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.
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
@Mike: I certainly miss having a richer blogging ecosystem. I had to step back from moderating/writing for Making Light because of a family health issue, but Twitterbookagram has also drained a lot of the energy from the wider set of online communities that used to exist in conversation with (and yes, conflict with) each other.
I also think the pandemic has made everyone extremely short-fused, which has caused more than one messy spiral on the internet. Some of them may be irrecoverable.
I have an inherent faith that, in Jeff Goldblum’s words, Life, um, finds a way, and that we’re just in between conversational media. But that may be my inner Polyanna taking over the keyboard, you know?
@meredith: My memory is that the other voices diluted and modulated the rough players. It’s a lot rougher without the dilution.
Alexvdl:
What LitRPG do you read? I think I have run out of good stuff. Mostly stick to Unbound, System Apocalypse and The First Defier nowadays. And anything adjacent Sarah Lin comes up with. Mostly gone over to Xianxia instead, but that’s also getting a bit repetitive. Sticking with Cultivation Chat Club, because it is goofy enough.
Twitter and Instagram reeeeeally do not suit me, at all – they’re just not set up for people who don’t particularly enjoy whittling down their thoughts to the bare essentials. Which is fine – they clearly work for other people (and my partner would strongly suggest I should work on that, anyway). But I’m sort of keeping my fingers crossed for someone figuring out how to fuse the best bits of LJ and Tumblr so there’s a better place to settle the wider fannish ecosystem that’s a bit more suited to, well, me, and the sort of content I enjoy.
(Although that time a Filer said I was concise is getting printed out and framed on the wall eventually, I swear. Me! Concise! As a compliment! Keeping that one forever and hugging it and calling it George.)
Meredith:
Have you tried this Xianxia?
https://dreamsofjianghu.ca/ascending-do-not-disturb/table-of-contents/
This one is cuteness overload (most are not) and I think it possibly might be something you’d enjoy. There is a glossary for new concepts.
@meredith:
I enjoy the concision of Twitter; it causes me to think more epigrammatically. Even when I do write in longer form, I find that my turns of phrase are more polished as a result.
But I do miss lapsing into sonnets, and even more, having the energy for thousand-word blog posts with thousand-comment threads taking my singular sketch and turning it into a multimedia extravaganza of ideas that hadn’t even occurred to me.
I also miss having more spaces for people who preferred longer-form writing. Even when I didn’t have the spoons to read everything (much less contribute), I knew it was out there, being complicated. You’re one of the pillars of F770. We had more pillars when we had more spaces for them to stand in.
I like Twitter, but I use it as a newsfeed more than for social interaction. It is a rotten place for discussions.
He, I remember when Twitter was known has the friendly social media. At least in Sweden.
After you have Stylish installed, you open the plonk script page and click Install.
When it’s installed, here’s how to open the script for editing: Click the Extension icon in the browser (right of the address bar probably), click the three-dot icon to the right of Stylish, and click Options. A page opens with your current styles/scripts and lets you edit them.
Editing the script requires that you go into the HTML and find the user’s edit in their Gravatar image on their comments.
In my comments, the IMG tag links to this …
http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a46f5499f6c3952e00f343e9f319da42?s=100&r=pg&d=mm
… so my ID is a46f5499f6c3952e00f343e9f319da42.
This style would plonk me:
img[src=”a46f5499f6c3952e00f343e9f319da42″] + span::after, / rcade */
If I never hear from you again after posting this tutorial I enjoyed our time together.
evilrooster:
Yeah, I have had these thoughts about another social media I frequent. There were always quarrels, but most of the discussions were about meetups, doing fun stuff, parties and so on. Then that stopped with the pandemic, discussions died out and the quarreling that had been background noise was all that was left.
Rcade:
Can’t find any extension button. 🙁
@Hampus
My impression of non-Anglophone European social spaces is that they resisted the toxicity for longer, but are now increasingly caught up in it. I can certainly see the changes in the ways that local Twitter hashtags behave, for instance. (I live in the Netherlands.)
Yeah, the problem there is that relying on such a chancy thing as other people en masse, which is what the Hugos are, is likely to break one’s heart.
I mentioned Twitter because we just discussed this there and it was a frustrating experience. (Not just our exchange — with anybody.)
I didn’t recognize you as a Making Light editor, which gives you a lot of credibility on what makes an SFF discussion forum healthy.
One harm I see in the fact that we increasingly see edge case finalists like angry rants, virtual conventions, AO3, filk CDs, etc… nominated in Best Related Work is that they crowd out what the category was originally intended for, namely well researched non-fiction books, genre-related memoirs and biographies, documentaries and the like.
I agree with the points that Natalie Luhrs and Jeannette Ng in their respective rants. However, a 1600 word blogpost and a speech that was under 1000 words long (my unheld acceptance speeches for Galactic Journey and myself were between 200 and 300 words long and since there is a time limit, I doubt Jeannette Ng’s was much longer) are in no way equivalent to a full length book. But since the edge case finalists are often short and accessible and Hugo reading time is limited, a lot of voters never bother to read the nominated non-fiction books, documentaries, etc…
We won’t have the full nomination stats for 2021 until December, but if I look at 2020 Jeannette Ng’s speech kept “Monster She Wrote” by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson, a book about pioneering women horror writers, of the ballot. And for me personally, “Monster She Wrote” is exactly the sort of thing I want to see on the ballot. Though the 2020 Best Related Work ballot was very strong in general and the eventual winner was the weakest work by far.
For 2021, the two Best Related Work finalists I worry most about are A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky: The Worlds of Octavia Bulet by Lynell George, a non-fiction book by a black about another black writer, and Maria Dahvana Headley’s Beowulf translation, which removed the sexist baggage of earlier translations. These are absolutely the sort of highly deserving works at least I want to see on the ballot, but sadly they probably don’t stand a chance. The Bronycon documentary, which I haven’t yet watched, probably has a slightly better chance.
Natalie Luhrs and Jeannette Ng are talented writers/critics and I hope we will see them again on the ballot eventually, but maybe for something with a bit more substance.
@Meredith:
I lack the spoons to write much at present, but want to thank you for the laugh, which I sorely needed. “George”, indeed! 🙂
May this find you happy and healthy.
Agreed, Cora.
I mean, in theory, as I mentioned elsewhere, someoine could theoretically nominated my 250 book recommendation twitter thread in Best Related Work…and I don’t feel right about that, especially compared to far more substantial pieces that would be eclipsed thereby.
@rcade: Interpersonal dynamics is my crack.
On the subject of believing in the Hugos: remember that they’re bigger than any one year or any one work. This entry in this category this year is not make-or-break for the institution, no matter how much you dislike it.
Like many discussions where people fundamentally agree, this one is probably going on and on because both sides care passionately about the Hugos, and are frustrated that they’re being accused of not doing do.
Luhrs wrote and named the essay as she did, and the people who nominated it (probably in many cases, certainly in the two that I know of) did so, because they saw last year’s ceremony as something importantly bad enough that they wanted to further the conversation about changing it. They wanted that as passionately as you want not to have That Title be read out at the convention, and for the same reason: because the Hugos are important and should be defended.
But. No matter what happens, the Hugos will continue. Some fantastic works are going to get rockets this year. Some fantastic works will miss out, but still be beloved. And next year there will be another pile of surprises, and we’ll learn more — good and bad — about our community by what they nominate, and what they vote for.
That should be “a non-fiction book by a black writer about another black writer.”
@evilrooster
It’s the same in Germany. We’ve had far right trolls and AfD stans on Twitter for a while, but those were easily blocked. But since the pandemic, German Twitter has become toxic with even previously reasonable people posting stuff like hateful hashtags accusing a virologist they don’t agree with of planning to murder people. Sometimes, you can’t even block them, because they’re folks you have to interact with in other contexts.
When the Hugo finalists were announced, my Twitter feed was full of happy people congratulating and celebrating the finalists. And the German Twitter trends in the sidebar were all miserable and hateful stuff.
Where in the Netherlands do you live, evilrooster? I’m across the border in Germany, but I spent a lot of time in the Netherlands as a teen, because my Dad used to work in Rotterdam.
@Cora
I’m in Amsterdam.
I’m not Dutch (I’m dual US/UK), but I’ve been here for…sheesh, is it really 14 years? I’m fluent in Dutch, but it’s still more work than English. And the less said about my accent the better.
Um…. can someone explain “Winterfoxen” to me? Never heard the term before….
No idea. That was some strange passive aggressive rambling that could mean just about anything.
@Cassy B.: I’ve inferred it’s a reference to a pseudonym of a hate-blogger from recent years who was the subject of a Hugo-winning article a few years ago.
John A Arkansawyer:
Ah, now I get it. Yeah, I saw some of the hangers-on making noises on twitter.
Paul Weimer: Totally aside from how to deal with Hugo recognition, when I have time to wonder what I’ve missed I go look at your tweets and appreciate the breadth of your interests, and how that includes keeping an eye on the kind of accomplishments SF Signal used to follow. What’s happening in sff that’s worth knowing? I bet Paul has mentioned it!
Meta thought from taking a hot bath: isn’t it interesting that we’re discussing both the impoverishment of the conversation due to the implosion of the blogosphere and the relative importance of a blog post?
I think we’re more lost without the old conversational landscape than we’re willing to admit to ourselves. Particularly when so much else of our lives, so many other landscapes, are also out of our reach at the moment.
Cassy B: In hopes of heading off anyone’s attempts to explain it in this space, if you click on this link you will be led to the answer.
With regard to the conversation about reforming Best Related Work, an issue I have that the category is becoming increasingly self-referential. Acknowledging self-critique is a good thing, but here it gives off an impression of pomposity. It feels like the Hugos have an inflated sense of self-importance.
I don’t know how you’d resolve this, but I like the idea of a long-form related work category.
@Mike Yeah. I seem to sometimes tell authors and people about things pretty early…but then, that harks back to when I was feeding you Vogel results when I was in New Zealand… 🙂
EDiT: Comment I answered was removed.
By which I mean I don’t want it explained in this space. I’ve got my hands full navigating the present hurricane. I don’t need to find out what it’ll be like to start a second — that’s ancient news to boot.
Thanks, Mike; truly appreciate the link. I’d entirely forgotten the pseudonym.
@Mike Glyer, it certainly seems that this post has brought up a lot of old battles. Fandom is not good at letting go, it seems.
@meredith and @Hampus Eckerman
I’m currently making my way through the Somnia Online series by K.T. Hanna.
Before that I read a delightful book called The Crafting of Chess by Kit Falbo. Highly recommended, although the ending is a kick in the gut. Author said that the sequel is coming out soonish.
For a more cultivator oriented series I’m enjoying the Silver Fox and the Western Hero series by M.H. Johnson. The fifth book came out in December, and the 4th in August, I except the next one to drop soon.
Other than that the Noobtown series by Ryan Rimmel (currently at 5) , the Way of the Shaman by Vasily Mahanenko (Nice because it’s finished at 7), The Completionist Chronicles by Dakota Krout (Book 6 just dropped. Anything by Krout, really), A Touch of Power series by Jay Boyce ( currently at 3), Axe Druid by Christopher Johns (at 6 books), Rise to Omniscience (Currently at 9 books) along with a bunch of others.
I have read the Street Cultivator series by Sarah Lin, and of course the Arcane Ascenscion series by Andrew Rowe. Probably the series I’m most excited to get another edition of is Xander Boyce’s Red Mage series, which only has two books.
As I said, my favorite thing about LitRPG is the systems. Even though a lot of LitRPG is pretty… lackluster.. at things like characterization, I’m very much a fan of seeing the different ways that authors choose to build systems, and then have their heroes/villains exploit it.
In the same Vein I really enjoy the Bobiverse series by Dennis Taylor which stars with We Are Legion (We Are Bob). You can tell the dudee has a heavy engineer background, a long with a lot of geeky tendencies, so I love the “world engineering” aspect of it. Starts with a dude that becomes a self-replicating AI, and how he builds an entire civilization.
EDIT: I … uh… apparently had some recommendations.
Heinlein believed that’s in the fannish DNA — he said in 1941 fans are Timebinders.
(To be clear, in case it wasn’t, I’m matching my @case to your usernames – not sure if people think I’m lower case’ing for any other reason, but I just try and match how people present their names. Except Robert, because otherwise I feel like I’m shouting at him. Sorry, Robert.)
@Hampus Eckerman
Truthfully and depressingly, you can probably assume that I haven’t tried anything new in quite some time – but I’ve been squirrelling everything that sounds neat away into various little Cool Stuff stashes and lists and bookmarks so I don’t forget it before I can get to it, and that’s getting added. I very much like cute!
@evilrooster
I don’t mind having to polish, as such (although you wouldn’t know it from this comment – sorry, tired myself out too much for good editing), but I don’t like how Twitter’s brevity favours pithy one-liners over nuance, or how even the people I follow over there who are extremely deliberate about their wording routinely get assigned the Worst Possible Reading of their words and yelled at by random strangers over it. It’s just so tiring even just watching it.
You’re very kind to say I’m a pillar here, but I think I’m not around as much as I’d need to be for that! Which I think is part of the overall problem with perception:
Mostly people (including me: very much part of the problem) summon up the spoons to drop back in here when Something Is Wrong and everyone’s upset about it; they don’t see (to pull out some regulars who have been tetchy in these threads and had people being tetchy right back at them) Cat’s mission to give away chocolate to anyone who’ll stand still long enough, or all the work JJ puts in to make sure we have the information we need to nominate and vote, or the softer conversations under almost every Scroll.
I would dearly love the return of the blogosphere. Tumblr/Twitter/Facebook/Patreon have been rather unsatisfactory substitutes.
@Robert Reynolds
Glad to have given a smile. 🙂
@alexvdl
Yeah, you did. 🙂 I think LitRPG will have to get its own note!
@Cora Buhlert
Yes, I should have mentioned your longstanding stance on BRW and many eloquent comments and posts arguing your case as part of why my opinion had shifted after Astounding’s last place finish got it going – you’ve been very persuasive!
@evilrooster
My Dutch is good enough for day to day interactions, but as an adult I find that there are whole areas, e.g. when dealing with medical or financial issues (my Mom had a medical emergency at Schiphol on the way to Worldcon 2019, which was not fun at all), where I simply don’t know the words, because it’s nothing a teenager would have cared about or known, which leads to weird conversations along the lines of “Yes, I speak Dutch, but I’m sorry I don’t know those words.”
Regarding the “Best Related Work” Hugo, and the problem of speeches and blog posts competing against books, I have a constructive suggestion to make: Divide this Hugo into two Hugos. Best Related Work Short Form would be for pieces like the Ng speech and the Luhrs essay. Best Related Work Long Form would be for books, or works similar in size. There ought to be a dividing point, something like 25,000 to 30,000 words. I’m not sure where AO3 would fall, as I’m not conversant with that form.
There’s plenty of precedent for this, with the division of Best Editor and Best Dramatic Presentation. I hope this idea has already occurred to others.
alexvdl: If y’all can’t make your arguments based on reality, then maybe y’all should not make arguments?
This is pretty ironic coming from the person – you – who has posted more irrational arguments and strawmen on these two posts than everyone else combined.
I guess you’re hoping that if you point the finger at other people, no one will notice that you’ve done this. I assure you that most of the people who’ve been commenting here, both those I agree with and those I don’t, have noticed, and are smart enough not to be fooled by it. I say this because none of them have been echoing your bogus “arguments”.
I disagree with much, if not most, of what Easterbrook has said here, and I’ll thank you to stop trying to lump me in with him – which is just one more dishonest technique on your part.
@Jeanne (Sourdough) Jackson
It had (at least to me), but there’s always reluctance to increase the number of categories – I’m not sure Best Related Work gets enough participation to justify two to the Business Meeting. I believe splitting into Book&Documentary and Miscellany has also been proposed (by Cora, I think?), and I’d be fine with that, too.
If only one category is considered sustainable, I’d support nixing the wild cards, much as I like them, but it’s not my favourite.
(Best Series continues to be the elephant in the room, sucking up all voting time and energy and not even making a strong show of what it was intended for.)
ETA: @JJ, I’d really appreciate it if you could leave it there and shift to the lower temperature of discussion we’ve worked our way down to. It’s not worth it.
For a recent recommended read, I just (last night) finished The Conductors by Nicole Glover. A murder mystery set in an alternate post-Civil War Philadelphia where magic exists. I really loved the characters and am delighted to discover the author plans more stories about them.
I think some discussion is needed about refining the Best Related Work Hugo, but this thread is not the place.
As I wrote elsewhere, possibilities include splitting the award into long form – for books and documentaries – and short form – for individual speeches & essays. Or, follow the model of the art awards, and have Pro for commercially published works (books and documentaries), and Fan for all the rest.
But either raises the question whether votes are there to support both categories.
Nagaina: you keep insisting that tangible harms were committed by 2 – 5% of the entire polity of WorldCon because they nominated a work you don’t like. What, exactly, is the obviously outstanding Best Related Work that got kept off the ballot and why do you think it should be there? Because that would be a real, tangible harm, not some nebulous “fucking over hundreds of people” because you don’t like a single nominated work.
Ordinarily, when someone misquotes me this egregiously, I’d tell them to go back and read what I actually said and revise their question/comment to accurately reflect that. But since this post is up to 9 pages of comments now, I’ll give you a gift and repeat myself.
I read Luhrs’ work when it was posted, and I pretty much agreed with the sentiments it expressed. I still do. I was incredibly angry with the way GRRM ruined the Hugo ceremony and disrespected the finalists and the other members of Worldcon – and I’m still extremely angry about it.
And make no mistake about it – he didn’t just disrespect the finalists (though he disrespected them the worst), he also disrespected the entire membership of Worldcon by narcissistically making the ceremony all about himself instead of celebrating the works and the creators we’d nominated, and wasting almost 2 hours of our precious time with his blather… with a huge helping of passive-aggressive revenge for the renaming of the Campbell Award.
I’ve let some future Worldcons and Worldcon bids know that I don’t think either GRRM or Silverberg deserve to play a part in any future Hugo ceremony – ever. They’ve both abused that privilege (Silverberg more than once, with his utterly non-funny and disrespectful “Imma draw out the anticipation for the results in this category by meandering on endlessly with meaningless babble” shtick), and as far as I’m concerned, they don’t deserve to ever have the opportunity again.
But Luhrs’ essay is just a rant. It’s one of many that were posted at the time, and it’s not even the most well-researched or most articulate of the rants that were posted. I don’t think even the best of those rants reflects the kind of excellence that would deserve a nomination. And I want the Related Work category to reflect excellence in the works it honors. This rant is a transitory thing of the moment, and it does not make a lasting contribution to the SFF genre.
Hampus Eckerman linked to a list which contains a lot of what I consider to be worthy, excellent works which make a lasting contribution to the SFF genre (and some that I don’t).
But hey, at least 31 people nominated it, and it made the ballot. Every year I agree with maybe 35% of the finalists (in a really good year, 45%) – and unlike the Puppies, I don’t expect or demand that the Hugo ballot reflect my taste 100%. As you say, I don’t “feel myself ill-used by the nomination process”.
What I do really object to is the fact that DisCon III will be repeating a title which is an abusive personal attack every time they publish or broadcast the finalists the next 8 months. I object to the fact that the title which is an abusive personal attack will appear on the permanent record of the Hugos. I also object to the fact that there is porn and a bunch of Puppy crap (some of which is actually worse than the porn) on the permanent record of the Hugos. I think it diminishes the Hugo Awards. It embarrasses me and saddens me. And I grieve for all of the worthy works which were pushed off the ballot by them – works and creators which did not receive the wider audience they deserved, that the recognition would have brought them.
So yes, I think this title appearing on the ballot has fucked over the Hugo Awards and the Worldcon members, but not for the reason you claim. And whether you agree with me or not, I’m entitled to feel this way.
Ooo, before I forget, @everyone, if you’ve got recs for 2021 published works/eligible stuff please do feel welcome to also post them over in this thread – I know I’m not the only one that keeps track of the yearly recs threads for my own reading, and especially Hugo’ing when I’ve got slots free in the run-up to nominations ending, so it’s a good way to spread the word about the shinies in addition to the discussion threads. (Doesn’t need to be Hugo Good, just Good is fine!)
Nagaina: I’m honestly continuously astonished that, living as we are in a new Golden Age of science fiction, fantasy and horror podcasts, how few of them get Hugo nods.
I can only speak for myself, but my perception is that a large number of Worldcon members (at least right now) don’t engage with fandom through podcasts and videocasts. For me, it’s a processing issue – I discovered early on, when trying to listen to audiobooks on long drives, that I could either pay attention to my driving, or I could pay attention to the audiobook. I opted for the safety of myself and my fellow human beings.
In terms of non-driving, depending on the length of the novel, I can read a book (and take it in, and remember it) in 3-5 hours. I read several a week – a couple hundred a year – whereas if I was listening to audiobooks, each one could take 10-40 hours. I can read (and actually take in) blog posts in a few minutes; if I listened to them via podcasts and videocasts, they’d take an hour or more.
And I’ve found that especially videocasts (but also some podcasts) include background sound which means that my mind is trying to process that, as well as the speaking, and it’s annoying and disruptive and headache-inducing. (This is why I appreciate it when ‘casts provide transcripts; I can still be the recipient of the meat of the content without a massive investment of time or auditory overload.)
Will more Worldcon members get into audiocasts and videocasts in the future? I imagine so. But I also suspect that there are a lot of people like me for whom it’s just not a comfortable or effective way to consume genre content, and never will be.
But if you have favorite podcasts, post a comment with a link saying why you like them! Lots of people who comment here listen to them.
There’s an annual list on this site, where anyone can recommend the works that they love, either for awards consideration, or just because they think it’s something awesome:
2021 Recommended SF/F List
Meredith, you ninja! 🥷
alexvdl:
Sold. I am a sucker for anything described as “delightful.”
@Meredith and @JJ – Thank you for your accidental joint reminder to thank everyone who recommended things for 2020. It helped steer my reading and made me feel as if I was still in conversation with other people who loved words.
@Nagaina
Because the fan categories often get few nominations and many repeated finalists, I ran a project called Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight on my blog this year, where I interviewed the people behind Hugo-eligible fanzines, blogs and podcasts, simply to show what was out there. And I found a whole lot of amazing podcasts I hadn’t even known existed, including some I never got around to featuring, because I had problems contacting the people involved.
But I guess a lot of Hugo voters simply aren’t great podcast listeners. My issues are similar to JJ’s, namely that I have to give my full attention to the podcast and can’t do anything that requires special attention alongside the podcast. It’s probably some kind of audio processing issues, since I’ve also been known to drift off during the 5 minute radio news.
Too much good stuff, not enough time (or sometimes inclination) a.k.a. Fandom is here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Or less glibly, there is so much SFF being produced, it’s easy for award-worthy things to get overlooked, especially if they sit outside the longer-running Hugo categories..
Alexvdl:
I have read or tried to read most of them, but A Rise To Power and Rise to Omniscience were knew to me. I’m going to give them a try, even if I think part of the problem is that I’m getting tired of the genre as a whole.
@meredith:
This is precisely the problem I’m seeing here on this thread. And it has conversational costs. A concrete example:
Someone I know mentioned that one of the things they appreciated about the work was that it had corrections. It showed exactly that kind of listening to the community that was lacking in GRRM’s behavior.
(Pause for people to denigrate the nominator’s judgement, good faith, and taste in not nominating what they wanted nominated. Further pause for people to yell that if Luhrs was listening to the community she would withdraw the nomination, not use swear words, change the title, etc, etc. OK? On with the point I’m making.)
Because this person didn’t say it here (probably because they don’t like being in a thread full of haymakers) the commentariat didn’t hear it. And several pages of corrections are proof that it’s bad, I hate it so no one would nominate this in good faith and no one’s defended nominating it here so everyone who did nominate it is a vandal galloped on. People turned those feelings into assertions, beliefs, facts. They became invested in these notions, used them as proof of other things, and built entire universes of what Luhrs should do based on them. Then they got even more mad at her because she didn’t follow their RPF.
If someone’s a flaming asshole at people on Twitter, they get blocked or muted. If they’re one here, there’s this expectation that you just take it until Dr Jekyll comes back to the fore. And in the meantime, positions are hardened and orthodoxies are established, which shapes the future discussion. And people are put off, and decide that this place is full of flaming assholes, and the conversation loses their contributions.
I personally think there is no need to have a short form BRW, there are already too many categories and not everything needs to an award. Most short form already fits in Best Fan Writer which is where I think Luhrs would have fit in, just as CONZealand fit better into Best Fancast.
So I’m more into changing BRW to be for non-fiction books and documentaries.
If people want a grab bag, it should be named a grab bag. “Best Fan Activity” perhaps. I don’t want to give it a category at once though, better to have a Worldcon do a trial run first.
evilrooster: That sounds exactly why I stayed out of rec.arts.sf.fandom (whatever its title was).
You would be an interesting person to have a discussion with about trying to cultivate an online community, if I ever had that privilege, since you have so much experience.
I think in many ways I put a premium on people’s passion for sff and fandom, because if they value them so much, as I do, then even if we disagree — and even if we handle that badly — I believe they want to make a better community. I can respect that; but I may or may not want to hang out with them.