Soon after the 2021 Hugo Awards finalists were announced, Chris Logan Edwards asked in comments here, “How is ‘George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun’ not a violation of the DisCon III Code of Conduct?” That eye-catching phrase is attached to a Best Related Work finalist whose complete title is “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, Or: The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (Rageblog Edition)”, Natalie Luhrs (Pretty Terrible, August 2020).
The specific issue is that DisCon III disseminated this phrase on its website, in press releases, and on YouTube – and in doing so the committee itself (not Natalie Luhrs’ blog publication) violated their own Code of Conduct.
The applicable parts of DisCon III’s Code of Conduct are —
We do not tolerate harassment of convention attendees in any form. Behavior that will be considered harassment includes, but is not limited to…
Comments directly intended to belittle, offend, or cause discomfort including telling others they are not welcome and should leave…
We require attendees to follow the CoC in online interactions with the convention (including the volunteer mailings, wiki, and other online facilities), at all convention venues and convention-related social activities.
I sent Edwards’ question to several committee members together with the request, “If your immediate thought is that the Hugo voters can trump your Code of Conduct, please explain why you think that.”
DisCon III’s decision to broadcast this phrase on their own platform means they also are committing to having it repeated over and over again in all their venues. As Elio M. García, Jr. explained in another comment here:
Websites around the world have amplified that a member of the WSFS should fuck off. Every official publication that lists the nomination is telling a member of the WSFS to fuck off. The Hugo Nominees discussion panel will have people talking about how GRRM (and Robert Silverberg) should fuck off. On the night of the ceremonies, the screen, the presenter, the sign language interpreter will be announcing to an audience of hundreds that specific members of the WSFS should fuck off.
(Garcia is webmaster of Westeros, a George R.R. Martin fan site not run by the author.)
Tonight Adam Beaton, the Worldcon’s Outreach Division Head, emailed the committee’s reply to my question:
Our response for publication is, “DisCon III does not publicly comment on potential Code of Conduct matters.”
Have a great day, Mike!
The leadership is going to find out how hard it is to administer a Code of Conduct they are unwilling to publicly account to themselves.
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NickPheas: I think it’s more complicated than that. Yes, there were capacity issues, not all of which could have been anticipated.
My understanding is that Dublin 2019 gave GRRM a number as X tickets they needed for staff and Hugo guests. GRRM also had a large number Y of tickets printed out for himself, to hand out to all of his friends and pro colleagues. The problem was that X + Y, when doubled by the +1 which was included in each ticket, was around double the size Z capacity of the venue.
Given that most of the arrangements for the party would not have been done by GRRM personally, but by one of his assistants — who very possibly didn’t understand how the Hugo finalist invite component worked — I suspect that no one ever really sat down with all of the figures and said “wait a minute, these numbers do not compute”.
@Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little
Which already features a wish that:
Thanks again JJ, that helps a lot. I can’t help but wonder if some or many controversies would have been made better or worse by Hugo administrators using discretion to quietly disqualify work/nomination they claimed was made in bad faith or similar.
I’m not making a judgment on that, I don’t vote in the Hugos and I doubt I ever will, it just does make me think,
Sorry. I am adressing two people in the post, that shouldn’t be addresed together.
@Kevin Standlee: That is not the question, the question is does the Worldcon have the obligation to publish any nominee under it’s complete title that it is nominated under? I think everyone here agrees that Discon doesn’t have the power to disqualify any nomination if it is elligatable.
@Dann: Good post. Snipping out the point addresing you, and than replying a point that has nothing to do with you, is a special kind of misinterpretation. I don’t think I was that unclear here. I specially stated I am addresing multible points in the tread. I did perhaps not make it 100% clear, that only the first paragraph was addresed to you, but sorry it was.
Warner Holme: I can’t help but wonder if some or many controversies would have been made better or worse by Hugo administrators using discretion to quietly disqualify work/nomination they claimed was made in bad faith or similar.
The “good faith” problem was, of course, discussed extensively during the Puppy years. The decision was made only to address a way to minimize the unfair advantage obtained by slating of any sort, because Hugo voters don’t want the Admins making value judgments about the content of actual works.
Pretty much every time a Hugo Admin has made a judgment call (and there have been several of those), there’s been hell to pay, so I suspect that Hugo Admins try to avoid having to make a judgment call if at all possible.
If “Safe Space As Rape Room” had been entitled “J* S* Is A Rapist” (a libelous claim which was actually made in that piece), would that title have been permitted on the Hugo Ballot? I very much suspect not; I very much suspect the authors would have been told by the Hugo Admins that they had to provide an alternate title.
Courtney Milan also has a Twitter thread on the subject:
https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1382838181389684736
Some thoughts of my own:
The blog post, including its title, are part of a conversation, and as such don’t stand alone – the essay was a direct response to GRRM’s actions and choices, what he chose to say and how he chose to behave as the host of the Hugo awards ceremony. And that, in turn, certainly appeared to be at least in part in response to the pushback against Campbell, for example, so this is a fairly long-ongoing conversation – which provides the context in which each of these things deserve, even need, to be considered.
Another important context is that the essay was a response to something that GRRM did, and was able to do, only because of his own elevated position within fandom. After all, not just anyone is likely to be chosen as the host for the Hugo awards! So to everyone who is saying that GRRM is “one of us” – well, he may also be a fan, but his actions were not those of “just any fan” but of someone in a position of authority – a position which he used in ways that resulted in this rather significant pushback, including the essay in question.
And because of the specific things GRRM said and did, because of the lack of respect he showed for example for the Hugo finalists and winners whose names he hadn’t bothered to learn how to pronounce, the replies he got – including the essay in question – show him a similar level of respect, and one that one can easily consider entirely appropriate towards an authority figure who has abused their authority.
So i turns out that quite a lot of Hugo voters – who are all fans, who are all “one of us” – agree with the essay, or at the very least consider the essay important enough to nominate it for an award of its own.
The essence here is: someone in a position of authority abused their authority, and was called out on it, and a lot of the members of the community are agreeing with the call-out.
Does that perhaps make GRRM feel less welcome at the convention? Possibly. But the root of that is his own actions and choices – and specifically in the position of authority he was given, as the host of the Hugo awards. Calling someone out for misbehaviour, which is what the essay in question does, should not be disallowed because it makes the person who misbehaved feel bad.
As to those who object to the use of the word ‘fuck’, or generally to using strong language to convey a strong response to being so disrespected as GRRM was doing – well, there’s a phrase that seems to apply: “tone policing”.
So yeah, perhaps it’s not particularly nice for GRRM to see that he has been called out on bad behaviour, and that enough people agree with the call-out to nominate it such that it has become a finalist. Perhaps he feels a bit less welcome at the con. But that is because his behaviour is what isn’t welcome. If he properly apologised, changed his behaviour, etc, I’m sure he would be back to being just as welcome as before: because his ‘unwelcome-ness’ is not about him as a person, but about his behaviour.
And the whole point of a code of conduct is to make sure that every person is welcome, by ensuring that certain behaviours are not. That’s why it’s a “code of conduct“. And indeed, as a person, GRRM is perfectly welcome still – it’s just his conduct that has been receiving pushback, in a visible fashion.
And when looking at conduct, it is necessary to include the context. A woman who slaps a man? taken out of context, well, the conduct of slapping someone is clearly unacceptable. But in the context where the man was putting his hands on her body in inappropriate ways, then the slap is actually perfectly understandable and a reasonable response.
Similarly the context matters here – a context that stretches across Worldcons. Telling GRRM to fuck off into the sun for no reason? inappropriate. But after how he behaved as the host of the Hugo awards? Actually that seems a perfectly appropriate response, according to the fans who nominated the essay.
The essay and its title did not happen at Worldcon, but in response to something that did happen at Worldcon. So if the code of conduct should be applied to the not-at-Worldcon essay and its title, included in that must also be the conduct-at-Worldcon to which it was a response.
So taken all together … this may not look great, but what is the root cause of it all? GRRM’s inappropriate hosting of the Hugo awards. That is where this all started. That is where any anger should be directed. Not at the people who pointed out the misbehaviour, or the people who agree with pointing it out.
IanP: Which already features a wish that
Oh, I see that’s by someone who’s got the exactly opposite/wrong perception of how things actually work with the Hugo Losers Party.
And Luhrs is throwing a huge tantrum about how the CoC question is all Mike Glyer’s fault, which I am just rolling my eyes at, because he wasn’t even the first one to mention it, and based on what I’ve seen elsewhere, there were a number of people who have nothing to do with File 770 who contacted DisCon III about the potential CoC violation before Mike ever even put this post up.
But then, it wouldn’t be a Luhrs rant if she wasn’t making up some reason to blame File 770 for everything, including institutionalized racism and sexism, world hunger, and global warming. 🙄
@ Bartimaeus:
So, yes, they would have to announce the winner in each category.
Christian Brunschen:
All of your points are valid. (I will point out that a lot of people, like me, agree with Luhrs’ rant, but don’t agree that it’s a Related Work that reaches the level of excellence that should be expected of finalists in that category.)
The problem is that none of your points address the real issue:
The title itself is a Code-of-Conduct violation, when it’s worded as an abusive personal attack against a Worldcon member and is being published and broadcast all over by the seated Worldcon’s committee.
Either DisCon III chooses to enforce its Code of Conduct in all situations, regardless of the target, or it just needs to publicly admit that its CoC is meaningless and will only be enforced if they happen to find it convenient.
In re: the Title of Safe Space, I am glad that it wasn’t titled as you suggest, because if a request to retitle it was responded with “LOL, No”, what precisely Worldcon and WSFS could have done about it with the tools of the WSFS constitution is not clear to me.
So, here, too, in the case of Luhrs’ piece. They can ask, and there can be refusal (as there is, here).
And as far as disqualifying nominees wholesale…I seem to remember that there was a debate, here and elsewhere, upon the Puppies Slate efforts bearing strange and dark fruit about disqualifying the lot of them, and that not being a practical or legal option. (and thus the No Award response subsequently promulgated, and the anthology and unofficial recognition of those nominees who had been bumped thanks to those slating efforts)
Paul Weimer: what precisely Worldcon and WSFS could have done about it with the tools of the WSFS constitution is not clear to me.
The only place the WSFS Constitution requires the official name of the finalists and winners to be reported is in the statistics document the Hugo Admins release after everything is over.
JJ,
but I did address that. context matters the title taken out of context may look like CoC violation, but in the context of being in reply to GRRM’s behaviour it is a perfectly reasonable response.
again, a woman slapping a man might appear on its face to be, “itself”, a CoC violation. But if the slap was in response to being groped, it shows itself instead as being a perfectly reasonable reaction by a recipient of misbehaviour, against the misbehaving party.
the title and contents of the essay are perfectly
reasonable responses to GRRM’s misbehaviour as not just a fan at a con, but as the host of the Hugo award ceremony. any issue with the title only exists of you completely ignore the context.
Christian Brunschen: but I did address that. context matters the title taken out of context may look like CoC violation, but in the context of being in reply to GRRM’s behaviour it is a perfectly reasonable response.
No, “context” does not matter in this case. GRRM’s horrific presentation was 8 months ago. It’s not taking place at DisCon III. The title, on the other hand, is an abusive personal attack against a Worldcon member that is taking place now every time DisCon III publishes it or broadcasts it.
@IanP
In the replies, which makes as much sense to blame Foz Meadows (or Nicole!) for as various Twitter peeps blaming Mike for the nonsense we get up to does.
@Martin Easterbrook:I have zero desire to relitigate the Hugo Losers party debacle. BLUF: It was GRRM’s party and the buck stops there.
@Nicole J. LeBoeuf: Thank you for sharing that. I know dredging up that kind of old pain ain’t easy.
… that’s not a strawman argument. You did not show how it produces more harms than the 4 hours of bullshit it critiques. That is not an argument I made up for you and then knocked down. That is me pointing out you did not support an argument that you are trying to make. I did notice that you seem to have ignore the preceding sentences entirely.
This is a pretty good example of a strawman argument, as she’s not making up a reason to blame File 770 for everything.
Also, how many things are you going to call tantrums, as you stomp around the comment section of File770 flinging excrement and chewing on the rug?
@JJ: It is my belief, based on designing a CoC and attempting to enforce it for two years, that what you are asking for is unworkable. It will create a system so brittle that it shatters. Codes of Conduct have to have some give, some ability to take into account context. I am painfully aware that flexibility in these Codes is very often used to protect powerful people from censure. At the same time, you can’t enforce them “equally” because the actual problem is that things aren’t equal. That lack of equality is why they have been created in the first place. Rigid enforcement will lead to even more rules lawyering, gamesmanship, and inequality. Rigid enforcement of rules tends to reinforce the status quo. I think you want things to be fair; so do I. But I do not think that a rigid approach will give us what we want.
I do not believe that listing the title of the blog post on the list of nominees, listing it on the ballot, and reading it as a nominee at the Hugo Awards Ceremony, is harassment. These things are actually a small part of the sum of Worldcon, and Worldcon communications. It’s not going to be a pervasive part of the convention experience. Moreover, changing the title doesn’t seem to be a meaningful change, as far as a Code of Conduct is concerned. If I tell someone to die in a fire, or tell someone to fuck off and die, there isn’t a meaningful difference, just that one involves a taboo word, and the other does not. And how literally I mean either of those phrases would be entirely dependent upon understanding the relationship between me and the person I have addressed, as well as tone of voice, context of the remark, and so on.
Context matters. Context controls meaning. To me, this is an attempt to strip away context, to engage only and solely with the words in the title of the blog post, which means that it is a refusal to engage with the actual meaning.
Again, I really do think we want the same things. But I do not think that we can get where we want to go if we strip away context.
alexvdl: that’s not a strawman argument. You did not show how it produces more harms than the 4 hours of bullshit it critiques.
I don’t have to. My brief was to describe the harms I believe are caused by the nomination, and I did that. Your “you must prove blah blah blah” addendum is a strawman you created, moving the goalposts, and irrelevant.
I think the idea that the title of the blog post is against the CoC is silly. It’s the title of the blog post. An announcer saying the title of the work isn’t telling GRRM to fuck off into the sun anymore than the announcers saying the title of Rachel Bloom’s work were asking Ray Bradbury to fuck them or the announcers saying the title of John Clute’s work were telling people to look at the evidence or the announcers saying the title of Jack Vance’s work were calling themselves Jack Vance, or the announcers announcing Daniel M. Kimmel’s work were advocating for the death of beloved Star Wars mainstay Jar Jar Binks.
I see a lot of talk about whether the name of the finalists has to be reported or can be redacted or edited, but even if it can, I honestly don’t see what good would that do, from the point of view of those wishing to honor the “don’t make other member feel unwelcome” part of the code of conduct. Even if the title of the nominated blog post is reported as “George R.R. Martin Can **** Off Into The Sun”, or maybe use “wander off”, or maybe change the title to something more neutral, everyone would still know what the title is and why it has been nominated.
Personally, I would leave it as it is, although for different reasons to those cited by other people who are defending the same outcome. Just like a democracy is as good as its voters, an award is as good as its voting body. The community is what it is and no use pretending otherwise. An if it makes some people uneasy, well, maybe they should be uneasy. That’s for them to decide.
alexvdl: This is a pretty good example of a strawman argument, as she’s not making up a reason to blame File 770 for everything.
I read Luhrs’ blog posts on an ongoing basis. Ranting is her stock-in-trade. It’s her shtick. Which is fine. But my judgment is that her rant batting average is about 50.-.50: half the time she’s right on the money, and half the time, she’s making specious arguments and bullshit justifications. But that’s okay, she’s entitled to do whatever she wants on her blog.
And, yes, I have seen her blame Mike Glyer and File 770 over and over again for things that are not his fault. And I’ve seen her criticize Mike for posting links to peoples’ tweets without permission despite the fact that she’s done the very same damn thing. So I’m entitled to laugh and roll my eyes at her, when what she comes out with is invented outrage about things Mike has never said or done, and things for which he’s not responsible.
@Meredith
True, though I was referring to the Thread when I said “Which features” rather than anyone in particular. and mentioning Nicole was just to put my comment in context.
On the other hand if the host/OP signals agreement with a sentiment then they have to take on some ownership of it also.
LOL. Oh, I said “you must prove”, eh? That’s another thing that you made up. I think we’re done here.
You haven’t proven any harms. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought about what and who are harmed by the blog post being on the BRW ballot.
I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
Lydy, I have a lot of respect for the work you’ve done with CoCs, and I agree with what you’ve said, though I don’t come to the same conclusion as you do as to where the current situation falls on that line.
However, I’ve set your comment aside to think about and read later. It’s one of the most rational, meaningful arguments I’ve seen thus far, and I thank you for posting it and giving me things to think about.
alexvdl: You haven’t proven any harms.
There you are, moving the goalposts again. My brief was to describe the harms I believe are caused by the nomination, and I did that. You’re the one who keeps coming out with “prove this, prove that,” none of which I need to do.
You can flounce all you want, but if you come back here and post more bullshit justifications and strawmen, I will still be calling you out on them.
As an aside: “LOL” is not an argument. Your use of it every other sentence makes you look like a 6-year-old who uses “LOL” when you can’t come up with a legitimate adult sentence that makes a rational argument. And that’s okay! You can present as an inarticulate child if you want. I just thought you might want to know how you’re making yourself look.
context always matters. your attempt to ignore it is rather sad.
all of this upheaval – the blog post, it’s title, the nominations, the fact that it’s one the ballot – is because of and in direct response to GRRM’s own misbehaviour. the responsibility is all his.
one might muse that GRRM should perhaps have been subject to a CoC breach investigation at the time. the results of that might also have left him feeling less welcome at future Worldcons …
Christian Brunschen: all of this upheaval – the blog post, it’s title, the nominations, the fact that it’s one the ballot – is because of and in direct response to GRRM’s own misbehaviour. the responsibility is all his.
As evilrooster pointed out in a comment upthread:
well, see what you made me do is an infamous sentiment for a reason.
@IanP
In terms of Twitter, when someone is linking to a specific person’s thread they mean the tweets that person wrote – commenting solely on a reply by an unrelated person without specifying will naturally be misleading to many people who haven’t clicked through, like if someone replied to a link to File770 saying it featured [random obnoxious comment] without specifying that they meant a comment and not a post.
Christian Brunschen: one might muse that GRRM should perhaps have been subject to a CoC breach investigation at the time.
Absolutely, I thiink he should have – though the people responsible for ensuring that he had clear direction about what was expected of his performance for the ceremony (and for editing it out if he went outside the appropriate boundaries) bear a great deal of blame for it going off the rails as well.
The problem is that, just as with Dave Truesdale’s choice to hide out in the Puppy suite until the end of the convention after he hijacked the panel he had been entrusted to moderate at MidAmeriCon II, because of the virtual nature of the convention, there was not really anything the chairs of CoNZealand could have done once the ceremony was over that would have had any censorious effect. And it’s not within DisCon III’s remit to take action on anything that happened with another Worldcon’s past convention.
I think Discon needs to make a firm decision soon. Vendors need to know whether Fuck Off Into The Sun swag will be acceptable in time to manufacture it.
The phrase “look what you made me do” is infamous ecause it’s a tool of abusers. It is used to shift the onus from who performed the bad behavior onto the one that was the victim of the bad behavior.
Using it defend the perpetrator of bad behavior is really fucking gross.
GRRM acted poorly at the last Hugo Awards ceremony. His actions were shitty and unwelcoming and gross. People criticizing him for that behavior are not saying “look what you made me do”. The victims of his behavior critiquing his behavior is not “look what you made me do.”
Painting victims of abuse as perpetrators of it is gross as hell.
If the title of a nominated work was libelous, I think that would be an easier situation than this one. The Concom’s lawyers would advise it not to refer to the work by that title in communications, except when taking votes and reporting voting data, and not include it in the Hugo packet. If it took the advice I think the Worldcon community would be fine with the decision.
alexvdl: Using it defend the perpetrator of bad behavior is really fucking gross.
I’m not defending the perpetrator. Pretending that adults do not bear responsibility for their unforced, uncoerced choices is absolutely inappropriate, too.
The bottom line is that no one involved here is without culpability. And people need to own that, just as I own my culpability for engaging in this discussion.
Let me give you a real counterexample to your “I think” here.
I’m a longtime SF/F fan, longtime lurker, only a few years into participating as a supporting member. My first physical WorldCon attendance was Dublin, and I’d only attended a couple of cons prior to that, largely because I’d been made to feel uncomfortable and that accommodating the lechery of long-time con goers was valued more than my presence. If you want new people to feel welcome to participate, if you want to be clear they’re welcome, you can’t prioritize the protection of the feelings of a longtime con goer over that of the newcomer when the established community member behaves badly, making people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.
This controversy is about someone daring to challenge the bad behavior of a longtime con goer.
There is a pattern I see all over the place:
It makes it clear that calling out the problem behavior is considered much worse than the actual problem behavior.
I saw GRRM’s behavior and read Luhr’s blog post at the time. One was bad behavior, and the other was a strongly worded critique calling out the bad behavior. Yes, there’s a Code of Conduct to be applied . . . to make sure that people feel welcome in the community. Applying it only to the latter and not the former? Would make a strong statement that “we prioritize the feelings of our select few over the harms they may do and any accountability they might face if we let people criticize them”.
Seeing a very familiar pattern play out again here, with a whole bunch of people claiming the controversy is the strongly worded critique of bad behavior rather than the bad behavior, is not welcoming to new people. It’s this pattern of behavior that brings the community into disrepute.
Seeing support for calling out of bad behavior — naughty words and all — shows integrity and a willingness to be open to new members instead of a closed shop where I might as well never try to contribute, nominate, attend conventions, because I’ll never be welcome.
Seeing a whole bunch of people crying something close to “but calling X racist is the real racism” is extremely distasteful and makes a whole lot of people who love SF/F and would love to be part of a community where they can share that love feel unwelcome.
Calling the nomination of a criticism of bad behavior “cruel” and not the cruel behavior it called out . . . is distasteful.
I didn’t nominate Luhr’s post. I didn’t participate in nominations this year at all, because this year involved much more comfort rereading than new works, even works I’d been excited to put into the to-read stack (many of them now nominations). But it’s a valid nomination and it will get votes from people who feel it’s an important contribution to the ongoing debate on what we want SF/F fandom to be and behave like, and it reflected a shared reaction to very public behavior on the part of one of the community’s most prominent members. It also won’t get votes from a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, for instance, they don’t agree with it, they thought it could have been worded better, or they just have a preference for the other nominated works. None of this is in bad faith.
Pretending that listing the the title of a nominated work on a list of nominated works is a “comment directly intended to belittle…” someone, on the other hand, is stretching the code of conduct in both word and intent far enough to look rather bad faith. Particularly when that nominated work was an essay calling out behavior that made many people feel uncomfortable, belittled, offended, and unwelcome. It’s distasteful. It smacks of favouritism, cliquishness, and that pattern of pretending that calling out of bad behavior is far worse than the bad behavior itself. Because why should we have to change to make things better for or community, when we can silence the people pointing out where things aren’t good?
This is all quite silly. Somebody was critical of a fandom establishment – and >=31 of her friends decided to make some noise about it – which led to a bunch of fans to invoking the Streisand Effect.
I’ve elaborated on my opinion here but a lot of you folks should go out and touch grass.
@Meredith
I’ll bear that in mind, I don’t do Twitter as a rule.
@Stefan
Ahhh….I see it now. My assertion was qualified by the assumption that GRRM is a member of the upcoming DisConIII. I think you are saying that his membership is irrelevant to the issue. I’m not sure how that minor difference makes my post “rubbish”.
As I understand it, DisConIII’s staff is limited to acting about issues associated with the con. They can’t adjudicate a disagreement between people that are not members of the con. Nor can they adjudicate issues that are not related to the con even if both people are members of the con.
Relative to this issue, I believe it falls within an area where the con staff can act. The work is nominated and GRRM presumably is a member even if he doesn’t physically attend.
In my opinion, the con staff should not offer any bias for or against either person. For those saying “GRRM is a big enough author that the title should be OK”, I disagree. The CoC should protect him just as it should protect any other member of the con or there isn’t any point to having a CoC.
Regards,
Dann
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. – Dorothy Parker
I didn’t even know that GRRM had abused Natalie Luhrs during the ceremony. That certainly adds additional context.
There isn’t a meaningful difference in your example, but referring to the blog rant as “The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (RageBlog Edition)” instead of “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, or: The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (RageBlog Edition)” is a meaningful difference.
Natalie Luhrs handed DisCon an obvious solution by giving her rant two titles. If it referred to it as “The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (RageBlog Edition)” everyone would still know what’s being referenced and be able to find it on the web.
Compare that to the “Jebediah McFamousAuthor is a Rapist” hypothetical, where not calling it that would raise the question of how voters are supposed to know what it is when making their decision to vote.
@JJ,
Except of course I said nothing of the kind.
Nobody ‘made’ anybody do anything.
But some reactions are nevertheless perfectly reasonable.
Again, if a man gropes a woman, and she slaps him in return – he did not ‘make her’ slap him, but her slapping him is a perfectly reasonable response. See how that works? She’s not made to do anything, but the thing she did that might – absent the context – appear to be a bad thing, becomes apparent to be perfectly reasonable and not a bad thing after all, once the context is visible,.
“Sorry, he is just really great at timing his abuse so that our hands are tied, you’ll just have to suck it up” is not a great response.
t’sa also not true that a Worldcon can’t possibly take into account someone’s behaviour at prior Worldcons, or even entirely outside of a Worldcon or indeed in a completely non-fannish context. There are existing examples.
This is a very funny take but you’re making a meal out of the idea that it’s a bunch of delicate GRRM fans objecting to the title, when the discussion you’re currently in is full of objectors who criticized him as strongly as Luhrs. We were lined up around the block with our blackjacks, cudgels and pitchforks after that ceremony ended.
I’ve seen a few people on Twitter declare that they weren’t voting for the Luhrs rant but after the File 770 story are now doing so out of spite, which is a funny way of refuting the notion that it made the ballot for reasons other than quality.
Christian Brunschen: Except of course I said nothing of the kind.
Yes, you did. You said “the responsibility is all [GRRM’s]”.
But thank you for now acknowledging that “Nobody ‘made’ anybody do anything,” the people who nominated the post did so by their own choice, and their choices are their responsibility, not GRRM’s.
Christian Brunschen: Again, if a man gropes a woman, and she slaps him in return – he did not ‘make her’ slap him, but her slapping him is a perfectly reasonable response. See how that works?
The problem with this argument, which surely you realize, is that you are referring to a series of events which happen sequentially at an individual convention. Once again: GRRM’s horrific presentation was 8 months ago. It’s not taking place at DisCon III. The title, on the other hand, is an abusive personal attack against a Worldcon member that is taking place now every time DisCon III publishes it or broadcasts it.
Your example is in no way comparable to the current situation.
@ alexvdl
Here’s a hint. If you genuinely feel that then you shouldn’t have brought it up in the conservation.
Actually several tens of thousands of bucks stop there.
That shouldn’t trump all criticism but I’ve done worse. Everybody who runs conventions for long enough will probably do worse. Many others were also involved in this. Why is George R R Martin a uniquely evil individual who must be singled out before all others? This makes absolutely no sense. It is impossible not to conclude that something else is going on here.
I guess the other thing that comes to mind is that falls pretty solidly into my “Speak for yourself, John Alden” rule. Who, exactly, is being harmed by this title? And is it that person or persons who are making the complaint? An awful lot of this has been people rushing to other people’s defense, and arguing for other people’s feelings. I have found that this rarely goes well, when trying to adjudicate conflicts. If GRRM wants to lodge a complaint (as I think it was evilrooster suggested) that makes sense. But various third parties fulminating about it seems…less helpful.
I am open to the possibility that there are people here who really do feel harmed by the title of the blog post. But I would like to hear from them, in their own words, how this affects them. Mostly what I’m seeing is people feeling like the dignity of the Hugos is damaged by this, and, well, that seems outside the purview of the Code of Conduct.
I read Courtney Milan’s twitter thread about codes of conduct and she made an important point which is that codes of conduct (and WorldCon’s in particular) protect against people being made to feel unwelcome for protected characteristics: i.e. things about themselves they cannot change; disabilities, race, gender, sexual identity etc.
The related work in question is about GRRM’s behavior (as many before me have pointed out here.) She points out that if someone were behaving badly at the con; taking up skirt photos, for example, and you told them to “fuck off into the sun” you would be making them feel unwelcome on the basis of their behavior, not because of a protected characteristic. If someone barred you from WorldCon for doing that, they would be weaponizing the code of conduct against you, instead of the perpetrator, which would be a misuse. I personally think the same would apply even if the up skirt photography had been at the previous WorldCon.
In addition, she points out that the CoC taken as a whole says that such conduct must be carried out with the intention of making someone feel unwelcome to qualify. A committee announcing the names of the related works is not saying those titles with the intention of making GRRM feel unwelcome; announcing the related works is simply their job.
In an unrelated point I am sorry I argued against a position nobody here had taken when I pointed out why Luhr’s entry should remain on the ballot. I thought I had seen at least one person arguing that the administrators should remove it to make room for a more deserving piece, but I may have misinterpreted something that was intended to be “Luhrs should voluntarily step down.” I have things to do this morning and combing through 200+ comments to find that one is not going to be one of them, so I will let it rest.
Mentioning something in passing doesn’t mean that I want to waste my time arguing about it. I called Jar Jar Binks a beloved Star Wars mainstay, but I don’t wanna argue about that either.
This is a disingenuous argument. No one is stating that George R R Martin is a uniquely evil individual who must be singled out before all others. No one is stating that George R R Martin is a uniquely evil individual. No one is stating that he must be singled out before all other. No one is stating he’s evil, or that he must be singled out at all.
@Lydy Nickerson: Whether harmed or not, I am incensed that the Hugos have been weaponized, as they were by the puppies. I’d been really looking forward to this convention since before it won the bid. But now I feel that I can’t go if there’s any chance of Luhrs winning. If I’m not hurt myself, is it too much empathy on my part?
This makes it sound like a potential Code of Conduct violation doesn’t become an issue until the target of the allegedly inappropriate behavior complains.
Lydy Nickerson: I am open to the possibility that there are people here who really do feel harmed by the title of the blog post. But I would like to hear from them, in their own words, how this affects them.
Lydy, I’m not one of the finalists harmed by what GRRM did last year (though I have several friends who were, and I’m still furious on behalf of all of the finalists). I’m not a BIPOC who was disrespected by him.
But my last 3 Worldcon experiences have been absolute shit – of the kind I wouldn’t wish on anybody. 3 years ago, it was nobody’s fault, but it was a horrible Worldcon for me anyway. 2 years ago, it was illness and the nasty, irresponsible behavior of someone who should have known better, who made my Worldcon complete hell (followed by a weaksauce apology days later, which undid none of the hurt or social damage). Last year it was GRRM ruining the Hugos. And in the past year the pandemic, not being able to see any of my family or friends, and a couple of other things, including a good friend dying a slow, painful death from cancer, had left me wanting some joy in my life.
So even though I’m not going to be able to go to DC, I was really looking forward to the Hugos this year being a joyful thing. And a bunch of people who thought it was funny to put a big middle finger on the Hugo ballot have absolutely destroyed that. Sure, those people have every right to be angry about GRRM’s execrable behavior. But the fact is that they’ve made a lot of other people their collateral damage.
And the worst part is that some of those people actually take joy in making other people their collateral damage. What a sad, sorry thing that is, that some people get joy from hurting others just because they can.
So what the fuck, ruin the Hugo Awards for yet another year, why not. After all, the feelings of the people who decided to fuck over the Hugo ballot are the only ones that matter.
@Lydy Nickerson
I think arguing about the title is not what is at issue here. The contents of the article go much further in terms of attacks on George R R Martin’s character than the title does.
Martin Easterbrook: I think arguing about the title is not what is at issue here. The contents of the article go much further in terms of attacks on George R R Martin’s character than the title does.
Maybe that’s the case for you. Even if I don’t think the post reaches the level of excellence I expect of a Related Work finalist, the feelings expressed in it are legitimate. It’s the title being endlessly published and broadcast by people who should be enforcing their Code of Conduct to which I object.