Hugo Nomination Campaign for Twitter Account?

Bill Shunn was probably making a throwaway remark, a joke, when he mentioned nominating the @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed for a Hugo:

…[It] was probably better that Dan Sinker control the revelation than that someone else out him, which no doubt would have happened sooner or later. And at least now we know whom to nominate for that Hugo next year in the Best Related Work category.

But now that Rose Fox has blogged about Shunn’s idea on Genreville at Publishers Weekly it sounds practically inevitable:

Bill Shunn is spearheading a campaign to get @MayorEmanuel–yes, a Twitter account–nominated for next year’s Hugo in the “Best Related Work” category. This would of course be particularly well-suited to the 2012 Worldcon location of Chicago.

If you’re not familiar with the @MayorEmanuel account, a succinct summary is that it was the Twitter feed from an alternate-universe Rahm Emanuel. The feed was a non-stop stream of obscenity, Chicago in-jokes, politics, and pure far-out wackiness. His companions included a pet duck (named Quaxelrod after Emanuel staffer David Axelrod) and his adventures involved sleeping in igloos, crowd-surfing up to the stage to give his mayoral acceptance speech, and being taken to the secret celery farm on top of City Hall…

It seems every year the online fan community looks around for some way to carve its initials on the Hugo ballot. Will this be the next one? Rose may think it makes a better story associating the idea with next year’s Chicago Worldcon, still, how long will it take for someone to notice @MayorEmanuel started appearing in 2010 and ask, why wait?

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster and Andrew Porter for the story.]

37 thoughts on “Hugo Nomination Campaign for Twitter Account?

  1. If it makes the ballot, it would be a statement on how unmemorable all the other “related works” are in the eyes of the Chicon members.

  2. There’s the crux of the issue. “in the eyes of the Chicon members.” Maybe its about time to become more sensitive to the distinctions between fandom, reades, and members of the worldcon. It’s been a long time since they more than overlapped somewhat.

  3. Oh, good, you’re back. Ironically enough, when I tried to post this, for several minutes, I got “DATABASE ERROR.”

    Ironic? Yes, because I wrote this:

    “the online fan community”: this is an interesting way to look at it.

    I don’t think there is any such thing. There is no “online on community,” as if someone everyone in common who is a fan who happens to use some form of communication that is “online” is a member of one specific community, any more than than there is an “oxygen-breathing fan community.”

    There are fans, they communicate, and almost everyone communicates online, but what communities they are in are a matter of what groups of friends, where they hang out, what subjects they talk about, who they know, etc.

    But the only people who aren’t online are… I dunno, who isn’t?

    Serious question. Are there any fans left who don’t use email?

    Sure, not everyone uses, oh, Twitter, or is on this mailing list, or that, and few are on a BBS these days, let alone a specific one, and a smattering are still on Usenet, and no one is left on Compuserve or Genie, since they don’t exist any more (last I looked), and some hang out around some specific blogs, and some on some specific mailing lists, and some Twitters following each other, and everyone — except those who don’t — have their own personal set of Facebook friends, and most folks use the telephone, and many text, and some are on LiveJournal and have their Friends, and others aren’t, and on and on, but it’s all just fans, and it’s all online, including use a landline telephone, and to me it’s like saying you’re part of the “two-staple fanzine community” versus the “three-staple” fanzine community.

    And, y’know, that was a joke.

    Are there people who seriously don’t use electronic means to communicate with other fans? If so, seriously, what are their names?

    Are there a group of fans who make sure never to use any form of cell phones or the internet in any way? Are there Amish fan groups?

    If not, then what the heck is the “non-online fan community”?

    And if there is no such thing, then what the heck is the “online fan community”? Does everyone who is active in some kind of fanac that happens to use texting, or the internet all in one fandom?

    What kind of definitions are people using here, beyond one specific media, or service, such as “email lists” or “LiveJournal” or “sff.net” or “Usenet,” or “Facebook,” or “Twitter” or “texting” or whatever?

    People always use to have minor arguments over whether they prefererred Gestetners to A.B. Dick to Rex Roneo, or flatbed mimeo to silk-screen, or mimeo to ditto to hecktograph, but nobody, that I recall, ever started talking about “the silkscreen fandom community” as if it were a different community than “the dittoed fan community,” I’m dead serious in asking what’s changed now, and why would anyone use such a differentiation?

    I suppose one could say it’s parallel to “club fandom” versus “fanzine fandom,” but those were always highly rough, at best, “divides,” too. Sure, there were plenty of isolated fans who were Only In A Club, or Only Did Fanzines, but again, it seems to me that those were more a matter of Some Fans Liked A Particular Bunch Of Zines More, or some fans were in a geographic area, and thus, say, were more Northeast Fans, and went back and forth to BSFS and Disclave, or NESFA and Lunarians, or LASFS and Petards, but then also wrote locs to some fanzines, and in other words, everyone had overlapping sets of friends, but there weren’t any rigid forms of demarcation lines.

    And when, I would observe as a fanhistorian, people tended to divide themselves up into Club Fandom Versus Fanzine Fandom version Convention Fandom, those divides tended to, unless viewed very very roughly indeed, really break down when you started looking at most individual fans, who might, say, belong to NESFA and Lunarians, AND enjoy getting a given set of twelve zines one year, and reading some others, but particularly loc two, or maybe they liked four different overlapping fanzine communities, but still read some others, and wrote more for this fanzine or that, so people might loosely say “oh, Buz is part of Nameless” (the club) and wrote for CRY, and was a part of the “Pacific Northwest fan community,” there was someone who — like the vast majority of fans, was active in a club or three, went to various conventions, published a clubzine, wrote for a bunch more, and this was what we called BEING A FAN.

    And dicing and slicing these things as if they were some sort of Different Species of fans was, at the very best an extremely loose form of generalization, and usually — with a number of clear exceptions of course (Harry Warner, Jr. one might fairly say, was pretty strictly a “fanzine fan” and not a “club fan” or a “convention fan), people wandered all over these lines, and weren’t really One Type Of Fan Only.

    So I’m not really seeing much difference now: everyone has their own set of friends, they overlap, people are more active in various places than others, these things change over time, fanzines come and go, clubs wax and wane, various online media spring up, get popular, go away (Genie, BBSes, Compuseve, an AOL Chat group, a Usenet sub-hierarchy), people are active in different cliques, people live in different geographic areas — and move, or not — but: what’s really different here?

    I’d like to know. Because I don’t observe that there’s “Twitter fandom” or “Facebook fandom” or “mailing list fandom,” or One Set Of “Fanzine Fandom,” or whathave you, myself.

    What I see are the same things: fans with friends, who communicate with different tools at different times, go to different cons, change which cons they go to, move around geopgraphically, their enthusiasm for one club or another, one set of zines or another, one set of cons or another, one set of friends or another may change to some degree from one month, or year, or decade, to the next, and they may have several overlapping cliques of friends, or Just One, but everyone is an indiviudal, some like some ways of hanging out more than others, and… that’s pretty much all there is to it.

    Some like this mailing list more than that one. Some like this zine more than that one. Some have this con as their favorite, or that kind of con as their favorite, some like Facebook or don’t, some tweet or don’t, some make .pdfs or don’t, some like mimeo over photcopy over… is anyone still using ditto or heckto? Is there a “ditto” fandom?

    If not, then what is “the online fan community”? Is there a membership list, and if so, where?

    Because here we are, talking online, on a blog, but does that make everyone who uses email the “email fan community” or everyone who is on an emailing list “the email fan community” or everyone who has an online journal/blog/website “the journal/blogwebsite community” or everyone who uses Facebook “the Facebook community” (where everyone has their own set of Friends, but also talks to Friends of Friends, and sets their privacy level on any given item to a different level, and may or may not belong to this Group or not), “the Facebook fan community” or everyone who has one given set of Followers and one set of people they Follow on Twitter — and these things all change every hour or two or every day or two — the “Twitter fan community”?

    I just don’t see it. It’s just fans who are individuals, who use different tools, most use a bunch, some use a few, some like this or that more than others, everyone has their own opinion as to which person they do or don’t like, or which clique they do or don’t like, and they all overlap, and together we’re all in “fandom,” and we can make very rough generalities, but beyond that: where are the dividing lines that we can speak of “offline fandom” or “online fandom” in the year 2011?

    If someone sees it differently, could they please write a fanzine article, post it to LJ and and as a Note to Facebook, circulate it through every invitational mailing list, and open mailing list, and post it to all the many fannish blogs, and get everyone on LJ to link, and all the other blogs to link, and all the websites to link, and evevery fanzine to discuss it, so we could all talk about it, save that then we’d all be talking in all these fragmentary ways, and… how could we even do THAT?

    So if anyone sees it differently, just pick where you like to be active, communicate it to your friends, others will link here, others will chat there, and FANDOM WILL GO ON COMMUNICATING IN THE SAME FRAGMENTARY AND DIVIDED WAY that it always have, and what the heck is different now, in 2011 than in 2005 then in 1995, then in 1985, then in 1965, then in 1945, save that fandom is larger than ever, and there are far more ways to communicate, and what else is really going on than that?

    Signed, an interested and confused reader about how other fans — specific fans and cliques — see things, save that still most individuals, at most, tend to hang out in overlapping cliques, with overlapping views, at best, and… in other words: what is all this stuff and this way of looking at things, anyway?

    Really. Because I’m awfully confused about these approaches to fandom, myself, as if there were One Right Way to view fandom.

    It seems to me an awful lot as if some people were taking seriously the Staple Wars.

    But maybe I’m wrong. Could some send me a tweet that summarizes it in 140 characters? 🙂

  4. Shorter me: “It seems every year the online fan community looks around for some way to carve its initials on the Hugo ballot.”

    Who the heck are these people who are in “the online fan community” who AREN’T online, and how the hell are they all in one community that is looking to do one thing?

    Are there Heinleinian alien puppets on the backs of everyone online that command everyone to be part of One Telepathic Online Fan Community?

    If not, then wtf are you talking about? 🙂

  5. Taral:

    Maybe its about time to become more sensitive to the distinctions between fandom, reades, and members of the worldcon. It’s been a long time since they more than overlapped somewhat.

    Really? Is there a list of Approved Official Fans somewhere? A given set of criteria on a checklist? If so, where, who is on it, and who qualifies as on or off the list?

    Really. What are these “distinctions”? And how do we “become more sensitive” to them?

    Or does this just mean “I want everyone to agree with my own personal idiosyncratic view because everyone who doesn’t Is Wrong”?

  6. For the record, I think anyone who wants to vote any given way on their Hugo ballot, nominating or Final, should, they can, and we all have our faves and dislikes, and make our own choices, argue with our friends or people disagree with as we like, and… what else is there, really?

    Me, I don’t intend to vote for a twitter account that can be here one day, gone the next, have a lot of tweets in one month, but be dead for months, as a “Non-Related Work” but that’s just me.

    And what is that other than one guy’s personal opinion?

    And how is that different than any other fan’s personal opinion?

    Me: I don’t think there’s One Right Way To Do Approved Fanac. There are just personal preferences, and some people share some views, and others don’t and… again, how is this any different than it was in 1945, or 1930, or 1960, or 1980?

    Other than the fact that some folks have always been more exclusive in the views, and others more inclusive, and some are more forceful in their views and insisting that They Have The One Right View, and others less so.

    Hey, that’s just me. Why don’t you, oh blog thread commenter — which is to say anyone who reads this — tell us what you think?

    Here, on a blog, which means we’re members of “the online fan community.”

    Because Mike, if you’re not a “member” of “the online fan community, then, um, how is it we’re having this conversation online?

    Or in other words: huh?

    🙂

  7. Taral: “Maybe its about time to become more sensitive to the distinctions between fandom, reades, and members of the worldcon. It’s been a long time since they more than overlapped somewhat.”

    Really? What year did that change?

    Specifically?

  8. Me: I talk to Mike Glyer here, and I could write locs to his fanzine, and get it on paper (I think), or I could read it in .pdf, and send an email, and we chat on Facebook, and I maybe he’s on some mailing lists, or maybe not, and here’s Taral whose comment I’m reading on a blog, and who last I looked was on Facebook, but which of us isn’t part of “fandom”?

    Really. Do I tell by the tendrils and and their Sensitive Fannish Faces, or what?

  9. @Gary: So every fan is as unique as a snowflake. Nobody identifies with the outcome of the Hugo Awards in any way excerpt a sheer, individualistic delight in the belief that quality has been recognized.

    Nobody thought a particular point was being made when they nominated Starship Sofa for the Best Fanzine Hugo. We must pay no attention to the fact that its nomination can be traced to an appeal to people to make a particular point.

    Nobody felt they were vindicating a community when they nominated Electric Velocipede.

    Every voter who helped John Scalzi to his first Best Fanwriter nomination made that decision before he dropped the hint on his blog.

    The trouble with your perpetual tactic of attempting to reduce to absurdity a viewpoint you disapprove is how absurd it is in its own right. What could be more silly than your pose that unless I show everybody who owns a computer is behaving a certain way I cannot observe that some people have acted to achieve a particular result in response to an appeal to assert their identity with online fan communities.

  10. Nobody thought a particular point was being made when they nominated Starship Sofa for the Best Fanzine Hugo. We must pay no attention to the fact that its nomination can be traced to an appeal to people to make a particular point.

    Nobody felt they were vindicating a community when they nominated Electric Velocipede.

    No, I don’t agree with any of those things.

    I think that campaigning for Hugos is a very bad thing. I don’t know how much more voiciferous I could be than the fact that I’ve been very loud and vociferous in my opinion about this in writing and in person for, let’s see, thirty-five years now. Very very very very loud.

    What I don’t understand is why you’re making this point, or were you’re getting it from anything I wrote here in this thread.

    I could repeat myself at length again on this, but given how many thousands of times I’ve said this on convention panels, on mailing lists, blogs, in person, at clubs, at parties, in fanzines, if you haven’t gotten it by now, after all these decades, I don’t know how repeated it ad infinitum yet again will help.

    I just told Mark Olson all this YET AGAIN yesterday. Just as I repeated it on the Semi-prozine mailing list some dozens of times in the past year. Just as I repeated it on Cheryl Morgan’s blog a dozen times in the past couple of years. Just as I’ve said it on rec.arts.sf fandom several hundred times. Just as I wrote it it on Facebook a zillion times. Just as I’ve… jeebus fracking Roscoe, how many times do I have to rant about how awful I think campaigning is?

    Every voter who helped John Scalzi to his first Best Fanwriter nomination made that decision before he dropped the hint on his blog.

    Now that I disagree with.

    John didn’t campaign for a Hugo, so far as I’m aware. Mind, I don’t read every post on his blog, so if he was running a “vote for me for best fan writer!” campaign, I’d oppose that, or would have.

    But if he did, what posts did he do it in, and can you or someone link, please, so we can read them?

    I myself WROTE ON FACEBOOK DOZENS OF TIMES about how the other two you name were campaigning, and why I thought this stunk. I had this very conversation with Colin Hinz, and Catherine Crocket, and many others. Of course, FB being what it is, conversation is entirely fragmented, and I’m not saying you should have seen it, any more than I read everything you write, or any of us sees everything anyone should write.

    All I’m saying is that my record of opposing the campaigning of those two is clear.

    But Scalzi I missed seeing any campaigning, and even there, all I’m asking for is that if he did, please point to the links, and then let’s talk about it.

    What I don’t agree with is the simple notion that someone can’t be both a pro and do fanac. I don’t think Terry Carr should have not received fan writer nominations or Hugos because his day job was editing and sometimes writing sf. Ditto Ted White. Ditto Jack Gaughn and the fan artist hugo. (And when the rules were changed on that, i wasn’t around at worldcons to argue, but I thought that was a bad idea.

    Now, this I agree is a complicated issue. And I don’t have any ideal perfect solutions. I do agree that people who are Famous As Pros have an unfair advantage over those who are not, when it comes to fan awards. And I think that’s problematic and it’s reasonable to be concerned, and I’d like to hear reasonable ideas as to ways it might somehow be addressed.

    But what concerns me is that i’m not sure there really is any way that isn’t just as unfair as the problem it would “solve.”

    As I’ve just said said, I don’t think being a professional writer means you can’t be a fan, or being a professional artist means you can’t be a fan artist.

    I tend to think that the only way to practically divide the issue of eligibility is not by the person, but by the work itself.

    And I’m entirely open-minded as to proposals as to ways to do that. I’m all ears, if anyone has proposed language that would fly at a WSFS business meeting, and can pass, and be used.

    I’d love to hear more proposals. God knows the Semi-prozine committeee is struggling to find useful language that some consensus can emerge over.

    But the only way that so far seems to me to be remotely workable and practical is this simple and not terribly satisfactory one: if the work itself is being paid for, it’s professional. If it isn’t, it isn’t, and it’s amateur.

    That’s at least clean, and easy to determine. People may not like where the answers come out, and that’s fair enough, but if there’s a better idea: please, someone propose it.

    The rest of what you wrote Mike, seems to have nothing to do with what I said, so far as I can tell, so I have no response to it.

  11. What I do draw a line between — and Jeff Vandermeer was just talking about this on his blog, and was agreeing, and if you missed it, I’ll look for the URL, although I’m damn busy right now not getting to my day job of professional blogging, because I’m being so damn fannish in dealing with just having been to Corflu, then Potlatch, then doing all the posting about both, and now FOGCon is coming up, and here I am on a fannish blog again, discussing fannish issues, so for an allegedly gafiated guy who is busy again arguing the frigging Hugos, I seem to be a miserable failure as a gafiate — is that there’s to me, quite a difference between running a “vote for us, we’re eligible for the Hugo, vote vote vote for us, we’re so wonderful, oh please nominate us!” campaign for either nomination or voting — and that I completely oppose, and always have, and have said so since about 1971.

    Consistently. Loudly. Vociferously.

    Anything that smacks of any kind of campaigning, I oppose, and I like to think that in the interests of brevity, we all understand why, and I need not, here, expand on that.

    But to me, if one simply makes a couple of passing mentions that “hey, I’m eligible because I had 4 issues out this year,” or one issue, or “hey, I really liked this piece by me, maybe you will if you read it,” or “by the way, my blog is eligible,” and it’s just done in a couple of sentences, one or two, maybe three, times, in under a couple of dozen words: well, I think that’s minor enough to not get in a lather about it.

    I think there’s a big difference between these two extremes.

    That’s all.

  12. Last I looked, Scalzi immediately announced after he’d won the best fan writer Hugo that he said he was withdrawing from contention again, and said it wouldn’t be fair, or words to that effect. Am I in some alternative universe where this didn’t happen, or does that not matter?

    Do I need to look up the exact post?

  13. @Gary: Don’t you remember what proposition you were asserting as long ago as this morning? Because it sounds to me like you have totally talked yourself in a circle. You even recommended a blog post to me in the Wikipedia thread which uses the phrase “online fandom” — apparently the phrase was meaningful to that writer, too.

  14. Mike, you wrote:

    @Gary: Don’t you remember what proposition you were asserting as long ago as this morning? Because it sounds to me like you have totally talked yourself in a circle. You even recommended a blog post to me in the Wikipedia thread which uses the phrase “online fandom” — apparently the phrase was meaningful to that writer, too.

    No doubt Gary is off somewhere tilting at another windmill, adding to his Facebook universe, or blogging for his 30,000 readers…or he would have answered you, at his customary great length.

    Alternatively, you’ve caught him out sufficiently that he’s Moved On.

  15. “People always use to have minor arguments over whether they prefererred Gestetners to A.B. Dick to Rex Roneo,” Gary says. I can’t believe no one has yet pointed out that Rex Rotary duplicators should not be conflated with Roneo duplicators, not least because they had different countries of origin/manufacture and worked on different principles. Tsk tsk.

  16. Ted, because Gary’s Amazing Glitch occurred in the middle of his spew that takes *five* “page downs” to get through, no doubt everyone’s eyes had completely glazed over before it appeared in that particular rant.

  17. Good to know that folks are interested in talking about typos, and me, rather than substance. This seems unproductive.

    Anyone have any suggestions for how they’d like the Hugos re-divided?

    I’ll also say that I certainly do agree with Taral — and always have — that there are distinctions to be made between readers, people active in some way in “fandom,” and obviously the line between who is and isn’t a member of a given Worldcon is quite clear.

    But what counts as being a member of “fandom” these days seems to me to be a subject of considerably wide perspective, and legitimately different points of view.

    However, since everyone gets to be entitled to their own view, it’s probably not worth much argument either, save to, perhaps, suggest that everyone is entitled to their own view, that there is a lack of consensus, and I would, myself, assert, that a number of these views are as legitimate as many others.

    Beyond that, gosh, it would take a lot of words to explicate.

  18. Meanwhile, while obviously everyone is free to comment as they wish, I do suggest that the fascinating topic of Gary Farber might not really be all that fascinating, especially when there seems to be agreement that I’m not all that fascinating. I agree, too. So perhaps y’all might knock it off? I’m not interested, myself, in turning discussions into a pissing match of whose writing style is better or worse, or who I do or don’t like.

    How about folks talk about the Hugos, or the nature of modern fandom, or who sawed Courtney’s boat, or something a tad more interesting?

    Are we all agree that Campaigning For Hugos Is Bad? Good.

    Did John Scalzi do that? Still wondering, and waiting for someone to answer the question. Cite?

  19. Surely the MayorEmmanuel twitter feed was fiction, and therefore would have to be nominated in a fiction category, were people to consider it worthy of nomination?

    Gary, you’re doing that thing you occasionally do where you persuade everyone to move to the equator by going on and on about how wonderful snow is. Because I basically agree with you, but I was rolling my eyes. Did read, but still TL.

    The actual distinction I see is between somebody saying “Hey, X is eligible, and great, I’m going to nominate X, why don’t you look at it X” which strikes me as fine fannish behaviour, and somebody saying the same thing with “I” in place of X, which is reprehensible.

  20. If I might be allowed a suggestion for how to solve the great “How Do We Define What A Pro Is?”

    Look to SFWA.

    I’ve thought that if someone is *eligible* for Active Membership in SFWA (“Established authors with three qualifying short story sales, one qualifying novel sale, or one professionally produced full-length dramatic script.”), then they have become, for the purposes of Hugo Awards, Professional Writers.

    Please note, I do not suggest that Active Membership in SFWA is a requirement, simply meeting the requirements creates the dividing line. Among other things, it shows a consistent body of work, unlike the Associate Members, who are only required to have one qualifying short story sale.

    And, because I’ve become so cynical about how things are in fandom, I expect this whole topic will be continue to be discussed for years and years, without any solution.

  21. Personally, I wouldn’t vote for a twitter feed for a Hugo. It’s a moving target, and much too ephemeral. (If someone collected it in some way, then, maybe, if it were also good enough.)

    But like it or not, there’s nothing in the rules to prevent other people from doing so. As has been pointed out to me numerous times over the years when I complained about certain nominees (“Apollo 13” for Best Dramatic Presentation, for example, even though it’s clearly not SF), the primary criterion is simply what’s popular with the nominators. In principle, if they chose a western like “True Grit,” we be stuck with it.

    But I have to agree with Gary — even if he did say it at excessive length — that talking about “online fan community” is an oxymoron. The diversity of fans on the web is even greater than in traditional fandom and their cohesiveness is not just thinner, it’s nonexistent. There’s no self-aware social entity of that description that’s in any way analogous to traditional fandom. There are merely fans who do some or all of their fanac online. As Gary pointed out, if there is such a thing, Mike, doesn’t this blog make you part of it? Are we then to assume that you’ve participated in its decisions regarding the nomination of a Twitter feed?

    Clearly, that’s patently ridiculous. There’s a category error being made here. As Gary points out, talking about an “online fan community” makes as much sense as talking about a ditto fan community or a mimeo fan community. None.

  22. The fake Twitter feed was on THE DAILY SHOW with Jon Stewart earlier this week, so it’s getting national exposure. We should be looking out for a lot of Hugo votes from non-fan sf readers, right?

  23. Ed Green: The problem isn’t defining what a pro is.

    The problem is that some pros are also fans.

    It isn’t what you are, it’s what you do. I’m a pro when I publish novels or write (for pay) on Tor.com, I’m a fan when I write the restaurant guide for Anticipation or write in fannish venues like for instance here, or in Plokta.

    And if you want to say people are no longer fans because they would be eligible to join SFWA, then that’s rather unkind of you, and not really the inclusive welcoming fandom of which I have been a member since Good Friday of 1988.

  24. About the “Rex Roneo” mimeograph, Gary writes: “Good to know that folks are interested in talking about typos, and me, rather than substance. This seems unproductive.”

    Maybe so, Gary, but “Roneo” for “Rotary” isn’t a typo, it’s a failed memory of mimeograph brands. No biggie

    You also write: “Beyond that, gosh, it would take a lot of words to explicate.” Based on ample evidence, when did that ever stop you?

  25. Jo Walton: I don’t recall my suggestion saying “A Professional Writer is no longer a Fan”.

    It simply stated that for purposes of the Hugo Awards, if you have met the requirements of Active Membership in SFWA, you are considered a Professional Writer.

    It had nothing to do with excluding writers from the ranks of fandom.

  26. @Robert: Am I losing control of my own brand? I am not kidding when I say I just received a spam comment with a personalized greeting to “Gary”.

  27. “f you have met the requirements of Active Membership in SFWA, you are considered a Professional Writer.”

    There’s never been a contradiction between being a fan, and having a day job, including a day job that sometimes includes selling fiction or editing fiction. Who would say that Terry Carr or Ted White or James White or Bob Shaw or Buz Busby, or, for that matter, Harry Warner, Jr., or Art Widner, or, for that matter, Moshe Feder, and the list goes on and on and on, stopped being fans, because they’ve sold fiction, whether a lot or a little, in SFWA or out, or edited it, or worked for a publisher?

    As Jo says, and what I’m saying, is that we can distinguish *work*, specific pieces of writing, as having been paid for professionally, and that which has not. That’s a bright line, and bright lines are what’s needed for their to be consistent rulings.

    I’m all ears as to other ways to approach the specific problem of what should and shouldn’t be eligble for Hugos, but there’s a need for specific language to go into the WSFS constitution.

    And it has to be clear, and something that future administrators can’t screw up the interpretation of very much.

    Beyond that, ultimately, it’s up to the people who nominate and vote, in any case.

    And beyond that, I have to say that quite often, IMO, people get a bit too worked up about this stuff. It really is just a popularity contest, it’s very nice egoboo, but not the sort of thing that people should get really angry with each other with.

    Fandom is supposed to be fun. Arguing about rules, and What The Hugos Should Be is a perennial, but I tend to think more light, and less heat might make for more enjoyable conversation.

    As might fewer remarks about personalities, but that’s just me.

  28. I am all in favor of enjoyable conversations. I am less in favor of being quoted out of context, which you and Jo have both done.

    “I’ve thought that if someone is *eligible* for Active Membership in SFWA (“Established authors with three qualifying short story sales, one qualifying novel sale, or one professionally produced full-length dramatic script.”), then they have become, for the purposes of Hugo Awards, Professional Writers.”

    For – the – purposes – of – Hugo – Awards.

    I am not seeking to exclude anyone from the ranks of fandom. I am not seeking to say that X is certainly more fannish than Y.

    If people think its a bad idea, that’s fine. I’ve had more than a few shot down in fandom over my time. But disagree in context with my suggestion. Don’t cherry pick points so you can make your point.

  29. My brain is tired, I need new glasses (those are coming) but for the life of me I can’t seem to figure out what problem Ed Green’s solution is in search of.

  30. @Michael Walsh: I’m pretty sure Ed is responding to this part of something Gary wrote the other day:

    “What I don’t agree with is the simple notion that someone can’t be both a pro and do fanac. I don’t think Terry Carr should have not received fan writer nominations or Hugos because his day job was editing and sometimes writing sf. Ditto Ted White. Ditto Jack Gaughn and the fan artist hugo. (And when the rules were changed on that, i wasn’t around at worldcons to argue, but I thought that was a bad idea.
    “Now, this I agree is a complicated issue. And I don’t have any ideal perfect solutions. I do agree that people who are Famous As Pros have an unfair advantage over those who are not, when it comes to fan awards. And I think that’s problematic and it’s reasonable to be concerned, and I’d like to hear reasonable ideas as to ways it might somehow be addressed.”

    I hear Ed for some inexplicable cause now regrets offering the suggestion, though not because it wasn’t reasonable. 🙂

  31. Thanks, Mike for clearing that up for Mike. Not sure what you heard, but as usual you have excellent sources. 😉

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