Hugos v. Locus Awards: Which Gets The Most Votes?

The claim “Over the decades the Locus Awards have often drawn more voters than the Hugos and Nebulas combined” is repeated by Paul St. John Mackintosh in his latest article “Locus Awards finalists show the power of open voting”.

The claim is quoted from the SF Awards Database. While true in past years, therefore still true in a literal historical sense, the statement does not represent the current state of affairs.

We’re all interested in the outcome of a readers poll where there is no charge to vote, however, it has now been many years since the number of ballots cast for the Locus Award was even close to the number cast for the Hugos.

Locus Award Votes Hugo Award Final Votes
2008 1,012 895
2009 662 1,074
2010 680 1,094
2011 785 2,100
2012 736 1,922
2013 770 1,848
2014 871 3,587

Participation in the Locus poll has never returned to the level it reached in 2008 when, after voting closed, Locus announced a new policy of counting subscriber points double the value of points voted on the ballots of non-subscribers.

Update 05/07/2015: Filled in Locus vote number for 2012.

123 thoughts on “Hugos v. Locus Awards: Which Gets The Most Votes?

  1. That was a freebie for TB’s rhetoriwars: ‘SJWs literally accuse me of trying to assassinate them!’

  2. @Nigel
    Sounds like a good idea for a short story. I hear the Puppies are already soliciting suggestions for THE SP4 LIST THAT IS IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM A SLATE, if you can get that story published this year.

  3. ‘assassinated by remote control using chocolate.’ Don’t forget the crucial part of the hook. The Hugo’s practically on the mantlepiece already. Now all I need is a mantlepiece. MADE OF SLATE!

  4. “The Sad Puppies get criticised. You get treated like something noxious at the end of a stick.”

    Brad Torgersen would tend to disagree with that.

    “The Sad Puppies could easily become a credible and respected part of Hugo fandom, it seems to me, and, indeed, publishing recommendation lists would probably turn the disagreements back down to the more-or-less cordial level, barring simmering resentments.”

    Oh, can they? I can’t wait to tell them!

    “Not you, though.”

    Very well. The Rabid Puppies will be happy to learn that there is no prospect for anything short of the all-out destruction of the science fiction establishment.

    “Do what thou goddamn wilt but for God’s sake start taking responsibility for your actions and stop blaming your victims.”

    When have I ever failed to take responsibility for my actions? I posted a single list of recommendations and cast a single vote. That is the sum total of my actions in this regard and I take complete responsibility for them.

  5. Peace Is My Middle Name – thank you for your confirmation that my interpretation is reasonably accurate. 🙂

  6. VD: Are you serious? You to criticize us, you tell us it would have made all the difference if only we had WORDED something a little differently, and then turn around and tell us it doesn’t matter what we do in the future?

    The way people talk is often a useful way to determine their intentions, but as any student of rhetoric can tell you, making that determination does not always hinge on the literal meaning of the speaker’s words. When a mobster tells a shopkeeper “Nice place you have here; shame if anything happened to it”, he is not intending to show sympathy.

    VD has already announced his interest in blowing up the Hugos for the sake of scoring points in his culture war, and has announced that he liesuses rhetoric for strategic purposes when speaking to those he considers his inferiors. If, a year from now, he publishes a list on his blog and says “These are stories published in 2015 that can be nominated for Hugos, and you should read them and decide for yourself which are worthy of nomination, and I pinky-swear that this is not a slate”, I will give the literal meaning of his statement as much credence as he has earned.

    If VD projects his own disingenuousness onto his enemies, and treats every one of their recommended reading lists as if the recommender is covertly pushing a slate with a political agenda, that’s not my problem.

  7. VD: You know as well as I do that no matter how Sad Puppies 4 is set up, it will be criticized. At this point, there are so many people who are angry and irritated and just plain colicky that no matter how Ms. Paulk runs SP4 there will be shouting and gnashing of teeth.

    However, I do think that there are ways to minimize some of that – most of which have to do with building a broad long list and clearly stating the how this is a list of recommendations of works we (whomever “we” is, in this case) think is worth reading and considering – with a further call to nominate whatever the hell you want (a generic you, in this case, not you specifically), not just stuff on this recommendations list. I think that will help, but I’ve spent far more time thinking about how I would run something like than I care to admit. It’ll never stop people from throwing shade and making insinuations and, in general, just being assholes. I wish it would, but it won’t.

    But the great boogeyman here is you (specifically). Right or wrong, it is your participation and engagement in the Hugo process and how successful you were with Rabid Puppies that is the issue. I think you know this, and mostly revel in it because you have goals which go beyond simply participating in the process and enjoying the Hugo Awards for what it is (and perhaps what it is intended to be – a celebration of science fiction), while granting that nearly every year there are specific works that are either complete crap or just not to your taste (personally, I don’t understand the Awards appreciation for Stross. I don’t get it and I’d have No Awarded Neptune’s Brood last year had I been voting) but by engaging and recommending that others do so as well without a fixed “slate” or suggesting that people who trust your opinion “nominate them precisely as they are”.

    You have a large following and while I agree with you that, as a whole, they are not inclined to follow exactly what you say in lock step, I think there are also enough of your Dread Ilk who enjoy what you’re doing with the Hugos this year (and whatever exactly your plans are in the future).

    I’m not going to ask that you step back and not get involved next year because it wouldn’t do any good, and more importantly, I think that it would be wrong to do so. You have as much right to participate as anyone else. I just wish that the manner in which you participated didn’t feel so much like you are doing nothing more than peeing in in the bowl of Cheerios that is the Hugos. Because I believe you when you say that you don’t actually care about the awards themselves.

    This was far too long and rambling. I apologize.

  8. @VD:

    When have I ever failed to take responsibility for my actions?

    Every time you blame them on a ten year old conversation on Electrolite?

  9. JJ

    I, at least, am not ‘cherry picking’ quotes from Mr. Torgersen. I am simply not blinded by malice to his thesis. Correia and Torgersen clearly believe that they are leading a populist groundswell. They aren’t pushing a mindless slate. They are pushing a get out and vote drive to what they believe to be the disenfranchised majority–a view that GRRM seems to at least partially agree with.

    If you read GRRMs blog it is very clear that, by and large, he believes Worldcon to be a self-selected repository of highly-literate, passionate SFF fans. A character that he believes would be lost by Worldcon becoming too large. The con, and therefore the Hugo, would become too plebeian in its taste if it became too populist. Transforming, to his viewpoint, from an Oscar to a ‘Peoples Choice’ award. Contra GRRM, the Sad Puppies want to embrace that plebeian demographic. GRRM wants STATION ELEVEN to win the Hugo while Correia and Torgersen want a Star Wars Extended Universe novel to win–or more accurately they want a Star Wars Extended Universe novel to have the *possibility* of winning.

    What seems to be lost in all of the rhetoric is that the SP believe only a small fraction of Worldcon voters are regularly determining the Hugo winners. They are doing this not via dark magics but because this small community communicates among themselves and share a particular set of values and interests. The SP want to grow the Worldcon voting population large enough that this fraction of voters becomes background noise which will then result in a much more diverse short list *and* collection of future winners. This voting growth and the resultant change in Worldcon culture is what the SPs were anticipating–not a sweep of their slate recommendations.

  10. Darrell:

    You must have read another GRRM-blog than me. Or maybe you just have better imagination.

  11. Darrell: “The SP want to grow the Worldcon voting population large enough that this fraction of voters becomes background noise which will then result in a much more diverse short list *and* collection of future winners.”

    I keep hearing this as one of the ever evolving rationales for SP, and it is utterly disassociated from reality.

    If you want greater participation, then you do a get out the vote campaign. You remind people of nomination and voting deadlines, and that they should vote their preferences. You point them to the Sasquan webpage and tell them that’s where you get a membership and other goodies.

    Instead, what we got mainly primarily were the goddamn slates. The Sad Puppy one was allegedly “open and democratic”, but looks to be neither, considering some of the more frequently proposed items never made it to the ballot, and some items that were never suggested made it in.

    A voting slate *restricts* diversity, as it places a disproportionate amount of influence onto a handful of people. It warps the entire crowdsourcing aspect as you get a bunch of people who nominate someone else’s preferences over theirs.

  12. Instead, what we got mainly primarily were the goddamn slates.

    And a constant drumbeat about how the “SJWs” were ruining science fiction. About how the WorldCon voters were looking down their noses at people who liked The Avengers (never mind the fact that they voted the movie to a Hugo award), and how the WorldCon voters were ignoring the fandom of comics (never mind the fact that the Puppies were unable to come up with more than one nominee for the Graphic Story category, and it is a really terrible nominee to boot).

    Bashing the current membership of an organization doesn’t seems like a tactic that is really aimed at increasing membership. It seems like a tactic taken by someone with an axe to grind.

  13. “You have a large following and while I agree with you that, as a whole, they are not inclined to follow exactly what you say in lock step, I think there are also enough of your Dread Ilk who enjoy what you’re doing with the Hugos this year (and whatever exactly your plans are in the future). ”

    The ironic thing is that far from GamerGate coming into RP, the Dread Ilk have gone into GamerGate. This was one particularly colorful example.

    “I am in Gamergate because I want to follow General Vox Day into the fiery jaws of Hell, sail with him through oceans of blood and emerge victorious, from the foul canal of its puckered brimstone butt hole.”

    That is the true spirit of the Dread Ilk. Y’all want a culture war in science fiction, we’ll show.

    “Every time you blame them on a ten year old conversation on Electrolite?”

    I don’t blame my actions on the Making Light crowd attacking me unprovoked back in 2005. I merely pointed to it as a) the starting point for the hostilities, and b) proof that your little community harbors a core of complete assholes who pick fights they can’t finish.

    If the Hugo Awards are left a smoking ruin, I’ll be happy to take my proper share of responsibility. But I can’t take full responsibility, given how the the Worldconners have made it possible. And, of course, the Rabid Puppies merit the greater portion of the credit anyhow. Without them, I’m just one more minor SF writer.

  14. Without them, I’m just one more minor SF writer.

    You’re that with them too.

  15. I don’t blame my actions on the Making Light crowd attacking me unprovoked back in 2005.

    Dude – you REALLY need to read that thread again. Your memory is fairly faulty. There’s even Scalzi in there speaking up for you over people saying ‘don’t do that John you’ll regret it!’.

    As they say, facts are stubborn things.

  16. “Your memory is fairly faulty. There’s even Scalzi in there speaking up for you over people saying ‘don’t do that John you’ll regret it!’.”

    Bullshit. He wasn’t sticking up for me, he was sticking up anyone’s right to belong to SFWA regardless of politics, a position he later abandoned.

    Calling someone an ignorant jackass with his head up his ass, “lunatic fringe”, and “willfully stupid” is not “sticking up” for someone.

    SJWs always lie.

  17. Because Aristotle. Or something.

    Speaking to the original post, I’m surprised that the Locus voting numbers are so low. That whole “double points” deal seems to have really done a number on participation.

  18. I think the issue is he started trying to stand up for you before you doubled down on obnoxious git and he gave up.

    You’re very very good at it though.

    And YOU always lie. I can play this game too. Or, actually, perhaps I always *do* lie… but I might be lying….

    Seriously, you need to stop reading some of this stuff and start thinking about it.

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