(1) ONE STOP SHOPPING. [Item by Jonathan Cowie.] SF2 Concatenation’s Autumn 2019 edition is up. Voluminous seasonal news and reviews page of both SF and science which includes the major UK SF/fantasy imprint book releases between now and New Year. (Many of these will be available as imports in N. America and elsewhere.)
- Newscast for the Autumn 2019. This includes within it many key sections covering SF books, films; and TV; as well as science. See the master newscast link index that connects to all the news sub-sections.
- My Top Ten Scientists – Dominic Dulley (software engineer)
- CERN – Science or Tourism? — Jane O’Reilly
- The Shoestringcon [1]: Polycon 1979 story — Pete Gilligan
- Dublin – The 2019 World SF Convention – Sue Burke
- Ytterbium 2019 – The 2019 British Eastercon — Peter Tyers
- GeyserCon – New Zealand’s 2019 national convention — Alan Robson
(2) LEM V. DICK. [Editor’s note: I apologize for what amounts to misspelling, but characters that WordPress would display as question marks have been changed to a letter of the alphabet without marks.]
[Item by Jan Vanek Jr.] Yesterday the English-language website of the Polish magazine Przekrój published (and started promoting on Facebook, hence my knowledge) the translation of a 2,700-word excerpt (not a self-contained “chapter” as they claim) from Wojciech Orlinski’s 2017 biography of Stanislaw Lem detailing what led to “the famous Lem-Dick imbroglio” with PKD’s “famous Lem report to the FBI”: “access to previously unpublished letters […] resulted in what is likely the first accurate description of the incident, as well as the ultimate explanation as to how the concept of ‘foreign royalties under communism’ is almost as much of a mess as ‘fine dining under communism’ (but not quite as fine a mess)”:
…It all began with Lem’s depiction of Dick – in the third of his great essay collections, Science Fiction and Futurology as little more than a talentless hack. Lem had a poor opinion of almost all American authors, and never thought much of the literary genre of which he himself was an exponent (think of his equally critical view of Pirx the Pilot, for example, or Return from the Stars)….
I found it a quite informative and interesting read, although “Lem’s unfortunate expulsion from the SFWA” that ensued is mentioned only briefly and I think misleadingly (I have checked the Polish book and there is nothing more about it, but it has been described in American sources, many of them online).
(3) ABOUT AO3’S HUGO AWARD. The Organization for Transformative Works has clarified to Archive of Our Own participants — “Hugo Award – What it Means”.
We’re as excited as you are about the AO3’s Hugo win, and we are shouting it to the rafters! We are grateful to the World Science Fiction Society for recognizing the AO3 with the award, as well as to the many OTW volunteers who build and maintain the site, and all of the amazing fans who post and enjoy works on it.
The World Science Fiction Society has asked us to help them get the word out about what the award represented—specifically, they want to make sure people know that the Hugo was awarded to the AO3, and not to any particular work(s) hosted on it. Therefore, while we can all be proud of the AO3’s Hugo win and we can all be proud of what we contributed to making it possible, the award does not make any individual fanwork or creator “Hugo winners”—the WSFS awarded that distinction to the AO3 as a whole. In particular, the WSFS asked us to convey this reminder so that no one mistakenly describes themselves as having personally won a Hugo Award.
Thanks for sharing our enthusiasm, and consider yourselves reminded! We appreciate every one of your contributions.
So far there are 80 comments, any number by Kevin Standlee making Absolutely Clear Everybody Must Understand Things Exactly The Way He Does. One reply says, “You aren’t doing a particularly good job of reading the room here.”
(4) ARISIA PERSISTED. Arisia 2020 has issued its first online Progress Report. Key points: (1) It’s happening! (2) It’s (back) at the Westin Boston Waterfront. (3) The headliners are Cadwell Turnbull, Author Guest of Honor, Kristina Carroll, Artist Guest of Honor, and Arthur Chu, Fan Guest of Honor.
(5) BOO! LAist primes fans for Universal Studios’ Halloween mazes: “Halloween Horror Nights: A Photo Tour Of The New ‘Ghostbusters’ & ‘Us’ Mazes At Universal Studios”.
Halloween’s almost here… well, OK, it’s more than a month away, but that means it’s time for Halloween haunts — aka Halloween mazes, aka scary Halloween things at theme parks and the like, to start.
Halloween Horror Nights has been taking over Universal Studios Hollywood for 21 years, and we got the chance to take a behind-the-scenes tour of two of the brand new mazes, Ghostbusters and Us. We were guided through by Creative Director John Murdy, the man in charge of creating the stories and the scares inside all of the mazes.
He works with an art director to design every moment, writing treatments for each attraction than can run up to 100 pages.
“It’s a narrative from the guest’s POV — everything I see, hear, smell, etcetera, as if I’m going through the maze,” Murdy said. “But it also has a very elaborate technical breakdown by scene, by discipline, down to the timecode of the audio cues.”
(6) DUBLIN 2019. Cora Buhlert’s report begins with — “WorldCon 77 in Dublin, Part 1: The Good…”. There’s also a shorter version for the Speculative Fiction Showcase: “Cora’s Adventures at Worldcon 77 in Dublin, Ireland”. Each has lots of photos.
…On Wednesday, the day before WorldCon officially started, I helped with move in and set-up at Point Square. This involved carrying boxes, assembling shelves for the staff lounge and crafting area, taping down table cloths and helping to set up the Raksura Colony Tree model. This was my first time volunteering at a WorldCon and it was a great experience. Not only do you get to help to make a great project like WorldCon happen, no, you also get to meet a lot of lovely people while volunteering. Especially if you’re new to WorldCon and don’t know anybody yet, I recommend volunteering as a way to meet people and make friends. What is more, I also got a handful of groats (which I used to buy a very pretty necklace in the dealers room) and a cool t-shirt.
(7) MEMORIAL. Jim C. Hines tweeted the link to his post about the Memorial held for his wife, Amy, on September 8, a touching and highly personal tribute.
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY.
- September 14, 2008 — The Hunger Games novel hit bookstores. (For some reason, the bookstores did not hit back.)
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born September 14, 1915 — Douglas Kennedy. No major SFF roles that I see but he’s been in a number of films of a genre nature: The Way of All Flesh, The Ghost Breakers, The Mars Invaders, The Land Unknown, The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold, The Alligator People and The Amazing Transparent Man. Series wise, he had one-offs on Alcoa Presents, Science Fiction Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Outer Limits. (Died 1973.)
- Born September 14, 1919 — Claire P. Beck. Editor of the Science Fiction Critic, a fanzine which published in four issues Hammer and Tongs, the first work of criticism devoted to American SF. It was written by his brother Clyde F. Beck. Science Fiction Critic was published from 1935 to 1938. (Died 1999.)
- Born September 14, 1927 — Martin Caidin. His best-known novel is Cyborg which was the basis for The Six Million Dollar Man franchise. He wrote two novels in the Indiana Jones franchise and one in the Buck Rogers one as well. He wrote myriad other sf novels as well. (Died 1997.)
- Born September 14, 1932 — Joyce Taylor, 87. She first shows as Princess Antillia in Atlantis, the Lost Continent. Later genre appearances were The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the first English language Beauty and the Beast film, the horror film Twice-Told Tales and the Men into Space SF series.
- Born September 14, 1936 — Walter Koenig, 83. Best-known for his roles as Pavel Chekov in the original Trek franchise and Alfred Bester on Babylon 5. Moontrap, a SF film with him and Bruce Campbell, would garner a 28% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and InAlienable which he executive produced, wrote and acts in has no rating there.
- Born September 14, 1941 — Bruce Hyde. Patterns emerge in doing these Birthdays. One of these patterns is that original Trek had a lot of secondary performers who had really short acting careers. He certainly did. He portrayed Lt. Kevin Riley in two episodes, “The Naked Time” and “The Conscience of the King” and the rest of his acting career consisted of eight appearances, four of them as Dr. Jeff Brenner. He acted for less than two years in ‘65 and ‘66, before returning to acting thirty-four years later to be in The Confession of Lee Harvey Oswald which is his final role. (Died 2015.)
- Born September 14, 1947 — Sam Neill, 72. Best known for role of Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park which he reprised in Jurassic Park III. He was also in Omen III: The Final Conflict, Possession, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, Bicentennial Man, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box, Thor: Ragnarok and Peter Rabbit.
- Born September 14, 1961 — Justin Richards, 58. Clute at ESF says “Richards is fast and competent.” Well I can certain say he’s fast as he’s turned out thirty-five Doctor Who novels which Clute thinks are for the YA market between 1994 and 2016. And he has other series going as well! Another nineteen novels written, and then there’s the Doctor Who non-fiction which runs to over a half dozen works.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- Frank and Ernest ask deep questions about Pokémon.
- A Tom Gauld cartoon about The Testaments launch in The Guardian.
(11) LUCAS MUSEUM. George Lucas, his wife Mellody Hobson, and the mayor dropped by the site yesterday to see how things are going: “Force Is With Them! Construction Of George Lucas Museum In Full Swing”.
Construction of the George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is in full swing.
On Friday, Lucas — along with his wife and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — watched as construction crews helped bring his vision to life.
And he thanked them for the tireless effort.
“You’re doing the impossible — thank you so much,” Lucas said.
“Millions of people will be inspired by this building. We were just in our board meeting for the museum and George said you are the artists so you’re the artists of this art museum,” says Mellody Hobson, Co-CEO of Ariel Investments and the museum’s co-founder.
(12) LISTEN TO LIEN. Henry Lien is the Special Guest Star on this week’s episode of The Write Process podcast, hosted by the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program — “Henry Lien on Worldbuilding, Puzzle Stories, Middle Grade, & Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions”
Henry Lien teaches law and creative writing at UCLA Extension. A private art dealer, he is the author of the Peasprout Chen middle grade fantasy series, which received New York Times acclaim and starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist.
(13) COSPLAY ID’S. SYFY Wire has collected all the tweeted photos — “Detroit high school encourages students to dress as pop culture icons for ID photos”.
High school can be a turbulent time for any budding teenager, but when you’re allowed to dress up as your favorite movie or television character, facing picture day isn’t the daunting challenge it once was. Per a report from The Huffington Post, North Farmington High School in the suburbs of Detroit allowed its senior pupils to assume the persona of their favorite pop culture icon for the sake of ID photographs. What followed was a parade of Woodys (Toy Story), Shuris (Black Panther) Fionas (Shrek), creepy twins (The Shining), and so many more!
(14) GUTS. In the Washington Post, Michael Cavna profiles YA graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier, whose autobiographical graphic novels have sold 13.5 million copies and who attracted an audience of 4,000 to her talk at the National Book Festival. “Raina Telgemeier became a hero to millions of readers by showing how uncomfortable growing up can be”.
…Now, because her fans kept asking, she is getting more personal than ever. The Eisner Award-winning author who launched her publishing empire with 2010?s “Smile,” about her years-long dental adventures as a kid, is prepared to bare new parts of her interior world with “Guts,” available Tuesday, which centers on how fear affected her body.
“This is the reality of my life,” Telgemeier told her fans. She quickly got to the heart and GI tract of the matter: “I was subject to panic attacks and [was] worrying that something was really wrong with me.”…
(15) SIGNAL BOOST. Naomi Kritzer offers an incentive for supporting a cause that needs a cash infusion.
(16) MARATHON SITTINGS. The Hollywood Reporter considers “The Long Game: Super-Sized Movies Are Testing the Patience of Audiences”.
And there may be a financial cost. Over the Sept. 6-8 weekend, New Line and director Andy Muschietti’s It: Chapter Two opened to $91 million domestically, a 26 percent decline from the first It, which debuted to $123.4 million on the same weekend in 2017. The sequel ran a hefty 169 minutes, 34 minutes longer than its predecessor.
“Andy had a lot of story to tell in concluding his adaptation of Stephen King’s book, which is more than 1,100 pages,” says Jeff Goldstein, chief of distribution for Warner Bros., New Line’s parent. “We strategically added more shows and locations to counterbalance losing a show on each screen.”
Adds a rival studio executive regarding It: Chapter Two, “look, $91 million is a great number. But anytime the second film in a hoped-for franchise goes down — and not up — that’s not what you wish for. And I do think the fact that it was so long didn’t help.”
(17) COLBERT. Stephen Colbert’s “Meanwhile…” news roundup includes a furry joke related to the movie Cats, and a bit on “The 5D Porn Cinema No One Asked For.” These items start at 2.02 — here on YouTube.
(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Cinema verite of author Liz Hand on Vimeo. A 5-minute video of Hand at work and play
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Daniel Dern, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Matthew Johnson.]
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RedWombat: You seriously want me to clutch my pearls and feel shat upon
Nope. I haven’t asked you to feel a certain way or react a certain way. Your feelings and reactions are your own. This is why I’ve studiously avoided responding to any of your comments thus far, because they’re about your experience, and are perfectly valid.
As are mine.
I’ve described what I feel and how I react, and I know that I’m not the only one who feels and reacts that way, because I’ve had conversations with other people who also feel and react this way.
@Farasha —
And I think a whole bunch of the comments over on AO3 were needlessly hostile and condescending replies to Kevin’s post. Hostility breeds hostility.
It should be pretty obvious that calling oneself a Hugo winner when one isn’t actually a Hugo winner is not a cool thing to do. (I’m not complaining about the people using labels like one one-millionth of a winner.) And doubling down after being requested to stop is just childish.
Actually, that post and additions to it pretty much WERE “hey guys, we know you’re excited but you can’t produce Hugo-branded merch for profit, that’s a violation of intellectual property and you should stop doing that”. With the addition of “hey guys, we know you’re excited but you can’t go around calling yourself an award winner when you’re not, that’s a violation of intellectual property and you should stop doing that.”
Again — your right to have fun stops when your “fun” starts hurting someone else.
And that’s why I said that a lot of the commenters over at AO3 are coming across as entitled, immature princesses. They don’t seem to care that they’re hurting other people with their actions — they seem to think that their fun is the most important thing in the world, and that they’re entitled to do whatever they like.
You’re indulging in a culture of victimhood, contrary to actual facts. Remember, I’ve been there. I’ve never been an author, but I’ve been an active member of the mm romance community. I’ve associated both personally and professionally with many active AO3 authors. As I keep having to repeat over and over, I think it’s a great and valuable community.
But when members of that community start acting like entitled and immature princesses, I’m still going to say so.
Madame Hardy:
ladymelodrama, Fri 13 Sep 2019 09:18PM CEST
ErinPtahFri 13 Sep 2019 07:41PM EDT
FayJayMon 16 Sep 2019 08:13PM EDT
You Mean That Hugo Wasn’t For Me?Mon 16 Sep 2019 08:22PM EDT
You Mean That Hugo Wasn’t For Me?Mon 16 Sep 2019 05:47PM PDT
FayJayTue 17 Sep 2019 02:27AM BST
Listy of the lists, weeee!Mon 16 Sep 2019 11:10PM EDT
turiferMon 16 Sep 2019 11:50PM CDT
I will also add all people on twitter who have changed their names to call themselves Hugo winners.
fontfolly: As long as you keep saying “slap in the face” you’re making the fanfic cooties argument
Stop making things up and claiming that I said them. Just stop it. You may have had issues with other people denigrating fanfic, but that’s not what I’m doing, and continuing to make up things and claim that I said them is a really, really, shitty thing to do.
You insist on putting words in my mouth, and you completely ignored what I really said.
Once again:
It has nothing to do with “fanfic cooties”, and everything to do with claiming to have earned an honor that you have not earned.
Except they weren’t. Go look at the initial post again, it never mentions merch or profit at all. In order to find out about the merch, you had to then go read Standlee’s comment, and bear in mind, 99.9% of AO3 have no idea who Standlee is, or why they should care. AND that comments are an extra set of clickthroughs! It was entirely possible to read the press release, never once see the word merch, and never see Standlee’s comment at all, and go away without ever hearing that infringement for profit occurred.
It was a serious mishandling of a press release.
I think people may be selectively editing their memories of what was said.
I went back to the Archive of Our Own page where the announcement was made, linked above, and checked all the comments, including Standlee’s.
As of right now there is not a single instance of the word “Please” used anywhere on the page.
People claiming that this was an overreaction to a polite request are misremembering or misstating.
No one said “Please respect our intellectual property” or “please respect our institution.”
Perhaps if the Ao3 community had actually been approached with politeness it might have reacted better.
@RedWombat —
Please read what I wrote again: “that post and additions to it”. I was referring not just to the initial post, but also subsequent discussion.
Whether it was, or not, that doesn’t excuse the hostile and dismissive replies, nor the subsequent actions of AO3 community members (refer to Hampus’s most recent post).
Contrarius:
No. They were describing their feelings. Just as many others of us have described how we feel about different things. This does not mean that we all are participating in “cultures of victimhood”.
It would be so much better if people could state their points without the insults.
Peace Is My Middle Name:
This.
@Rob Thornton
I appreciate your reply. I’m going to quote the relevant section of the release:
“The World Science Fiction Society has asked us to help them get the word out about what the award represented—specifically, they want to make sure people know that the Hugo was awarded to the AO3, and not to any particular work(s) hosted on it. Therefore, while we can all be proud of the AO3’s Hugo win and we can all be proud of what we contributed to making it possible, the award does not make any individual fanwork or creator “Hugo winners”—the WSFS awarded that distinction to the AO3 as a whole. In particular, the WSFS asked us to convey this reminder so that no one mistakenly describes themselves as having personally won a Hugo Award.”
This specifically says, WSFS want people to know that they, personally, were not Hugo winners. This is of course accurate; individual fanfic writers did not, in fact, win for their actual writing. I don’t think anyone actually thought they did, though. There are some bad actors who would certainly try to leverage this into advertising dollars, which is wrong. There was that (enthusiastic but poorly thought out) Etsy item where they wanted to produce pins, which is also wrong. Aside from that, the community knew full well that we didn’t actually win awards for our fanfic, but for the thing we had built. And because we had built it, we did feel very much that this award was (at least partially) ours to celebrate. And because fanfic has so often been sneered at (as you recognized), we had some fun with “so what bizarre and out-there thing did you contribute to our now award-winning archive?” was a bit of a triumphant celebration of us, meaning fanfic community, being here to stay.
I think you’re completely right that the fanfic community felt insulted, but not because we felt the Hugo was being “taken away.” I think we felt insulted that people could actually think we actually believed “one one millionth of a Hugo” was a thing, and it wasn’t all in good fun. So you can see how an outside force strong-arming (because WSFS does have more clout and reputation than AO3) the org into saying “not really, guys” felt humorless and in bad faith.
Of course I understand WSFS’s desire to protect their trademark and the idea of the Hugo as something prestigious, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just think coming in to what is certainly our space to say Stop Doing That was a mistake from the outset. There was no good way to do this besides directly and explicitly addressing the trademark/IP issue.
@Peace —
Seriously?? Can you possibly really believe that the absence of a single word justifies the days’ worth of childish responses?
@Hampus —
I agree!
@Contrarius – Do we really need to do this thing where I point out that I already said it was super easy to miss all that subsequent discussion etc etc? You cannot blame people for replying to what a press release actually SAYS when no official follow up has been made beyond one dude commenting, apparently unofficially, at a page they may not have seen.
Also Farasha is smart and more diplomatic than I am today.
I take it you are in the latter camp? So you feel that awards systems have no value? Noted.
Thanks for telling us what we should be doing. I appreciate that you are the absolute authority on the matter.
Frankly, I’ve not heard people from within the WSFS community dismiss fanfic. Not in the 19 years since I attended my first Worldcon.
I’ve heard a lot of inaccurate and ill-thought-out mockery of fanfic from people in the mainstream public, and continue to hear it. Those jeers aren’t coming from within fandom, they’re coming from the same people who bullied the rest of us in high school.
Legitimately, I’ve never been one to sneer at fanfic. It’s not something that I’m usually interested in, but I enjoy the works of several writers who learned their craft through fanfic, and continue writing fanfic.
Most of the WSFS people who voted for AO3 have been proponents of fanfic for a long, long time. 20 years ago, I remember attending panels about “the value of fanfic,” and celebratory discussions of that activity. At Worldcons.
Maybe it would have helped the matter if various members of the AO3 swarm didn’t insult him the moment he said the first thing about respecting the Hugo trademark.
When Kevin first raised the issue of people claiming the status of “Hugo Nominee” for their AO3 contributions, the immediate reaction I saw from members of the AO3 swarm was to insult him. The reaction from the AO3 swarm was not dissimilar to how 4Chan folks respond to things: trolling and doubling down on the behaviour that offended someone in the first place.
I’m glad so many AO3 people are coming over to File 770’s comments section to troll us here. You’re really making a great case for how respectful the AO3 community is towards other groups within fandom. You’re just paragons of good actors within the community. Thanks.
@Farasha —
I don’t think many people are actually upset about “one one millionth of a Hugo”. I know I’m not. I think the problems are: (1) the “Hugo winner” label without the “one millionth” qualifier; (2) the (thankfully rare) merching attempts; and (3) the — as you put it — “needlessly hostile and condescending replies” to Kevin’s posts.
@ Farasha
I think you’re completely right that the fanfic community felt insulted, but not because we felt the Hugo was being “taken away.” I think we felt insulted that people could actually think we actually believed “one one millionth of a Hugo” was a thing, and it wasn’t all in good fun. So you can see how an outside force strong-arming (because WSFS does have more clout and reputation than AO3) the org into saying “not really, guys” felt humorless and in bad faith.
Thanks for the feedback. I think I understand the fanfic side better now.
Farasha: You talk about a slap in the face? It certainly felt like a slap in the face to read that members of WSFS essentially wanted us to shut up, sit down, stop having fun, and go back in our holes where they don’t have to look at us or acknowledge that we are also a part of fandom.
But that wasn’t ever what was said. It may be what you thought was being said, but it wasn’t.
What was being said was “Stop disrespecting the Hugo Award. Stop claiming to have earned honors you haven’t earned. Instead, celebrate being a part of a Hugo Award-winning project, because that is indeed a wonderful thing.”
Farasha: WSFS want people to know that they, personally, were not Hugo winners. This is of course accurate; individual fanfic writers did not, in fact, win for their actual writing. I don’t think anyone actually thought they did, though.
Except that this is clearly not the case. There is at least one person commenting on the AO3 post who seems to believe it. There is a person who commented on this post who believes it. There are people on Twitter who’ve argued very seriously that the AO3 participants are themselves Hugo Award winners.
Farasha: I think we felt insulted that people could actually think we actually believed “one one millionth of a Hugo” was a thing, and it wasn’t all in good fun.
The people saying that aren’t a problem. The problem is the people who are saying “I’m a Hugo Award-winning author.” They may be joking, but there’s really no way to tell, and either way, it’s a shitty thing to do, from the standpoint of someone who feels that this devalues the award. Especially when I see people saying that on Twitter, and other people chime in with responses saying things like “Oh, wow! Congratulations!”, where it’s clear that they actually do believe what the person said, whether or not they were joking.
People keep talking about what was posted on AO3 as an “official press release”. It seems pretty clear to me from the wording that it’s not a press release from WSFS, it’s a statement composed by the OTW.
I think it would help if we not use insulting terms for each other. The people at AO3 are not a “swarm,” nor are they “trolls.”
Given that File 770 is a major, recognized, Hugo-Award-winning center of sci fi professional and fandom communication, it is no surprise to see members of the AO3 community joining in a conversation here specifically about their website, their Hugo win, and their membership. Indeed, I would be disappointed if this place were not open to diverse voices in the sci fi community.
Peace Is My Middle Name: Given that File 770 is a major, recognized, Hugo-Award-winning center of sci fi fandom communication, it is no surprise to see members of the AO3 community joining in a conversation here specifically about their website, their Hugo win, and their membership. Indeed, I would be disappointed if this place were not open to diverse voices in the sci fi community.
I agree. I’m glad that AO3 members are engaging here. We are at least having a dialogue. It may be fraught with misreadings and misunderstandings on both sides, but at least it’s a dialogue.
I’m sad that you are determined to increase the toxicity of this situation.
Troll is as troll does.
Someone who responds to criticism by doubling down on the offending behaviour is engaging in trolling. It’s the textbook definition of troll.
When someone asks that members of your community stop making inaccurate claims of having won an award, and you respond by proclaiming that you’re going to be louder in those claims just to annoy them, that’s a prime example of what a troll does.
@Hampus:
Ladymelodrama I’ll give you.
ErinPtahFri is saying, correctly and without malice, that she can say she contributed to a Hugo-winning project. Kevin Standlee agreed with her.
FayJay is hostile, but is pointing out, correctly, that the commenter parachuted into a discussion on AO3 without knowing what AO3 is, and then complained that not knowing what AO3 was made him feel stupid.
YouMeanThat(1) is agreeing that protecting the copyright was appropriate, but that this whole mess has made them feel excluded, and that they won’t be buying WSFS memberships. Again, what’s toxic about that?
YouMeanThat(2) is suggesting that Kevin Standlee was there not only about the copyright, but about policing fic fans. This is a plain statement of interpretation, and an interpretation a lot of other people have put forward.
FayJay(2) is absolutely hostile.
Listyofthelists is pointing out that, judging by tweets, Standlee’s opinion is contested by many WSFS members. They then say that it’s time for the Old Guard to go. This is … not an uncommon complaint about any institution that has an Old Guard.
Turifer, an actual Worldcon member, says that they are dropping their membership because of their anger at this situation.
So out of the ones you call toxic I count 2 that are unequivocally impolite and aggressive. Most of the other ones you complain of would be considered completely appropriate here at File 770, or at Scalzi’s. There is a difference between saying “I am angry” and being toxic. There is a big difference between saying “I’m cancelling my subscription” and being toxic.
E: I’m an AO3 person. I also show up here, from time to time, discussing non-fic issues. I have been to a Worldcon (too many people aieee) and multiple Wiscons. You’re talking about one of my communities, and I’m naturally taking an interest.
@Contrarius: “Hostility breeds hostility.”
I bred rabbits, but I gave it up.
@RedWombat: “Like that, except the chorus is rolling their eyes a lot more.”
Standing on the corner,
Hugo in my hand,
Kevin’s in the comments, says to AO3,
Hey baby, you didn’t win that thang.
Ridin’ in a starship, Jim,
Those were different times
When admin studied rules of marks
And the greek chorus just rolled their eyes.
Oh, sweet nothin’. Oh, sweet nothin’.
@ John A Arkansawyer
+1 for using obscure Velvet Underground song 🙂
@Rob Thornton: In 1980, I was in a band that played not one, not two, but three VU songs, but I said I’d quit if we ever played Sweet Jane (or Little Feat’s Willing). I was so sick of that song by that time. Now I love it again. And I finally turned Loaded over to side two, which didn’t connect with me for the longest time. Now it does.
I’m going out to accompany my mother to a routine appointment. I’ll release moderated comments when I get back. (Just explaining the delay.)
@ John A Arkansawyer
You inspire me to try Loaded again. It never moved me. Evidently William Gibson is a huge Velvet Underground/Lou Reed fan, which is in no way surprising.
@Rob Thornton: I got Loaded and White Light/White Heat, as well as the weird little MGM compilation with tracks from the first three when I was just a kid. I loved White Light/White Heat (one of the songs we played, and playing it was a blast) and the compilation, but it took me years to come around to Loaded, and longer to side two.
By the way, jam bands have started playing Oh! Sweet Nuthin quite a bit. I find some of those versions pretty fantastic, others not so much.
Let they who have never snarked at Standlee when he gets on a roll cast the first stone.
Madame Hardy:
1) So we both agree this is toxic.
2) This is someone who says she is starting to seriously want to undermine the Hugo’s. That is malice. You are referring to the wrong comment – the comment above.
3) Hostile/toxic, making up things from thin air just to poison it.
4) Uses the same word as Larry Correia in wanting to troll people just to make heads explode.
5) Makes up toxic statements from thin air, even after Kevin had made the opposite clear.
6) Toxic as said.
7) Everyone who doesn’t agree with him should go to hell. Toxicity ok if not uncommon?
8) Statement on voting to troll instead of for best work. Toxic.
@JJ
I think part of the fundamental disconnect here is that the bad actors/bad behavior were not specified, and it wasn’t specified what we should be doing instead. The non-specific “remember you didn’t actually win a Hugo for your works” statement felt like it was cracking down equally on “one one millionth of a Hugo” and “Hugo Award Winning Fanfic Author” when, as you and some other commenters here are saying, it’s the latter and not the former that’s at issue.
It was a clumsy statement. AO3 members got tetchy at the clumsy statement because it seemed to echo so much of the “you aren’t legitimate, you can’t sit at the big kids’ table, we don’t want you around” stuff that’s been slung at fanfic and that quite a lot of us have experienced personally. Whether it takes the shape of, “So when are you going to give up that fanfic stuff and write some real works” or “You aren’t creative enough to think up your own worlds so you play in someone else’s” or “Fanfic is all just teenage girls giggling over boys kissing anyway,” it’s there and it’s been there for a while. Because this statement was so broad, what most AO3 members reacted to was, oh, they can’t take a joke and want us to stop joking, how ridiculous.
I honestly think the root of the problem is because the statement was so broad in scope. If it had specified that “Hugo Award Winning Fanfic Author” or “Hugo Award Winning Author” is not an okay thing to put in the bio because A) it’s not accurate and B) it could cause problems with trademark and/or be used in fraudulent marketing, and directed people that “contributor to Hugo Award Winning project” is the correct way to state that (on resumes and in bylines and such), it would not have caused the kerfuffle that it did. And because it already felt like a kick in the teeth, Kevin’s subsequent comments felt like doubling down on the condescension, because the majority of fans knew full well that it was a joke, and meant to be taken that way.
As another commenter on AO3 explained, part of the joke is that the Hugos are prestigious, and the thought of our 3am coffee-fueled kinkmeme fill winning a Hugo is so patently ridiculous because it’s certainly not Hugo-worthy, that it was obvious the joke was tongue-in-cheek. Which is, I think why so many people on “our” side were absolutely baffled that the statement was released at all, because the majority of us had no knowledge of these bad actors trying to take advantage.
@Mike Glyer:
I’m a SFF fan who had never visited File 770 until this ongoing AO3 debacle brought it to my attention, and I just wanted to thank you for your attitude in this comment section. Your measured responses have made me (a long-time AO3 user) feel welcome, despite the varying levels of hostility the conversation has delved into—you’ve gained a new reader!
@John A Arkansawyer
I started with a “best of” tape then dived right into the Peel Slowly And See box set. And now I have the Matrix Tapes live boot as well. Funny that jam bands have tuned into VU because from what I have heard, they were into very long jams when playing live (which led to a big conflict when VU played with the Dead). And putting in the SF reference, cyberpunk wouldn’t be the same without the legendary VU photos of the entire band wearing black and sporting shades.
@Farasha —
Kevin said, way back on 9/14 at 11:17AM: “”Contributed to a Hugo Award-winning project” is an excellent way of putting it.”
So say something like “Hey, that was a clumsy statement”. Posting ridiculing memes and accusing him of lying and being “out of his f*ing mind” and so on are entirely uncalled for.
Except that he never actually said — or meant — anything of the sort.
This is kind of disingenuous. Multiple AO3 authors have been nominated for and have won awards including the Hugos. Heck, does the name Naomi Novik ring any bells? So, no, it is NOT “obvious the joke was tongue-in-cheek”, nor do the members of the AO3 community have good reason for thinking that nobody in their community would be considered for such awards.
And as Kevin himself pointed out, “And every single work of fanfic published on AO3 is individually eligible for a Hugo Award in the category of the appropriate length, of course.”
On 2, Kevin Standlee agreed with her that this was an appropriate use.
FayJay says “Son, why have you wasted time coming to the AO3, registering an identity on the AO3, and commenting on an article literally entitled “AO3 news” while using a user icon that shows the stylised AO3 logo without feeling that it might first behove you to find out where you are or what conversation you are jumping into?”
This is a precise description of what happened. It is not made up from thin air. Person showed up in an AO3 comment thread demanding to know what AO3 was.
Which words does Larry Correia use that are used inappropriately here? I mean, he uses a lot of words. If you’re objecting to “clubhouse”, then you’re objecting to a common metaphor; see also “mean girls.”
I don’t think we’re going to be able to agree on toxic when a contribution that Kevin Standlee had no fault with fits into that category.
Farasha on September 17, 2019 at 1:42 pm said:
So very much ^^^ this ^^^.
(3am writing isn’t necessarily a joke, either. I wrote a very short story after having a dream that was both vivid and coherent (unlike most).)
Madame Hardy: Person showed up in an AO3 comment thread demanding to know what AO3 was.
I’m pretty certain that was some internet rando who found the AO3 post from a link on Twitter or someone’s blog, and was just there to troll. I cringed when I read his comments. I don’t think he has any idea what WSFS is, either, he just wanted to stir the shit.
@Contrarius
That’s in the comments, and Kevin isn’t speaking in an official capacity. The statement itself did not specify or provide instruction.
I haven’t done any of those things, either over there or here, so I’m not sure why I’m on the hook for some completely unrelated people’s behavior, aside from speaking from the perspective of an AO3 member. But I’m not blaming you for the bad comment behavior of some of the other people here on 770, so I don’t think it’s fair to respond to my comments as if I’m anything but me, the individual, speaking from my own perspective.
This is also why I’ve qualified all of my comments with “seems like” or “felt like,” because I’m attempting to explain why the community response is what it is. Did the commenters perhaps read too much into the statement and have a knee-jerk reaction based on prior baggage? Sure, maybe they did, and we all do that now and again. You yourself replied to my statement that your reply was hostile with “hostility breeds hostility.” Fanfic writers have been on the butt end of a lot of hostility over the decades. If we’re going to acknowledge that being treated in a hostile way can breed a hostile response (even when no attack was given), we have to also acknowledge that this is exactly what happened over on AO3.
Of course it does. As stated, I’ve been with the project since the beginning. But did Novik win an award under her fandom handle for her fanfic? No, she didn’t. She won for her traditionally published novel, under her actual name, which is a completely different setting than fanfic.
Look, I’ll be the first to admit that there are works on AO3 that are Hugo-worthy (have you ever read Maldoror’s Freeport? I’d nominate it in a heartbeat). But there are many, many, many other works, including some that I personally have written, which I would not remotely consider to be worthy of a Hugo. There is no gate on AO3, anyone can publish, whether their prose is stunning or their grammar looks like they ran over their fic with a weed-whacker. There’s no quality control. This is one of the amazing things about fanfic, that anyone with a story to tell can get it out there. But I don’t think it’s factually inaccurate to say that the majority of works on AO3 would not qualify for the award on their own merit. Which is why it’s funny to say “my Hugo Award Winning tentacle porn” when you know it’s no such thing. At least, it’s funny in our opinion.
(E: typos)
@RedWombat
I love a good WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE ORANGUTAN as much as anyone, but “It was misread in bad faith because REASONS” is still misreading in bad faith.
2) is a comment from Erin Ptah Fri, saying they would start claiming themselves to be Hugo Winners in all seriousness. Kevin answered the comment above, i.e the one from Okamihowl.
3) I have not referred to what you are quoting in any way. You seem to have picked the wrong comment from FayJay.
4) Larry Correa’s exact wording for why he nominated Theodore Beale in Sad Puppies 2 was because he wanted to see heads explode. And here we have someone from AO3 with the same goal
I think we are not going to be able to agree on toxic when I in several comments have stated how badly Standlee has handled this and you still accuse me of arguing for him having had no faults. I have never ever in any place said it is toxicity to complain over any faults done by Standlee.
I find your accusation extremely dishonest.
…but I don’t think there was any bad faith. I think Standlee plowed in, doing his usual thing that god knows, we’ve all seen in action, and put his foot in it. And since he was presuming to lecture a community about how it talked about itself, it would not require bad faith to think he knew how he was coming across and had chosen to do so. I mean, he literally set himself up as Understanding Because He Was Also Published In A Hugo Award Winning Work.
At that point, I don’t think it was bad faith to take him at his word and decide that he knew what he was doing and had decided to come off that way.
@Hampus
“I think we are not going to be able to agree on toxic when I in several comments have stated how badly Standlee has handled this and you still accuse me of arguing for him having had no faults.”
I don’t know who you’re replying to, but it isn’t me. I have never once accused you of that particular straw man.
@Farasha —
The “statement itself” was written by OTW, not Kevin. So it’s unreasonable to blame either him or WSFS for it.
Don’t get disingenuous now. Nobody is blaming you personally for this fiasco; we are discussing the multiple reasons why people on both sides of the issue are upset.
The supposed “knee jerk” reaction over there has gone on for days — and days — and days, and there are people over there discussing ways to actively harm the Hugo awards. That’s a lot more than a knee jerk.
As you said: “[Kevin and WSFS] haven’t done any of those things, either over there or here, so I’m not sure why [they are] on the hook for some completely unrelated people’s behavior”. Many AO3 community members are blaming both Kevin and WSFS for crimes that they haven’t actually committed.
So what? It’s not like someone went looking at her fanfic and said “No, those stories were published on a — gasp! — fanfic site. We can’t possibly consider those for an award.”
Again — go read “Fandom for Robots” and then try telling me that today’s sff award community is hostile towards fanfic.
Also go read up on the whole Chuck Tingle saga and then try telling me that today’s sff award community is inherently hostile towards porn.
Also go read up on the Hugo nominees and winners from the last few years and then try telling me that today’s sff award community is hostile towards sexual diversity, which is exactly what multiple AO3 commenters have accused us of.
And that’s entirely irrelevant. There are many, many, MANY tradpub sff works out there that would never remotely be considered worthy of a Hugo. That doesn’t mean it would be okay for those authors to go around calling themselves Hugo winners if they weren’t.
You have just described the entire world of self-publishing. Again — that doesn’t mean it would be okay for those self-pubbed authors to go around calling themselves Hugo winners if they weren’t.
I think the “one millionth” label is funny. I think the “Award winner” label without the qualifier is a step too far. And the remarks in that thread are MANY steps too far.
Try a different perspective: the fact that WSFS is upset about the appropriation of the “Hugo Winner” label is actually a sign that fanfic is being taken MORE seriously than in the past. As you point out, if it were truly ridiculous — if, for instance, a toddler’s crayon drawing was labeled “Hugo Winner for Pro Artist” or something similar — then very few would be offended. The fact that many people aren’t amused by the misappropriation of the Hugo label in this case shows you that work by the community’s members is actually within the realm of possibility for winning that award.
Madame Hardy:
Hoa, I see I misread partly. My apologies. But this statement is still extremely weird:
I have not referred to any such comments, so I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
To quote Heinlein:
“Are two types of jokes. One sort goes on being funny forever. Other sort is funny once.”
“Second time it’s dull. This joke is second sort. Use it once, you’re a wit. Use twice, you’re a halfwit.”
“Geometrical progression?”
“Or worse. Just remember this. Don’t repeat, nor any variation. Won’t be funny.”
Contrarius: there are people over there discussing ways to actively harm the Hugo awards.
<sigh> Really? I haven’t read since there were around 100 comments. I suppose I’m going to have to go back over and read some more.
How do those AO3 members expect WSFS members to react when they do shit to harm the Hugo Awards? This is like a 3-year-old screaming “I’ll show you! I’ll smear even more poop on your wall!” Is this really what they think will prove that they were just joking to begin with?
Is this really what they think will get them taken seriously and treated with respect as a fan community? 🙁
Contrarius: that doesn’t mean it would be okay for those self-pubbed authors to go around calling themselves Hugo winners if they weren’t
Exactly. There have occasionally been random self-published authors who’ve promoted themselves on the internet as a “Hugo Nominated Author” or their book as a “Hugo Nominated Work”, just because they bought a Supporting Membership to Worldcon and submitted a nomination for their own book.
When those people have done this, it’s been a slap in the face to WSFS members, too, and the reactions these authors got were exactly the same reactions AO3 members who have claimed to be Hugo Award Nominees / Winners got: No, you’re not. Stop claiming to have earned honors you have not earned.
@Contrarius
I’m not sure this is the argument you think it is, since I was there for that nomination and do distinctly remember there was a loud objection to Chuck Tingle’s nomination precisely because some people felt the inclusion of parody erotica denigrated the prestige of the Hugos. Especially when he released “Pounded in the Butt by my Hugo Nomination.”
I think a lot of us making the joke were essentially holding up a crayon drawing. I mean, I have works I’m extremely proud of that would meet the length requirement and could possibly be eligible, but I didn’t joke about my dystopian fusion winning a Hugo, I joked about my tentacle porn. But I do think you make a salient point that if there was no chance someone from outside both communities looking at the work and saying oh sure, I could see how that could happen, less people would be mad.
You guys (I use “you guys” loosely) are mad because some unscrupulous asshats decided to cash in on the achievement. We’re (again, loosely) mad because it feels like the big kid on the block came by and told us to stop having fun. You guys got more mad that our response to (perceiving) being told to stop having fun was “fuck you and the horse you rode in on.” We got more mad when someone we didn’t know who clearly wasn’t part of our community came into our space to tell us How To Behave. Is that a fair summary? It’s hurt feelings all around due to cultural mismatch.
JJ, you are tarring all of AO3 as “they.” Since I am not blaming all of File770 for calling me an entitled princess and a You People, I’d think you can extend the same courtesy to AO3’s members. Individual commenters have names and handles, they are not a monolith anymore that File770 is.