Death Rides A Puppy 4/21

Featured in today’s roundup are David Gerrold, Vox Day, Jim Wright (no relation to John C.), Jason Cordova and Jason Sanford, Amanda Green and Edward Green, Mick and Mackintosh, Alexandra Erin, Philip Sandifer, plus all the other woofers and tweeters.

Eric James Stone

 “Ruminations on Nominations” – April 20

  1. Voting: Various people have suggested voting “No Award” above any of the Puppy nominees regardless of the merits of any particular nominee, as a way of protesting the use of bloc voting for nominations. I think that’s an understandable reaction, and it’s not against the rules, so I do think that’s a valid strategy. But I think it’s unseemly; not as unseemly as bloc voting, but still unseemly.  I don’t think it’s right to punish all the nominees on the Sad Puppies slate because they swept most of the available spot on the ballot, because I doubt any of them had any idea that was going to happen.  This whole Sad Puppies seems to have grown out of what happened a few years ago when some people in the WorldCon community deliberately snubbed Larry Correia because of his politics and religion. Larry decided to push back, and received pushback on his pushback, and things escalated from there. It’s time to stop the escalation. I think George R.R. Martin, John Scalzi, and many others have the right idea: check out the individual nominees, and vote based on whether you consider them worthy or not. If that means “No Award” in some categories, so be it, but I think you should at least give the nominees a fair look.
  2. Self-Correction: Given the reaction this year, I think it’s fair to say people should be on notice about what it means to be on a slate, and a blanket No Award strategy for any nominees who are willing participants in a slate next year would be appropriate. Also, people will be alert to warn others who might have missed this year’s controversy as to what being on a slate means. With regard to the Sad Puppies campaign, I hope that if they do decide to continue with Sad Puppies 4, it is with a recommendation list far broader than a slate of nominees. Hopefully, next year slates will not be a problem, and so amending the rules (which takes two years) will turn out to be unnecessary.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“There is a theme” – April 21

This is an interesting exercise in rhetoric. Mr. Gerrold clearly wants us to be very impressed by his feelbads, and thereby convinced of the pure and utter evil of those who would cause such feelbads.

With all due respect, Mr. Gerrold, you’re not exactly convincing anyone. We’ve read STARTREKSHIRTS. We’ve read “If a Dinosaur Had a Cookie, My Love”. We’ve read “I am Chinese and I am Gay”. We’ve read LOOK MA, I CAN DO WHAT DAVID SILVERBERG DID NEARLY 30 YEARS AGO. The only soaring that is taking place here is the Muse of Science Fiction leaping out the window in protest. More interesting is Mr. Gerrold’s threats of unpersoning and banishment from that fine community of SF fandom, which of course proves exactly what we’ve been saying from the start.

 

Edward L. Green on Facebook – April 21

And when the SP/RPs do the same next year? Declare the war is over, and the Hugo is done. Business meeting votes to retire the award and box the rocket.

And when we bury it, we tell the world that Vox Day, Larry Correia and Brad R. Torgersen killed it.

Every time the Hugos are mentioned in the future, we say that same thing.

Vox Day, Larry Correia and Brad R. Torgersen killed it.

Now, I admit, at least one of those people seem to not care in the slightest that will happen.

But I suspect Correia and Torgersen might care. Or not. Hell, maybe they want their one lasting literary accomplishments to be to destroy a prestigious award like the Hugo.

Wouldn’t that look kinda neat of the cover of a novel?

“From The Author Who Helped Killed The Hugo.”

Now some might say ‘Those guys weren’t part of the RP Slate. They may have hung around them, and maybe spoke with them, but they weren’t part of it.” Correia and Torgesen are trying to distance themselves in a not distancing kind of way from this madness.

 

 

Jim Wright (of Stonekettle Station)  on Facebook – April 21

Some day, I hope to be on that stage receiving my own shiny rocketship, should that particular fantasy ever come to pass I’d like to think it was because I earned it on the strength of my ability and not because a bunch of you people stacked the ballot box for political reasons.

As to the Con itself, I don’t care about controversies. I. Don’t. Care. We’re gonna have fun. Repeat, we’re gonna have fun, huge goddamned fun, with a lot of really, really amazing and fun and talented people. If you’re determined to be miserable, don’t come. Please.

And on that note: for minions who plan on being at SASQUAN, I’ll be happy to meet up and share a drink and a story or two – especially if you’re buying.

Look for me, I’ll be the guy in the hat.

 

Alexandra Erin on Storify

“Gamergate, Sad Puppies and the default narrative” – April 19

Alexandra Erin discusses how both GG and the Sad Puppies are both operating under the fallacy that the narrative that most closely aligns with their own world view and politics is the one “without politics”

 

 

Philip Sandifer

“Guided By The Beauty of Their Weapons: An Analysis of Theodore Beale and His Supporters”  – April 21

All of these tropes are, of course, immediately visible in the Sad/Rabid Puppy narrative of the Hugos. Torgersen’s paean to the olden days of science fiction is straightforwardly the golden age myth. The claim that a leftist cabal of SJWs, the details of which are, as is always the case with these things, fuzzy, but which at the very least clearly includes John Scalzi, Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and the publishing house Tor have since taken control of the Hugos is a classic stab-in-the-back myth. And the Puppy slates feature heroic men (Torgersen and Beale) who speak truth to power and call excitedly for the people to rise up and show their freedom by voting in complete lockstep with them. It’s a classically fascist myth, just like Gamergate (gaming used to be great, then the feminist SJWs took over the gaming press, and now Gamergate will liberate it) or Men’s Rights Activists (of which Beale is one).

 

 

Steph Rodriguez in San Francisco Book Review

“War of the Worlds: Slate Voting Games”  – April 21

“In science fiction, you cannot be an out-of-the- closet conservative without people sticking their nose in the air,” said Torgersen in a telephone interview from his home in Utah. “Science fiction is almost overwhelmingly, very progressive, very liberal, and there’s a monoculture that is formed, and, if you’re not part of it, you’re on the outs.”

…For science fiction author and Hugo Award winner Kameron Hurley, she noticed a definite shift in the science fiction community over the last five years, in terms of hosting a more diverse group of authors, whether it be male to female ratios, or even a more culturally varied lineup.

“Science fiction award ballots in 2009 through last year became more diverse and as it got more diverse, it started to frighten people, and they didn’t want their own slice of pie to get eaten by everyone,” Hurley explained. “[This year], there [are] nine nominations that come from this tiny, little [publishing] house in Finland, which one of the organizers of the slate, [Theodore Beale], actually owns. So, it’s an incredibly tiny minority. It’s not even really representative of science fiction publishers, let alone the full breath of science fiction.”

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – April 21

Some people have posted notes that suggest they believe that the host of the Hugo Award Ceremony will use the podium as an opportunity to take revenge on the sad puppies with some scathing ridicule.

No.

Absolutely not.

The Hugo Award Ceremony is the highlight of the fannish calendar. It is the most important fan event of the year. It is not a place for petty grudges, it is not a place for divisiveness. It is a celebration of excellence. It is a celebration of our community. And most of all, it is for the nominees — it is their moment to be recognized as the best in the field. And this year, despite the slate-mongering, despite the rancor, there are still many qualified works that have fairly earned their place on the ballot.

This is my commitment. We will do nothing to spoil their evening. We will honor them, we will celebrate them. We will congratulate them if they take home a trophy, we will give them an “attaboy” even if they don’t take a trophy home.

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – April 21

An open letter to Brad Torgersen,

Dear Brad,

It looks to me that there is a part of this situation that you have not considered.

Regardless of how you have justified yourself, you have failed to understand several things:

The Worldcon is created fresh every year — it’s a self-assembling village. It requires the work of hundreds of fans who volunteer their time and energy to have a five day celebration of science fiction. It belongs to no one. It belongs to all of us, regardless of politics, regardless of skin color, regardless of who we love, regardless of gender. It belongs to all of us — in the traditional sense of the word “all” — with no one and nothing left out.

While you may believe your slate-mongering was a moral act, a justified act, a pushback against some kind of social justice tyranny — at least that’s how it’s been characterized by some of those who favored the slate — while you may feel that your actions are not blameworthy, you have hurt the entire community.

 

Mick from Mick on Everything

“Why We Need Sad Puppies” – April 20

[First-ever post on this blog.]

Query: with everything I just wrote, does it surprise anyone still reading that I didn’t know I could vote on the Hugos until Sad Puppies 2? I was shocked to learn it. No wonder the insular cliques are running the show, the rest of us don’t even know we’re supposed to be contributing to the script!

The only way to change that is to erect a big tent and get everyone in. People like the trufen who scoff at me are already there. Sad Puppies have showed the rest of us that we can join too. And as a bonus, since SP3 started, I have a list of new authors to check out so long I can’t even remember them all at once. Everybody wins!

That’s what it’s really about. I just spent 1,300+ words telling you why my fandom should count. That doesn’t invalidate anyone else’s fandom. I am still laboring to understand how “fandom” became a contest. My whole life, “fandom” has meant that I can share books, and games, and movies with people with similar interests, and they will share theirs with me, and we will both get enjoyment.

Now, “fandom” is being construed to mean the taste-makers, the CHORFs who get to tell the rest of us how awful we are for simply enjoying our entertainment. I have rarely been so enraged as when I read Making Light, or George RR Martin’s attempts to sugarcoat the groupthink, with the supposed kingmakers telling me that I don’t matter. As if my 25+ years of actually reading and supporting these genres makes me unworthy of their eminence. As if they and their ilk are better than the rest of us.

 

Jason Sanford

“Thank you to our genre’s many volunteers (and please don’t attack them)” – April 21

One of the most disgusting things I’ve seen since the launch of the Puppy campaigns is how people are attacking these genre volunteers. Some of these attacks are subtle, such as the Puppies saying Worldcon and the Hugo Awards don’t represent the true fans (whatever that means). But if you’re saying that, then you’re also saying everyone who volunteers to make the Worldcon and the Hugo Awards happen aren’t true SF/F fans.

Other attacks aren’t subtle, such as the attempt to create insulting names to call our genre volunteers. Or saying you’ll destroy the Hugo Awards, which amounts to an attempt to destroy the work of generations of Worldcon volunteers merely to accomplish your political goals.

I recently read a comment which sums up the pain many of these volunteers are feeling over having something they love turned into a political football. Chris Barkley, who is a long-time WorldCon volunteer and has worked on the Hugo Awards, recently wrote the following:

“As someone who has been deeply and personally involved with the Hugos Awards for the past 16 years, I find this…situation, extremely distressing. I, and many others involved with the Worldcon and the Business Meeting have worked VERY hard to make the award categories inclusive, fair, engaging and most importantly, relevant, in the 21st century. To see all of that jeopardized, by people who should know better, for all the wrong headed reasons, is something I never saw coming…”

 

Paul St. John Mackintosh on TeleRead

“Hugo Gernsback: The man who put the Hugo – and the bad karma – in the Hugos” – April 21

The sad Sad Puppies saga in the Hugo Awards casts an unflattering light – in fact, two lights – on the man whose name they bear: Hugo Gernsback, “who founded the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories and who is considered one of the “fathers” of the science fiction genre,” as the Hugo Awards Wikipedia page says. In fact, in 1960 he received a special Hugo Award as “The Father of Magazine Science Fiction.” And the two lights are: first, Gernsback’s personal ethics when dealing with his stable of pioneering science fiction authors, which according to quite a few sources, were shoddy. And second, the whole notion of “good old-fashioned SF and fantasy, the stuff the readers really love,” as George R.R. Martin described it, which Gernsback personified and which many Sad Puppies proponents have claimed to be defending.

 

Tim Hall on Trebuchet Magazine

“Watching the Hugos burn. Sci-Fi Controversy Wreaks Havoc” – April 21

[Largely repeats two of Hall’s blog posts referenced earlier, for those who’ve been tracking these roundups since the beginning.]

At this point, the Hugo Awards of 2015 look as good as dead, and everyone is now fighting over a corpse. Whether The Hugos can be salvaged in future years is another matter, and it does need a consensus on what the awards actually represent, and who they belong to. At the moment it’s degenerated into a fight to the death which will only destroy the object being fought over. Science Fiction itself is the loser.

Maybe cooler heads will prevail in 2016. A few people have tried to build bridges and find some common ground, but they’re still being drowned out by the louder and angrier voices.

There do need to be changes, and there is still the chance that some long-term good can come out of this mess.

Slate voting has demonstrated how a relatively small minority voting the same way can sweep entire categories. But it didn’t start with the Sad and Rabid Puppies. It was broken before, and it didn’t need an organised conspiracy to do it. With a small voting pool all it took was a critical mass of people with heavily-overlapping tastes to crowd everything else off the ballot. That fuelled the perceptions, true or not, that second-rate work was ending up on the ballot simply because the author was friends with the right people, and even that the whole thing was being fixed behind the scenes by an imaginary cabal.

 

R. C. Hipp on The Drakehall Broadsheet

“Shakespeare and that Sad Puppies Thing” – April 21

…Othello wins hands down because the titular character has a full blown panic attack.  Contemplating Desdemona’s (invented) betrayal and the reparative action required of him by the demented Man Code of his time (murdering her), Othello becomes so unhinged that he babbles half-incoherently before falling “in a trance” to the stage.

Yup, that’s a panic attack.

You probably get the idea that while elves and aliens are important to me, so are more meaty and realistic things.  I like to see race, gender, and religion in my speculative fiction.  I like to read about mental illness (and wellness).  If the characters are fighting a daemon or a mega corporation that’s all well and good.  But when it becomes clear the dragon is a stand-in for something else, something I or my friends have to deal with in real life, that’s when I’m jumping up and down in my seat.

So I don’t get the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies.

If you haven’t heard (you probably have, I’m about two weeks late to this party and in Internet Years that’s a millennia) a bunch of dimbulbs worked together to ensure that only “fun” stories were nominated for the Hugos this year.  “Fun” as opposed to “niche, academic, overtly [leftist]”.  Mainstream escapism for the overprivileged as opposed to anything else.

 

Amanda S. Green on Noctural Lives

“An update, a thought or two, and a snippet” – April 21

Frankly, I am more than disappointed with how a number of them have reacted to the current situation. Here are authors who ought to know better trying to get their peers and fans to vote No Award ahead of nominated works simply because they don’t like they think something made it onto the ballot. They don’t give a damn about the author or the work. They are making a “statement” — well, I hate to tell them this but it is a chickenshit statement and one that shows just how petty they are. I have looked at the ballot and there are works on it that I have a pretty good idea I won’t like — and yes, they come from one of the so-called slates. But I am not going to vote No Award because of the slate it was on. Nor am I going to vote No Award because I think I won’t like it. What I will do is read it, as well as the other entries. Then and only then will I cast my ballot. The only way I will vote No Award is if I think a work — after reading or watching it — is not worthy of being awarded the Hugo. Too bad others can’t do the same.

 

The Prussian on The Prussian

“Don’t Bring A Toothpick to a Tank Fight” – April 21

Before I go on, let me say that I don’t give a damn about literary awards.  I’m a reader, not a writer, so I have no financial interest in the awards, and that is the only reason anyone should be interested in them.  I’m only interested in good books – words put together on paper in a new and interesting way.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that getting an award is a bad thing or that they only go to crappy authors.  Obviously not – Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison have won multiple Hugos and V.S. Naipaul won the Nobel Prize for literature.  But on the other hand, neither Nabokov nor Borges ever won the Nobel Prize in literature, and Ray Bradbury never won a Hugo, and Terry Pratchett, Michael Moorcock and J.G. Ballard were never even nominated.

So, yeah.  For someone who cares about writing and literature, the awards are irrelevant.

…Now usually in these issues, I wind up by pointing out that this is dangerous, because it opens up the field to truly scary types.  That’s not true here – as I’ve said, awards are pretty meaningless, so we’re not really playing for high stakes.  Just a word of warning: if you are relying on SJWs to defend issues that actually matter – anti-racialism, women’s emancipation, free speech, the defense of civilization – you are relying on people who cannot even rig an award competently.

 

Sci Phi Journal

“Lou Antonelli’s Hugo-nominated Short “On A Spiritual Plain” Available for Free” – April 21

You can get Lou Antonelli’s “On a Spiritual Plain” for free in EPUB and MOBI The download also includes the story of how “On a Spiritual Plain” came to be included in Sci Phi.

 

Jason Cordova

“#FreeSpeech” – April 21

I’ve been having a <<censored>> day so far, trying to <<censored>> <<censored>> before I <<censored>>. It’s a <<censored>> way to live, but hey, gotta <<censored>>, am I right?

A lot of <<censored>> have been contacting me this week regarding <<censored>>. One of the things I like to <<censored>> is that <<censored>> is open to the <<censored>> of <<censored>> speech. <<censored>> speech is one of the most important basics of our <<censored>> nation, yet the muzzle of <<censored>> has been slowly being applied to the <<censored>> mouth over the past 50 years. Not only is our <<censored>> of speech being attacked in the name of <<censored>>, certain individuals and groups are now <<censored>> their own allies, feasting upon them as the Ouroboros does its own tail. But it’s <<censored>> <censored>> who are <<censored>> and <<censored>>. Do I have that right?

<<censored>> of <<censored>> — it’s why we have such a great <<censored>>.

 

glaurung_quena comment on More Words, Deeper Hole

The theory is that one nominates the best stories you’ve read in the past year — stuff that knocked your socks off. Judging by the quality of the puppy slate, I can only conclude that they have very loose socks

 

Damon G. Walter on Patreon

Damien Walter is creating Nothing

Other than the things I already do.

 

[sic]

165 thoughts on “Death Rides A Puppy 4/21

  1. Also, if Brad’s suggestions/nominations/slate/whatever you want to call it was a politically motivated attack on the left, why did it include Eric Flint?

  2. As far as GamerGate goes and their links/participation, Day in the comments of this very thread used a picture combining the mascots for Sad Puppies and GamerGate when talking about ‘reinforcements’ and has mentioned in the comments here before that he’s ‘got the gamers’ on his side.

    Either way I don’t think it makes any difference regardless.

  3. rcade – there are similarities between the two movements. It is inevitable that those in the smaller movement are asked and opine about the larger, and it is inevitable that that sort of thing does result in a “signal boost.”

  4. Thank you for the tsunami of excuses and rationalizations for the Puppies, Mick. I always wanted to test myself in a lightning round of corrections.

    But on to another subject: If you have been “griefed at” by Hugo nominees, surely you can come up with more examples than just Anathem. I still don’t understand your beef with that book either, because you didn’t explain your choice.

  5. ‘Sad Puppies are focused solely on SF’

    Correia was all, like, ‘screw the SJWs!’ And TB was all, like ‘Larry no you are not screwing the SJWs hard enough here I will show you how it is to be done.’

  6. If works and individuals which are worthy of consideration for the Hugo wind up below “No Award”, then at that point, the Hugo becomes valueless and the proponents of ‘”No Award” everything on a slate period, regardless of worth’ are just as childish as “Vox Day”. You might as well write everything off and hold small meetings of like-minded people under a tree.

  7. I have to disagree with those who are drawing a distinction between slates and recommendations based on the numbers of works nominated.

    Aidan Mohr frequently recommends 2-5 works per category. Here’s a link: http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2015/03/final-2015-hugo-awards-ballot-recommendations/

    He’s done the same in earlier years.

    GRRM recommended several novels for 2012: http://grrm.livejournal.com/262170.html

    It took me about 30 seconds to find those. More digging would doubtless find more.

    Stross and Scalzi habitually put forth themselves and their friends for Hugos. In comparison, Larry and Brad were more selfless as they nominated others.

    Whether termed a recommendation or a slate, both require the presenter to convince potential voters to voluntarily go out and vote. Brad was simply better at it than Scalzi, Stross, GRRM and Moar.

  8. Matt Y, as an observer of RP and SP, and a leader of GamerGate, I can assure you that GamerGate was (either willfully or mistakenly) brought in by SP opponents and GG opponents after the nomination process – Hugo insider Brianna Wu accused GG of gaming the Hugos, which came as a big surprise to 99% of GamerGate. As a group, GG literally had no clue about the Hugo Award nominations.

    If they had, you would have had – at minimum – a quadrupling of the normal votes (this figure is a conservative estimate simply based on known GG participation data – fundraising, participatory acts beyond a “like” or click, etc. One thing GG has proven willing to do is lay down cash and time to further their goals). GG would have swamped the nomination process in clear and measurable ways. In fact, I am not – yet – a member of Worldcon – as are very, very few other GamerGaters. But Wu accused GG of manipulating it: that put it on GG radar. As the pattern from Gaming Journalism played out with the Hugos, interest has grown – it isn’t anywhere close to critical mass yet.

    These facts are indisputable. My view of it is that GG has only begun to vest its interest in the Hugos. Perhaps they are content to sit on the sidelines and see how the insiders play the game: do they No Award a bunch of worthy candidates, just because some guy liked and recommended them? Do they treat the nominees as equally valid and worthy of consideration?

    Perhaps they are chomping at the bit to flood the votes in either case. I really don’t know.

    But you are correct to note that GG has taken notice of this affair. You are completely wrong about how they became interested, or that they had anything at all to do with the nominating membership.

    I’ll put it another way: Sad and Rabid Puppies proved to GG that there were fans in SF who were willing to fight battles in the same sphere as GG – this was brought to the attention of GG by anti-GG voices, and now GG is mulling over doing to the Hugos what it did to joystiq, kotaku and other media outlets that it identified as corrupt.

    Worldcon membership has a choice ahead of them. For some people, none of the options are good, so then it becomes a question of determining what the best choice in a list of bad options really is.

  9. Thanks xdpaul.

    You’re right Hampus, I misremembered, but it does include a variety of political views. I will admit when you prove me wring every time.

  10. xdpaul:

    A leader of gamergate? Since when has gamergate any leaders?? You seem to be just one unknown anonymous nick among others. If there would be leaders, Yiannopoulos would be one. You would be a peon I guess.

    Also, puppies reaching out to GG does not mean that people would listen. Discussions on KotakuInAction seemed to take the stance that the puppies only did this for their own gain.

  11. @Robert Reynolds: “If works and individuals which are worthy of consideration for the Hugo wind up below “No Award”, then at that point, the Hugo becomes valueless and the proponents of ‘”No Award” everything on a slate period, regardless of worth’ are just as childish as “Vox Day”.”

    Here is the part you appear to be missing:

    We won’t know, until the nomination totals are released, whether the works on the slate were “worthy” — depending on your definition. For example:

    Work on slate X gets 300 votes. Slate X generated ~200 votes. If 100 votes was not enough to get you on the ballot, the work “wasn’t worthy” by the standard of “wouldn’t have gotten a nomination without the slate.”

    If you’re holding that anything that got published at all is “worthy”, then you don’t think there’s any reason for “No Award” to exist at all — but it does. Clearly, then, there’s a higher standard than “Got published” in play here.

    I’ve read several of the slated short fiction works — none of them, to my lights, have reached the level of “Worth a nomination.” One reached “Somewhat clever”, others were at “downright dismal, and wouldn’t have won the high-school SF competition I’ve helped judge.”

    I am also, frankly, not of the opinion that defending yourself is as childish as lashing out, which is what we’re seeing here. VD and his gaggle have explicitly said they’re doing this to hurt people. I can’t count the number of people I’ve seen delighting in the sorrow of others. Compared to that, saying “No, you don’t get a Hugo, you don’t get to claim this victory*” does not feel anywhere near as childish.

    * I am well aware that no matter what happens, VD will claim victory. That’s because as far as I can tell, he’s carefully avoided *defining* victory until after it supposedly happens. The man’s a walking Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

  12. Well Mr Beale, I’ll grant you that you just wanted to push your slate and did it expertly, Kudos. I suspect next year you’ll stack it with works that people would also want to vote for to put people in the difficult position of voting No Award to protest you being an arse and not having anything on the Hugo Awards.

    Or if I was a sociopathic narcissist with a fragile ego who just wanted to dick with people that’s what I’d do. But that’s next year, and this is this year, and fortunately most of the stuff you did stuff onto the ballot is utter dreck, but as it only cost me $0.00 to read John Wright’s stuff, I do feel I got my money’s worth.

    On the plus side, I got off my arse and booked to go to Spokane, which without your mucking around I probably wouldn’t have done.

  13. And yes Mr Beale, you’re correct, they didn’t put 5 candidates up in every slot, nor did you, you just did that for most of them. But if you do want to keep arguing about the number of angels that fit on the head of a pin, off you go.

  14. ‘You are completely wrong about how they became interested, or that they had anything at all to do with the nominating membership’

    I assume this is in general addressed to others who may have done so, I only pointed out that Theo mentioned them as some sort of reinforcement. I never have said anything about how they became interested (I’d have assumed they did because someone shined the SJW bat signal) or implied that they are part of the nominating membership.

    ‘and now GG is mulling over doing to the Hugos what it did to joystiq, kotaku and other media outlets that it identified as corrupt’

    Help drive traffic to them and get the Hugos listed in Time magazine? Because as a fan run organization it’ll be difficult to mass email advertisers. While you make it sound like some weird threat I think it would be great if any member of GG wanted to pay to support Worldcon and vote as individuals and expose people that are trying to rig the vote.

    I just hope they’d be doing it out of a love of sci-fi/fantasy and not just to score points in a silly internet feud.

  15. @Mr. Schwartz-I suspect that you’re missing something-my definition of “worthy”, which is the standard definition: “Good and deserving of respect, praise or attention”.

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worthy

    When you spasmodically and reflexively say ‘”No Award” for everything and everyone on a slate, no matter if their work is good or not, because they were on a slate’, then you are not defending yourself. You are behaving childishly.

    Mike Resnick, to cite but one exdample, has done an excellent job of editing Galaxy’s Edge last year. Putting him below “No Award” because someone put him on a slate is of no value and does greater harm to the Hugo than the slate ever could. I’ve read a fair percentage of the nominees. Some are good, some are trunk stories and at least one of them accomplished something even Dhalgren couldn’t do-it made me throw up my hands in surrender and quit reading (I suspect because the older I get, the less I want to waste my time). That story, for me, would go under “No Award”, because it’s so bad as to be unreadable. There are a few others I wouldn’t put on my final ballot because they don’t merit my voting for them-but I wouldn’t rank them below “No Award” simply because I don’t care for them. If you place any work or individual below “No Award” without giving them a chance, then you are just as much part of the train wreck as “Day” is himself.

  16. I like the way Gamergaters are talked about as if they are a terrorist group. In fact many of them are the result of this:

    “FEMINIST LOGIC: 1. Constantly denounce males. 2. Males object to being denounced. 3. This proves men are haters”

    Anyone who thinks Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian were not crucial to GG is fooling themselves. It’s been the same thing in SFF: no ceaseless goofball attacks, no Sad Puppies. Even GG women like Syrian Girl and Mercedes Carrera can’t stand these weirdo feminists and they eloquently say so. You debate either of those women on the subject and you’re going to be in a world of hurt.

    Stop acting like squirrels are angry cuz you throw rocks at them. Instead of not reading straight white men for a year, try not throwing rocks at them for a year and see what happens. The mysterious woman-hating racist anti-diverstiy cult of SP and GG will mysteriously disappear. The Hugos would be left alone. Not supporting group defamation and incitement seems to be little enough to ask in an artistic and fan community centered around SF and F.

    SJWs created SP and they created GG. It was a Pearl Harbor. Don’t blame us for pushing back and nuking the Hugos. We didn’t cause SJWs to make a thousand racist remarks in actual quote marks. It’s an SJW delusion their “marginalized” are under assault in SFF or ever have been. That’s why their posts about this non-existent attack in SFF as a community-wide trend never have quote marks.

  17. Note to “The Prussian”: Terry Pratchett WAS nominated for a Hugo but declined the nomination. In fact, I think his refusal paved the way for OLD MAN’S WAR to be on the ballot.

  18. xdpaul- Yeah, they were run by AOL who shifted the focus of several of their sites and sections in a reorganization process because of their shift to programmatic advertising. Not sure how GG accomplished that, but if so, congrats I guess?

    If the implication is that they shut down Joystiq and they’re coming for the Hugos and their little dog too if people don’t vote the right way (whatever way that might be) that’s just precious. I really do hope some of them become supporting members and vote for what they like and not what they’re told to.

  19. ” If you place any work or individual below “No Award” without giving them a chance, then you are just as much part of the train wreck as “Day” is himself.”

    People who are in the cars are part of the train wreck just as much as the person who took out the rails.

    You completely ignored, I note, my comments regarding defending one’s self — or something one cares about. I am not impressed with the notion that one side “playing by the rules” while violating their intent is somehow absolved of blame if another group elects to respond.

    I *suppose* one could argue, though perilously little evidence other than “We didn’t like that story/We don’t like that author and he made recommendations” has been given, that the RP were a blow struck in self-defense. Of course, that has been the position of bullies for centuries — “I was offended by what small country did, therefore I will strike them down in defense of my honour”, or “You challenged my integrity by crossing some invisible line, now I may strike at you!” It’s one of the reasons that Heinlein’s old saw about an armed society is a polite one is bollocks; an armed one lets those who are better with their weapons/more willing to push matters push other people around as they see fit. As we are seeing, in fact, here, with the Hugos.

    VD’s commentariat, certainly, feel this is a battle in a war. Whether the war was declared for childish reasons, or by people acting like entitled little children (both positions I believe to be true) is *irrelevant*. Defending yourself against attack is not, by that same standard, childish.

  20. “Anyone who thinks Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian were not crucial to GG is fooling themselves. ”

    Shorter James May: “If women would simply shut up and leave us alone, we wouldn’t have to attack them!”

    Your problem, James, is that you want to establish one rule for everybody, ignoring the fact that the world isn’t the same for everyone. It’s like saying “Hey, everyone! We’re going to establish a single fair tax for everyone! $10,000 a year per head in your family. It’s the same for everyone, isn’t that fair?”

    No, James, it’s not. And all of your claims about establishing “context” and measuring things up to be equal — amount to the same thing.

    Go read “How to Suppress Women’s Writing”, by Joanna Russ — then come back and talk to us about how a woman suggesting that you try reading non-cis-white-male-written work for a time period is *so* much worse than someone suggesting that women are much less represented in hard SF because “they can’t hack the physics”, to pick an example totally at *non*-random.

    I’m pretty sure that this will fly right past you, save perhaps for a few phrases you will make the next core of your Markov-chain posts; but we shall see. Hopefully, I am wrong on that score.

  21. “When you spasmodically and reflexively say ‘No Award’ for everything and everyone on a slate, no matter if their work is good or not, because they were on a slate’, then you are not defending yourself.”

    Voting No Award above all slate nominees is a defense of the Hugo voting process.

    You can use words like “spasmodically” and “reflexively” to describe it, but it remains the least bad option for those of us who strongly object to the way the nominations were hijacked.

    I will be putting No Award above all Puppies nominees.

  22. Martin Wooster: Pratchett declined a 2005 nomination. The fifth spot was filled by The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks (Orbit).

    But I have to admire how well your version fits some of the narratives flying around here.

  23. @rcade-such is your choice, but doing so makes you not all that different from “Day” or the people who followed his “suggestion” that they copy his list precisely as he wrote it.

    Placing everything on the slate below “No Award” automatically because it was on the slate regardless of its merits because you object to the process is reacting “spasmodically and reflexively”. You gut the point of “No Award” if you place everything below it without regard to its INDIVIDUAL MERIT.

  24. I really liked the Algebraist. And I think it was a nomination declined by Gaiman that let the Old Mans War in (didn’t like that one as much).

  25. rcade- So if the anti-Puppies “No Award” everything that was on a Puppy slate, doesn’t that then prod the Puppies into voting “No Award” for everything that isn’t on a Puppy slate?

    To me, your plan is one of mutually assured destruction. On the onside, I don’t think traditional Hugo stalwarts like GRRM, etc. want people to reflexively vote No Award. On the other, I also don’t think SP want people to vote No Award. I think both these sides are sensible. The only way to de-escalate is to moderate language, treat both sides with respect and give everyone a fair hearing.

    By contrast, I think the angry rioters and reavers, which in my opinion include Making Light and Vox Day, do want votes of No Award. In my opinion, Day wants it to achieve his revenge and the HNs want it to teach the plebs their place.

    So if your plan is to save or defend the Hugos by voting No Award, I suspect it is a poor plan. It only increases the odds the Hugos are destroyed. And if that is your mission goal, fine. If it isn’t, then maybe you should reconsider.

  26. ‘You gut the point of “No Award” if you place everything below it without regard to its INDIVIDUAL MERIT.’

    And if you don’t, you reward gaming the process and allow the awards to be tainted and devalued. It sucks all round. Thanks a million, puppets.

  27. You gut the point of “No Award” if you place everything below it without regard to its INDIVIDUAL MERIT.

    Spoken like someone who truly doesn’t know how No Award votes have been used in the history of the Hugos. Voting No Award can be used to signify merit of the individual nominees. It can also be used to signify “I don’t think this category should be awarded at all” or “I don’t think this particular group of nominees was deserving of an award based on other published works this year.”

  28. ‘now GG is mulling over doing to the Hugos what it did to joystiq, kotaku and other media outlets that it identified as corrupt.’

    So good at threats. It’s almost like the GG trademark.

  29. Not even a nice try, Schwartz. Those two are ideologues, not simply 3.5 billion women. That’s the silly argument I’ve already heard to death: opposing these demagogues is opposing women. I suppose opposing the KKK makes you anti-white. Why do you even comment?

    Just keep pretending it’s not happening. You’re not noticing that SP’s are not asking. I think Kate Paulk will have a far more reasonable process next year, but the resentment will still be there, and Paulk won’t be controlling the narrative. However it will be amusing to see a feminist-driven movement of bizarre demagogues in SFF try and maintain Paulk is leading a cult of misogynists. Change all the rules you want, there are various ways to prank insane racist gender-worshipping feminists.

    That’s the hilarious part about all this. People so concerned about the Hugos are doing everything but addressing the root problem. You won’t fix this til you do, no matter how much you pretend it doesn’t exist. Just ditch your wackos.

    If you want to put this in context, pretend your imaginary enemies are swarming WorldCon on Twitter crying about the Hugos being not being safe and whining that Gerrold or Due might make a racial joke. Imagine Tweets from a multi-nominated Hugo author about a “homosexual dude parade” or a “black broad parade.”

    You’d think the fact those don’t exist this year but did in fact happen last year would wake up people to exactly what’s going on and why. Ditch your double standards about racial and sexual bigotry and ditch your anti-racist racists and silly paranoid cult of feminism.

    One thing’s for sure, Schwartz, people who have to argue the concept of fair play won’t be fixing this. You caused it. Enjoy. Everyone’s still in denial. So enjoy next year as well.

  30. Nigel- You are correct. The Hugos will be changed, one way or the other. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle.

    Traditionalists (a term I’m using instead of SJW) will view pre-2015 as a Golden Era, before the barbarians entered the gates. Puppies will think of it as a revolution which cleared out the sewers. One or both may be right, at least in part.

    To use GRRM’s language, it is likely that the Hugos will be transformed from the Oscars to the People’s Choice Award. But a long running SF/F tradition will go on.

    Or you could burn it all down. Vox Day is counting on you thinking emotionally, not seeing your way through to minimizing the losses. He’s very public about it, as he thinks no amount of logic, reason, etc. will sway the traditionalists. We’ll see if he’s right.

  31. ““spasmodically and reflexively”. You gut the point of “No Award” if you place everything below it without regard to its INDIVIDUAL MERIT.”

    No; one can react in a certain way carefully and thoughtfully, after much consideration.

    And, as has been pointed out, there is a history of treating works suspected of being “gamed” onto the ballot this way — e.g. L. Ron Hubbard.

  32. ‘But a long running SF/F tradition will go on. ‘

    Oh, do you mean to say that puppies will actually start getting involved and contributing their time and energy to helping organise and run Worldcon and the Hugos? That would be decent of them.

    ‘Vox Day is counting on you thinking emotionally, not seeing your way through to minimizing the losses.’

    http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/10/15/the-perfect-crime/

  33. xdpaul: “Matt Y, as an observer of RP and SP, and a leader of GamerGate, I can assure you that GamerGate was (either willfully or mistakenly) brought in by SP opponents and GG opponents after the nomination process – Hugo insider Brianna Wu accused GG of gaming the Hugos, which came as a big surprise to 99% of GamerGate. As a group, GG literally had no clue about the Hugo Award nominations.”

    This is incorrect. Larry Correia brought in GamerGate on January 26th, 2015, by reaching out to Milo. See the following URLs:

    https://twitter.com/monsterhunter45/status/559761358124642305
    https://twitter.com/monsterhunter45/status/559761848040292352

    Milo responded the same day, encouraging his followers to watch Larry and Vox:

    https://twitter.com/Nero/status/559772587157630977

    I don’t think GamerGate was effective, whether because of apathy or because of lack of numbers, but I cannot fairly characterize them as having no clue when a GG figure as prominent as Milo was tweeting about the topic.

  34. I’ve been following the 2015 Hugo discussions with great interest. This site’s daily collection of links is a great resource.

    A common complaint against Brad T and Larry C’s Sad Puppies is the slate aspect. According to many, including several in this comment thread, their sin was recommending just 5 works. They defend other author recommendations because the didn’t recommend 5 works (a full slate)

    My questions is, what if Sad Puppies IV recommends just 4 candidates for every category, would that be acceptable? What if they recommend 6 for every category?

  35. I don’t think you can deescalate a troll, so that shouldn’t really be a part of the voting process. Myself, I’m propably going to vote a few authors below No Award on pure principle. Those are the authors that have knowingly and willingly participated in the block voting to push themselves upwards and at the same time kicking worthy opponents out.

    The rest, I will read and consider, regardless of if they have been on a puppy slate or not. I think everyone should vote according to their own morals and I can find several reasons to vote after different principles than mine. And I respect that.

  36. “… doing so makes you not all that different from ‘Day’ …”

    I don’t believe that. I nominated works in good faith, as I always do, and bloc voting kept the choices of 80-85% of the voters completely off the ballot in many categories. I will not give a Hugo Award to the best nominee decreed by two people in a non-transparent, non-democratic process.

    So faced with no better option, I will use No Award to reject the ballot.

    We’re told over and over by Puppies and their supporters that bloc voting is within the rules. No Award is within the rules.

  37. Anita Sarkeesian isn’t a demagogue. She did a series of videos about the presentation of female figures in video games. If *that* triggers your demagogue alarms, you need a serious recalibration.

    I’ve seen the vitriol poured out against her — and you can hide behind “Well, that wasn’t #Gamergate!” all you like; people who did it are people who have aligned themselves with that movement, etc., etc., and so forth.*

    “People so concerned about the Hugos are doing everything but addressing the root problem.”

    And what, to your lights, is the so-called “root problem”?

    “Ditch your double standards about racial and sexual bigotry and ditch your anti-racist racists and silly paranoid cult of feminism.”

    As I said: You want to enact a standard by which the people who are already on top stay on top, because everyone *now* has to be treated equally at all times, no matter what happened *before*. Never mind that women used to have to hide behind pseudonyms or non-gendered initials in order to get anything like serious consideration — mentioning anything like that *now* makes you anti-male.

    I’m done — anyone who wants to talk about the “paranoid cult of feminism” isn’t worth my time to discuss with further. Anyone who wants to can judge them by the position they’ve just staked out with their own words.

    *Indeed, by that standard, given that SJWs are a far more…nebulous concept, clearly “SJW”s don’t do anything at all — if we hold people to the same evidence standards as the #gamergaters want people to use when judging their culpability.

  38. Nigel- I liked the cartoon. I assume the $20 is a stand in for the Hugos? But I don’t think it accurately sums up the situation as I think there is a big difference between SP3 and RP. Not the least of which is that SP3 is willing to share the $20. The RPs would prefer to [metaphorically] shoot you.

  39. “It only increases the odds the Hugos are destroyed.”

    It’s amazing that Puppies suddenly care about the spirit of the rules and the future of the awards. The time for you to care was before bloc voting hijacked the ballot, when you could have rejected the slates and made your picks as an individual instead of a sheep.

  40. ‘She did a series of videos about the presentation of female figures in video game’

    This is literally the same as throwing rocks at white men! Apparently!

  41. Ok, too much thread. I can’t begin to respond to everything that’s gone on the last few hours.

    I will say though – look at the upticks in registration and say again with a straight face that 80-85% of the voters have been marginalized.

  42. @Mr. Schwartz:

    I actually had a membership to the Worldcon the year the Hubbard was nominated. I read the novel, thought it was not just average but awful and voted accordingly, placing it below “No Award”. That’s how I feel it should be used-to prevent bad work from winning. If I simply don’t like something, I leave it off my ballot. I don’t vote for “No Award” above anything in any category which is decent enough to merit consideration, even if I found it trite, boring, obtuse or not to my taste. There are well-written stories on this year’s ballot, mediocre stories and some stinkers. I’d put the stinkers below “No Award” myself and act according to my tastes on the rest.

    I don’t object to ranking “No Award”. My problem is the blanket use of “No Award” over everything just because it was slated. You and others are perfectly free to do so, as unlike “Mr. Day”, I don’t feel the need to tell others how to nominate or vote. I’m merely stating that it’s a bad idea. As Nigel says above, it indeed sucks all round.

  43. ‘as I think there is a big difference between SP3 and RP.’

    You’re right. SPs are trying to sound reasonable and justified while RPs are, well, frothing at the mouth. The cartoon doesn’t capture anything like that AT ALL.

  44. Moderator warning: I sense we’re moments away from that discussion I am not willing to host, about the character of parties not participating here. Please keep that in mind.

  45. “I don’t object to ranking “No Award”. My problem is the blanket use of “No Award” over everything just because it was slated. You and others are perfectly free to do so, as unlike “Mr. Day”, I don’t feel the need to tell others how to nominate or vote. I’m merely stating that it’s a bad idea. As Nigel says above, it indeed sucks all round.”

    Fair enough; and on that last point, we can definitely agree.

    My sole objection was to what appeared to be an attempt to make an equivalence between what the two sides were doing, as if it were somehow now equally both group’s responsibility.

  46. @Mike Glyer: My apologies if you’re referring to Ms. Sarkeesian. I will have nothing further to say on the subject, as Mr. May has flown his colors adequately high for me to simply ignore him from now on.

  47. Well thanks for deleting yet another completely innocuous comment. I have a good idea: if you don’t want people debating this stuff then don’t post links that invite such debate. My quotes about Sarkeesian are from her own mouth, Mr. Glyer and were completely relevant to the issue at hand. How in the world is correctly quoting her an attack on her character? The general gender feminist assertion that heterosexuality and the binary masculine/feminism is a guise created by men in pre-history to oppress women is daffy at best. How does a “patriarchy” communicate such a conspiracy over thousands of years and across oceans and continents?

  48. Where, IMO, Alexandra Erin’s otherwise well-argued Twitter stream (via Storify) goes off the rails: The point at which it appears another story is putting message over story will often depend on how close its viewpoint is to our own.

    Speaking for myself, any story that panders to my basic prejudices and (especially) that uses stacking-the-deck propaganda tactics really sticks out, and I hate them on sight. Borrowing a television metaphor, Aaron Sorkin’s first four seasons of ‘The West Wing’ made me a bit uneasy in its pronounced veering towards self-congratualtory liberal power fantasy but was redeemed by brilliant writing and acting, but my mild allergic reaction to it went anaphylactic with his hideously preachy, blatantly supercilious 2006 backstage entertainment-business series ‘Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip‘, which just about made me want to go vote for a reactionary.

    Too much Kumbaya in the world-view department makes me cranky, and I suspect this is a widely felt urge among readers of SF, which after all is driven by neophilia.

Comments are closed.