Love in the Time of Collars 5/21

aka “Nobody puts Puppy in a corner.”

Today’s roundup features Rebecca Ann Smith, Nick Mamatas, Vox Day,  Kate Paulk, John C. Wright, Ridley Kemp, Martin Wisse, Damien G. Walter, Lis Carey, Brian Niemeier, Joe Sherry, Tom Kratman, Joe Sherry, Lisa J. Goldstein, Katya Czaja, and Kevin Standlee.  (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Kary English and Hampus Eckerman.)

Rebecca Ann Smith

“Who Owns Popular Culture?” – May 21

Something very weird happened in the run up to this year’s prestigious Hugo awards, voted for by science fiction fans.  In the culmination of a long campaign against what they see as the takeover of the awards by liberals, progressives and feminists, a right-leaning group calling themselves the Sad Puppies, led by author Brad Torgersen, successfully lobbied for an approved slate of books to receive nominations.

Although the Sad Puppies actions are legal within the rules of the Hugos, they have also been controversial.  Some people feel it’s not playing fair, and others are concerned by their motives.

 

Nick Mamatas in a comment on File 770 – May 21

Way back when the ballot was announced, I said that fandom shouldn’t bother trying to change the rules. (Hugo rules change too frequently as it is.) http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1920331.html

There are three options as far I can tell:

The Hugos being a product a fandom, much of the discussion around “fixing” the issue boils down either angry blog posts about white people (ie, admissions of pathetic whining defeat) or statistical wonkery (ie foolishness). These are all wrongheaded—slating is essentially a political issue, and political issues need political responses. There are three possible ones:

  1. Suck It Up. Probably a pretty good idea. This bed was made some years ago when blogging culture sparked a shift from significant social sanction when people tried to get votes by asking publicly for consideration to “obligatory” posts promoting their own work, and later, the work of their friends. Loud Blogs win; Loud Blogs Plus Online Workshop-Clubhouses win more; and Loud Blogs plus political discipline win even more. Why should only the Loud Bloggers people have decided that they personally like and are “friends”* with win? Eventually, it’ll all even out, especially as what is most likely to happen is that the SPs get nominated and then lose decisively year after year.
  2. Castigate all campaigning, not just the campaigning you don’t like Pandora’s Box isn’t necessarily open forever. However, you can’t close half a lid. It would take significant effort to change widespread attitudes, but it is not as though those attitudes have not changed before. If campaigning was always met with eye-rolling or even outright disgust, it would stop being so effective. Some people would betray and try to promote, but if the audience was inured to such appeals, it just wouldn’t work and hopefuls would eventually stop.
  3. Counter-slates We’ll almost certainly see attempts at counter-slates. I’m against the idea, but the current cry to vote “No Award” in all SP-dominated categories is itself a counter-slate after a fashion. Someone will come up with Happy Kittens and stump for non-binary PoCs or stories with lots of scene breaks or or or…well, that’s the problem. One counter-slate would likely thwart the SPs, more than one would not. And we’re sure to see more than one. Disciplined slate voting works best when only one side does it and the other side isn’t even a side. Two slates split demographically. Three or more, uh… At any rate, it all comes around to political discipline again. If some party were to launch a counter-slate next year, would others who found that slate imperfect let it by without critique and another alternative slate. (There are actually two Puppy slates, but they are largely similar.) There can be slates that are so attractive that many more people sign up to vote for the Hugos, but I strongly suspect that people overestimate the amount of outside “pull” these slates have; general Hugo chatter across blogs and Twitter in general is driving increased education about supporting Worldcon memberships, and then there are all the free books voters might receive, which is also a new thing. One counter-slate would be effective, though of course the cure could be worse than the disease, and more than one would likely not.

So aggrieved Hugo Award followers, which shall it be?

Two is still the best bet.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Three options” – May 21

[Commenting on Nick Mamatas’ analysis above.]

This is at least dealing with observable reality, unlike those who fantasize that tinkering with the rules is going to slow down any group that contains at least one individual with a brain, or worse, those who think that MOAR DISQUALIFY is magically going to accomplish anything. So, let’s consider their options from our perspective.

1. Suck it up

This is what they should have done. It would have taken a fair amount of the wind out of our sails. However, most of the potential benefits are now lost since they’ve already motivated our side through their histrionics and media-planted stories.

2. Castigate all campaigning

Won’t happen. Far too many people on their side are guilty of it, and far too many people are already invested in the idea that what is very, very bad for us is just fine for the Tor set and everyone who bought memberships for their children and extended families.

3. Counter-slates

This is the only real option for them now. It’s also the one that is most frightening for them, because it puts an end to their gentleman’s agreement to stick to logrolling and whisper campaigns as long as no one gets too greedy, and forces them to come out and compete in the open. They hate open competition on principle and the idea that they might come out for a fair fight next year and lose will strike them as so terrifying as to be beyond imagining. Furthermore, because they really, really care about winning awards, it’s going to be much harder for them to put together a slate, much less find the numbers to support it in the disciplined manner required now that a bloc of 40 votes is no longer sufficient to put something on the shortlist.

 

Kate Paulk on Mad Genius Club

“Of Puppies and Principles” – May 21

Anyway, this little piece of anecdata leads to some thoughts about what could be considered the Sad Puppy Manifesto (although it isn’t, since the Sad Puppy organizers were – and are – more interested in doing stuff and getting results from said doings than in writing manifestos….

5. More voters and more votes mean more representative results. In 2008, fewer than 500 nomination ballots were cast for the Hugo awards. There were categories where the nominated works had fewer than 20 votes. In that environment, it doesn’t take much for someone with an agenda and a loyal following to push out anything they don’t like. In 2015, more than 2000 nomination ballots were cast. That makes it harder for things like the Sad Puppies campaigns, or our not at all hypothetical person with an agenda to push out everything else – but it doesn’t make it impossible. More people voting means that absent corruption on the part of the officials (which doesn’t appear to be a factor based on the information that’s publicly available), the results will tend to reflect the desires of the broader public (because the voters are a sample – and by the very nature of statistics, larger samples tend to be more representative of the overall population than smaller samples – and yes, I know it’s not that bloody simple. I’m trying to keep this short and failing miserably).

….So, if you’re a member, read the stories, then decide which way you’re going to vote.

And while you’re at it, review the WorldCon 2017 Site Selection bids and pay your $40 to vote for the one you prefer: you’ll get automatic supporting membership for WorldCon 2017 before the price goes up.

 

John C. Wright

“The Customer is Always Right” – May 21

….On the 770 blog, that wretched hive of scum and villainy, I unwisely left a gentle remark where I noted that a hiccuping hapless lackwit quoted this passage of fulsome praise to support the contention of my alleged dislike of womankind, rather than taking it as evidence to the clear contrary.

Emma, a zealous Inquisitor of the Thought Police, helps explicate the enigma.

https://file770.com/?p=22617&cpage=11#comment-265630 ….

It is difficult for me to untie the Gordian knot of this intestinal bafflegab (madonna/whore ideology?) since I do not have my Morlock-to-Reality dictionary at hand.

 

John C. Wright

“The Uncorrectors are Never Right” – May 21

I was taught, and experience confirms, that the alleged correction of “the hoi polloi” is the very soul and exemplar of pedantic error and half-learned buffoonery.

No learned man ever offers that correction, and no one ever offers it innocently, but only in vulgar pretense of erudition they do not possess. (A man with a modicum of real education would look in the OED, and see this phase is correct in English.)

 

Ridley Kemp on Stay With Me, Go Places

“History Will Forget The Sad Puppies” – May 21

If you want my take on the Hugos, I’ll give you this:

In ye olden dayes, the players selected for baseball’s all-star game were elected by public ballots. In 1957, the ballots were being printed in newspapers instead of passed out to the fans at games (as I remember from the 1970’s) or online (as it’s done now). The Cincinnati Enquirer decided to help the fans out a little by printing pre-filled ballots with nothing be Cincinnati ballplayers selected. As a result, the starting lineup for the 1957 National League team consisted of Stan Musial, a St. Louis Cardinal, and 7 cincinnati Reds.

People rightly saw this as a subversion of the process. Ford Frick, the commissioner of baseball, immediately replaced two Reds outfielders, Wally Post and Gus Bell, with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays because, c’mon, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. The remaining Reds were allowed to start the game and then almost immediatley replaced once the game started, and the game looked like an All-Star game once more.

 

Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words

“Puppies wee on your shoulders and tell you it’s rain” – May 21

Nobody with any familiarity of Worldcon fandom’s history and culture believes that it’s dishonest to vote No Award over any nomination that got there through blatant slate voting, or that fans have a duty to be “fair” to nominations which stole their place on the ballot.

 

Marion on Deeds & Words

“The Hugos, 2015: Chapter Four, What Were They Thinking?” – May 21

To my mind, nowhere is the problem of the bloc-voting and the slate concept better demonstrated than in the Novella Category. Here is the short-list….

If you love short SF, you read a lot of SF magazines, or you enjoy anthologies, that list may be baffling you. You might wonder why, since the Hugos are for the best work of the year, you have probably only read, or even heard of, one of those works. You might wonder why one press, which you’ve never heard of before, has four of the five works on the list.

Having read these works, here’s what I can say with confidence; if the splinter group (who call themselves Rapid Puppies) wanted to demonstrate with this list the kind of fine, solid story-telling that they think is getting overlooked due to the distraction of more “politically correct” fare, they’ve failed abjectly.

The best of the lot is “Flow” by Arlen Andrews Sr. This is the type of the story that the original slate group, the “Sad Puppies” frequently talk about and say they like.

 

https://twitter.com/damiengwalter/status/601382433817165825

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Amanda S. Green Fanwriter Samples” – May 21

The sample provided is sixteen pages, several different selections of Green’s fanwriting.…

There is no interest or willingness to engage with anyone with whom she disagrees, or even to extend the most basic of respect to fellow human beings. If she disagrees with you, she must also make clear that she disrespects you. A complete waste. This has no place on the Hugo ballot.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“A Single Samurai (in The Baen Big Book of Monsters), by Steven Diamond” – May 21

Let it be noted that Baen, always a leader in trusting the reader with ebooks, included the entire Baen Big Book of Monsters in the Hugo packet, not just the nominated material. Which makes it a shame that I can’t like this story better. It’s not terrible, but at no point does it really grab me.

 

Brian Niemeier on Superversive SF

“Transhuman and Subhuman Part V: John C. Wright’s Patented One Session Lesson in the Mechanics of Fiction” – May 20

Because so much of storytelling relies on nudging readers’ imaginations to paint the images the writer intends, using stereotypes is inevitable and indispensable.

“What the reader wants not to do is to be asked by the writer to use the stereotype in his head in a tired, trite, shopworn, or expected way, because then the reader notices, and is rightly put off, by the trick being pulled on him.”

Wright thus counsels authors to employ two contradictory stereotypes to describe each character. Bilbo Baggins is a retiring country squire and a supremely accomplished burglar. Kal-El is both mild-mannered reporter and Superman. The tension between these contradictions creates depth.

 

Joe Sherry on Adventures In Reading

“Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Fancast” – May 21

Tea and Jeopardy appears to be in a class by itself. It is very slickly produced and seems to take place in the midst of a proper tea party. Again, this was one of the shorter episodes included and the limited run time accentuates what is cool and quirky about it while never letting what works run for too long.  It is the most worthy of the nominees, I think. My vote:

1. Tea and Jeopardy

2. Galactic Suburbia

3. Adventures in SF Publishing

4. The Sci Phi Show

5. Dungeon Crawlers Radio

 

Lis Carey on Amazon

[Lis Carey gave Thomas Kratman’s “Big Boys Don’t Cry” a 2-star Amazon review and ended up in an exchange with Kratman who expressed his displeasure and included a fling at the Hugos.]

[Tom Kratman:] I want the Hugos utterly destroyed, No Awarded in perpetuity. I want “Aces and Eights.” I want the village destroyed and don’t care in the slightest about saving it. The best way to accomplish that is for the SJW types to succeed in getting general No Award votes this time around. So make it a one star and vote “no award.”

 

Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4

“The Hugo Ballot, Part 13: Novellas” – May 21

In “Flow,” by Arlan Andrews, Sr., we follow a crew riding an iceberg down a river to the Warm Lands.  The first half of the story is little more than a travelog, as the main character, Rist from the Tharn’s Lands, learns about the Warm Lands from his compatriot, Cruthar. It’s not terrible.  The two societies are different in interesting ways, and Rist makes a good naive traveler.  But it is, once again, not a story but an excerpt; we’ve already missed the beginning and there is no real ending.

 

Katya Czaja

“Hugo Awards: Fanzine” – May 21

Ranking To be honest, nothing really grabbed me in this category. I’m not a Whovian so Journey Planet bored me. Tangent seemed well written, but I would not seek out another copy. Elitist Book Reviews fell below No Award because I can think of a half dozen book blogs that have stronger, more interesting reviews. The Revenge of Hump Day fell below No Award because it was a compilation of stuff other people had sent the editor, and not a particularly interesting compilation at that.

1) Journey Planet

2) Tangent Online

3) No Award

4) Elitist Book Reviews

5) The Revenge of Hump Day

 

Kevin Standlee on Fandom Is My Way Of Life

“Didn’t Just Fall Off the Turnip Truck” – May 20

From some of the suggestions and questions I’m getting, I think there are people who must think this is the first WSFS Business Meeting over which I’ve presided (even when those people have attended and participated in meetings over which I presided). I also think there are people who think that those of us organizing the Business Meeting haven’t heard anything at all about this Puppygate stuff, and feel the need to explain to me all about it. I suppose they’re all well-meaning, but it does get wearing after a while. Presumably this is what it feels like to be Mansplained to.


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532 thoughts on “Love in the Time of Collars 5/21

  1. XS –

    And then I remembered that time he (John C Wright) regretted not punching an ailing Terry Pratchett:
    “I sat and listened to pure evil being uttered in charming accents accentuated by droll witticism, and I did not stand up, and I did not strike the old man who uttered them across the mouth: and when he departed, everyone stood and gave him an ovation, even though he had done nothing in his life aside from entertain their idle afternoons.”

    Gods, THIS. Worse, the only acknowldgment he gives for this is by saying that as a Catholic, he’s opposed to euthanasia!

    I kid you not. He regrets not punching someone – much less Sir Terry Pratchett, one of the great luminaries of the field – and dodges to try using to use his faith as a defence?

    For given values of Catholicism, John Wright seems *really* poor at both practice and theory. The Puppies have really done him no favours by signal-boosting some of these characters and their works.

  2. he had done nothing in his life aside from entertain their idle afternoons

    It’s hardly the worst sin on display in that rant, but this bit here is just flatly wrong. I’m a better person for having met Sam Vimes, and I bet I’m not the only one.

  3. Chris Hensley on May 22, 2015 at 8:58 am said:

    “So, the obvious response to a slate isn’t to figure out ways to keep the voting public engaged, participating, and growing, but to rewrite the voting rules altogether, a two year process that is not guaranteed to pass?”

    They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are complimentary. Competing slates will drive away voters away.

    Yes. This.

    We should encourage participation but also change the rules to keep a coordinated minority from dominating the ballot without the majority having to resort to counterslates and, instead, can keep nominating just as they always have.

  4. There was a Hugo Awards banquet in 1971 (with “cheap seats” in the balcony for the actual awards ceremony, for those of us who couldn’t afford the banquet), and I think I remember a banquet in 1974 in DC (during which Harlan Ellison left his seat to walk up to toastmaster andy offut and whisper something in his ear), but I’m fairly sure that the awards ceremony was a non-food event by 1980. The fact that I’ve been going to these things since 1971 means that my memory for these things isn’t as good as it once was (memory is the second thing to go, you know).

  5. Stevie,

    WSJ journalists are supposed to identify the market analysis; that is why it was so catastrophic for Beale, who had deluded himself into believing that he and his publishing house were game changers.

    I’m sure his pride was wounded by the way his, um, less flattering pronouncements were turned into a strong hook, but what that means is that the story was well-written. Which means a journalist spent his day sitting down to craft a really quite readable news article for the Wall Street Journal assigning to Castalia House the role of being “one side” in the Great Culture Wars.

    This is not intended as a criticism of anyone here, just an observation: Castalia is a new, minuscule publisher that has already got a couple pretty interesting though generally uneven writers, one veritable grandmaster, plus a few dry and nerdy political and historical tracts of a sort that their target readers probably like to read thrown in for good measure. I don’t know, but I imagine a few people might have bought copies. It does not seem like a completely bad thing for a small press to be moving a couple electrons or even a few dead trees. While we are sifting through all the carnage, let’s not forget to wish the writers the best of luck with their careers.

  6. I read the following torn between admiration & horrified fascination [obligatory warning of the dangers of channeling another personality too well]:

    Going To Maine :

    “Perhaps, after the apparently classic “oh John Ringo no!” we should introduce an “oh John Wright wrong!””

    Andrew:

    “A short, pithy phrase seems inappropriate for Wright. Do you think you could bulk it out to a paragraph or two?”

    Scott Frazer:

    “It would be untoward for me to comment on the cerebral mush that led to the recent outburst you’ve spewed forth on the page like so much chaff before the winds of almighty justice. John C Wright: have you become disloyal to your own sanity? How empty will your life be with these cold and angular self-deceptions clasped to your breast? You are a disgusting, limp, soulless sack of filth that has earned the contempt and hatred of all decent human beings forever.”

    Nigel:

    “Or perhaps ‘Oh no, that’s Wright.’”

    Going To Maine:

    “Lack-a-day and O! John C. Wright! You’ve erred mightily in your reasoning, o’erstepped the bounds of common sense, and committed a grave fallacy; I abjure your mistakes and importune you to rethink yur convoluted, contradictory notions and gross generalizations, but, in truth, am also amused at how your inability to apprehend has created a Gordian Knot of textual japery that undermines your arguments and makes you into no menacing foe but a mere jackanapes who kicks against the pricks of progress and time, your message suitable for the ?? ?????? who read you regularly but not the moiety of society, from whom you have continued to further remove yourself with this particular wrong.”

    I’ve got nothing to add except that I’ve been attempting Carpenters riffs, got as far as “Collared Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”, and:

    Why do pups suddenly appear
    Everytime you are near…

  7. “Jabberwalkies”:

    ‘Twas brillig, and the puppy fans did snarl and grumble in the wabe.
    All mimsy were the SJWs, and I’m no good at this at all, so I leave this as a suggestion for someone with more of a flair for poetry to have a go at.

  8. Laertes

    It’s hardly the worst sin on display in that rant, but this bit here is just flatly wrong. I’m a better person for having met Sam Vimes, and I bet I’m not the only one.

    Brutha for me.I read Small Gods at a time when I could have gone down a few different paths of jerkdom and arseholery, and Brutha and the rest of the book where instrumental in pointing that out.

  9. Vox Day has been clear that one of the in conditions for his 46-way Thanatos Gambit is to have a system of competing slates. He believes he has the numbers to win any head to head competition. I don’t know if he does or not. The hubris is strong with that one, but he does know how to herd cats.

  10. The hubris is strong with that one, but he does know how to herd cats

    And some of the are Schrodinger’s.

  11. JJ &Stevie,
    Does Hagen-Daz come in Glenlivet flavour?
    Mine are:

    1.Shock & anger
    2.Pile-on/Knee-jerk reaction
    3.Acceptance
    4.Considered response
    5.Make jokes

    But I am now including JJ’s “WSFS Rules Changes” as my Stage 6, by way of backing the rule change proposal at Making Light to mitigate bloc-voting (working title “E pluribus Hugo”).

  12. I’m Catholic, and I believe the choice Sir Terry made was between him, his doctor and God. Something Wright is doing that he shouldn’t as a ‘good’ Christian:

    “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

    We were not put on this earth to judge other people, we were put here to help one another, and Christ’s last command to us was to love one another — judgement belongs to God, not to us.

  13. Chris Hensley: “The hubris is strong with that one, but he does know how to herd cats.”

    Nah, he only knows how to corral dogs. Herding cats is levels of difficulty way higher than that.

  14. @JJ —

    The Five Stages of Hugo Grief

    1. Anger
    2. Acceptance
    3. Alcohol / Ice Cream
    4. Filking / Mocking
    5. WSFS Rules Changes

    I’m reasonably certain that WSFS Rules Changes actually came about before Acceptance in this model and it’s entirely possible that Filking/Mocking actually preceded the booze and dairy products by a couple hours, at least.

  15. Soon Lee: “But I am now including JJ’s “WSFS Rules Changes” as my Stage 6”

    Oh, I figure that just goes along with your #4 “Reasoned Response”.

    I knew someone had riffed on this already. But I couldn’t find it with numerous Google searches for site:file770.com. Thanks for re-posting.

  16. Nate, as a filker I can assure you that Levels 3 and 4 would be happening simultaneously. But someone seems to have left out Tea and Chocolate…

  17. xdpaul – Interesting that you believe the SJW set was outwitted by a bunch of incoherent illiterates en route to the Hugos, Peace. I doubt Hauman and company appreciate the insult.

    Those puppies outwitted a windmill they keep saying is a dragon. Hauman will have to forgive this insult to the imaginary organization he’s a part of.

  18. Nate Harada: “I’m reasonably certain that WSFS Rules Changes actually came about before Acceptance in this model and it’s entirely possible that Filking/Mocking actually preceded the booze and dairy products by a couple hours, at least.”

    Quite possibly. For me, the booze was a definite prerequisite for the filking and poetry, which I have not done in many years.

    And since I posted this in the middle of the night and no one saw it, I’ll re-post it, for those of you who are classical poetry fans.

    To SocialInjusticeWorrier: I’m pretty sure that this is all your fault. I haven’t done this shit for years. That damned “nothing left to peruse” clearly pressed some sort of button.

    My pups, being rabid, bark my name
    And howl at my dismay.
    Sadness where Hugos never came,
    And sorrow where no votes lay.
    I blog with e’er-increasing heat,
    Hoping those liberal hacks to beat.

    It may be, when the night has gone
    And Gerrold departs the stage,
    I’ll not have gained my rocket on
    The meagre votes of rage,
    Nor linger in Spokane to bark
    At the smell of Hugos in the dark

  19. @Jonathan K. Stephens

    You haven’t read any of the Bolo stories?! Shock!

    If you like MilSF I commend them to you. They are a set of shared universe stories by a number of different authors, over a huger period of time. Make sure that you have some pretzels and a bottle of beer nearby before you start. I enjoy them a lot. 🙂

    On your other question, I have no idea why TK hates the Hugos.

  20. Blast it, Soon Lee — I’ll be earwormed by that bloody Carpenters tune all night!

    (collapsing into demented giggles here — I think I’d better say ‘Good Night.’)

  21. Welcome back Mr Chesterton.

    Is your wife is okay? I have noted your absense here and hoped it wasn’t due to a family emergency.

  22. Hauman – An insult? Are you saying I’ve been put down?

    Never would I say such a thing. That would be as ghastly as suggesting people review books they’ve read.

  23. Mike,

    The preview works great on my iPad. It’s better than most others cause you can see what you type/format in real time. Thanks!

  24. Matt Y: Never would I say such a thing. That would be as ghastly as suggesting people review books they’ve read.

    Good. Apparently, being put down is the worst thing ever.

  25. Soon Lee, I wasn’t expecting to see a Klaatu riff in the midst of all this. Good work!

  26. It appears the difficulty with non-ASCII characters is a legacy problem and the fix is non-trivial, to say the least.

  27. @Lori Coulson,
    I began a filk attempt but didn’t get very far.

    In your imagination you have beliefs
    Of Affirmative Action through secret cabals
    Please close your eyes and concentrate
    With every thought you think
    Upon the recitation we’re about to sing

    Collared occupants of interplanetary craft
    Collared occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft

  28. Glenn, I don’t negotiate with antimarketing terrorists. Putting down Amazon votes and leading others to do it is not the worst thing ever. It is immature, unprofessional, deceitful, crass and quite foolish. John Scalzi coined a name for you: the failure mode of clever.

    Funny thing is, he was talking about unprofessional private conversation. You did it in public.

    Enjoy it. It is all you have got.

  29. Oneiros : Oh nevermind. Evidently the blog supports Japanese as well as it supports Greek. I really should’ve seen that one coming.

    You have to have had actually helped win WWII before Mike will let you post in your native language.

  30. @xdpaul:

    Putting down Amazon votes and leading others to do it is not the worst thing ever.

    But it’s legal. It’s within the rules. Just like bloc slate voting!

    It’s even honorable, when it’s an honest opinion. And no-one has suggested or even implied that a dishonest opinion should be offered.

    It is immature, unprofessional, deceitful, crass and quite foolish.

    It is indeed immature, unprofessional, deceitful, crass and quite foolish to lie about what someone wrote, when it’s possible to go and read for yourself.

    I even checked the web archive of the page. Nope. It reads the same now as it does then: A suggestion to read the works and vote according to one’s own judgement.

    On the other hand, VD is on the record as saying that shooting unarmed women is rational and strategically admirable. And anyone can go and read that, too.

  31. CPaca: “You have to have had actually helped win WWII before Mike will let you post in your native language.”

    (Worries about people trying to post in Navajo.)

  32. @David: I would like to see your argument. Why, and in what way, was it an error? By what metric would we call it an error in this context?

    Some of us are language nerds and sparring over “hoi polloi” is one of the classic arguments of language nerddom, and the Iolanthe example is one that is brought up frequently. (Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage has a particularly nice entry under “hoi polloi” that goes into this, if you’re interested.)

    If Wright was even a fraction of the scholar he presents himself as, he would realize that an educated and well-read group of folks (including Nick Mamatas, who JCW surely knew was a native Greek speaker) read his blog, even if only through snippets here, and that when he brought up “the Greek remark,” ye olde “to the or not to the” argument would surely follow.

    But he doesn’t understand the culture, and instead just used the phrase in a manner that screamed, “Look at me! I’m as smart as you are!” Now, he’s off blathering about how only unlearned buffoons say “the hoi polloi” is incorrect, which is patently untrue.

    Once again, he reveals himself as someone who had no idea what he was doing.

  33. Source Decay: “ye olde ‘to the or not to the’ argument”

    I’ve been enjoying your posts, but have made no comment up to now. All I can say is when someone’s posts make me sit here going “hee hee hee”, I figure that they’re a “keeper”.

  34. Hodeeyáádą́ą́' Diyin God yót'ááh hiníláii índa nahasdzáán áyiilaa.

  35. Mike Glyer: (Worries about people trying to post in Navajo.)

    And Theodore Beale will start posting in the language of whatever Native American tribe he claims to be in.

  36. I found this post on wordpress’s own site: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/character-encoding-and-mysql but it’s pretty old

    I searched for “wordpress encoding” and got a lot of hits.

    … and just followed the link Petréa Mitchell posted. As a software developer (but not, thank God, in databases), I’m appalled. Mike, I think this is the time when you start asking around for some expert help.

  37. Nick Mamatas:

    I’d be perfectly pleased to eliminate the novelette category and have short story end at 12k and novella pick up at 12K, btw.

    Then you should be more or less pleased to hear that there’s a new proposal that’s been submitted to this year’s Business Meeting (see Item B.1.3) that would do approximately that: Remove Best Novelette, redefine Short Story as <10,000, Novella as up to 40,000, Novel above that, and also add a new Best Saga category for ongoing series.

    Various:

    There hasn’t been a Hugo “banquet” since I started attending Worldcon in 1984. There’s a Hugo Award Ceremony. The last several Worldcons have live-streamed their awards ceremonies with varying degrees of success, most recently through the UStream Hugo Awards channel. Last year in London appears to be the first year that it went off without a hitch (for the main ceremony, at least). In addition, since 2010 we’ve been doing text-based live coverage (no streaming video) of the ceremony through the Hugo Awards web site, and we plan to do so as well this year.

  38. Just to note, since everyone seems to be spelling it Hagen-Daz…

    Haagen-Dazs.

    Häagen-Dazs, if you really want to be correct.

    It may not mean anything, but by God it’s got a spelling!

  39. >> And Theodore Beale will start posting in the language of whatever Native American tribe he claims to be in.>>

    The Keewazi?

    No, not the Keewazi. They wouldn’t let him in.

    He could be Tomazooma. The ineffective robot fake, not the real one.

  40. @Glenn Hauman:

    And Theodore Beale will start posting in the language of whatever Native American tribe he claims to be in.

    To be fair, he doesn’t claim a tribe. He just points to a gene sequencing obtained by his brother.

  41. Kurt: Damn, playing this level of trivia against you is, at last, a challenge.

  42. Many things I do are a challenge.

    Just getting up in the morning, sometimes…

  43. Glenn, if you were to pick up a puppy and something came up that required both of your hands, what would you probably do?

  44. Now, he’s off blathering about how only unlearned buffoons say “the hoi polloi” is incorrect, which is patently untrue.

    If you folks don’t cut it out I’m going to post the entire minutes of the 2015 WSFS Business Meeting in the style of Act I of Iolanthe.

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