629 thoughts on “Measuring The Rabid Puppies Slate’s Impact on the Final Hugo Ballot”

1. Thanks JJ for reminder of park donations. Have tossed a but in the collective pot for ancillary bench!

2. @David K. M. Klaus:

   As other insane fanatics have said
   “For hate’s sake, I spit at thee….”

   Not gonna lie, dude. Given my post earlier today, that felt like a slap in the face.

3. I yearn for an Ancillary Bench.

4. @Sean

   It’s hard to argue about how people feel.

   Very true. Which I imagine is why you are using it as the centerpiece of your argument.

5. Greg:

   EPH will help. It’ll definitely reduce sweeps. But it’s not as good a fix as a lot of people imagine it to be.

   I agree that your prognostication for EPH is not enough. I’m rather afraid some people will think it is enough; that provided they can stop slates getting a sweep, they will consider this a victory. But slates will still have a disproportionate influence; they will still be keeping worthy things off the ballot; they will still have their thumb on the scales, so that among the worthy things, those favoured by them do better. (Which probably means fewer wins for women and minorities.)

   I also wonder whether we can actually keep up this year’s level of participation. This is a matter of people turning out in force to cope with an emergency; will they be prepared to do the same every year?

   It’s perfectly possible that EPH plus increased participation (even if not on this year’s scale) plus waning enthusiasm from slaters will actually solve the problem, so we shouldn’t do anything more radical yet. But we should be cogitating possibilities.

6. Sean on April 27, 2016 at 12:58 pm said:

   Since the WSFS voting population doesn’t exactly change rapidly

   Joining in the request for a citation.

   There’s a guy who has taken the publicly available demographic data that WorldCons publish and used it to show that, at a rough approximation, 1/3 of members in any given year are brand new to WorldCon, 1/3 are intermittent members and 1/3 are pretty regular members. Not unexpected for a convention that moves around as much as WorldCon does.

   So roughly 2/3 of members in a given year probably weren’t members last year. That’s a lot of rapid change.

   This year, I suspect most of those 4000+ nominators were members last year, because last year had record membership and was a puppy- and site selection-driven anomaly. But voters this year? Possibly slightly more than usual will have also been members last year. But the change in membership, even voting membership, is probably much more rapid than you think it is.

7. @Andrew M I know I, for one, intend to keep nominating for the forseeable future, and this is the first year I’d ever nominated (I tried last year, actually, but had problems with the website and didn’t go back to it) even though I’ve been voting for many years.
   I always left nominating to other people, because the Hugos primarily had value for me in pointing me to stuff I would otherwise not have seen — I’m not at all good at keeping up with the field — but given that unless nominating numbers remain high Vox Day will destroy that use for everyone, I intend to do my best to put *something* I like in every slot in every category if I’m at all able…
   Hopefully many of the other new nominators are thinking the same way.

8. @Dawn Incognito
   I second your request for people to not use words like crazy, insane, psycho to describe asshats. I have a few mental illnesses – depression, suicidal, PTSD, cognitive issues including memory recall and word recall. I resent the heck out off being lumped in with asshats. Think about those you hurt when your throwing around mental health terms this way.

   It’s takes a few moments to be more creative while not hurting others. Laughable, asshats, unbelievable, etc. I don’t have the link but someone posted to a website with alternative words a few months back. Most of us posting here are either creative types or well read and very intelligent I have confidence in your ability to either find an appropriate alternative or make up a new word and to have the compassion to do so.

9. Well, they felt pushed off the ballot for a number of reasons. It’s hard to argue about how people feel.

   So what you are saying is that the manly-tough Pups got started slating because their feels were hurt. That they, in fact, had no actual coherent grievances.

10. Holy crap, we’ve actually arrived at the Ruritanian Tax Cheat point, and I thought I was joking.

    Not to hammer on Standback, who I think is arguing entirely in good faith and not exactly wrong, but if I say “Someone hit me!” and your (general abstract you) response is to say, in high dudgeon, “How dare you imply people like me beat their wives!?” you instantly set off my Back Away Slowly reflex. To the point where I’ll back into the next county if need be.

    I get that some groups are often accused of this, except….no, I guess I don’t. News outlets don’t end stories about assault with “but not all middle-aged white guys named Jeff are like this!” I…what?

    It seems to me that in order to make that leap, you have to genuinely believe that everything is about you. That you really are the center of the universe in some fashion, or that People Like You are so important as a group that anything, in the absence of identifying markers, must refer to you, and the author must be sure to step in and soothe your ego that it’s not a person like you, no, no, you’re one of the good ones. Goddamn, it’s not enough to do emotional labor all damn day, but a short story has to step in and pat you gently so you don’t assume it’s talking about you, even in the absence of any evidence that it is? WHAT. Are these people going through life with a permanent sunburn and any passing breeze is a slap in the face?

    I think I need to think about this more, because at the moment I just want to flail and sputter, and I get up the edge of understanding and then my brain goes WTF and blue screens and I’m clearly getting mad at people who aren’t here for insisting they be the center of the universe at all times. I’ll try later.

11. This was my first year having some success nominating. In the past I’ve never gotten my website pin and password fixed in time so I’ve only voted. It felt great to nominate even if only a portion of my nominees made it through the database glitches. I intend to continue nominating in future years. While I found determining eligibility hard I really enjoyed being part of the entire process.

    With surgery over and the ballot released I’m going to write to the person who contacted me to tell me things weren’t as dire as I feared and see if I can find out what my final nomination looked like. I’ll put together what I can of what my nominating ballot should have looked like & hopefully she can tell me if it matched or has a way to retrigger a “final ballot email”.

12. @Aaron

    Well, they felt pushed off the ballot for a number of reasons. It’s hard to argue about how people feel.

    So what you are saying is that the manly-tough Pups got started slating because their feels were hurt. That they, in fact, had no actual coherent grievances.

    As usual, your word twisting and misconstruction skills are on superb display.

13. @RedWombat
    As a Jew it’s really easy to want to say #NotAllJews when news scandals come out. Stereotypes of Jews don’t match hardly any Jews I know. Stereotypes of Israelis same things.

    I meet non-Jews who have asked me “do Jews really have sex through a hole in a sheet” or “over Passover do you drink the blood of Christian babies?”. *rolls eyes*

    So when reading stories which seem to be based on Jewish characters even if it’s not outright stated I do act a little paranoid. I don’t think it’s as much because I think the world is all about me as healthy paranoia.

    Given I’ve only led this Jewish life for 16 + while learning for conversion years I can fully understand how other groups do the same. We allow this for minority groups. We don’t allow it for non-minority groups. Standback IMHO is simply applying a similar lens to Christian and other groups.

14. @RedWombat:

    I think I need to think about this more, because at the moment I just want to flail and sputter, […]

    Even so, thanks for what you did say, because those reactions had kept me from saying anything at all.

15. As usual, your word twisting and misconstruction skills are on superb display.

    You’ve offered nothing but “their feels were hurt” as a reason why their bloc-voting for a slate is somehow the same thing as people voting for things they actually like on their own. That’s a bullshit rationale, and if you don’t know it you’re either not equipped for this conversation or being entirely disingenuous.

16. Okay, let me try this again briefly.

    If I read Dinosaur, I identify with the narrator, because I’ve been at hospital bedsides before, and it is terrible. And then I identify briefly with the paleontologist, because I toyed with the idea of becoming a paleontologist, and I can picture myself at a bar excitedly telling my spouse about the nifty new ammonite I just uncovered and then a pool cue descends on my head.

    Who are the people who hate this story identifying with? Many seem really upset about the characterization of the gin-drinking attackers, yet I, who have drunk gin on multiple occasions, never thought to identify with them. (I do not own all of gin. Anything about gin is not automatically about me.)

    To detour for a moment, when Star Wars: Force Awakens came out, from the usual reactionary horrorshow came a totally-joking-except-not-really-if-you-agree comment to the effect that you clearly couldn’t identify with the woman or the black guy, so the only one left for you to identify with was the robot.

    Maybe that’s what this is. You clearly can’t identify with a woman! That’s crazy talk! And you can’t identify with the paleontologist, because there’s something wrong enough with them that they’ll be called all those insults! So the only ones left in the story for them to identify with are the attackers.

    Which is just hella messed up on every possible level, but…well.

17. You’ve offered nothing but “their feels were hurt” as a reason why their bloc-voting for a slate is somehow the same thing as people voting for things they actually like on their own. That’s a bullshit rationale, and if you don’t know it you’re either not equipped for this conversation or being entirely disingenuous.

    As I stated earlier, “I’d go into those reasons specifically, but, well, that’s red flags to bulls on this website.” Except, I didn’t even wave the red flag and the bull still charged. Had I waved it, the attack would have been different, but happening nonetheless.

18. As I stated earlier, “I’d go into those reasons specifically, but, well, that’s red flags to bulls on this website.”

    You don’t go into those reasons because you know they are bullshit and would get called out as bullshit. The commenters here are too well-informed for the fact-free Puppy crap to actually get any traction.

19. *tiptoes gently into the conversation*

    It’s hard to argue about how people feel.

    This reminds me of something I saw on one of my favorite feminist sites, Shakesville. The context was different (it was part of a conversation about police shootings, I think Tamir Rice specifically), but the blog owner said:

    “Just because you feel threatened,
    Doesn’t mean you are threatened.”

    So I think what Aaron and others are saying is, “Hey. Let’s stop with the kneejerk emotional reactions, take a step back, and think about this logically. Is there any actual, verifiable evidence that the mob in Dinosaur is referring to you or your group? Yes or No? If no, then you might consider that in fact, as Our Wombat said, this story is Not About You. And if you persist in thinking that it is about you in the absence of actual, verifiable evidence….well, what is that really saying?”

    Methinks that somebody’s projecting here, and it’s not the author.

20. or “over Passover do you drink the blood of Christian babies?”. *rolls eyes*

    …
    …..
    ………..yeah, I got nothing. Somebody needs to reboot the earth or defrag the hard drive or at least clean the lint out of the mouse.

21. When EPH is in effect, the premise is that no more than two rabids would appear in a category.

    If this is true, won’t that mean the 1-2 least-rabid rabids are the ones likely to reach the ballot? If Beale keeps using shields, those shields would draw rabid votes plus non-rabid votes. The dumb stunts and provocations only draw rabid votes.

    I’m wondering if people could limit the amount of damage Beale does to a ballot by using one of their nomination slots in each category on the least rabid rabid.

22. Huh. I keep seeing comments in my email that don’t show up on the thread when I refresh.

    Mike, you might want to look into this?

23. Oh good lord, Sean, honey, get down off that cross. Somebody needs the wood.

24. Bonnie if you are referring to one from me, I wrote a to one on my phone, posted, realised it was ludicrously long, tried to edit, messed that up (because phone) and got mad and deleted the whole thing with a plan to try again later from my laptop. If it’s my comment that was in the email but not here, it’s my fault not the site’s!

25. Somebody needs the wood.

    I’ve got wood.

    No, wait …

26. RedWombat on April 27, 2016 at 8:27 am said:

    About the only difference I can think of is that [Vox Day] went from being obsessed with Watership Down rabbit metaphors to being obsessed with puppy metaphors, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t consider one’s flavor of furry-in-denial to be all that significant.

    Speaking as a furry, I’d certainly like to deny him.

27. Andrew M on April 28, 2016 at 9:43 am said:

    Camestros:

    Of course we don’t know the rest of the rules yet or what kind of levels of participation it will have but if he [Beale] needs about 10% of the total votes to get a nomination then DragonCon awards will have to be REALLY big to dilute his influence (assuming he does anything).

    Well, yes (assuming the safeguards don’t stop this), but then, his getting a nomination is not that disastrous. I continue to think that it is in principle unfair that those voting to order should get any places on the ballot at all, and remain bemused by people who say ‘Well, if a segment of fandom has that preference…’ (but it’s not their real preference, for heaven’s sake!); but in practice there’s no way it can be stopped entirely. The process is ruined if slates take over the whole ballot; it’s seriously damaged, at least, if they take over half, or two thirds, of the ballot; but if we consistently get results like this year’s Best Novel, with (it seems) only one work on the ballot because of the slate, that’s the best we can hope for. And I don’t see how Beale can do better than that in the Dragons.

    The long term damage that would be done to the Dragons would that they would become perceived picked by factions, which would lead to reduced participation (i.e. there is no point nominating stuff as an individual if only a group/faction can get stuff on the ballot). The perception of this is more toxic than the extent to which it might be true.

    Well, I think I’m speculating way beyond the available information now 🙂

28. this conversation is making me uncomfortable …

29. I’ve got wood.

    No, wait …

    I’m really enjoying Chuck Tingle’s contribution to this year’s festivities.

30. That’s the whole point: Those who see the story as attacking them are inserting themselves into the role of the attackers

    Given that Puppy JC Wright wrote about how it’s only natural to beat to death LGBT people, I don’t think there’s much insertion needed at all. In fact, I’d say their real discomfort is having such an action called out as wrong.

31. @Sean
    I get a few things from all your numerous and sometimes long rambling comments:

    1. You’re not feeling listened to or respected here

    2. You just keep saying the same things over and over again while appearing not to have understood responses or clearly misunderstood responses

    3. Someone had hurt feelings and it’s OK to then slate (or just #4)

    4. You can’t tell the difference between slates and individuals voting for what they love

    5. Your knowledge of the SP1-4 and RP1-2 history doesn’t match words the actual leaders each year posted with their slates and subsequently

    #1 is happening to you because of #2-5. I don’t see the current cycle changing unless you change. Filers are going to keep going as they have for the reasons 2-5 until they decide to ignore you.

    I have to ask a few questions:
    1. Are you having fun?

    2. Is continuing to go around in circles here a good use of your time?

    3. Is continuing to go around in circles here good for your mental and emotional health?

    If the answers to 1-3 are not all yes you may want to find someplace where you can have fun and which is a better use of your time and a more positive experience.

32. This conversation is making me hungry! …No wait, I was already hungry hmmm

    @RedWombat – everything you say remains awesome and spot on.

    @Tasha – You have my sympathies, I remember in highschool having one particularly sheltered Christian friend ask a Jewish friend (in complete non-snarky babe-in-the-woods innocence) “So is it true that Jews worship the devil?” and it was like a sitcom moment where the record player jerked silent and we all just stared at her for a good ten seconds before my Jewish friend said very politely “Um, no that’s not true” and to her credit, my Christian friend just nodded and accepted that, but holy moly what an unspoken morass of anti-Semitism behind that question!

    @Dawn Incognito – I think your request regarding conflation between mental illness and jerk behavior is one we should all try to keep in mind, and I hope you feel better after that whack *offers cookies*

33. N. K. Jemisin had some thought provoking things to day re Tingle and the Hugos. I can’t find the tweets to link to them just now but it’s on her Twitter feed.

34. Here’s your Hugo, here’s your pink sash, and here’s your personal, leather-bound copy of the Homosexual Agenda. Thanks!”

    Granted, my copy of the Homosexual Agenda is from the 70s, but I don’t recall seeing ‘gay dinosaur porn’ on the list.
    Destroy marriage, religion and civilization, yes, but not dino porn.

35. Dawn Incognito wrote:

    David K. M. Klaus wrote:

    As other insane fanatics have said
    “For hate’s sake, I spit at thee….”

    Not gonna lie, dude. Given my post earlier today, that felt like a slap in the face.

    Dawn Incognito, I’m not going to lie, either. I had not read your post — I hadn’t even read the page it was on. I write replies to things as I get to them reading from top to bottom, earliest to latest.

    I have no enmity toward you, nor desire to insult you, nor had I even been aware of you at the time I wrote that — go back to the entry I quoted and you’ll see I was referring to [expletive deleted].

    “You are not the target.” — Robert Anton Wilson

36. @Sean

    Tasha has summed up the situation nicely … unless you can add something that is substantially new or different … I don’t anticipate much of a change in attitude towards your remarks. You could of course simply blame the vile trolls on File770 for being mean and unreasonable (which is what almost always happens when puppy/puppy sympathizers appear here)

    ORRRRRRRRR you could examine and consider the things being said by those of us who will actually try to explain rather than simply write you off as a lost cause (note: no disrespect to those who’ve done that … patience is not something I have lot of either).

    Seriously if you have some inside information about the machinations of the puppy campaigns that will make a difference … please share. Hurt feelings (which is really all you’ve shown so far) is NOT a legitimate excuse for VD/BT/LC et al’s behavior.

37. Oh Tasha, that was lovely and much gentler than my snark. Well said.

38. @Harold Osler, I dunno; I asked a lesbian friend what the Homosexual Agenda is, and she looked me in the eye and told me that it was to get her next-door neighbor to mow his lawn on a regular basis, and do something about the dandelions….

    You know something? I believe her. (I’ve seen her next-door-neighbor’s lawn.)

39. Tasha wrote:

    @Dawn Incognito

    I second your request for people to not use words like crazy, insane, psycho to describe asshats. I have a few mental illnesses – depression, suicidal, PTSD, cognitive issues including memory recall and word recall. I resent the heck out off being lumped in with asshats. Think about those you hurt when your throwing around mental health terms this way.

    I see your point.

    There was no intent to hurt or falsely associate any unrelated, innocent people on my part, and I apologize for using language which implied otherwise. I’ll do my best to remember this so as to not do it again.

40. You mean a website where the community welcomes newcomers, is open to different ideas, and doesn’t assume people who disagree or have different interpretations are liars?

    To be honest, you should all be ashamed of yourselves, those of you who are rude and incapable of civil discussion and those of you who are silent and don’t call them out on it.

    Adieu.

41. Tasha wrote:

    @Dawn Incognito

    I second your request for people to not use words like crazy, insane, psycho to describe asshats. I have a few mental illnesses – depression, suicidal, PTSD, cognitive issues including memory recall and word recall. I resent the heck out off being lumped in with asshats. Think about those you hurt when your throwing around mental health terms this way.

    I see your point.

    I had no intent to hurt or falsely associate any unrelated, innocent people, and I apologize for using language which implied otherwise. I’ll remember to not make this mistake again.

42. and Sean flounces … ah well …

    I’m not sure how one can interpret JCW’s or VD’s remarks any differently when they are quite clear themselves about what they mean.

43. The Jemisin tweets in question are gif-ed in this Chuck Wendig RT for your ease of reading.

44. Sean’s complaints about a lack of civil discussion look particularly hollow when they come directly after one person proffering a gracious apology to another.

45. You mean a website where the community welcomes newcomers, is open to different ideas, and doesn’t assume people who disagree or have different interpretations are liars?

    When you have new ideas, and not tired debunked Puppy talking points, falsehoods, and misrepresentations, then people will listen to them. Your trouble seems to be that you assumed that no one here was familiar with what the various Pups had actually said, and expected everyone to go along with your fabricated version of the history of the last couple of years. That was never going to work out well for you.

46. ULTRAGOTHA: I have Jemisin’s Tingle tweets (how’s that for a phrase) set up in the Scroll for later.

47. Sorry, I accidentally hit my ‘Enter’ key at the wrong time so instead of an edited comment, I got a revised, second comment. The second is meant to be a better wording of what I meant.

48. Sean:

    “To be honest, you should all be ashamed of yourselves, those of you who are rude and incapable of civil discussion and those of you who are silent and don’t call them out on it.”

    Someone is Space Raptor Butthurt.

49. @Mike: I have Jemisin’s Tingle tweets (how’s that for a phrase) set up in the Scroll for later.

    Slammed in the Pixelhole by a Hugo-Related Scroll

50. @Amoxtli,

    You owe me a new keyboard. Also: *applause*

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