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

1. Craig C. on April 28, 2016 at 8:59 am said:

   Oh, if only we could just ban Vox Day.

   As far as I can tell, he’s not even a member of the various Worldcons he is trolling. He just convinces other people give Worldcons money and try to wreck the Hugo Awards.

2. @Cmm:

   TLDR – most would argue that one slot is already taken by a less than deserving nominee in many categories, most years, and more deserving authors/creators shut out. EPH doesn’t stop that from happening but preventing the whole ballot from being gamed is still a significant fix and WILL almost certainly prevent 2015 from happening again. Plus I don’t think that VD will retain enough followers willing to spend increasing amounts of money to achieve decreasing goals to even necessarily grab the one potential slot consistently. So I’m not concerned that EPH is not a perfect fix. It just has to be enough to peel off the people willing to pony up real money to do VDs bidding.

   I think not.

   1. Per decent top-line reckoning, EPH will only limit slates to one slot in the most popular categories with the most concentrated pool of eligible candidates. Short story, various fan awards and others would still end up majority slate nominees. (There are many reasons why the rejoinder, “Well, the slates are just a bigger percentage of the nominating pool in those categories so ‘naturally’ they should have a bigger influence” is incorrect and/or bogus. I won’t go into them all in this comment.)

   2. People who say that the No Awarding last year was definitely a successful rebuke to the Rabids are in advance of the facts. The numerical truth is that the RP slate captured more finalist slots than last year, and last year the Pup slates got much more of the ballot than the year before. The trolling campaign is still on an upward trend.

   3. Much has been made of the fact that the Little Elkherd Boy’s slate contained at least one decent work in most categories, so that’s not so bad, really. People still have something decent to vote on. But what they have is the LEB’s choice of “something decent to vote on.” To the extent RP choices continue to take one or more slots in a category, the LEB is acting as a successful gatekeeper.

   4. Talk of how in the end No Award deprives the RPs of a reward for freeping the Hugos leading to the RP’s inevitable dissolution is naive. It smacks of the old myth that “Don’t feed the trolls” is a sufficient response to malicious actors in an online (or real) community. Trolling of the sort the Pups are doing is a self-rewarding activity – self on the individual level (feeling good inside) and social level (feeling good among your buddies. The lofty disdain or disregard of legacy fandom is neither positive nor negative punishment to them: it’s immaterial. One reason real dogs bark is that barking makes them feel better.

   5. Despite the stereotypes, alt-right jerks don’t skew to the lower end of the income distribution, and this particular crowd has a wealthy patron who can step in. The $50 is not a problem.

   All in, any conviction that surely EPH is a sufficient endpoint of efforts to stop slating in general and the RP program in specific is unjustified. It may work. But as a bet it falls somewhere between No Sure Thing and Quite the Longshot.

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

   *sigh* I don’t feel awesome and spot-on with this one. I feel like I’m fumbling toward a thing and almost I’ve got it–yes of course people have knee jerk reactions to stereotypes they think are directed at them–and then but you can’t decide everything is directed at you just because it’s a bad thing that someone else said about you once in another context comes crashing down on it, but then…

   I don’t know. The narcissist and the…err…sensibly paranoid, to use Tasha’s phrase…act the same way at first, I guess. Maybe the only truth I can pull out of this is that the narcissist says “How dare you try to claim it’s not about me!? IT MUST BE!” and the sensible say “oh thank god, it’s not actually about me.”

   If I truly thought at first Dinosaur was about how all gin-drinkers suck, I’d say “Um, did you mean this to be…?” and when she said no, (or others said “not supported in the text, because X,”) I’d probably say “ok, then!” but this seems something that verra few of the haters are willing to do.

   But now we get into Death of the Author and intent being magic or not and people for whom I wouldn’t extend that courtesy, and recreational outrage and maybe the problem is just that people are fundamentally people.

4. @David K. M. Klaus:

   Thanks for your understanding and apology. I was out at an appointment mentally composing a post attempting to clarify what I meant, and returned to see it was unnecessary.

   I’m sorry if you felt attacked, or if I implied that you were attacking me personally. I usually just flinch a little when I see people using “insane” as a pejorative. It was partially because I had spent some time and brainpower trying to word my post this morning, so I was a little more sensitive. I read your post and wanted to put big flashing lights around it and jump up and down and say “this is exactly what I’m talking about!” I defaulted to snarky because I didn’t have the energy to reword my thoughts. I apologize for that.

   I don’t expect everyone to change their language right away. That would be silly and unreasonable. I just ask that people try to notice when they’re using the language of mental health diagnoses to describe noxious behaviour. I’m trying to reduce the stigma of mental illness, one person (and terribly earnest post) at a time.

   (Whew! Time to feed the cats and then a little light reading :P)

5. 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.
   i give that about an 8.5 on the passive/agressive flounce meter.

6. @Cassy B–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….

   Well, that obviously comes under the “Destroy the Patriarchy” section of the Lesbian Agenda.

7. @Soon Lee: You owe me a new keyboard. Also: *applause*

   Awww. *blush* Put the keyboard on my tab.

8. @Tasha, to Dawn: “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.”

   As someone who’s been on brain meds for over two decades, can I speak up to say how offensive I find it when people equate “crazy, insane, psycho” with all mental illnesses?

   Being depressed doesn’t make you insane.
   Having a bad memory doesn’t make you crazy.
   Feeling suicidal doesn’t make you a psycho.
   None of those things either makes someone an asshat or prevents them from being one.

   Talking about those very different conditions as if they’re nothing more than different words for the same thing is hurtful and incorrect, and I really wish you’d stop it.

9. Much has been made of the fact that the Little Elkherd Boy’s slate contained at least one decent work in most categories, so that’s not so bad, really. People still have something decent to vote on. But what they have is the LEB’s choice of “something decent to vote on.” To the extent RP choices continue to take one or more slots in a category, the LEB is acting as a successful gatekeeper.

   This is true.

   But if EPH squeezes Beale to 1-2 choices per category and they are the least stupid of his slate — or even a good work from a shield who might be there anyway — that’s not much of an outcome to motivate a troll army.

10. 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.

    Hurry up and leave so I can start missing you.

11. It’s more3-4 once you get past novel and BDPs. And again, people should consider being less blithe about RP motivations. It’s the biggest mistake people are making.

12. @Sean —

    “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.”

    Oooooooo, Sean, nooooooo.

    A few weeks ago, I spent a few hours testing the waters in the comment section at the Mad Genius website out of curiosity and boredom. And you know what? They even attacked me for using a **username** instead of my real name, even though something like half of their regular commenters were doing exactly the same thing. I don’t know if that site keeps archives, but you might be able to find that thread if you’re interested in reviewing the details.

    Welcoming newcomers?? It is to laugh.

13. David K. M. Klaus
    Apology accepted. I can’t tell you how hard I find it sometimes to find an alternative word and I end up rearing sentences. So I might have been a bit harsh in my earlier post.

    I’ve been seriously working on changing this for 6 months I think? Some days I scream, swear, growl in my house (I’m bedridden), while I’m looking for that simple replacement for crazy or insane or idiot or stupid (ableist). But I keep reminding myself one of the values I claim I fight for is respect for all people. If I can’t take the time to be careful with my words I’m a hypocrite and I have to stop holding others to it. Can’t call bigots on their words if I’m using slurs which hurt others.

    Is this virtue signaling? Talking about why and how I try to be a better person among like people? Yeah this is why I’m not taking this phrase seriously as I’ve said on other threads/posts here. I think it helps others when having this kind of discussion to talk about what helps one manage to change a behavior. Elsewhere you’ll find my reasoning on other things which have been considered virtue signaling by fellow filers. LOL

14. BTW with my examples of Jewish things I was trying to get people to flip it and see stereotype stuff said about all Christians, white men, even all bigots.

    None of those groups are monoliths. So if you are just a little bit bigoted who prefers to hang out with only white dudes you might get tired of so many portrayals of bigots being tire iron wielding bullies.

    If you are a quitely practicing Christian you might get tired of so many portrayals being mobsters, fundamentals, evangelist.

    Conservatives aren’t all against abortion and LGBTI so seeing all portrayals as foaming at the mouth Trump types gets pretty tiring at times.

    And all those groups get asked questions just as stupid as the Jewish one’s I posted.

    So I can understand reading Rachel Swirsky’s story and seeing it as anti-x-group which I belong to but not meaning I want to beat up people and being frustrated with yet another portrayal of my group as like that.

15. @RedWombat
    I fully sympathyze with you. I still think you are awesome.

    I’ve often thought it might be cool if we could be more logical than emotional up until I meet someone who is. Then I end up wishing that person could get in touch with some emotions.

    There is some perfect balance which would allow us to be compassionate but not foolish, logical when appropriate, able to use critical thinking skills when feeling attacked on hot button issues, able to be just selfish enough, and if everyone in the world could find these skills we might be a step closer to world peace.

    Raises my cup l’chaim (to life)

16. As another person with fairly severe lifelong mental illness, I’m somewhat in Rev. Bob’s camp on the language thing. Terms like “insane”, “crazy”, “psycho”, and “nuts” are not meaningful in psychology or psychiatry (“insane” does have a legal definition, but it’s irrelevant except in the context of a legal defense). In common usage they all just mean “a behavior, idea, or situation that I think is very irrational to a harmful degree, or a person exhibiting such behavior.” That covers a pretty wide spectrum of things we all encounter in life and sometimes wish to complain about without having to spell out the exact kind of irrationality we’re referring to.

    I can’t tell Tasha not to be offended by those words; all I can say is that I don’t consider the use of them to be in any way a judgment on me. There are of course plenty of casual usages that do imply prejudice, e.g. “gyp” would make no sense at all without the implication that the actual people sometimes known as “Gypsies” are dishonest… but I don’t think this is the same kind of thing because it is perfectly possible to say “this course of action is crazy [= dangerously irrational]” and yet also affirm that a person with mental health problems should not be dismissed as “crazy”. It’s not even a metaphorical usage like “a pale imitation” or “thin evidence”— I don’t take those personally even though I’m a person who is literally pale and thin, but those are at least words that have a literal meaning, whereas “crazy” really doesn’t.

17. Welp, this is me failing the first rule of the internet: do not post angry. Apologies, but if I don’t say anything, I will continue to ruminate.

    Rev. Bob:

    I believe your offense towards Tasha is gravely misplaced.

    I have been called crazy, insane, and a psycho.

    Did the people calling me these things know my mental health diagnoses? No.
    Does it matter? No.

    I would love to remove those words entirely from usage, and have people only use clinical diagnosis-based language. And I called my earlier statement silly and unreasonable.

    You’re calling Tasha out for conflating all mental health diagnoses with crazy or insane? It’s not Tasha. It’s society. And until people stop using this facile shorthand for behaviour they don’t like, people with mental illnesses and personality disorders will continue to be tarred with the same brush as Plain Old Jerks.

    Thanks for reinforcing my decision to take a step back. I’ve obviously been failing at that over the past couple days. Call it a flounce if you like. I consider it a strategic retreat and self-care.

18. @Rev Bob
    Did you and I go down this rabbit hole the last time this came up?

    I wouldn’t have a problem with the words being used if they weren’t used to excuse or explain behavior by people like VD, rapist, mass murderers, and anyone that people want to find an excuse for why they did that awful thing because they seemed so normal. This is a problem in society.

    People don’t get the mental health care they need because they don’t want family and friends to think they are crazy. Another problem with our society based on how words are used.

    Words have meanings. Sometimes the way to change society is to change the words we use.

    @Dawn Incognito
    Take care of yourself. My thoughts and support are with you.

19. Tasha, I just want to say in case it wasn’t clear enough that I really do respect your point of view on this— I just felt moved to speak from a different point of view, from within my own experience. Along the same lines:

    Although I’ve gotten better at seeking help, I certainly have worried at times that if people knew I needed help, they’d think I’m “crazy.” But what would that mean? If by “crazy” you mean “absolutely disconnected from reality in every way”… they would definitely be wrong about that; but that isn’t really how the word is generally used, and in fact the more that it is casually thrown around, the less it means that and the more it becomes a synonym for just generally “super bad ideas that don’t make sense.” So… am I prone to having lots of super bad ideas that don’t make sense— more so than the average person? Unfortunately, yes; that’s why I consider this aspect of my brain to be a problem I could use some help for, rather than a cool mutant power. And changing the acceptable boundaries of language isn’t going to help with that at all. If the word “crazy” was completely wiped out, I would still worry that people who heard about my problems, but who did not have much experience with or understanding of those problems, might think I was dangerously unreliable… no matter what they called it.

    I’m much more bothered by the misuse of specific terms like “obsessive-compulsive” or “psychotic” (though neither of those is a diagnosis of mine) to refer to very broad categories of behavior; I think those really are likely to make someone think specific incorrect things about someone else who has those diagnoses.

20. (And don’t even get me started on the idea [NOT stated by anyone here as far as I know] that every reference to “illness” or a “patient” should be expunged, and that I should be referred to as a “mental health consumer”— which I’ve actually seen shortened to just “consumer”; it’s hard for me to express how mad that makes me. Something that has drastically restricted my life choices for over 30 years, destroyed relationships, and nearly killed me more than once, is a real thing that has far more of a negative connotation to me than any pejorative word could possibly have, and I absolutely won’t gloss it over in favor of a term that suggests I just like to go shopping for my favorite brand of brains now and then.)

21. @Eli
    No hard feelings. I honestly don’t think there is only One right way. I’ve been in therapy more than out of therapy for 40 years. I use medication. My cognitive problems were caused when I was hit by a truck 3/12/12. Someone calling me crazy doesn’t bother me in the least. Call my best friends crazy however and we’ve got a problem.

    I’m much more bothered by the misuse of specific terms like “obsessive-compulsive” or “psychotic” (though neither of those is a diagnosis of mine) to refer to very broad categories of behavior; I think those really are likely to make someone think specific incorrect things about someone else who has those diagnoses.

    Yes those and autistic or on the spectrum are probably bigger problems.

    On the other hand women, LGBTI, PoC, poor people, are much more likely to have mental illness slurs used against them in general conversation. #NotAllWhiteMen use them to shut down discussions on important topics of discrimination and abuse by calling us crazy, insane, idiots, stupid, etc. Just for disagreeing or existing.

    I’ve found that more non-white non-males tend to have more issues with words used than white cis men. I think partly because your socialism from birth is frequently to be tough and words don’t hurt. It’s also possible non-white non-cis non-males have so very many words coming at us. The constant microaggressions are exhausting.

    It’s hard when every conversation anywhere is a punch in the face about something you are.

22. @Eli
    Illness and patient make sense to me in the right context and with the right people. I have a long list of illnesses. When I’m visiting my doctor or in the hospital or a home nurse were to visit me I’m a patient.

    If I’m paying tens of thousands of dollars for tons of private services I might be a client. I’m also probably obscenely rich and treating my doctors and nurses like servants. 😉

23. @Tasha: “I wouldn’t have a problem with the words being used if they weren’t used to excuse or explain behavior by people like VD, rapist, mass murderers, and anyone that people want to find an excuse for why they did that awful thing because they seemed so normal. This is a problem in society.”

    Quit moving the goalposts. What I objected to was when you – not others, not “society,” but you, Tasha Turner – said this:

    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.

    Specifically, I’m looking at this in the light of the discussion here of Swirsky’s “Dinosaur” and the way Puppies interpret it. They see “blustering men soaked in gin and malice” and say “she means people like me” – in exactly the same way you’re seeing “crazy, insane, psycho” and saying “they mean people like me.” The only way you’re “being lumped in with asshats” is when you make that association for yourself. (Don’t believe me? Show me, then, where anyone besides you has lumped you in with those asshats – because I sure as hell didn’t see it!)

    But that’s not all. You then expand that association to others, taking this connection you’ve made and claiming not just that you see it, but that other people must intend it.

    My complaint isn’t about your objection to how other people use words. My complaint is about how YOU are using words.

    Neither of us can control what other people say about VD or other asshats. However, you can control what you say. When you make this jump (using generic names and a made-up slur to illustrate):

    1. Joe said Dave was wombly.
    2. “Wombly” is a slur referring to a form of mental instability.
    3. Hey, I’ve been diagnosed with mental illnesses.
    4. That means Joe is saying Dave and I have the same problem.
    5. Joe thinks being like me is an insult!

    …that’s not correct. That’s your prejudices at work, not Joe’s. You’re the one who connected the slurs against Dave with your specific diagnoses. That’s on you, just like the Puppy-hate of “Dinosaur” is on them.

    I’m specifically calling you out for the way steps 2-4 erase the differences between the wide range of conditions that fall under the “mental illness” umbrella. Every time you link slurs to conditions they do not match, you reinforce the perception that “mental illness” is one monolithic thing – that, for example, someone with clinical depression is no different from a murderous psychopath. This is not just wrong, but dangerously wrong!

    It would be different if we were talking about a case where someone called a depressed person “nuts” and you objected to that; I’d be right there with you. Ditto if we were discussing the “mentally ill people shouldn’t have guns” meme and someone conflated people on antidepressants with people on antipsychotics.

    But that’s not what you’re doing. By proactively forging links between slurs and conditions they don’t match, then acting as if it’s all the same thing, you’re giving cover to the people you mean to oppose, and opposing those you wish to defend. That is not a laudable act. It is deplorable, and it needs to stop.

24. I’m disgusted that the only publisher Marc Aramini could find for his exhaustively written work on Gene Wolfe’s short stories was Castalia. It’s excellent work of a type that is often ignored: tracing the origins and references in over 100 stories, with summaries and commentary. It is an essential contribution to Wolfe scholarship. The nomination is probably doomed because of the association with Beale, but you should read it (maybe on the Urth mailing list archives if you don’t want to help Beale, but then you are shorting Marc, who is not any sort of puppy) if you are at all a fan of Gene Wolfe.

25. Rev. Bob on April 28, 2016 at 4:49 pm said:
    Neither of us can control what other people say about VD or other asshats. However, you can control what you say. When you make this jump (using generic names and a made-up slur to illustrate):

    1. Joe said Dave was wombly.
    2. “Wombly” is a slur referring to a form of mental instability.
    3. Hey, I’ve been diagnosed with mental illnesses.
    4. That means Joe is saying Dave and I have the same problem.
    5. Joe thinks being like me is an insult!

    …that’s not correct. That’s your prejudices at work, not Joe’s. You’re the one who connected the slurs against Dave with your specific diagnoses. That’s on you, just like the Puppy-hate of “Dinosaur” is on them.

    I think you are very wrong there Bob.
    Words aren’t neutral and generic terms have associations that are independent of what Tasha may or may not want them to mean. Colloquial terms such as crazy has an association with mental illness not because Tasha is deciding to use them that way but because of hundreds of years of usage AND within the context of societal attitudes towards mental illness.

    To be like the “Dinosaur…” fallacy that we’ve seen your scenario would be like this:
    1. Joe said Dave was an asshat
    2. Huh, I bet Joe is the kind of person who thinks Dave is a wombly as well
    3. “Wombly” is a slur referring to a form of mental instability.
    4. Hey, I’ve been diagnosed with mental illnesses.
    5. That means Joe is saying Dave and I have the same problem.
    6. Joe thinks being like me is an insult!

    It is the point 2 leap that our Pup friends made with Dinosaur.
    Tasha isn’t doing that. She is pointing out words that really are used as pejorative descriptions of mental illness or people with mental illness and whose meaning are intended to convey THAT THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE TARGETS MIND just as their basic meaning.

26. Tasha: I’ve found that more non-white non-males tend to have more issues with words used than white cis men. I think partly because your socialism from birth is frequently to be tough and words don’t hurt.

    I realize you were using “your” in the collective sense, but for what it’s worth… I was not raised to be tough, I am not tough, and “words don’t hurt” is hilariously unlike anything I believe or have experienced. I made fairly specific comments above about a particular set of words, and did not at all intend them as a broader statement that “words” in general are a non-issue (for which reason I provided counter-examples of cases where I totally agree that language is a problem). If they still came across that way to you, then I think I should just call it a day since I don’t think it’s within my ability to be any clearer than that.

    [edited to add:] OK, maybe I can be clearer, but I won’t pursue it after this: My point in responding to your scenario of “not wanting friends/family to think I’m crazy” was not that I wouldn’t care at all if someone called me crazy, but that I think that kind of fear is much deeper than the fear of being labeled— it’s the fear of what the label represents. Not “someone will use that word on me” but “someone will have the same doubts about me that I have about myself on the worst days“. And the only fix for that is actual understanding.

27. Regarding the stereotypes, something that’s been interesting to me is — well, I mentioned the physical details are from a specific incident, right? The attackers *in that incident* who wielded the pool cues were not Southern — but they also weren’t white. They were probably working class, and and almost certainly Christian–the attack was on someone for wearing a New Age symbol.

    The secondary incident that I was thinking of was the time when my husband and I were walking in New Orleans, and my back had gone out, so I asked him to carry my purse. While he had it, clearly from me, a drunk bunch of frat-type college dudes (in gear from their university, iirc) shouted at him that he was a “fag” and were physically threatening to the extent that my husband (who actually fights quite well, but not against a handful of attackers) asked me to take it back so they wouldn’t start something. Whether or not he was a “fag” was obviously irrelevant–in fact, the circumstances suggested heterosexuality, since he was there with his wife. It was just an excuse for violence. Those kids were white, but that’s all I know about them. Since most people in the country are Christian, that seems likely, but then again, it also seems likely they were omnivores since most Americans are. They didn’t have Southern accents, so I dunno if they were Southern or not–we were in the South, but we were also in the tourist district of New Orleans. I assumed they weren’t. They probably were *not* working class, though, at least not in the “we are in the factory grind / my lungs are blackened from the mine” way.

    My father has been called a “fag” by people shouting in trucks for walking arm-in-arm with his blind friend to help him find his way. That was not in the South.

    There’s a higher number of white supremacists where we are who have Nazi symbols on their vehicles than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. It’s not the South.

    My grandfather on my father’s side joined the Klu Klux Klan for a while. (He quit because he disagreed with their methods. Goals, fine, methods not.) I used to have that in my bio because I think it’s funny in conjunction with the fact that my other grandfather was born an Orthodox Jew. Someone took a class from me once because she was from the South and since I had a relative who had been in the Klu Klux Klan, I must have Southern roots. The Klu Klux Klan *was and is not only in the South.* My grandfather lived in Los Angelos.

28. I have a mental illness that is broadly misunderstood by the population at large, and also I have what is probably an atypical presentation. Being called crazy worries me to the extent that it (IMO, rightly) makes me worry about coming out to speak about my illness — it will be a further tool to discredit and harass me.

    Simultaneously, I actually really like the word crazy, and in general, I am not a huge fan of most word prohibitions. I will probably always bear a grudge against the fact that I was informed that my use–a long with that of a number of other authors with mental illnesses, and some of the publication staff involved–of the word madness constituted an outsider attack.

    Still, I do wince at certain usages. I think perhaps I am fine with referring to ideas, objects, and beliefs as crazy. Referring to people as crazy — meh, unless you’re trying to express that they are mentally ill, in which case I’d probably say mentally ill if I was writing online, though I might say “crazy” in a casual conversation. (For instance, “look, I know this is a bizarre and ludicrous chunk of text you’re poking at with amusement, but honestly it shows several signs of paranoia and disorganized thinking which suggest mental illness, so maybe we should back off.”)

29. @Rev Bob
    I’m too tired to continue this with as all I seem to do is screw up more. I’m sorry I said things poorly. I have said things in ways which obviously can be easily misinterpreted which is on me. It’s my job to communicate my points properly. We’ve gotten along here on file770 for a long time. I cherish our friendship. I hope you can forgive me. I’d like to drop this conversation for now. At a later date if you’d like we can try again.

    @Camestros Felapton
    Thank you.

    @Eli
    I’m so sorry I’m usually better with my words and use things like one or many instead of you. I was talking in generalities in my response to you personally and that was a mistake.

    Eli I’m sorry. I’ve caused us to have a poor conversation through not being careful of the words I used. This prevented us from having what could have been an interesting and productive conversation. We both lost out due to my clumsiness. In the future I will continue to try to be more careful of the words I use. Please forgive me.

    —–
    I think like Dawn Incognito I’m bowing out of this discussion.

30. Dawn Incognito, you’ve no need to apologize to me for a flinch-response — I’ve made plenty of those myself.

    You and me regardless, it’s certainly appropriate for anyone to object to language in conversation which implies an -ism. I did not express myself as well as I should have — I have my own issues, and should have known better than to use that phrasing.

    [offers written equivalent of a hand in peace]

31. @Greg Hullender

    The only problem I have with that is that I think What Price Humanity? by David VanDyke, which appeared in “There Will Be War X, ” is actually the best novelette on the Finalists list. I have a hard time voting a genuinely Hugo-worthy work under No Award–no matter where it came from.

    For those who are interested, here is David VanDyke’s statement regarding his nomination in a comment on the KBoards forum.

    I know David a little. He’s a good guy and a pretty good writer, though I haven’t read “What Price Humanity?”

32. Rev. Bob, I apologize to you as well.

    Also, I certainly didn’t mean to start a “let’s you and her argue” exchange between you and Tasha.

    I hope that the good of increasing of increasing the general consciousness about pejorative language will balance my poor wording.

33. Someone took a class from me once because she was from the South and since I had a relative who had been in the Klu Klux Klan, I must have Southern roots. The Klu Klux Klan *was and is not only in the South.* My grandfather lived in Los Angelos.

    I currently live in the South and could not immediately lay hands on a Klansman if I really had to,* which is something of a change from when I lived in Oregon, where I was rather aware that a Grand Whatsit of the KKK lived in Grant’s Pass, an hour or so away.

    I don’t doubt they EXIST, I just don’t know where they are, and I think if anything, there’s a much stronger social stigma in my immediate area than there was where I grew up. It was much more…um…abstract…out there.

    *God forbid

34. I think if anything, there’s a much stronger social stigma in my immediate area than there was where I grew up. It was much more…um…abstract…out there.

    Exactly.

35. A couple of men shouted homophobic slurs at my husband (to be) and me as we were walking arm in arm one night. I am six foot one, and it was dark, and I suppose they took me for a man; that’s a thing that happens sometimes.

    They kept on driving, which was probably a good thing as I was moved to say some uncharitable things about people who think with their genitals because those are larger than their brains but if they don’t even know a woman when they see one their genitals must not be very large either, which I suppose could have been taken as an excuse to escalate to violence by bigots like those.

    That, as it happens, was in the panhandle of Texas, but it could have been most other places I’ve lived just as easily. I live in hope that people are learning better.

    And regarding Marc finding a publisher I suspect that the 300,000 word thing may have been part of the problem, as I would think most publishers would wonder just how much editing for length this masterpiece was going to need. And supposing they read it and decided it was a marvel of brevity and every golden word was necessary they’d have the Sharing Knife problem–how do they stuff 300,000 words into a single volume? Pure speculation, as I know nothing about the business, but “300,000 words” did kind of catch my eye there.

36. Self-publishing is always an option these days.

37. And regarding Marc finding a publisher I suspect that the 300,000 word thing may have been part of the problem, as I would think most publishers would wonder just how much editing for length this masterpiece was going to need. And supposing they read it and decided it was a marvel of brevity and every golden word was necessary they’d have the Sharing Knife problem–how do they stuff 300,000 words into a single volume?

    It could have been split up into two or three volumes. Given that it is apparently a collection of essays, this probably would have been reasonably easy to do.

38. @Rachel Swirsky: Self-publishing is always an option these days.

    Expensive to publish a 2 volume hardcover academic biographical work of 300+k words each and get it into bookstores.

    I’m not saying it can’t be done. I’m just saying you have to know what your doing. That requires knowing who to go to for advice. Building a platform and network so you have support and fans. It requires understanding publishing and what it entails. Knowing the cost to publish the books, how to market them, where to sell them, how to price them, and so much more.

    Or spend time learning how to market your book to the right trad publishers which is also a lot of learning and work.

    Or you can skip even taking the time to find out if your publisher is legit and just write the book.

39. 300,000 words isn’t a big deal if it’s an e-book only publication…

40. @Soon Lee
    But one of the reasons he took the contract with Castilia House is the promise that even if the Hardcover of Volume 1 sells poorly they will publish Volume 2 in Hardcover. It was critical to Marc it be Hardcover published right from the start.

    It’s in the comments somewhere in this thread.

    ETA: I don’t know if part of his problem finding a publisher had anything to do with demands on how it had to be published or not.

41. @Tasha,
    Then, it’s more a vanity project than wanting to make the manuscript available to fans & scholars of Wolfe?

42. It was critical to Marc it be Hardcover published right from the start.

    That indicates to me that the problem wasn’t that Marc couldn’t find a publisher, he just couldn’t find a publisher that would publish the book in exactly the way Marc wanted.

43. I’m guessing at the critical to him part as he stressed VDs willingness to put in the contract printing Volume 2 no matter how poorly Volume 1 sold.

    For me I’d run from a publisher who doesn’t care about sales. I wouldn’t trust them to try to sell my book or get me in stores. I’d love to see Marc’s contract based on the few bits he dropped here.

    ETA: Just so I could compare it to other contracts. What’s being promised. What rights are being grabbed.

44. @Sean: I’m not sure I could point to one of Hardy’s poems as being “yes, this is great!” but taken as a whole body of work it’s quite an outstanding achievement. I do generally favour (very slightly) older poetry than that of the Victorians though – the Romantics are more my style, for the most part. By which I mean, generally, the six of them that people are aware of (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats). Lots of good stuff outside of that more-or-less arbitrary grouping, too, but those are the ones I’ve spent more time reading and studying.

    I agree about Hardy’s novels too – I definitely need to be in the right frame of mind to be able to read one, but when I am…

45. @Soon Lee —

    Then, it’s more a vanity project than wanting to make the manuscript available to fans & scholars of Wolfe?

    Speaking as a librarian, the archival value of electronic-only publication is zero.

    The very idea of a 300,000-word work of fairly serious literary analysis in electronic format only just hurts my brain. It’s too long and serious to be a popular publication. It’s too ephemeral to treat as an academic work of lasting value.

    Now, not every librarian is going to share that perspective–but the academic librarians most likely to want this work are the same ones most likely to share that archival impulse. So as much as I question the wisdom of going with Castalia House, I understand why Marc Aramini would have been seriously tempted. Especially when you consider what a challenge self-publishing a work of that length under one’s own respectable-looking imprint name would have been.

46. @Tasha and Dawn Incognito – Not to reopen the debate as it pertains to appropriate language regarding mental illness and oppression, but I empathize with having certain words that create that flinch sensation, regardless of their current contextual usage or the intent of who is saying them. There are just certain words that those of us who have suffered one form of oppression or another (or both, many, etc) will associate with that oppression/harm, like for me the use of the word “b!tch” I think creates a similar sensation, that unique combination of dread, wariness and raised hackles. Because from what I’ve seen, the word “crazy/insane” is often used in a similar way to “b!tch” – too often used as a silencing tool, as a way of punishing people for doing or not doing something or just not upholding the status quo or expectation about what “regular” people or “real women” should be or do, as a way to dehumanize people and reduce them to exaggerated negative qualities, conveniently repurposed bits of reality twisted to suit the oppressor as justification for that oppression and harm. So I get that even seeing certain loaded terms used in a similiar way to even a “deserving” target of scorn/ire would not feel less painful. There’s just a lot of history behind certain words, decades of pain and messy shifting meanings, I think asking people to take care before using them is not asking too much, or even a lot to ask. I think one thing that we share here is a love of words and an awareness of their power, for good or for evil.

    And Rev Bob I hope it doesn’t seem like I am taking a side in this debate, I just wanted to extend my support to anyone who has been harmed by oppressive words or phrases or ideas, and thank you to you as well as Tasha and Dawn for giving me lots to think about. It’s a delicate thing we try to do, to dance along the many axis of hegemonic power.

47. APOLOGIES

    @Dawn Incognito, et al.: My apologies. I used the word “psycho” as thoughtless shorthand; I didn’t mean it to apply to “anyone with mental illness” and wasn’t trying to lump people together like that. From other replies, not everyone takes it the same way, but regardless, I’ll try to keep this in mind in the future. I’m sure I can think of better words! Thanks for the reminders, and feel free to smack me upside the metaphorical head in the future on this.

    @Sunhawk: Thanks, and eek, I should apologize for over-interpreting you. In retrospect, I took your comments, which felt very strong to me, personally – my bad! I should’ve thought that over some more before posting. Thanks for the follow-up; we’re pretty close on the big picture of personal reaction versus going beyond that.

48. RANDOM STUFF:

    @JJ: Thanks, I know; I’m just being (overly) silly. Also: Argh re. the comment notifications problems. I’m bookmarking things to return to/refresh, as I just can’t trust the system. It’s super-confusing to only get some notifications! ;-(

    @Wildcat: Why didn’t I think to check my nom list against the ballot, until I saw your comment? It looks like out of my picks, the following are finalists: one novel, two movies, one short editor (I’m sure he’s average height), one Semiprozine, one Fanzine, one Fan Writer, and one Campbell author. Out of the eight, I believe three were RP picks, though I may have miscounted.

    @Camestros Felapton: I appreciate Sanderson’s attempt to work behind the scenes last year, BTW!

    @Various: In other news, is there a new TV show coming soon – “Mike Glyer the Car”?!

    @rcade: “I’ve got wood.” – LOL, ObCatan: I’ve got sheep for wood. 😉

    @Sean: “Adieu.” – Oh if we had nickels for every flounce!

    @Mike Glyer: “I have Jemisin’s Tingle tweets” – I’M FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE!

    @Amoxtli: “Slammed in the Pixelhole by a Hugo-Related Scroll” – I’M FEELING SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE!

49. P.S. I’m bummed @Dawn Incognito may not see my apology, but I’m even more bummed that I’m pretty sure my use of the word “psycho” is what started all this unhappiness in recent comments in this thread. Apologies to @Tasha Turner, @Rev. Bob, and others. 🙁

50. @Sunhawk
    I have thoughts and don’t want you feeling ignored but as I said I’m not participating in the conversation. I’m making exceptions for apologies.

    @Kendall
    Apology accepted.

    I believe at least three of us feel responsible for the what happened. One of the things I love about file770 is how people apologize and how many of us are sure we are the one who caused the problem in the first place. So many other places no apologies and everyone points at someone else as problem.

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