(1) MATCHLESS PROSE, WE HOPE. Will Frank (scifantasy), Vice-Administrator of the 2016 Hugo Awards and Administrator of the 2021 Hugo Awards, who also identifies himself as a fanfiction writer on AO3 and a trademark attorney, is trying to pour some oil onto the stormy waters that separate parts of the Worldcon community from parts of the AO3 community: “HugO3”. (Please don’t strike a match.)
…If the Worldcon-running community doesn’t police use of the phrase, someone else–someone with less humorous, less celebratory, less free-spirited intent–might be able to plausibly argue that he can call his self-published book a Hugo Award Winner just because it was fanfic, or he has an AO3 account, because the term has lost all of its significance by not being protected.
Is that likely? Who the hell knows. Is it something the Worldcon-running community wants to risk, especially so soon after a concerted effort to undermine the award, not by fanfiction authors in celebration of their validation but by a group of politically-motivated writers with an axe to grind? Definitely not.
(I’ve also seen some people saying that there isn’t any prestige in a Hugo Award given some of the historical winners, and…well, get in line behind the Oscars and the Grammys and the others, I guess. The fact is that “Hugo Award” on the cover of a book does indeed help sales. It matters. There is still cachet in being a Hugo Award winner. Or even a finalist!)
So, no, the Worldcon-running community is not saying “Hey, don’t have fun.” It is saying, “please, don’t undermine our ability to stop people with malicious intent from poisoning the term Hugo Award.”
I’m not even telling you that you have to think I’m right. But at least, please know that this isn’t just a matter of “don’t have fun.” It’s a plea for your help.
(2) HEINLEIN’S OTHER VERSION. The Number of the Beast versus Pursuit of the Pankera – not the same book at all. Arc Manor would be delighted for you to put the claim to a test — http://www.arcmanor.com/as/Comparison.pdf
It is a different book. Of the 187,000 words in the new book, it shares the first 28,000. But then is totally different. The separation occurs in chapter XVIII and here is a side by side comparison of the chapters in the two books with the point of divergence clearly marked.
(3) HISTORIC CON MASQUERADE (AND OTHER) PHOTOS. At Vintage Everyday, “Wendy Pini Cosplay: 22 Rare and Amazing Photographs of Wendy Dressed as Red Sonja in the 1970s”.
Wendy Pini does it all. In the 1970s Wendy used to hit the cons dressed as Sonja. She was born in San Francisco in 1951, and from an early age demonstrated the talents later to come to fruition as a professional illustrator, and eventually as the creator of Elfquest.
(4) CHANGES AT TOR. Shelf Awareness is reporting a couple of promotions at Tom Doherty Associates:
- Theresa DeLucci has been promoted to senior associate director of marketing of Tor Books, Forge, and Nightfire.
- Renata Sweeney has been promoted to senior marketing manager, Tor.
(5) ELLEN VARTANOFF INTERVIEW. From Small Press Expo 2017 (but just posted on YouTube today.)
Rusty and Joe talk to Ellen Vartanoff about her decades in the comics field and the early days of comic conventions!
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY.
- September 19, 1952 — “Superman On Earth” aired as the pilot episode for The Adventures of Superman television series starring George Reeves.
- September 19, 1961 — On a return trip from Canada, while in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have been abducted by aliens.
- September 19, 1986 — The Starman series debuted with Jeff Bridges replaced in the role of The Starman with Robert Hays. The series lasted for twenty-two episodes.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born September 19, 1867 — Arthur Rackham. English book illustrator who is recognized as one of the leading literary figures during the Golden Age of British book illustration. His work can be seen on genre fiction ranging from Goblin Market to Rip Van Winkle and The Wind in the Willows. Derek Huson’s Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work is one of the better looks at him and his art. (Died 1939.)
- Born September 19, 1911 — William Golding. Though obviously best known for the Lord of The Flies novel, I’m more intrigued by the almost completed novel found in draft after his death, The Double Tongue which tells the story of the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo at Delphi. (Died 1993.)
- Born September 19, 1922 — Damon Knight. Author, critic, editor. He is the author of “To Serve Man”, a 1950 short story which became a The Twilight Zone episode. It won a 50-year Retro-Hugo in 2001 as the best short story of 1950. Wiki says “He ceased reviewing when Fantasy & Science Fiction refused to publish a review.” What’s the story here? (Died 2002.)
- Born September 19, 1928 — Adam West. Best known as Batman on that classic Sixty series, he also had a short role in 1964’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars as Colonel Dan McReady. The less said about his post Batman films, including a softcore porn film, the better. (Died 2017.)
- Born September 19, 1928 — Robin Scott Wilson. Founder, with Damon Knight and others, of the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop. He edited Clarion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction and Criticism from the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, Clarion II and Clarion III. He wrote one genre novel, To the Sound of Freedom (with Richard W. Shryock) and a lot of short fiction. Alas, neither iBooks nor Kindle has anything by him available. (Died 2013.)
- Born September 19, 1933 – David McCallum, 86. Gained fame as Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and has rounded off his career playing medical examiner Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard in another TV series that is known by its initials, NCIS.
- Born September 19, 1940 — Caroline John. English actress best known for her role as scientist Elizabeth “Liz” Shaw in Doctor Who as companion to the Third Doctor. She’d repeat her role in Dimensions in Time, a charity special crossover between Doctor Who and the EastEnders that ran in 1993. Her only other genre role was playing Laura Lyons in The Hound of the Baskervilles. (Died 2012.)
- Born September 19, 1947 — Tanith Lee. I hadn’t realized that she wrote more than ninety novels and three hundred short stories in her career. And even wrote two Blake’s 7 episodes as well. I was more fond of her work for children such as The Dragon Hoard and The Unicorn Series than I was of her adult work. (Died 2015.)
- Born September 19, 1952 — Laurie R. King, 67. She’s on the Birthday Honors List for the Mary Russell series of historical mysteries, featuring Sherlock Holmes as her mentor and later partner. She’s also written at least one genre novel, Califia’s Daughters.
- Born September 19, 1972 — N. K. Jemisin, 47. Her most excellent Broken Earth series has made her the only author to have won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years.
(8) COMICS SECTION.
- Candorville makes Trek and Doctor Who jokes.
(9) UNIDENTIFIED WALKING OBJECTS. Aliens have landed at the convention hotel (a couple years early) reports the Tonopah Nevada in 2021 for Westercon 74 page – see the photographic evidence there!
Starting to see some out of this world stuff in honor of Alien Weekend… these aliens came all the way from Michigan to check out the happenings…
(10) OH NO, NOT AGAIN. “False Tsunami Warning In Hawaii Triggered By Police Exercise”.
Emergency sirens wailed on Hawaii’s Oahu and Maui islands Wednesday evening, warning of a tsunami, but the alert turned out to be a mistake, sparking anger from residents who recalled a similar false warning last year of an imminent ballistic missile attack.
Within minutes of the alarm going off shortly after 5 p.m. local time (11 p.m. ET) authorities were trying to calm the public by getting out word of the mistake.
The National Weather Service in Honolulu tweeted: “***NO TSUNAMI THREAT*** We have received phone calls about sirens going off across Oahu, but we have confirmed with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center that there is NO TSUNAMI THREAT.”
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell also took to Twitter. “Mahalo to everyone for taking appropriate action & tuning into local media,” he tweeted, adding that the sirens had been “inadvertently triggered” during Honolulu Police Department training.
(11) I’M MELTING! FastCompany tells everyone “Burger King is melting down plastic toys to recycle them into something actually useful”.
… Burger King has decided to remove all plastic toys from its kids’ meals. Not only that but the initiative, created by agency Jones Knowles Ritchie and starting this week in the U.K., is also calling for people to drop plastic toys from meals past in “plastic toy amnesty bins” at Burger King locations to be melted down and recycled into things that are actually useful, like play areas and surface tools, which can be recycled many times over.
People in the U.K. who bring in toys to melt down next week will get a free King Junior meal when they buy any adult meal. To promote the project, Burger King has created a cast of melted-down plastic toy characters, including Beep Beep, a jeep-driving bunny, which the brand has installed a giant melting version of on London’s South Bank to promote the project.
(12) IF YOU WERE A PTEROSAUR AS TALL AS A GIRAFFE, MY LOVE. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Inside Science reports: “Newest Pterosaur Was Likely as Tall as a Giraffe”.
Ancient flying reptile dubbed Cryodrakon boreas, the “cold dragon of the north winds,” may shed light on the evolution of these dinosaur relatives.
CBC News agrees: “Giraffe-sized flying reptiles once soared over Alberta”
Newly identified pterosaur species had a wingspan of 10 metres
Mark Whitton’s 2013 article has additional details and a great illustration: “9 things you may not know about giant azhdarchid pterosaurs”
Despite their giraffian proportions, giant azhdarchid torso were relatively tiny. Witton and Habib (2010) noted that, like many pterodactyloid pterosaurs, their torsos were probably only a third or so longer than their humeri, suggesting a shoulder-hip length of about 65-75 cm for an animal with a 10 m wingspan. That’s a torso length not much larger than your own, although they were considerably more stocky and swamped with muscle. Azhdarchid shoulders, in particular, are well endowed with attachment sites for flight muscles, as are (for pterosaurs) their pelves and hindquarters.
(13) JURASSIC SHORT. Battle at Big Rock on YouTube is an eight-minute video, set in the Jurassic World universe one year after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom that premiered on FX last night and was put online today.
(14) BRADBURY INTERVIEW. Here’s a 9-minute video of Ray Bradbury’s 1978 appearance on the Merv Griffin Show.
The always brilliant Ray Bradbury, one of the greatest sci-fi writers in history, talks with Merv about the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, Steven Spielberg, his mission as a writer, the future of mankind, and ends by reading from his poem “If Only We Had Taller Been” from his collection “When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed.”
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchccock, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Kevin Standlee, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day JJ.]
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@Contrarius
Wait, do you still believe this, then? Since you said that before later using the “one millionth” phrasing, I thought it was relevant to bring up. I also don’t see how it’s obviously different. Both only claim partial ownership of the win. Could you explain the difference you see?
I’ll quote my question and scifantasy’s response for you, since I can find it easily.
@Contrarius
Ah, I think I’ve figured out another disconnect.
Fanfic writers have, traditionally, faced pushback from the owners of the properties that they were writing fic about. That’s one of (though by no means the only) the reasons for that spite response. They were asked or ordered, sometimes politely and sometimes less so, to stop writing fic about the thing they loved.
The ones who continued writing fic were the ones who disagreed. Sometimes respectfully, sometimes disrespectfully. But the main position is that the creator of the thing does not have the right to curtail their fans’ interaction with the thing beyond the bounds granted to the creator by law, and that fans continuing such interaction after being asked to stop is not, in and of itself, disrespect. It is disagreement.
With the idea established that the creator does not have the moral right to impose additional restrictions beyond the law, more stringent insistence from the creator about such a matter appears to fic writers as the original creator overstepping their bounds and attempting to limit the ficcers’ freedom of expression. And that’s where the ‘no’ turns into ‘no, fuck you’.
More non-AO3 news:
Burrowing owls discover cameras, and deal with them in their own way.
https://twitter.com/MacyThornhill/status/1159829410091896833
@Lorien Grey
I do think it’s important to distinguish between social issues and fandom issues in these cases. I don’t think it’s valuable or accurate to conflate social issues with fandom issues. It’s true that, when it comes to social issues, the general attitude is to embrace communication and empathy. But that has not been the historical response to fandom issues across the board, in my experience, because fandom issues range from “Rice told us to stop writing Louis and Lestat kissing, lolno” to “this person who claims that they’re Snape in their soul wants us to stop criticizing Snape, lolno.” (I’m not making up wild examples either, these are actual things I’ve seen in fic fandom during my time there.) There’s also been an increasing trend of taking a fandom issue and trying to frame it like a social issue to seem more legitimate, like “writing this ship in a way I disagree with (or at all) is homophobic and it hurts me,” which is also responded to with “lolno” in my experience. Fandom issues are fandom issues, and not to be taken especially seriously.
Other than that, MRM did a great job saying what I would have said.
@MRM
I think that does explain why there was insistent pushback from some AO3 members so immediately. They were starting at a higher boiling point (or do I mean lower boiling point?) due to their previous experience.
But I’d like to ask my fellow AO3 members to consider whether WSFS was actually trying to make a request for a change in terminology and not trying to limit freedom of expression. The fact that they didn’t start with a C&D could be interpreted as a request and not a threat. And I’d like to ask my fellow WSFS members to remember that AO3 members have been threatened more often than requested to change.
Both sides have now expressed what they meant initially and it seems clear that both sides were initially (and still are being) misinterpreted. There was no malicious intent on either side. Can we move on to what to do going forward?
All that’s really separating both sides is the question of changing from ‘I’m a Hugo Winner’ to “I won a millionth part of a Hugo’ or ‘I contributed to a Hugo-winning project.’ That’s it. That is the crux of the problem.
To my fellow AO3 members who were already saying ‘I won a millionth part of a Hugo’ – that’s great. Let’s keep phrasing it that way. To my fellow AO3 members who have been saying ‘I’m a Hugo winner’ can you consider changing it to a more preferred wording? Not because you legally ‘have to,’ and not because if you don’t you’re morally bad, but simply because that change in wording means something to a lot of my fellow WSFS members who’ve spent the better part of the last several years trying to defend and strengthen the Hugo Awards. I know how many of my fellow AO3 members participated in that defense and have been happily taking part in the Hugo Awards ever since. I think there’s a way forward for both sides without causing a permanent rift between our two communities. I’d just like to find it.
Hiya Lorien,
I think this is going to have to go into agree to disagree. The ‘I won a Hugo!’ folks are not saying this (…excepting in the comments of these two posts when arguing in favour of their legal right to do so, which they’ve done with great eloquence) to filers on File770 or on the WSFS boards or whatever. They’re saying it in their own spaces, on their own twitters, and some folks from File770 are seeking those out and objecting to those statements being made in those places.
I made a rather tl;dr comment back at the beginning of the Sep 14 scroll, in which (among other things) I brought up an example of my cat-hating friend. My cat-hating friend is my friend, so he doesn’t make mean cat jokes to me, because I’ve asked him not to. But if I go to his blog and I see a mean cat joke, that is on me. That is not him being a bad friend, that is him doing his own thing in his own space with other people who appreciate that kind of humor.
The AO3 users saying these things are the cat-hating friends. It is upon them to abide by the cat-lovers’ wishes while in the cat-lovers’ spaces, and it is on the cat-lovers to avoid seeking out the cat-haters’ twitters and other accounts if the statements made in those places bother them.
@Farasha – I get where you’re coming from. I’ve also rolled my eyes at various people who try to claim a pairing is homophobic or transphobic when it’s not. Nothing pisses me off more than the people who insist on misappropriating issues. I apologize for coming off that way. That wasn’t my intention. I was seeing it less like social issues like homophobia and more like a naming issue – which admittedly is a sore point for me.
Lorien is my middle name and it was a huge effort to get people to respect my choice back when I made the change. But I don’t make the mistake of thinking that my name issue is as important as a trans person’s name issue. That comes with layers of transphobia, denial of respect and systemic bias which I don’t have to face. But even though it’s not nearly as serious as what a trans person goes through, I still get bothered when people intentionally use the wrong name because they think it’s funny.
And that’s the level I mean when I talk about terminology. It’s not a huge deal. The world isn’t going to end over it. But it means a lot to some people, so I don’t see any harm in going along with it.
@Olav
Exactly. The current subhead on my Dreamwidth is “I’m .0002% of a Hugo Award Winner!” because I’ve done some writing and co-edited an issue of The Drink Tank for Chris Garcia.
I am under no illusion that I’m actually a HA winner. It’s a joke, and in light of this conversation, I’ll be changing it today. If someday my name is announced as the recipient of a Hugo, then I’ll be a Hugo Award winner.
The WSFS Mark Protection Committee doesn’t send out press releases about every action it takes. Just because you haven’t seen anything happen in public doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.
@RSV —
That seems like a determined bit of rules-lawyering to me. You could say the very same of the Pulitzer or the Man Booker or whatever literary award.
@Rivine —
Yes. I would not be offended by either “We won” or “one millionth” labels, but they are not the same statement.
The “one millionth” label is obviously humorous, along with being self-deprecating, and is therefore much less likely to run into problems with diluting the trademark; the “We won” emphasizes a sense of community, like the sports fan yelling “We won the Superbowl!”, and does not obviously take personal credit.
Thanks. Note that his response specifically says that he refuses to comment, NOT that either statement would either be acceptable or not acceptable.
Nobody has been able to produce a single example that I’ve seen of anyone actually objecting to the “one millionth” label, yet the WSFS “team” has been accused multiple times of doing exactly that. Why?
@MRM —
Different situations, though.
Situation 1: Fanfic authors read a story, love that world, and write fanfic about it. Original author objects on grounds of copyright and/or loss of income and/or whatever. Fanfic authors say piss off.
Situation 2: WSFS says: Hey, we think AO3 is really great. Here, we think you are SO great that we’re giving you an award. These are the ways in which you can legitimately refer to the award. AO3 responds: Piss off, you actually think we’re terrible people even though you’ve given us this great award, you guys are a bunch of old white male bigots, and we can do whatever we want! (And yes, I can produce multiple quotes from that AO3 thread to back up these paraphrases.)
Again — AO3 writers are not “borrowing” an award in the way that they borrow fiction. The Hugo organization specifically thought that AO3 was a great community, thought so highly of it that they thought AO3 deserved to be publicly recognized for it — and AO3 turns around and pisses all over it and says nasty things about the very organization that gave them the award in the first place.
Do you not get that places like AO3 and Twitter… and Facebook and here and wherever — are all public spaces? If someone puts “I am a Hugo Winner” on a tweet or on a fic or on their Facebook page, that is public. If someone puts “Those evil old WSFS bigots are a bunch of old white a-holes who hate fanfic” over on AO3, that is public.
I thought people had learned from Brian Z-times to keep the fighting to one thread. 🙁
@MRM – I think I understand your position. And we may have to agree to disagree. But before we leave it at that, I’d like to continue your analogy. You say AO3 is a cat-haters space, and File 770 is the cat-lovers space, but it’s not that simple. AO3 has both cat-haters and cat-lovers. So does File 770. Your picture of ‘them’ coming in to ‘our’ space where they don’t belong is too simplistic. And I really don’t like the implication that cat-loving members of AO3 have to shut up and take the cat-hate or leave. But I don’t think you meant that implication, so I’ll leave it at that.
There’s been a tendency to draw stark, binary lines in this issue. To make it a fight between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Some of us are members of AO3 and File 770 and, for that matter, WSFS. There is no ‘us’ against ‘them.’ All three organizations are communities, with a wide variety of currently disagreeing individuals. Although I’d argue that AO3 and WSFS are more communal projects, whereas File 770 is Mike Glyer’s space where a community has formed (and is currently brawling in his yard, lol).
@Lorien Gray
I’d really like to thank you for your comments, they’ve been thoughtful and understanding. I can say that I personally think this is a reasonable request, and I’ll take it to heart – because I never really felt compelled to claim anything more than one one millionth of a Hugo Award in the first place, but also because I don’t tend to like upsetting people or furthering hurt feelings.
I’ll also say that I don’t know how lurkers or random members of AO3 will take it, but I think it’s worth asking – in these words, or something very like them and in the same spirit, probably with an additional statement about monetizing the Hugo or falsely advertising themselves for commercial purposes (and why WSFS would really not like them to do that, and that lawyers would have to get involved in those cases). And I think it needs to come from an official source, like the MPC.
I do think this will likely blow over as soon as it dies down, as is the way of fandom, but if we don’t want bad feelings to linger, I think that’s the best foot to put forward. Of course, with a userbase of millions, the jury is out as to whether it’ll succeed or how many it’ll succeed with, but it’s worth a shot.
@Contrarius
I’ve already had this debate with JJ and Hampus re: talking in public vs. talking to the public, and I feel like I’ve stated my position pretty clearly here, here, and the second half of here.
For the rest of your comment, my reply will have to wait until after I’ve had some dinner and have more time to type.
In current reading:
I’m something like halfway through book 3 of Berg’s Rai-Kirah trilogy. Yes, I still love the steenkin’ thing. Yes, the pacing is pretty screwed for both books 2 and 3. I’m just a character and angst addict, what can I say?
Dunno what I’ll go for next. Probably something from 2019.
In current living:
It’s a daily adventure living with a new dog, especially one with aggression issues! Dublin is really a lovely dog in many ways — not at all food or toy possessive with me, not destructive, loves his crate, quick learner, and such a strongly dober personality — but in a few ways I wish he’d get his head out of his rear end!
I think his biggest problem is that he’s lived most of his life in an apartment on lead with an owner who can’t see much — so he is both poorly socialized and has always felt like he has to protect her. And then kids in the apartment complex were constantly tormenting him when his previous owner would put him out on a lead. Sigh. But we’re working on it!
His nickname right now is Dublin DoRight and Dublin DobeRight. He wants to do the right thing — now if he can just figure out what that is!
Contrarius on September 20, 2019 at 4:55 pm said:
The Pulitzers for books are for the work. The rest go to people, either collectively (“the staff of”) or by name.
@PJ —
They work just the same as the Hugos. We say “Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer for his book” in the very same way that we say “John Scalzi won the Hugo for his book”.
@Contrarius
Scifantasy said they wouldn’t comment, but then wrote this: “that might mean that even what you said was caught up in a larger snarl of the problem.” I don’t see how that isn’t them saying they think that even “We won a Hugo!” might be caught up in trademark infringement.
You and I clearly see the amount of personal involvement invested in “We won” and “I won one millionth” differently.
@Contrarius – May I recommend SA Chakraborty’s Daevabad series? The first book is The City of Brass, the second book (out this year) is The Kingdom of Copper and the third book is out next year.
Your pupper sounds great! Good luck with him.
@Farasha – Thanks for your thoughtful response. I hope someone on the MPC will consider the points you’ve made.
I finished the audiobook of Earth II (Virus #3): You Have No Honor, by Ray Jay Perreault. In the aftermath of a devastating pandemic, alien ships are in orbit around Earth and are landing robot forces who seem to be doing a survey of some kind. They largely ignore life forms that don’t attack them, but machines are attacked. This leads to some lively clashes between the alien robots and the much reduced US and Russian navies. We follow multiple small groups resisting the alien invasion, including the Space Consortium which has been supporting a barely embryonic colony on Mars. The Mars colonists have made some interesting discoveries, and the news that they are at least temporarily cut off is less alarming than it might have been, given it means that at least in the short term they can concentrate on those rather than on more immediately monetizable work. Yes, I’m being vague, and in context it makes sense. We also eventually get to meet the aliens behind the robots. It has so much potential to be annoyingly stupid, and it turned out to be just a lot of fun.
@Rivine —
Stick with the “no comment” part of the statement. The rest is just illustrating some of the reasons why he won’t comment.
My deceased brother was a lawyer who specialized in questions about intellectual property. I was often intensely annoyed at the questions he would refuse to comment about!
@Lorien —
Good suggestions, but I already read and enjoyed them both!
Thanks! I don’t know whether you saw the earlier part of the discussion on 770, but I got him less than two weeks ago, so we’ve both still got a lot of settling in to do. It helps that I’ve got a good muzzle and that he accepts wearing one — lets everyone do a lot more relaxing and less worrying!
@Contrarius
This is not an accurate summary of events. There has so far been no official communication from the WSFS about how AO3 users are allowed to refer to the award. There have been statements by individual WSFS members, which have been contradicted by other individual WSFS members.
More importantly, those statements are all occurring a month after the award was given. They were not made as part of the giving of the award. They are later conditions that individuals not constituting a governing body of the WSFS are attempting to impose, and which are disagreed with by other members of the WSFS.
Fanfic writers don’t “borrow” fiction. That’s a very outdated model of thinking of it, especially in the core userbase responsible for the conception of having an Archive Of Our Own. They consume the canon and then continue to interact with it on their own terms. Here, they got an award and now they’re talking about in on their own terms. It’s very comparable.
I believe it’s been pretty well established in both the debate in the Sep 14 scroll and in the AO3 announcements’ comments that there was a massive culture clash going on, such that the announcement and followups from Kevin, etc, came across as deeply offensive to many AO3 users. There were a lot of kneejerk reactions, yes. That’s what tends to happen when people feel deeply offended. Shit was slung from all sides.
Do you really want to get into a game of ‘prove whose side was nastier’? Really? Because I can cite things, too, and the anti-I-Won-A-Hugo-Award side have hardly come out of this smelling like roses, if you really want to go there.
I don’t, particularly. I think it would stir up a lot of bad blood that we’ve all spent the last week calming down from. So how about we don’t and instead we can provide each other with links to adorable kitten pictures.
@Lorian Gray
It’s true that this is more complicated than a single cat-hater and a single cat-lover. However, AO3 and twitter, where the cat-hate is occuring, are both quite a bit larger than a single cat-hater’s blog, and one can enjoy the vast majority of both sites while skipping or blocking the accounts that engage in cat-hating. My suggestion was that cat-lovers should avoid those individuals’ AO3s and not go seeking out their twitter accounts. It did seem like the people who really disliked IAHAW (…I’m coining a term, sorry, I need a shorthand so I can stop typing out a paragraph every time when I’m on my phone) were not people much engaged in the AO3 culture or who usually comment on AO3 announcement threads, so those people should probably consider continuing to skip the things that they already didn’t usually consume.
As File770 is by nature without individual sub-spaces, and is called home by a number of people who don’t like the IAHAW, it would seem polite (to me) for the people who do like the IAHAW phrasing to be polite to the cat-lovers that they’re rubbing digital shoulders with and avoid calling themselves such in the File770 comments.
Late Scroll today! I’ve got a meeting to go to, and it’s only about 60% done.
Bisy backson, as they say.
@Contrarius–I’m glad to hear you and Dublin are getting off to a good start. Dora wants to assure him he can rely on you to protect and guide him, and he’ll be much more comfortable in the long run, with a hooman who has gotten better training from previous dogs than his previous hooman did.
Here’s one difference with John Scalzi: When Redshirts won a Hugo (yes, the book won), someone from WSFS physically handed Scalzi a rocket! He literally received the award! (And the award was for his work, and his work alone.)
Now, if anyone who was physically handed a rocket for their own work by a WSFS representative wants to say “I won a Hugo”, that’s fine by me. But when the thousand-or-so volunteer project I was part of won awards, I didn’t go around saying “I won an award!” Because I respect the other ~999 people I worked with, and I respect the award-givers. And I’m not an egomaniac. I know I only played a minor role in the overall effort which lead to the award.
(I might have said “I won one-thousandth of an award” if it had occurred to me–but again, see, “I’m not an egomaniac.” We won the award. I contributed to the award-winning effort.)
@MRM —
We agree that both the OTW announcement and Kevin’s initial post were regrettably vague. OTOH, Kevin did make some clear suggestions in further postings, like endorsing the “I contributed to…” label. I don’t think anyone has contradicted that statement.
Again, I haven’t seen anyone come up with an actual example of anyone on the WSFS “team” objecting to either “We won” or “one millionth” labels. So I don’t really see what the problem is with using either one.
I know there was some discussion of the “I’m a Hugo nominee” label before the final vote was even held — but I don’t know how much or if that concern was communicated to the AO3 community, so I can’t comment.
But I do know that the problem has been mentioned NOW, and the AO3 folks reacted with loud and prolonged derision and hostility.
I think part of that was probably because it didn’t occur to WSFS folks that anyone would actually disrespect the award label in that way and to such a widespread extent.
Kevin is part of the Marks committee. That committee has the final word on the trademark issue.
I don’t care what word you want to insert there. My point was that fanfic’s relationship to commercial fic is not the same as its relationship to an award.
No. In the case of commercial fic, the author of that fic had no previous interaction with the fan. The author didn’t know the fan, didn’t care about the fan. And the lit wasn’t “awarded” to the fan — the fan had to go out and buy it themselves.
In the case of this award, the WSFS specifically looked at AO3 and said “Hey, you guys are great, we want to give you an award! Here, have an award!” And then AO3 turned around and said “Hey, great award! But you guys are terrible people, and we don’t have to listen to anything you say!”
Very different situations.
Both Kevin and the original OTW announcements were completely polite and congratulatory.
A couple of AO3 folks like Farasha and Scribbler have already pointed out that the fanfic community tends to react with spite, contrariness, and doubling down when anyone from outside the AO3 community tells them something they don’t want to hear. That’s what happened in this case, and it isn’t OTW or Kevin’s fault.
No. Kevin didn’t call anyone names, or ridicule them, or make false accusations about them. His worst sin was being unsubtle and clunky.
I’m still steamed about those repeated accusations that the WSFS is misogynistic, anti-LGBT, anti-diversity, and anti-fanfic. You come up with anything remotely similar, and we’ll talk.
@Contrarius
I’m sorry, I lied. It’s just…
Situation 2: WSFS says: Hey, we think AO3 is really great. Here, we think you are SO great that we’re giving you an award. These are the ways in which you can legitimately refer to the award.
In the case of this award, the WSFS specifically looked at AO3 and said “Hey, you guys are great, we want to give you an award! Here, have an award!” And then AO3 turned around and said “Hey, great award! But you guys are terrible people, and we don’t have to listen to anything you say!”
This is just the same thing said twice. Your assertion that AO3 immediately went on the offensive after being given the award was rebutted and you just repeated it. In fact, the second time you said it there was even less nuance. I don’t believe you’re interested in the greys of this situation at all.
You come up with anything remotely similar, and we’ll talk.
As for this, I think we all know very well who can be cited in regards to nastiness on the Filer side. But that person apologized, and I believe he was sincere about it. I’d rather his name not be brought up again out of respect.
It is ok to bring up my name, because I see an enormous amount of lies about what I said and what I meant being spread around. It is better to refer to what I said, so people can’t make up wild statements of the kind the rumour mill is now spreading over twitter.
N, I am glad to hear there were apologies from at least one Filer. I had to close that tab because my stress level was through the roof. I appreciate the emotional labor going on here, and I wish everyone who is still mad could take a breather.
Also, I’m really tired of hearing the statements about AO3 folks being contrary quoted. Like all fans aren’t? The original point was that they’re like fans everywhere. We all know it’s like herding cats.
Okay. You know what? No. I’m not wasting the rest of my Friday evening doing this, because I’m trying to compile links here and I’ve got a quarter of the damn post.
Contrarius, you haven’t even acknowledged your own misogyny, which was pointed out by other filers. Hampus apologized for comparing the ‘jokers’ to white supremacists, but not the other offenders (and infringement or not, that’s not white fucking supremacy), and not for the comparisons to 4-chan, home to literal rapists. You’ve got Steve over there trying to call it ‘cultural appropriation’, I spent god knows how long on Tuesday typing up an explanation for why JJ should not be trying to use arguments designed to support victims of racism and sexism about a jokes about a goddamn literary award, and Olav Rokne tries to use ‘believe victims’ rhetoric about it. Lis Carey evidently thinks the same, going on about ‘you people’ and ‘your nasty friends’, but what are we to expect from the society that gave a special posthumous award to Forest Ackerman this year? You want to show that the WSFS isn’t misogynistic, while Kevin’s going around writing revisionist history?
You’ve apparently completely ignored every post explaining how Kevin came off so offensively to many AO3 users, and if you haven’t read the comments here by RedWombat, LectionaryStan, Farasha, Madame Hardy–ahhhh, you know what, fuck it. I’m on page eight of that post and your comments are all over there and you clearly weren’t listening to any of them the first time, why the hell should I think you’ll listen to me now? Every single one of your summaries about what has been going on is ‘Wahhhh, the AO3 IS NASTY’ while completely ignoring the immediate and institutional ‘nastiness’ you’ve surrounded yourself with. I’ve tried ignoring those until now and keeping to arguing on specific points, but fuck, you are never-ending, aren’t you?
Whatever, I’m done. Everyone who has tried has clearly failed to get through to you in any fashion, so I suppose that means you win.
Edit: And hell, while I’m on a tear: Mike, count me among those who are really unimpressed that you let a bunch of guys bloviate on about trademark law and suppressed comments from the woman who had actual fucking case citations. I had thought better of you.
@MRM
And this is why I have “Blog Killfile” added to my browser. I don’t have to read the people who aren’t getting it, and it help me enjoy reading the rest of the comments. (Normally Contrarius is worth it…but not on this.)
Y’know, considering how relatively little I’ve commented on this, and the fact that I’ve mostly stopped doing so, it’s fascinating to see that MRM sees a need to bash me on what they say is their way out.
I think that’s also the same individual who thought LectionaryStan’s rudeness to me was hilarious, but I can’t say I care enough to scroll back through pages of comments to be sure.
Anybody reading anything?
Hampus, I’ve pretty much just resigned myself to it. I’ve now been told “fuck you” on Twitter for having the sheer audacity to object to bald-faced lies being posted about things I and other people have said on File 770, because apparently I should be a nice girl and smile and know my place and feel that it’s perfectly acceptable for people to tell all the bald-faced lies they want about me.
I’m a terrible person because instead of knowing my place and submitting meekly, I have anger and resentment at people who tell bald-faced lies with what seems to be the goal of getting other people as angry at me as possible, apparently just because they can.
By a person whose GoFundMe I signal-boosted to a bunch of people. Yes, I’m really such a horrible person, I deserve to be lied about and abused, and I should just shut up and take it, because having already had to put up with a lifetime of it from a parent and an ex-spouse weren’t enough. Thanks for that. 🙁
MRM:
My wording was careless and I can understand why they were misunderstood. There was never any meaning of likening trademark infringement with white supremacy. It was not the meaning to compare those attacking the trademark to white supremacists. It was anger that persons who ought to know better was acting in ways that might accomplish the puppies goals for them.
Otherwise, I see that you are back to “us/them” and painting everyone that disagree with you as crybabies. I’m very happy if you are done with that.
@P J Evans
Wow, okay, yes. Thanks! This is much less stressful. I should probably go back to lurking, though. I’m not very good at discussing if I’m not arguing, but agh, I inevitably do lose my temper over long arguments.
I do appreciate that you and a bunch of other regulars get it, though.
@Contrarius
Not a very good example I’m afraid. Players are referred to that way ALL the time, and by the media as well as the average person on the street. “Teddy Bruschi won 3 Super Bowls with the New England Patriots.” Absolutely standard nomenclature. (note that Lombardi Trophy can be and is subbed in there at will)
Contrarious: Pictures of the new pup?
@MRM
I’m one of the people who approves of AO3 and its rocket. (40 years in fandom, and reading SF for closer to 60 years. Discovering fandom was wonderful! Before that, it was pretty much just my father and me, before ST:TOS.)
I just feel the need to tell y’all that after a week of following this wank on multiple platforms (here, AO3, tumblr, twitter, and FFA) I have determined the following things:
1) I second every single point that MRM made. All of you need to take a good long look in the mirror and examine your behavior. You have made some morally atrocious statements and accusations over the last week and I am appalled at your priorities.
2) I work in a book store & sell books for a living and henceforth I will make it a point to never ever mention to anyone that a book has won a Hugo award. If someone mentions that a book won a Hugo, I will be sure to tell them that it’s an award voted on by a very small number of people, many of whom are joyless & have no sense of humor so proceed with that knowledge.
You did this. JJ, Hampus, Contrarian, Kevin Standlee, you did this. Up to this point I didn’t give the Hugo much thought outside of it being an award that is given to SFF works. I now think of the Hugo award and it leaves me feeling like I just got slapped across the face AND fed a lemon.
I mean, to be fair, I also learned that just this year the WSFS decided to give an award to a man who sexually harassed women for YEARS and was a child pornography enthusiast. That’s not a great look and is also coloring how I view the award tbh.
3) I had thought that it was cool that the AO3 won a Hugo. I cracked two jokes about winning the Hugo on my twitter and corrected a follower who thought I was serious. I’m not sure now how I feel about the AO3 winning a Hugo, but I will tell you that my twitter bio now states that since it DID win a Hugo, so did I.
Rest easy: it will only only say that for as long as I find it funny or am pissed off at all of you – so a week, give or take. Hockey season is starting & that’ll shift my focus pretty thoroughly.
Are the last two of those things spiteful as all get out? Yep. There’s this meme out there that explains my reaction & the last week has more or less been 100% SPITE INTENSIFIES. That’s fandom for ya – we’re all sunshine and roses until you tell us we’re all terrible humans for making jokes that literally harm nobody (no, I don’t count the bs about delegitimzing your award. If the WFSF had just sent a nice C&D letter to the pin maker the rest of this would literally have blown over in the next month or two & then you could have easily found the people actually trying to trade on the award and C&Ded them too.)
Anyway, I tried to be nice. We all tried to be nice. I’m done. Y’all can wank & feel bad for yourselves in peace. Feel free to send me a C&D if you can find my twitter.
ETA: Congrats on the new puppy! Puppies eclipse all of humanity’s nonsense & divisions
Peggy Saves Herself: Anyway, I tried to be nice. We all tried to be nice.
No, you “all” haven’t. Some AO3 members have tried to be nice. Some have been complete jerks from the get-go.
There may have been people somewhere who complained about joking, but the complaints I made and saw were about people trying to seriously take credit and people who behaved horribly. I never saw anyone tell people they were terrible human beings for joking. But I guess if you claim that was what was said, you don’t have to address the actual legitimate complaints about people who were behaving really badly.
Over the last 6 months, I repeatedly defended AO3’s nomination and win as valid and deserved; I praised the site for the way it facilitated a community and fannish activities. No good deed goes unpunished; in exchange, I’ve been abused and lied about repeatedly.
And just an FYI, I thought Forest J Ackerman was an appalling, unethical, disgusting human being and No-Awarded him every chance I got — as did a lot of other WSFS members I know. But apparently all WSFS members get to be found guilty for things other people have done.
To be honest…after this year, I don’t know if I want to participate in the Hugos either.
I’ve been a registered voter since 2015. Even after the Puppies I stuck through. But, seeing all this explode, it feels like the Puppies ended up striking a nerve more importance is being placed on the award itself rather than the work it’s meant to honor. That’s not what it’s about. That shouldn’t be what it’s about. And this breaks my heart to say this, because I love the Hugos, but I love them because they provide the opportunity to share different aspects of SF/F culture with wide swaths of people. That’s why I’ve been so heavily into the recommendation lists, it’s always been a communal experience for me. The prestige comes from the people.
So to respond to JJ, Hampus et al you are going to penalise authors who won an award? Can I recommend your first point back to yourself?
Peggy Saves Herself:
So every time someone mentions that AO3 won a a Hugo, you’ll state that the award was given by joyless people with no sense of humour? Ok.
MRM. If you thought better of me for any reason you were bound to be disappointed.
But the whole problem was that her comment here DIDN’T INCLUDE ANY CASE CITATIONS. I asked to have some added. You seem to have the situation completely backward. Congratulations to you.
We really need to get rid of the Retros. Not enough people vote on it, and they keep going to problematic people and/or those whose names are better known, regardless of the value of the work that year. I mean, not always, but too often. The honorees are also almost never still living. And there is quite enough to consider in the current year’s works.
@JJ
Good. I have a friend who is a frequent File770er and who swears that you’re a decent human who has seemingly lapsed into insanity. This indicates that she’s probably not wrong. I still think that the fact that enough of the WSFS members voted for him getting an award is a horrible indictment of the group as a whole & yes, that colors my perception.
@ Camestros Felapton
Oh don’t be a drama queen. I’m still going to do my job and sell books & I’m not going to not recommend authors like Becky Chambers or N.K. Jemisin or books like the Murderbot series. I’m just not going to be mentioning that they won a Hugo. If you genuinely don’t think that those authors and books won’t do well without your award, well, you’re wrong.
Actions have consequences, bud, and all of the actions by various WSFS members over the last week have soured me on your award. It’s a pity and maybe I’ll get over it, but right now it is what it is.
@Hampus
Yup! And when I then give them a rundown on the massive wankstorm that exploded this week I’ll be sure to give you and your comparing the AO3 to 4Chan and its users to white supremacists a solid shout out.
I don’t doubt that you’re all lovely people most of the time – the vast majority of people I’ve met at cons and through fandom really are – but my lord, this week has not been good for any of us & while eventually I’m sure I’ll mostly chill about the Hugos, right now I think you’re all kind of cursed with jerkish tendencies. So is my corner of fandom, but that’s my family and while I can talk crap about my family, nobody else can.
Lenore Jones / jonesnori: We really need to get rid of the Retros. Not enough people vote on it, and they keep going to problematic people and/or those whose names are better known, regardless of the value of the work that year.
For a long time, I kept telling myself that I was being unfair to the older fen who enjoy and appreciate them, by feeling that way. It wouldn’t be right for them to take the opportunity to participate in the current Hugos away from me; I didn’t feel that it was right for me to support taking the opportunity to participate in the Retro Hugos away from them.
But after this year, seeing awards being given out yet again for name recognition rather than quality, seeing how few of them had anyone left to accept on their behalf, seeing many people speaking up who feel the same way I do — some of them significantly older fen — I’ve changed my mind. I’m sorry now that CoNZealand agreed to present them. I wish that they could reverse that decision. But I doubt very much that they will.
Peggy Saves Herself:
So you’ll be lying about me. Ok.
I doubt that you are when you explain how you are going to spread lies about me.
@Peggy
I’m with you all the way, but I just wanna say, getting into it here is not worth it.
MRM, Farasha et al. did a great job and I want to say that I appreciate them going through the trouble of engaging for so long. It’s a shame that WSFS has managed to tarnish the Hugos much more rapidly than any trademark infringement would have, and among a population that should be allies, no less. I don’t want to think of the Hugos as a joke, but, well, now I kinda do.
I’m sure things will mellow out after a while but actual damage has been done, and IMO it was completely avoidable.