matter” and the only ones who get to decide what matters. Yup, it’s a cool-kids club to a tee. Absolutely.
Brad R. Torgersen on August 23, 2015 at 11:28 am said:
It will be curious to see how they try to spin Sad Puppies 4, with Kate Paulk and Sarah Hoyt and so many others doing the heavy lifting.
Oh, that’s easy. “They aren’t women.”
They’re just “tokens”, you see.
@Harmon.
Already there: https://archive.is/xtC36
(Trigger Warning: Pants On Head)
I will predict this: Hugo participation numbers probably plummet after MidAmeriCon II, and never recover. Ditto for supporting and attending memberships. We’re talking total voting that is maybe 1,500 people tops, and total attendance is maybe twice that. Max.
Brad said: “Slate voting is perfect when Trufans do it. If anyone besides Trufans do a slate, it’s boos and kazoos. ”
The fans have spoken. They spoke loud and clear. And now at the business meeting they have spoke again. Slate voting isn’t OK when anyone does it. EPH and 4/6 have both passed. You guys have one more year to fight your TeaParty culture war on the SFF battlefield. After that your voice will count in proportion to your numbers.
“I will predict this: Hugo participation numbers probably plummet after MidAmeriCon II, and never recover.”
I will say this. Once your culture warriors find out they can’t freep the process they will cease spending $40. Because this was never about SFF. This was only about politics for them. And in the final analysis it is a small group shouting and stamping their feet and one mad writer who didn’t win a Campbell and got mad. He writes decent gun porn but he has the maturity of a 12 year old and that’s being kind.
Enjoy your last year of fame.
Enjoy your last year of fame.
Bollocks. EPH won’t lock the puppies out the nominations, it just stops puuppies taking over the entire slate. Which is actually quite fair; if you can get a quater of the vote you deserve 1-2 nominations rather than 4-5
They could have simply dropped the poll tax ($40 supporting membership) and advertised at Comic Cons across the world to have people participate in the voting. That would have been the logical solution. But that would have also meant that 2,500 determined cool kids can’t rule the roost anymore. We can’t have that, now can we?
Also, ask me who “gets to be famous” in the minds of those 2,500 cool kids, and then compared it to who actually sells out in the marketplace? (chuckle)
Interesting, isn’t it? How SJW gloats over a rule change that he believes will keep the people he hates from participating in the Hugos.
Yet he thinks himself a good person for that.
Patrick, read it again. There is nothing that keeps any one from participating. What else you got?
All in all I think there’s a lot of good coming out of all this from this fan’s standpoint. Me, I’m sort of a latecomer to readership … read a LOT of SF as a teenager and then just got interested again a few years ago. To be honest health is not one of my strong points these days and my Kindle and the stuff I can get for it have been major blessings for me. When I started looking at contemporary SF, Politics over Story wasn’t really a big surprise to me … disgusting but frankly that crap is everywhere these days. Honestly I’d about given up but then found this blogsite and other with folks willing to fight for Story over Politics. Sarah Hoyt, Larry Correia, Kate Paulk, Tom Kratman, and I kept going from one name and one read to another. When SP slates and then Hugo noms came out, I thought these would be more great recommendations for reading, not for politics. Don’t get me wrong my political sympathies are right of center … no apologies there … but mostly it’s the reading and the stories I’ve been interested in. And they have been great fir ne, I’ve been reading Jim Butcher, Marko Kloos, John C. Wright, Brad Torgerson, and on and on. I originally planned to read through all the Hugo noms and vote via one of the Sasquan memberships. I got the membership, but wasn’t able to vote, something went wrong and I never received a packet. However, I ended up getting almost everything from Amazon and it’s been just an enormous pleasure just reading all of these absolutely cool stories and then of course going on to other reads by the same authors. Hey this is long but I post extremely rarely in a place like this, though I read here pretty regularly, and I just wanted to say a BIG BIG BIG THANKS for Mr Torgerson and everyone involved in Sad Puppies. From the beginning I remember you said your biggest goal was to reach out. Well, this is one reader who can say that you have succeeded big time in reaching out and sharing new authors and new stories for readers more interested in science fiction than political correctness. So *thanks* again and keep up the good fight for good books!!
@frank re: suggestions for next year’s nominees
everyone is free to send suggestions, but not every suggestion will end up being recommended.
So I don’ t think that there is any problem with people sending Kate lots of suggestions.
She’s looking for good stories, it doesn’t matter who writes them.
@sjw re: rule changes
so how will these two proposals interact with each other?
also, remember that these proposals have to pass again next year. at only $100 for an attending membership, you may find that a lot of puppies are willing to go to vote it down (it depends on how things go over the next year)
What sort of vote was each of these passed by?
doing some digging
4/6 passed 86 for 82 opposed (168 votes)
EPH passed 186-62 (248 votes)
that’s not very many votes.
both sides are going to organize for next year’s vote, but to see something this drastic passed in the heat of the moment with <250 people voting really shows how small this is.
If you had asked me this time last year if the Hugos were a good award, I would have said “Sure!” After all, many books I enjoy have won Hugos, even if that was 20+ years ago.
I’ll admit I don’t really follow the SF/F infighting, and I haven’t followed the Sad Puppies campaign that closely. However, the only reason I registered for Sasquan is because I read a blog post by Larry Correia about how so many categories were being won with only a handful of votes, which seemed wrong to me. After all, this is a “prestigious fan award” and if I could do my part by participating, then excellent!
Despite the fact that I got involved due to Larry’s blog post, I never even saw the Sad Puppies preferred nominations. I voted for what I liked. Although my politics are right-wing, I simply favor good stories over politics. Sadly, it seems like many of the “fans” like SJW and Paul Ebbs only care about politics. I sincerely doubt that they really like or care about science fiction all that much at all.
The results have been interesting. For starters, congratulations to Brad and Sarah in getting more people involved in the Hugos. That’s no small feat, and something to be proud of.
Having to resort to burning the awards down to keep fans out of a “prestigious fan award” is probably the most striking demonstration of the establishment’s impotence and failure. Having to change the rules specifically to stop fans from participating is the icing on the cake. I’m honestly amazed anyone in the establishment could see this as anything but a crushing defeat for their beloved status quo. Guys, the Soviets weren’t the winners at the end of Dr. Strangelove.
Another result is that I no longer see the Hugo as anything to get excited about. So again, congratulations to the establishment: by burning the award down you’ve highlighted how irrelevant it has become.
However, I’m still going to participate next year. Before the awards were announced this year, I wasn’t sure, but now I am. Frankly, this is too damn much fun. Anything which continues to show the establishment as impotent, reactionary and neo-Victorian is great by me. I might even attend; it’s not that much money for the chance to be a Wrongfan raising hell within this “prestigious fan award”.
Finally, I encourage the trolls to continue their nasty attacks. I’ve seen enough psychologically abusive people to know the type, and believe me, you’re only hurting yourselves. A year ago I was passive and uninterested in any kind of culture war. I didn’t even realize that I could participate in the Hugos.
But your lies, defamation and vulgar cruelty motivated me to get involved. The more viciously unhinged you become, the more reasonable you make the Sad Puppies look to sane observers. I never would have gotten involved if it was not for the 24/7 spew of hate coming from the establishment.
I know from experience that the best way to deal with bullies is to poke fun at them and wait for their inherent psychological instability to detonate. So congratulations to the establishment, as well: every day you are making new enemies whose memories are long and whose most effective weapon is mockery of your unhinged hate.
Brad, you did a good job with SP3. Thanks for getting the word out; I voted for the Hugos for the first time in my life. It won’t be the last time.
Stay safe on your deployment.
I voted for the first time this year, and I did so as a direct result of the puppies’ campaigns. I was predisposed to think poorly of the slate tactics, and skeptical of most of the puppies’ claims, but I wasn’t about to vote against a work without honestly evaluating it, so I read all of the nominees. The context almost certainly made me less forgiving than I would have been otherwise, but I did my earnest best to evaluate honestly. Pretty much all of this was work that I never would have encountered otherwise. Despite having very little sympathy or respect for the puppies, I held my nose & essentially did everything they want of me, because good faith demanded it. If there was something new and exciting in the puppy slates, I would have been very pleased to find it. Instead, the quality ranged from passable-but-not-to-my-tastes to downright awful. I’m not in a position to evaluate the editor no-awards, but the other three were richly deserved, and deserving of applause. There’s no way to know for sure, but I believe that many of the votes that went against the puppies came from people with similar motivations and processes.
Are you sure I didn’t write your post?
@mitch on August 23, 2015 at 3:14 pm:
Are you sure I didn’t write your post?
“a first time voter”, it’s fair that you didn’t like the nominated works, but I’m curious how you’ve concluded that the Larry wasn’t correct about how the process works. Since you’re a first-time voter, you don’t know that previous years had quality work that won on the merits. For all you know, previous years were much more deserving of “No Award”.
Maybe many of the “No Award” votes were truly from people who didn’t like the works. Maybe. But what we do know for a fact is that lots of people on the establishment side were planning on voting “No Award” without so much as reading a single entry. The fact that you’ve ignored that tells me you aren’t acting in nearly as good faith as you believe.
@DavidLang,
They will interact just fine. 6/4 just gives 6 spaces on the final ballot with each Fan voting for 4 nominations. That may have happened without the Puppies freeping the vote just because nominating 5 of a lot of categories is a lot of work for not much gain. EPH is for the final vote. It is a run off just like the current run off. The only difference is if one of your preferential works is eliminated your vote is redistributed to anything else you might have voted for. So consider you vote is worth 1 point. Let’s say you could vote for 5 boosk but you only like two. You vote for “Martian Girls are Easy” and “Return of Under Dog”. Each gets 1/2 point. Lets say during the voting “Martian Girls” gets eliminated. Your vote is redistributed and “Under Dog” gets your full point. If lots of your puppy friends like “under Dog” and they represent say 20% of the voting population, “Under Dog” will probably be on the final ballot. Pretty simple really. You have 1 vote or 1 point to distribute anyway you like.
You say: “also, remember that these proposals have to pass again next year. at only $100 for an attending membership, you may find that a lot of puppies are willing to go to vote it down (it depends on how things go over the next year)”
So if you can get a majority of puppies to fork over $100 or not it won’t matter. Your problem is you want to dominate the nominations and control the ballot with few members. So you have to resort to tricks and gimmicks. Basically it is like a Denial of Service attack. But if you can energize enough people to become the majority you don’t need trick or gimmicks. And that would be fine.
When you say “(it depends on how things go over the next year)”, it might mean something different than you think. You already have people bragging on what they kept of the ballet and people like Sarah swearing to swamp the ballot next year. This all came up in the membership debate. Those statements help pass the proposals. You keep telling the fans you pissed on them and intend to do it again, they reach for protective gear.
Mitch,
Larry talks out of both sides of his mouth. He says fans should not be “wrong fans” having “wrong fun” but then he says that the fans voting in previous Hugos are exactly that. So does Brad. Those awards were because the fans voted them. And if they had voted one for Larry he would have been happy to take it. That they didn’t is why he started this movement. Simple as that. There is no conspiracy. Fans voted as they liked – and Larry didn’t agree with them. They were “wrong fans” having “wrong fun”.
SJW75261,
I haven’t seen any actual evidence of “fun” out of your side. It seems you are mostly motivated by anger and feelings of inferiority.
That said, you seem to conflate disagreement with exclusion. For example, I’m not aware of Larry ever advocating for changing the rules to exclude fans, as you have done.
Ultimately, this is the root of your problem–you see someone who says “I don’t like the stuff that is winning this ‘prestigious fan award’, so I’d like to see if I can get more fans involved and get something else nominated.” That’s utterly legitimate and kind of the point of a fan award, isn’t it?
But in your mind, if there are voices that are permitted to disagree with the orthodox positions (which coincidentally are your own, probably due less to conviction than convenience) then that is acting to “exclude” the orthodoxy, by virtue of shattering its monopoly on culture. And to you that justifies any and all actions in retaliation, from lying and defamation, to changing the rules to limit dissenting voices from participation.
That is the difference between us. I don’t like what you like, but I am willing to tolerate it. But you simply cannot tolerate dissent or disagreement. It’s a threat to your identity, which has been meticulously constructed to guarantee you a position in support of the status quo, even if that’s in a cultural niche. Any threat to that status quo is a threat to how you insist the world perceive you, which is thus a threat to your ego.
I don’t think you’re a wrongfan having wrongfun. I think you are a “fan” only inasmuch as it affords you your own tiny anthill to shout down others from. And that’s why “fun” is not in your vocabulary. I’ve seen your comments; you use the word “privilege” far more than “fun” (or any of its synonyms.)
This isn’t about fun for you. It’s just about trying to drown your own feelings of inadequacy with as much hatred as you can generate. Human beings have changed very little in thousands of years, and your story is no different from millions who have come before you.
The reality-blocking field is strong here, but let me take a couple of whacks at it.
1) EPH does not take 76 pages to explain. The entire WSFS business packet was 76 pages, including eight new constitutional amendments, 4 from last year, various committee reports and financial reports from six or seven Worldcons. EPH only took up 3 pages of that.
2) We doubled the number of Hugo voters this year vs. last year. Last year was a doubling from the year before. How the hell many fans does Worldcon need to get to vote before the Puppies consider it valid?
3) Related to the above, Brad, you keep claiming that we should “open the voters to Comic-Con.” How do you know that Comic Con would come up with a different result? Did you do a survey of attendees? If so, can we see the results? If not, why is your opinion of that group’s voting preferences any better than mine?
4) The story awards are not and never were for “author I’d like to have a beer with.” They are for “story that grabbed me by the short hairs and said ‘come here, big boy.'” Nothing, not one word in any of your posts has ever defended or explained the merits of the work nominated. You complained that tie-in novels get no respect, yet didn’t nominate a tie-in novel! You want to win a Hugo in a story category, tell me what makes the story good, not what makes the author good or another story bad.
SJW, the whole wrongfans thing is not that the SJW types are wrongfans, but that they say that we are the wrong type of fans.
SJW, re EPH
no, EPH appllies to how works are nominated, not the final vote.
the final vote remains a ranked vote, just the way it is today.
Stand corrected. That’s right. The only change is that you vote for 4 instead of 5.
Mitch, the fact that you’ve ignored how delicious bacon is tells me that you aren’t acting in nearly as good faith as you pretend.
Look, even if I accepted all of your claims, my point stands: I read the slated work with as open a mind as I could manage. It left me deeply unimpressed. I totally accept that there are people out there who truly think The Dark Between the Stars deserved a Hugo, but I’m not one of them. I didn’t think that any of the short stories deserved to be on the ballot. Had one deserved to be included, I would have happily voted for it. It really is that simple, and it’s my honest belief that it really was that simple for many voters.
Mitch said:
“I haven’t seen any actual evidence of “fun” out of your side. It seems you are mostly motivated by anger and feelings of inferiority.”
Here you are being argumentative.
” I’m not aware of Larry ever advocating for changing the rules to exclude fans, as you have done.”
This is a straw man. Your vote is as good as anyone else. What Larry want’s is for you to be able to freep the system. Because Fans are diverse and because they nominate a diverse number of works, a concentrated slate can game the ballot. It is similar in concept to a Denial of Service attack. He seeks to lock out “wrong fans” having “wrong fun” and voting for “wrong works”. And he and Brad and Vox were able to do that. You kept Andy Weir off the ballot. You kept John Scalzi off the ballet and you brag about it. And you piss off the real fans.
Why did this start. Because Larry didn’t win. So he decide to cause trouble. Basically, he’s an asshole.
“Ultimately, this is the root of your problem–you see someone who says “I don’t like the stuff that is winning this ‘prestigious fan award’, so I’d like to see if I can get more fans involved and get something else nominated.” That’s utterly legitimate and kind of the point of a fan award, isn’t it?”
Sure it is. Go for it. And with EPH your vote will be sure to count in proportion to your numbers. And you can slate to your heart’s content. If you have 20% of the voting fandom you should be able to lock down a slot. Good for you. But you won’t be able to lock down 5 slots.
“But in your mind, if there are voices that are permitted to disagree with the orthodox positions (which coincidentally are your own, probably due less to conviction than convenience) then that is acting to “exclude” the orthodoxy, by virtue of shattering its monopoly on culture. And to you that justifies any and all actions in retaliation, from lying and defamation, to changing the rules to limit dissenting voices from participation.”
So rewrite that paragraph to make your point understandable but I get the last sentence. No dissenting voices are being limited from participation. In fact. It is ensuring that your voice is heard. Go for it. Nominate. Advocate. Discuss your books. It’s all good.
“That is the difference between us. I don’t like what you like, but I am willing to tolerate it. But you simply cannot tolerate dissent or disagreement. ”
No that’s backwards. Most of what I read in SFF was not on the ballot. I don’t even think about that. Awards mean very little. You and Brad however are on a crusade to save SFF from the SJW and the CHORFS and whatever other names you think up. And Larry is just mad because his gun porn wasn’t that popular. And Vox Day is just happy he can you use guys for marketing purposes and that you will actually fork over money.
And what you don’t realize is that each convention is made up of its fans and that is unique. I bet you didn’t even watch it. If you had you would have seen people that had been coming to that convention for 40 years. You tried to game the system because you could and never stopped to think if you should (that’s from a SF books – guess which). And you yell a lot of names and get bent out of shape about a bunch of culture things that most people don’t care about. Why? Because you guys are just not very nice people. That’s the nut of it.
The thing is your are a tiny number of people. And the fans are larger. So they saw what you were doing and told you “no”. And now like Larry you are pissed off and stomping your feet. Good luck with that.
I’m shutting down comments for the night on my end. All the denizens of Pravda 770 will have to go AWWWWW, and troupe back on over to your point of origin.
“Go for it. Nominate. Advocate. Discuss your books. It’s all good.”
Check, check, check, check, Oops. Apparently, it’s not “all good”.
“a first time voter said”:
“Mitch, the fact that you’ve ignored how delicious bacon is tells me that you aren’t acting in nearly as good faith as you pretend.”
Oh God, how I hate the bacon meme. That and zombies. It’s the “I’m Rick James, b****” of the 2010s.
Anyway, I don’t know what you are referencing. I’m a vegetarian, so no, I don’t eat bacon. I don’t know how you would know that, though.
If you thought the works were undeserving of a Hugo, then that’s fine. I mean, compared to older sci-fi, I haven’t read much written in the last decade that was nearly as good. But I think that’s just the state of the field. The Puppies stuff seemed closer to what I like to read than the last several years’ Hugo winners.
SJW said:
“Here you are being argumentative.”
I am arguing with you, yes. You’re not really providing cogent counter-arguments, though.
“This is a straw man. Your vote is as good as anyone else. What Larry want’s is for you to be able to freep the system. Because Fans are diverse and because they nominate a diverse number of works, a concentrated slate can game the ballot. It is similar in concept to a Denial of Service attack. He seeks to lock out “wrong fans” having “wrong fun” and voting for “wrong works”. And he and Brad and Vox were able to do that. You kept Andy Weir off the ballot. You kept John Scalzi off the ballet and you brag about it. And you piss off the real fans.”
No, it’s not a strawman, it’s the central point being argued. I don’t like your side, but I tolerate you. You, however, aim to use lies, intimidation and appeals to authority to shut down my side. That’s the difference between us.
See, saying things like “freep the system” and “it is similar in concept to a Denial of Service attack” are not arguments; it’s just malingering. You’re not provided any support for your positions.
As for John Scalzi, I’m a very well-read man, and the only thing I know John Scalzi for is being a Twitter troll. I have never even seen one of his books in person, which I think is a testament to how niche he is. I don’t believe he’s the raging success he’s convinced you that he is.
“Why did this start. Because Larry didn’t win. So he decide to cause trouble. Basically, he’s an asshole.”
I haven’t seen any proof Larry started this because he didn’t win. The fact he withdrew his name from consideration seems to undermine your point mightily.
But even if he did, who cares? The only “trouble” he caused was getting more fans involved. Real fans, you know; not people who decided whether they like a book by reading the author’s bio rather than the book itself. The fact that you can’t even bring yourself to talk about what you like, but instead just discuss politics and “privilege” shows how disconnected from the fundamentals of literature you are.
“Sure it is. Go for it. And with EPH your vote will be sure to count in proportion to your numbers. And you can slate to your heart’s content. If you have 20% of the voting fandom you should be able to lock down a slot. Good for you. But you won’t be able to lock down 5 slots.”
Again, this perfectly illustrates Larry’s point. You don’t care about the literature, you care more about the rules of a contest for a severely tarnished award. And the rules never had to change when the people you wanted to win were the ones winning; it was only when you started to lose that you insisted on a rule change. How utterly transparent.
“So rewrite that paragraph to make your point understandable but I get the last sentence. No dissenting voices are being limited from participation. In fact. It is ensuring that your voice is heard. Go for it. Nominate. Advocate. Discuss your books. It’s all good.”
My paragraph was perfectly understandable to anyone who can read at a Junior High level. Meanwhile, you seem to be devolving into jibberish talking points and single-word sentences. You still haven’t engaged a single argument I made, or made a single point that couldn’t be summed up as “Nuh uh!”
“No that’s backwards. Most of what I read in SFF was not on the ballot. I don’t even think about that. Awards mean very little.”
You don’t even think about awards, but you’re here to argue at-length how important it is that we change the rules for a long-standing award to exclude people you don’t like.
Personally, I do agree that these days the best award is being liked by fans, which means repeat sales. How well is the joyless, humorless, dreck lacking in any-and-all self-awareness that you guys are trying to game the system with doing in the sales department? *chortle*
And Larry is just mad because his gun porn wasn’t that popular.
I don’t know what planet you live on, but gun porn is extremely popular here on Earth. You may not like gun porn or like that it’s popular, but you can’t deny that it is popular. And Larry seems to be doing quite well for himself. It seems it’s the humorless old Sour Justice Whiners who aren’t doing so well at popularity, to be honest.
“And what you don’t realize is that each convention is made up of its fans and that is unique. I bet you didn’t even watch it. If you had you would have seen people that had been coming to that convention for 40 years. You tried to game the system because you could and never stopped to think if you should (that’s from a SF books – guess which).”
I’ll probably be one of those attending next year. I’m not sure why the length of time somebody has been attending should matter at all. This isn’t the “Old Timer’s Award for The Way Things Used To Be”, it’s a “prestigious fan award”, supposedly. Which means if you are a fan (who is willing to pay the poll tax) then you get to participate.
Voting in a fan award is not “gaming the system”. I’m not even going to get into your little pop culture reference, except to say that I’m starting to wonder if you’re a lot younger than I thought. Not that there’s anything wrong with being young; I was a young fan not long ago. But if I believed everything today that I had believed when I was young, well, I’d be on your side.
However, I grew up, learned a lot more, and came to realize how little we ever end up knowing. I also found that the people who most loudly proclaimed their open-mindedness, thoughtfulness and moral superiority were the most close-minded and vicious people of all. The only downside to growing up is that I still cringe with embarrassment for my younger self when I encounter SJW types these days.
“And you yell a lot of names and get bent out of shape about a bunch of culture things that most people don’t care about. Why? Because you guys are just not very nice people. That’s the nut of it.”
It seems to me you and your cohorts have been the ones doing most of the name-calling here. I assure you, though, that I am not bent out of shape. I’m having a fun time and I’m looking forward to having much more fun next year. (By the way, saying “you guys are just not very nice people” in lieu of any kind of debate or argument is the name-calling that I’m talking about, which you’re so sure exists on our side, your inability to provide any examples notwithstanding.)
“The thing is your are a tiny number of people. And the fans are larger.”
We are the fans, child. And we’ve only started to get involved. Our “tiny number of people” has resulted in the largest number of participants in years, and has permanently changed the way the process works. The only option your side has found is to burn down the house all around you. We’ll see how that works out for you.
Back to the numbers: if I look at 2,500 as the low number — for the super-clique who voted NO AWARD on the Best Editor – Long Form category — I can add up everybody who voted for non-Noah and non-Vox, and arrive at around 2,200 honest voters. Why honest? Because they were voting for people, not against people. Noah was a vote against people. There is a persistent floating claim that 1,000 ballots were cast out. I wish that could be verified in fact, or that the claim would go away. But 1,000 ballots — if it’s true they were thrown own — is a lot of Worldcon members who didn’t get to have a say. That’s $40,000 worth of supporting memberships. Democracy also only works if it’s not a Chicago Machine Mayor Daly kind of setup.
But getting back to the 2,200 honest voters, it seems this number has to double — no, triple — in 2016, or the super-clique is going to scuttle the ship a second time. Of course, Vox may follow through on his promise to scuttle the ship, too. If he does that, he and the super-clique will co-conspire to M.A.D. the Hugos for the second year.
At that point . . . well, we’re not there yet. I am not sure two years of M.A.D. will leave much left for anybody to care about. But I could be wrong.
Record number of voters came out because they were irritated by the ballot stuffing by the SP and especially the RP crowd. The no award shouldn’t be seen as a victory of some sinister cabal of leftists, but by sci-fi fans who didn’t like the tactics you and the rest of the sp/rp crowd were using and especially didn’t like the candidates put forth by the RPs.
Let me quote the relevant post. No, that is too long. Let me sum up.
Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.
Okay, okay, I’ve got it. Fandom isn’t for everyone. I’m not fandom. My friends aren’t fandom. We have no business nominating authors we like and voting for them so heavily. Got it.
Even though I was sitting in a con hallway passing artwork back and forth while listening to Kelly Freas chat with Colleen Doran while you were still a choice your mama was deciding whether or not to eliminate
I’m a conservative. I’m a religious person. I really, really, really, wanted Skin Game, John Wright’s short work, The Martian and A Winter’s Tale to win the Hugo. People like me have NO BUSINESS nominating or voting in your Hugo Award.
Got it. I wasn’t clear on that before.
Record numbers of people turned out because Puppy Kickers used their privileged status in the industry to place articles in Library Journal, Popular Science, Entertainment Weekly and across every form of mass media claiming that the campaign to end Puppy-Related Sadness was an evil plot to keep women, racial minorities and the sexually different out of fandom and stop them winning any awards. And they aren’t even real fans, just a bunch of conservatives and gamer-gaters trying to take over fandom.
They lied and lied and lied and lied and lied.
But yes. It’s all about the slates. Pull the other one.
The CHORFholes had the regular media eating out of their hand. They have had the power advantage throughout. But they’re great at posturing as fake victims. Kinda like Rachel Dolezal.