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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@JJ,
That is not saying that anybody made anybody do anything, It is simply pointing out that the root cause – the first point where somebody did something wrong – is GRRM’s, and that the consequences from that are his responsibility.
One of those consequences is that people responded in perfectly reasonable ways: a blog post or essay that lays out the facts is an absolutely reasonable response, especially when, as you pointed out, there was no way to apply suitable consequences through the con’s CoC.
less ‘acknowledging’, more ‘clarifying since you were attempting to put words into my mouth that I hadn’t said’.
When there is a chain of events that starts with someone doing something wrong, that is where, if not all, then certainly the vast majority of the responsibility lies. Any case of self-defence, for example – as long as the response is reasonable or proportionate, and even if that response, taken out of that context, might be considered a bad thing.
In this case the choices are indeed perfectly reasonable in the context of being responses to GRRM’s misbehaviour; so the responsibility remains with GRRM, for causing this whole kerfuffle with his misbehaviour.
And even if you might consider the responses unreasonable – the responses would not, could not have happened but for GRRM’s bad behaviour as the Hugo award host. So the root cause still remains GRRM’s misbehaviour, as does the responsibility for all that resulted from his bad behaviour.
It’s really that simple.
The essay was written immediately after the “horrific presentation” – in August of 2020. The nominations and ballot entry are at the immediately succeeding Worldcon, less than a year later. There’s no way that this could have happened any more quickly. This is all playing out as immediately as possible.
You said yourself that there was no good or proper way to immediately address the issue; so this is really the immediately next available opportunity in the nearest equivalent context – the immediately subsequent Worldcon, where the immediate next Hugo presentation is going to happen. Yes, each Worldcon is separate in some ways, but the Hugos are the context where this happened: it was as teh host of the Hugos that GRRM misbehaved, and it is at the next available Hugos that people are raising the issue of this misbehaviour and making it have some sort of consequences.
That all seems perfectly reasonable.
“Oh, the disrespect you had to endure from the mouth of an person in a position of authority happened at a different Worldcon, you’ll just have to endure it, there’s nothing that could possibly be done” is … not a particularly good response.
Mike Glyer on April 15, 2021 at 10:09 pm said:
They do; however, a Worldcon committee cannot use their Code of Conduct to remove a finalist from the ballot or refuse them an award if the members select that person. Anyone demanding that the committee remove that work from the ballot entirely (and some of this discussion does seem to me to be demanding that this be done) is just as bad as those who demanded that the 2015 Worldcon Committee take Strong Action and remove all of the Puppy finalists. And I know that there are people, including past Hugo Award winners, who think this is exactly what should be done and that anything they personally don’t like for any reason shouldn’t be allowed onto the ballot, and the Voters Be Dammed.
Warner Holme on April 16, 2021 at 2:28 am said:
The Puppies insisted that the administrators were manipulating the results, and that they were blacklisting finalists based on the administrators’ personal and subjective opinions. If I thought that was happening, I’d be calling for the abolition of the Hugo Awards entirely. I’ve been an administrator several times. We might roll our eyes and engage in internal snark about nominations and voters’ tastes, but we have never manipulated results to suit our personal preferences. (Heck, very few things I personally nominate make the ballot, let alone win. Shrug.)
StefanB on April 16, 2021 at 2:33 am said:
I think the title of a work has to be listed the way its author intended for it to be listed, but that the convention is under no obligation other than to do the bare minimum required by the WSFS Constitution, which means listing the work on the ballot as published and including it in the published results. I do know that regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, we’re listing the full title of all of the finalists on the Hugo Awards web site.
(Worldcons don’t even have to engrave the names of the winners on the trophies. They have to give out trophies, and those trophies have to include a specific design of rocket, but that’s all the rules say. A Worldcon could just hand winners blank trophies and it would meet the requirements.)
I do think there are people involved here who want finalists removed from the ballot, just as they wanted them removed back in 2015.
I also think that DisCon III is obliged to include the names of all finalists on the Hugo Award ballot, but they are not obliged to read them out at the ceremony, even if they win. Remember, the Hugo Awards ceremony is not a required function. A Worldcon could decide to not hold the ceremony or to not include certain categories at their own discretion. They have to publish the results. They have to give trophies to the winners. They don’t have to hold a ceremony. That doesn’t mean they are immune to criticism for their decisions.
Personally, just as I said in 2015 and at other times, members who think a work shouldn’t have been on the ballot should vote that work below No Award. (Or rank No Award anywhere and leave the work off their ballot entirely, which counts the same way.) I know which, if any, finalists I will be voting below No Award. My vote counts exactly once, and it shouldn’t count more than once, nor should anyone else’s, no matter how loud they shout.
If we had adopted the Three-Stage Nomination plan that I proposed a few years ago, where there would have been an intermediate stage where semi-finalists would be listed and members could vote against semi-finalists and those semi-finalists with sufficient “no” votes would be disqualified from the final ballot, then there would be an outlet for those people who want to vote against things.
A meme
JJ says 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.
I fully agree. It’s a title chosen deliberately to offend and therefore shouldn’t be allowed on the nomination list under the Code of Conduct.
Oh I’m sure there are some high-minded idealists who are looking for any opportunity to complain that somebody somewhere is doing something they shouldn’t be allowed to do. But I am focusing on the origination of the complaints via the Westeros fan community, I did not, nor do I intend to read every comment by every fan in this thread prior to writing another critique of fannishness as a psychological condition.
Christian Brunschen: The essay was written immediately after the “horrific presentation” – in August of 2020.
The nomination was made 7 months later.
There’s a reason why the legal determination of “premeditation” involves an evaluation of the amount of lapsed time between action and reaction.
Someone who slaps the person who groped them at a convention right after it happens is exercising a normal human response and reaction in the surprise and shock of the moment.
Spending months planning to nominate something on the Hugo ballot as a very public “FUCK YOU” is an entirely different thing.
That’s why your comparison is completely invalid.
And here’s the thing: If the people who nominated this post had instead chosen to put together a well-documented CoC complaint to DisCon III as to why GRRM shouldn’t be allowed to attend or have any role in the convention based on what he did last year? I’d have totally supported that. I’d have signed my name at the bottom of that motherfucking complaint.
Instead, they weaponized the Hugo ballot to get revenge. That is not “perfectly reasonable”.
@Simon McNeil
Contrary to your assumptions, I have actually shared critiques of last year’s ceremony. GRRM made a number of very real and hurtful choices, and while I differ with some that I don’t assume malice, regardless, the impact was there. I have never denied it, and have said as much on my own site in the past.
Furthermore, my position is one of principle, and though it gets my attention more because GRRM is the subject of this issue, I’d like to think that if a work titled “Simon McNeil Should Fuck Off Into the Sun” or “Natalie Luhrs Should Fuck Off Into the Sun” was nominated, I would still think it’s a very dark path Worldcon is taking if this becomes accepted as an okay way to use the apparatus of a convention to tell a member of it that they do not belong. I might even comment here on File 770 about it, concurring with those who raise concerns about how to fit works with personally targetted titles within the framework of the CoC, I don’t know. I admit because I don’t know you or Natalie, I would certainly not spend much more time on it, but my basic concern is the same.
Ultimately, I do not know who is actually harmed by the title being elided by the convention and its representatives. The work will still be there as a nominee. And if the concern of I and others about how to square the title being used and repeated by the convention leads to Natalie Luhrs winning, well, so be it. In truth, after reading some of her writing regarding her personal travails, it sounds to me like she’s the nominee who would derive the most personal joy from winning the recognition of a Hugo Award, and Ghu knows joy has been in short supply this past year and change.
In any case, I wish people would assume good faith more often than they do, but that’s the Internet for you.
@Simon McNeil
I think it’s amusing that your comment, responding to someone who downplays the idea that anyone is offended by the title, is immediately preceded by…
someone who is offended by the title.
@Elio you’ll note I wasn’t actually saying you were acting in bad faith except perhaps in the explicitly Sartean sense of the word – and even there I think the construction of identity is too complicated to easily call an assumed identity like “fan” a Bad Faith one.
However I do think that you are probably too personally invested in this issue. Dark path. Hah that boat sailed in 2015 for the Related Work category. And frankly, I’ve been very clear on how laughable the idea of the all-inclusive convention is.
Frankly I don’t think you getting your way and getting the name of the Fuck Off Into The Sun essay redacted is going to do any good for anyone. It certainly won’t make a welcoming environment for critics even if it makes for a more welcoming environment for one TV producer. Perhaps instead of trying to suggest you are advocating for total inclusivity you should be more explicit about who you are trying to exclude and who you are not.
I didn’t downplay the idea anyone was offended by the title. You’ve had a lot of trouble accurately characterizing the positions of other people.
But it’s no fun to discuss that when we could be talking about how Simon McNeil has arrived here with a quiver of blog posts that cover every situation.
rcade: 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.
It’s always a nice comic relief whenever a big controversy breaks, just for the parade of drive-by randos who can’t be bothered to read the comments but are convinced that what they have to say is The Wisdom Of The Ages. 😀
Also, you forgot to return my pitchfork, and I WANT IT BACK NOW. 🔥
@Simon McNeil
I feel like EPH sorted out the Puppies mess pretty well, so if the ship briefly sailed on piratical waters, it has returned to shore.
I am not trying to exclude anyone, near as I can tell when I examine what I’ve said about this here and elsewhere. What I would like to see is that the title excluded from official use outside of what is absolutely required by the convention and award administrators, which I believe the Code of Conduct requires of them, for reasons I’ve already stated. Camestros Felapton makes the most effective argument I’ve seen regarding this, but ultiamtely that is something up the convention administrators to decide.
It may seem like a sop towards civility or inclusiveness if the work is still a nominee, and yet Discon III took on the duty of attempting to be as inclusive and welcoming as it can be within the framework of its commitments to enforcing the Code of Conduct. My hope is that the convention committee is considering diverse views and trying to formulate some kind of response — whether to explain why they don’t believe it is a violation to use the title in official broadcasts, events, publications, etc., or why it is a violation and what they will do to mitigate the impact.
A broader and less specific issue is the Best Related Work category, which I believe needs some reform or clarification, but that’s for the hard-working people who attend the WSFS Business Meetings to sort out (if they wish). This is a view I’ve held for quite awhile, as personally I think book-length academic or journalistic works of SF culture, fandom, and history are not getting the spotlight that the category once afforded them. Maybe we need a Best Non-fiction Study category or something… though I know there are many people who hate the idea of adding yet another category.
So apparently the hurt was deep enough and still felt hard enough 7 months later to leave enough of an impression to nominate the blog post in question.
At this rate, Streisand effect is going to catapult George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun to the top of the ballot.
Think of all the media coverage that could be wrung out of this both before and after!
@JJ: “…And a bunch of people who thought it was funny to put a big middle finger on the Hugo ballot have absolutely destroyed that.”
So I’m a rando who doesn’t show up in the comments much, except but once or twice a year, but let me say just now…
JJ, I sympathise entirely.
But like, that’s an awful lot of assumption in one sentence. And you’re dug in and getting angrier, and responding to the things making you angry, rather than, for example, responding to Lydy’s earlier comment which made you pause and think. And this situation needs more light, not more heat.
So I dunno, I’m not a moderator, I’m just a rando. But you might take a step or two back for a sec.
Mart: So apparently the hurt was deep enough and still felt hard enough 7 months later to leave enough of an impression to nominate the blog post in question.
I’m still pissed off about it 8 months later. A lot of people are.
The difference is that I don’t think it’s funny to fuck over a bunch of innocent people just to get revenge.
alexvdl says At this rate, Streisand effect is going to catapult George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun to the top of the ballot.
Think of all the media coverage that could be wrung out of this both before and after!
No, it isn’t going to the top of the ballot. It’s likely it’ll be near the bottom of the ballot in the end as the rest of the nominations are far more likely to garner votes. It’s a piece of merde.
I keep all borrowed tools now and say it’s a pandemic safety precaution.
rcade: I keep all borrowed tools now and say it’s a pandemic safety precaution.
I’m going to come over, maskless, AND COUGH ON YOU UNTIL YOU GIVE MY PITCHFORK BACK. 🔱
JJ on April 16, 2021 at 6:53 am said:
… at the next possible opportunity to raise something with the Hugo awards specifically.
Except that presupposes that they “spent months planing” to to something nefarious; whereas what they did was at the next possible opportunity re-raise the issue of GRRM’s bad behaviour, with the same level of respect that GRRM gave the recipients of his bad behaviour.
Timelines do matter – but so do the possibly available timelines. Here, the reactions are happening as quickly as they can, in a slow-moving context.
There is really no other, and no quicker, way to “respond in kind” to GRRM’s presentation at the Hugo awards, than to … get a corresponding response into the very next available Hugo awards.
You may not like it, but it is reasonable.
And again, if GRRM hadn’t – with that premeditation you mention, because he clearly spent a fair amount of time writing and recording his remarks before they were broadcast to the world – given a big verbal finger to a lot of people, then none of this would be happening.
The responsibility remains firmly with GRRM.
Ummmmm…
JJ on April 16, 2021 at 5:33 am said:
So which is it? would it have been appropriate to complain to DisCon III about GRRM’s behaviour at CoNZealand, or not? You seem to be arguing both ways, in quick succession.
They ‘weaponised’ the Hugo ballot only in the same way that GRRM ‘weaponised’ the privilege of hosting the Hugo award ceremony. And those who nominated did so without having an established position of importance and authority in Fandom as GRRM has, for better or worse. So this is still an example of, at worst, “punching up| where GRRM was “punching down”.
So yes, I still consider it all to be reasonable.
Not awesome of perfect or what I would have chosen to do. But reasonable.
Did you think it’d be nominated in the first place?
Regardless, guess we’ll find out. Hopefully the situation helps the supporting membership numbers.
Christian Brunschen: Timelines do matter – but so do the possibly available timelines.
So do the possibly available methods.
Christian Brunschen: They ‘weaponised’ the Hugo ballot only in the same way that GRRM ‘weaponised’ the privilege of hosting the Hugo award ceremony.
Ah, yes, and Two Wrongs Make A Right.
The Best Way To Respond To Someone Behaving Like A Childish, Petty, Vengeful Dick Is To Behave Like A Childish, Petty, Vengeful Dick.
Being Angry Means That Whatever You Do Is Justified, No Matter How Many Other People You Fuck Over In The Process.
Tracking Number: 1Z 249 67R 03 9814 2979
rcade: Tracking Number: 1Z 249 67R 03 9814 2979
You made me laugh so hard I cried, and I had to get out the albuterol, which I haven’t had to use for ages.
Thank you so much for that, I needed it. 😀
@JJ–It’s amazing how albuterol opens up the lungs, isn’t it?
@rcade is the one who has caught onto my game of trying to trick Fandom into reading critical theory by gently tweaking their noses. Well done there.
JJ on April 16, 2021 at 8:05 am said:
Indeed they do! And the available methods here, to get something into a spot with the same visibility as GRRM’s presentation, were … to nominate something for the Hugo awards and perhaps get it onto the ballot. So nominating it for that reason is … reasonable.
Plus, of course, the essay is a piece of writing that did raise an important issue, so it is also perfectly reasonable.
‘Best’? no. ‘Good’? no. ‘Petty’? perhaps. But reasonable? Actually, yes. “Turnabout is fair play” is a phrase that springs to mind.
But that I think so should hardly surprise anyone, considering that I had written – which you ignored:
But then, being belittled by someone in a position of authority tends to upset people and make them quire reasonably angry. Yes, other people subsequently could have chosen different actions, but why should the people on the receiving end of GRRM’s disrespect in his presentation have to live up to a higher standard than he chose to?
So the root cause remains GRRM’s behaviour, as does the responsibility for what ensued – even those things where other people did not act in the very best of all possible ways.
alexvdl says Did you think it’d be nominated in the first place?
Regardless, guess we’ll find out. Hopefully the situation helps the supporting membership numbers.
No, but weirder things have happened. That category is one that doesn’t attract a lot of voters traditionally so it doesn’t take a lot of votes to get a nomination.
Bet it gets lots of vote this year.
Christian Brunschen: “Turnabout is fair play” is a phrase that springs to mind
Yes, as something that is advocated by Childish, Petty, Vengeful Dicks.
Christian Brunschen: why should the people on the receiving end of GRRM’s disrespect in his presentation have to live up to a higher standard than he chose to?
Because they should aspire to be something other than Childish, Petty, Vengeful Dicks? Something better than what they’re condemning?
I can’t believe that you are advocating for the “reasonableness” of infantile revenge responses.
Everyone is Operating in Bad Faith But Me, Who is Flinging Artisanal, Reasonable Shit in a Respectful Manner: A Fandom Story
Nominators are not voters.
Can outrage get nominations sure, wins not so much. This theory every mention is good for my candidate, reminds me other candidates, who believed the suporters did support them in Email. Historical a nominee who is popular but not polarising has a better chance that one that polarises.
There are good reasons to join the worldcon as a supporting member or more. I think one nominee (if it is not yourself) is not one that many people share.
On other points I want to thank Kevin Standlee for his answer to my question and hope there is talk about other thinks, that people love, soon.
No. It is not. I am tired of seeing this restated continually.
The title of the work existed long before the DisCon CoC was decided. It isn’t something invented to troll the organisation, the membership at large or in fact anyone at all.
If a work was published entitled “Daniel Goldsmith Can Fuck Off Into the Sun” was published, nominated, and I then decided to attend the Con, is that CoC violation?
No. It is not. The work stands at a remove from the Con, it is a reaction and an essay based on an experience.
Lydy, I’m a lurker who rarely comments, but you asked for feedback from people who feel harmed by the title.
I have been in a public situation where I was belittled by name where I was not in a position to respond and had to accept it with outward calm while half the people in the room stared at me to see how l would respond and the other half studiously did not look at me at all and avoided all interactions with me for some time afterwards. I would not wish that feeling on anyone. GRRM was a thoughtless jerk and wrong, but there’s a reason we did away with tying people to stocks. Just remembering how I felt then still makes me weep.
Then I think of being the person at the ceremony who has to read that title with GRRM sitting there and being the one putting someone else in this position. The only person that I can see who would be comfortable reading this title at the ceremony is someone who enjoys making other people uncomfortable at best, or someone who allows their own anger to make them cruel at worst.
JJ on April 16, 2021 at 8:39 am said:
… and by people who have been on the receiving end of bad acts and simply want redress for the injustice.
It might be nice to be able to do that – but such aloofness is easiest for those who are already in a privileged position. And again, while it might be nice, it also reasonably to not be nice, or be the bigger person, and to point out the misbehaviour very visibly and loudly – because there is also a risk that people will interpret any non-loud-and-angry response as “oh well then I guess it wasn’t so bad, otherwise they would have made more of a stink about it”.
I am not ‘advocating’ – I am simply noting that is is reasonable. Again, not ‘good’, not something I would suggest that people should do – but simply reasonable, the opposite of unreasonable.
I find it highly disappointing whenever someone wants to hold the recipient of a negative experience, when they are complaining about that negative experience, to a higher standard than the person who caused the negative experience in the first place.
Sort out the person who caused the negative experience in the first place, since you evidently weren’t successful in holding them to the standard to which they should be held, instead of trying to hold others to, not even the same standard, but a higher one than you failed to uphold.
If you’re talking about individuals, they are free to live up or down to any standard in response to GRRM’s perceived disrespect.
If you’re talking about Hugo nominators as a group, the reason to live up to a higher standard is because we don’t do ourselves or the awards any favors by responding to disrespect with disrespect.
There were a lot of blog posts following the Hugo ceremony that didn’t invite GRRM to “fuck off into the sun.” We did have options.
As I type the words “fuck off into the sun,” which I find I’ve done an improbably large number of times in 24 hours, I’m starting to ask myself whether I should at least appreciate the fact that it sounds science fictional.
Cat Eldridge on April 16, 2021 at 6:46 am said:
Do you think that Worldcon committees should have the unlimited right to remove (or maybe add) finalists to the Hugo Award ballot based on their own subjective opinions, rather than what the members of WSFS nominated? Because I think that’s effectively what you’re asserting here. Are you saying that specific rules made by an individual Worldcon override the WSFS Constitution in all circumstances?
It seems to me that by that standard (Code of Conduct is more important that the WSFS Constitution), maybe a Worldcon committee should look at the site selection candidates and say, “We think [Bid] is offensive, and therfore we won’t let it on the ballot, and no matter what the voters say, we’ll award the Y+2 Worldcon to [Other Bid].” That’s hypothetical, but look at the people who were saying that places like Jeddah and Chengdu shouldn’t have been allowed to bid. And remember that this same logic can be turned against The Usual Suspects. There are plenty of people who think that the USA is the Most Evil Nation On Earth and that no US site should be allowed to host Worldcon because Evil and that the Board of Directors Must Act.
I’m aware that this is a slippery-slope argument, but I continue to contend that if you ignore one clear rule, you assert that you can ignore them all. There are obviously edge cases and places where difficult-to-interpret rules can be taken in different ways. But easy-to-read rules and clear principles (Local law trumps the WSFS Constitution; the Constitution trumps the individual Convention’s rules; the individual Convention’s rules apply in all cases where either of the senior rules are silent) shouldn’t be ignored.
Glad you liked it and you had albuterol at hand!
We have it here too because some of us have asthma and get chest colds that like to become pneumonia.
Lydy Nickerson: A Code of Conduct, like a law, is an attempt to leverage the power that a group of people have invested in a governing authority to achieve a social goal that individuals can’t accomplish for themselves. A CoC maps the moral ground that everyone thinks they want to stand on — drawing its power from the group-level agreement to do something about individual behavior that’s off the map.
But what is the nature of this group? This is the Worldcon. It is part of fandom. It is people who admire writers/artists/editors of sff&h and come to a place where many of those creators show up and talk about what they’re doing. It is the social network among the people who participate. Individuals can and do say all kinds of critical things while they’re participating.
Now a few dozen voters have made an insulting title a finalist for the group-level set of awards, to force the group as a whole to ratify the insult. The group isn’t going to get to vote how they want to express their criticism of GRRM’s toastmaster performance. Before this happened people would have looked at the Code of Conduct and known that if they expressed themselves in the same terms to another member they would have violated the CoC. But now if you’re going to argue the CoC isn’t designed to protect everyone, then where is the group power coming from which the CoC is supposed to be leveraging to help people? If in the end it’s only a matter of everyone doing whatever they have enough personal power to get away with, that shatters the group power that was needed to give the CoC its effect.
You got nomination numbers?
@Christian Brunschen
Let’s accept that for a moment. It’s certainly a reasonable argument.
What in that case is the role of the CoC and those who administrate it? There are probably several.
Presumably it should establish limits somewhere about what is permissible and communicate them to the participants in order to moderate their behaviour.
Even if no official action is taken it is reasonable, and beyond that it is desirable, to warn the participants that however justified they may feel their behaviour may be, and even however objectively justified their behaviour may be, the general attendees have some right not to be unconsenting witnesses to something they find unpleasant.
They have a responsibility to make clear that the behaviour in question does not have the official support of the convention. They may if they wish make clear that they also do not officially side with the other party, that is up to them. (For me this is the ‘gripping hand’ in this discussion)
They have a responsibility for the well being of all participants. If someone is suffering serious mental health or other real life damage they need to put a stop to things in any way that they can and whoever it may upset.
They have a responsibility to the CoC itself on making sure that a reasonable observer would feel that the CoC was being enfirced fairly and impartially. When tempers flare this gets hugely difficult but it’s still extremely important.
Even if they feel the CoC is not being broken they have an ethical duty to warn a participant that they may not have crossed the line where enforcement action is necessary but that they are alienating a lot of the onlookers and, in the heat of the moment, doing themselves more harm than good.
They have a responsibility to encourage de-escalation if there is any possibility of this. This is more important than it appears because if one person has gone right to the edge of what is permissible under the CoC a ‘fair and proportional’ response may easily go over that edge. In the current unpleasantness it looks as though both ‘sides’ feel they are in that position.
Lastly they have a responsibility too look after themselves and their own mental health. The phrase “Guys, is this really as important as you think. I don’t want to be doing this right now. Can’t we just take a step back and chill out” is always in order.
I should probably add that I think the CoC has the same problems as divorce law, by the time you have to use it then it’s probably too late.
I strongly support the use of “Listeners” because I think they put far less pressure on people who have a problem, they can suggest more flexible alternatives and then, if necessary, they can help someone use the CoC processes less stressfully and more effectively.
I think if a friendly person were to go to people on both sides of this argument sand ask “what do you actually want to happen”, and persist in asking that beyond answers like “I want the other side to shut up”, they would probably get quite different answers to those that people seem to be currently arguing for.
Sure, that was always going to happen. That’s one of a number of bad things that were bound to happen here. Just like the DisCon III committee was never going to engage my question — as they did nothing when I pointed out Tom Kratman’s insurrectionist advice in Baen’s Bar in January, though I know from sources it was discussed in committee circles; they waited to be called out by Jason Sanford; they didn’t need to have waited til it became a publicity crisis. There was always going to be a Twitterpile of insults aimed my way. But I had no peace saying nothing about this CoC issue. (Internal monologue: “How can you let this slide? If you don’t say anything who will? What, you don’t want to collect your reward for pretending you’re okay with all this?”)
I’m willing to be that one side wants the work to remain on the ballot, with the title of the work unchanged, so that people can vote for it, just as they can vote for any work on the ballot that was nominated there.
As for what the other “side” wants , there’s been a gamut from the extreme (wants the work removed from the ballot) to moderate positions (rename the work, asterisk the fuck) to mild (look at retooling BRW criteria, vote the award where they think it belongs).
There’s something absolutely worth people’s money. “Somebody’s got to go back and get a shitload of dimes.”
That should be a Scroll title, though maybe not til it cools off enough to be handled without tongs….
Per the announcement, the number of nominations for Related Work finalists ranged from 31 to 74.
Yes, I do. I got them from the committee’s Hugo announcement. The BRW finalist range of nominations is 74-31. At most about six dozen people nominated this work, and possibly fewer than three dozen. Over 1200 ballots were cast.
Thank you.
Edit: Also to @Mike Glyer
The amount of hell you catch for covering every SFF brouhaha is amazing/astounding/startling. As someone who graduated with a bachelor’s in journalism and worked as a newspaper reporter for 10 years, I see File 770 as a fair news site that quotes all sides with links, responds to calls for corrections, and puts its own viewpoint secondary to facts.
I’m extremely glad you don’t let the criticism deter you from bringing us 3,000 news items a year.
I am finding it hilarious in the wake of all this that someone on twitter is having to say that File 770 isn’t puppy adjacent.