(1) FOR THE LOVE OF SPOCK. A teaser trailer has been released for the Leonard Nimoy documentary.
(2) KEENE LEAVING HWA. Brian Keene cites over a dozen major organizational failures by Horror Writers of America in “Why and When I Will Begin Boycotting the HWA”, a list that ends —
*And most recently (as of today) allowing an avowed white supremacist and fascist who has previously demonstrated a bias against others based on their race, religion, etc. to participate as a Bram Stoker Award Jury member — an award which will include candidates of various races and religions…..
…Effective 1/1/17 (when the new year’s memberships become active) I will no longer work with anyone who is a then-Current member of the HWA, including writers, publishers, editors, etc. I will not give cover blurbs, introductions, or anything else. If I am asked to be in an anthology, and the anthology is being edited by a then-current HWA member, I will decline. If I am asked to submit a novel, and the publisher is a then-current HWA member, I will decline.
So… if you’d like to work with me in 2017, or you’d like my help with something going forward, I’m very happy to — provided you are not a member of the HWA as of January 1, 2017. Consider this an eight-month notice, which I think is more than fair.
I realize that this decision will put me at odds with both dear friends and fellow mutually-respected peers. That’s okay. It won’t be the first time that has happened. But this is my decision. I am not a Conservative or a Progressive, and I hold the extremists in both camps with contempt. But I am a human being, and a father, and I know what is right and what is wrong. Discrimination of someone based on their race, religion, creed, etc. is wrong.
We endorse things by our participation in them. This current debacle — and previous debacles — are not things I endorse, and I will not, in good conscience, contribute my name, my money, my talent, my draw, or my platform to them.
(3) BE MY GUEST. This is not a problem File 770 has, however, Melanie R. Meadors’ advice to prospective guest bloggers makes a lot of sense — “How to Write a Publicity Query Email That Won’t get You Blacklisted by Bloggers” at Bookworm Blues.
8. Offer them content that will draw readers to their blog. Bloggers are not your bitches. They aren’t working for you. They have a blog because they want people to read them. The harsh reality is that book spotlights get skimmed or skipped. No one cares. Anything that is easy for you, the author, is usually the least effective. Bloggers want content. They want an author’s unique view of things, they want to offer their readers something to entertain and inform them. They want something that will be shared on social media. And really, that’s what YOU want, too. You are doing a publicity tour so that you can actually reach readers. Not just so you can check off a box that says “stuck crap up on the internet.” Spotlights don’t reach readers in a memorable way. Posts that make them laugh, let them hear your voice, and show them who you are hit readers in a positive way that will make them click on the link to your work so they can learn more. That type of content is good for bloggers and is good for you. Tell them what type of post you are interested in, and if possible, even offer them a topic.
(4) STANDING UP. Randall at Catalyst Game Labs wrote his “I’m Standing Up” post before Ken Burnside’s appeared, but he subsequently linked to Burnside which is how I came across it:
I’ve certainly not been perfect. I can look back across a lifetime of con attendance and gaming and cringe now and then at stupid comments I’ve made. And for that, I publicly apologize to any woman who ever felt as though I didn’t respected her, or made her feel as though she is less valuable as she is to our hobby, community, and industry.
And perhaps for that very same sense, there are men who feel ashamed to stand up. Well shake it off. Do the right thing. Stand up. This will only change if we shine a bright enough light down into those repugnant currents. If we get enough people saying this is not okay we just might push those currents down where they’re too afraid to come out any more.
Now let me be absolutely clear, here: Harassment or bullying of any sort against anyone for any reason—be it gender, race, religion, you name it—is not okay. And if I hear anyone around me gatekeeping with that tired old mantra “you’re not a real gamer,” I’m gonna slap that down. Catalyst employees know this and swiftly take care of any such situations. (If anyone has ever had any issues that were not treated appropriately by one of our employees or Catalyst agents, feel free to email me [email protected] and I’ll immediately follow up). So this filth laps onto far too many. But it seems pretty clear to me over the research I’ve done that women, by a large margin, take the brunt of this hurt.
For anyone that feels even a moment’s regret over any of this, or experiences they’ve had, please spread this post. Plenty of others are doing the same and doing it well. But we need to do it more. I’m adding my voice to theirs to swell the chorus and shine a light on those currents.
And for all those amazing gamers that make the hobby brilliant for millions of people all over the world, thank you!
I’m a white, male gamer. And I’m standing up.
(5) ASIMOV DEBATE. The 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate topic “Is the Universe a Simulation?” was discussed by panelists on April 5 at The American Museum of Natural History.
What may have started as a science fiction speculation—that perhaps the universe as we know it is a computer simulation—has become a serious line of theoretical and experimental investigation among physicists, astrophysicists, and philosophers.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, moderated a panel composed of David Chalmers, Professor of philosophy, New York University; Zohreh Davoudi, Theoretical physicist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; James Gates, Theoretical physicist, University of Maryland; Lisa Randall, Theoretical physicist, Harvard University; and Max Tegmark Cosmologist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
(6) BILLIONS BEYOND FANDOM. Martin Morse Wooster passed along two fannish points from a profile of LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman by Nicholas Lemann in the October 16 issue of New Yorker.
1. In middle school in the mid-1980s, Hofmann was a game tester for Chaosium, located near Hofmann’s home in Emeryville.
“Hoffman got himself into one of the groups, and then returned to Chaosium, offering to correct errors he had found in a set of role-playing scripts for Dungeons & Dragons that the company had published. He wrote a detailed memo and took it to Steve Perrin, a major game developer (All the World’s Monsters, RuneQuest, Elfquest) who was working at Choasium at the time. ‘He looked at it and said, ‘This is good feedback,’ Hofmann says. So they gave me another scenario pack to review. He also began writing reviews for Different Worlds, a gaming magazine that Chaosium published, and getting modestly paid for his work.”
2. Peter Thiel, a friend and college classmate of Hofmann’s, said that Hofmann “was entranced by Snow Crash, a science-fiction novel by Neal Stephenson, published in 1992, which takes place in a twenty-first century California where government has collapsed and people create avatars and try to find a new way to live through a technology-based virtual society called the Metaverse….
….Hofmann was playing with a set of ingredients that he had first explored at Stanford, with Thiel and others–fantasy gaming, computer technology, philosophy–and thinking about whether there was a big idea that could enable him to have a major effect on the world, first through a business and then through the creation of an entire social system.”
“So sf and fandom is responsible for LinkedIn!” says Wooster, and he asks, “Can we collect royalties?”
(7) FIRST LINES. Rachel Swirsky studied her first lines and other authors’, now the third installment in her series answers the question “First Lines Part III: What Can They Do?”. Here are two of her seven points:
After giving close reading to a dozen first sentences, half mine and half others, I’m ready to make a list of things that a first line can do (although probably no first line should try to do all of them).
- Include a mystery the reader wants to solve by reading the next sentence.
- Set a fast reading pace.
(8) FINNISH WORLDCON’S FIRST PR. Worldcon 75, to be held in Helsinki in 2017, has issued its first Progress Report. Download it or read it online here. The contents include:
- Tips on small talk with the guests of honour
- Finland: An assortment of notes and information
- The word for Worldcon is Maailmankongressi
- Finnish fandom: Some unique characteristics
You can go directly the online magazine (done in a format where you digitally flip pages) by clicking here.
(9) TOHO BRINGS BACK GODZILLA. Kotaku says “Japan’s New Godzilla Movie Looks Awesome”.
For the first time in over a decade, there’s a new Godzilla movie coming from Japan’s Toho Studios. This one’s being directed by none other than Neon Genesis’ Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi.
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Terhi Törmänen, David K.M. Klaus, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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How many No Awards we got?
Hard to say.
a. While the RP voters will vote in lockstep, and the only doubtful question is how many there are, the effect of the SP slate/list is impossible to calculate. It ended up in a condition where it really wouldn’t make sense to use it as a slate, no matter what the original plan was; but people can still select stuff from it so as to vote in a way that is more clumped than that of normal voters.
b. Whether a slate sweep will in fact lead to No Award is not obvious, given that there are lots of perfectly reasonable nominees on the slates.
c. But there’s no chance of the RP list sweeping BESF, so at least one award is likely!
@alexvdl
None. No forced No Awards, anyway. (Mostly thinking about the written-fiction categories here.)
The slate includes at least one excellent work in each category. Even in the event of a total sweep, there will be works worthy of the award. Few people would vote “Penric’s Demon” below No Award just because it appeared on a slate, for example. Much as “Guardians of the Galaxy” wasn’t impacted by being on a slate last year.
@alexvdl
My entirely unscientific gut feeling is that we’ll see either three or four No Awards this year, followed by passage of slate-neutering procedures and almost none again starting next year.
I haven’t run the numbers with Greg’s rigor, but given how the power law works I don’t see the new nominating numbers as being enough to keep mediocre slated works entirely off the final ballot.
@Jon, I think that the Anger vote is going to be pretty damn large if the Rabids manage to sweep the nomination process.
Personally, I’m inclined to agree with you. I would be heavily surprised if Noah Ward doesn’t get a turn at the podium.
@Jon F. Zeigler
I also estimated the impact of EPH. For Best Novel and Novella, it does prevent a sweep. For Best Novelette and Short Story, the numbers are very, very close. That’s assuming the worst-case scenario (i.e. best-case for the slate).
However, that’s just to prevent a sweep. Slate nominees might still account for 4 of the 5 slots.
> “He may well be right. The number of much-talked-about novels is pretty small and they may break the curve by enough to make it onto the final list.”
The math I’ve been looking at is, frankly, probably not as sophisticated as yours, but my prediction would be a Rabid sweep of all categories except Best Novel, Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, and Best Editor Short Form (where only one nomination was on their list.) I think up to two novels, up to three films, and up to four short form editors may legitimately get on the final ballot, plus a possibility of an unknown but small number of others in any category due to withdrawal or disqualification (either pre- or post-announcement.) I believe few Rabid nominations were made for the Retro Hugos, so those should be mostly legitimate. Items on the Sads list may get onto the ballot either due to either (1) overlap with works which would have gotten on the ballot without their support, or in some cases (2) withdrawal or disqualification of Rabid works in categories with low, widespread voting.
Re: Crown for Cold Silver.
I could not get into this book. It seemed to get significant positive buzz and the description made it sound like it was completely up my alley but I tried to read it 3 times and couldn’t get past 50 pages each time. I just didn’t care about the characters and something about the prose was boring to me. Like Kyra, I have trouble articulating *what* turned me off so completely since I can usually power through at least 100 pages before deciding whether the book is for me or not. I am somewhat relieved to see that I am not alone even if I may be one of the few who could not finish it.
@alexvdl
Maybe I’m just resigned to it. I’ve been sitting on this calculation for almost two months now, believing that all our efforts to encourage more people to nominate were probably in vain.
But imagine this scenario: suppose that the slate had consisted entirely of works like “Space Raptor.” They could have engineered a situation where fans would have to vote no-award in almost every category. Visualize an awards ceremony where no awards were given to anyone at all. (Or, more realistically, where they simply cancel the awards for 2016.)
When I looked at the slate and saw that it really did include works that could be given awards, I felt enormous relief. I’ve been beyond anger for a long time now.
@Kyra
Looking outside the four written-fiction categories, there are several with an exponent of 0.8 or better, which means that doubling the number of organic votes actually will close to double the number of votes for the top1 slot. Those are places where the slate will have a hard time sweeping. Those are:
Best Semiprozine (1.1)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (0.97)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (0.86)
Best Editor, Short Form (0.86)
Best Graphic Story (0.81)
These are all categories where there’s not as much “spread”–there just aren’t very many things to choose from, so organic votes don’t get diluted as much.
I don’t anticipate any disqualifications. Unfortunately fans have helped the slate out this year by vetting the list for them.
I am (perhaps foolishly) optimistic that the whole Puppy thing crested last year and there weren’t many Rabid Puppy nominators this time. This is probably because I just don’t get why anyone would buy a Worldcon membership just to nominate works according to Beale’s instructions.
I don’t anticipate any disqualifications.
Straightforward ‘wrong year’ disqualifications, no, but there might be other things. Andy Weir’s eligibility is still sub judice, and nobody seems to know which category Black Gate belongs in.
This is probably because I just don’t get why anyone would buy a Worldcon membership just to nominate works according to Beale’s instructions.
But everyone who voted last time is already a nominator, and doesn’t have to buy anything. That it may crest this year is totally plausible.
This would be because you are a functional adult with a real life to live.
@Greg Hullender
Thank you! Your analysis roughly matches my recall of what I’ve seen some other folks post that have done the deep dive . Of course there are so many unknowns to the variables (particularly active slate engagement this year and slate discipline) there’s still hope for a GIGO factor to kick in. Then again prepare for the worst case scenario and your contingencies are covered.
@Laura Resnick.
OOOOOOOOOOOH SH**. BURN.
alexvdl said:
Sure, though not entirely in the way you think. SP4’s one measureable goal was 10,000 nomination ballots this year, so it missed by either ~60% (total) or ~75% (new nominators).
You know, it hurts to squirt hot tea out of one’s nose…
@Petréa Mitchell
This year I think SP4 really is nothing but yet another recommendation list.
I’ve tried to quit talking about “the slates”; there is only one slate.
Something SP4 and the slate have in common is that they both came out rather late in the nominating process, as opposed to last year when (I think) they were promoted right from the start of nominations. That probably worked to reduce their influence this year, although how much is impossible to quantify.
Agreed. In 2017, hopefully/presumably EPH (and possibly also the 4/6 rule, which passed by a smaller margin) will be in effect. Also, 2017 will be in Helsinki, so presumably more Europeans will be engaged in nominating. In addition to those factors, the Puppies are less visible this year, and may be even less visible by next year, so attrition numbers among the Puppy supporters (and leaders) may well already be higher than recruitment numbers.
That said, I am also more optimistic about this year than other posters here. I have done no math (and would botch it if I tried), but the nominations process last year for the Puppies was like shooting fish in a barrel, AND the two factions campaigned noisily for nearly identical slates, AND their slates were the right size to fill the ballot. This year, they’re running separate slates; neither slate (particularly not the Sad slate) is structured to fill all ballot slots (ex. VD nominated only one short-fiction editor, IIRC); they posted their final slates late in the process (whereas SP3 and RP1 posted around Feb 1); they’ve mostly stuck to their own blogs and have not campaigned beyond that (whereas from Feb 1 onward last year, I thought it seemed like SP3 and RP1 leaders and/or supporters posted regularly, wherever sf/f people gathered online); and a LOT more counter-Puppy fans are nominating this year.
I don’t make any predictions about the ballot (which we’re going to see in a couple of weeks, anyhow), but I am optimistic that it will not reflect another Puppy sweep, though it may reflect Puppy influence (which influence, like I said, I think will be substantially diminished on the 2017 ballot, if still seen at all by then).
Andrew M on April 14, 2016 at 9:22 am said:
Ayup. Everyone with a supporting, attending, young adult, or military membership for Sasquan* was eligible to nominate this year.
*or equivalent memberships to WorldCon 75 purchased before the cut off time on January 31, 2016.
> “These are all categories where there’s not as much ‘spread’–there just aren’t very many things to choose from, so organic votes don’t get diluted as much.”
Yes, but I was operating under the assumption that lower vote totals would counteract the narrower spread; i.e. there are fewer items to choose from, but also likely fewer voters, allowing the slate to dominate. I would be happy to be wrong.
I’m a little surprised to see BDP short form on that list — television shows, which dominate the category, can have dozens of episodes, making it a much wider field than BDP long form. I wonder what causes the concentration. Also a little surprised that fancast isn’t on that list — there must be more fancasts than I’d believed.
Maybe a combination of shows which are pretty much the usual suspects (Doctor Who and Game of Thrones in particular), and those shows in turn having ‘big’ episodes which tend to be the nominees?
I subscribe to “The Horror Show with Brian Keene” podcast. Based on listening to most of the podcasts from the last year, I have the impression that he is not currently a member of the HWA and that he has not been a member for quite some time. (It’s only been around for a year, FWIW.)
He decided that the organization wasn’t something he wanted to be a part of. The laundry list at the link is probably a big part of his reason to leave, but that is an educated guess on my part.
So it may not be accurate to say that he is leaving the HWA. Instead he is boycotting the HWA which naturally includes the membership.
—
Regards,
Dann
(2) Keene Leaving HWA–
Wow. Interesting essay.
I don’t know anything at all about HWA, have never been a member, have never followed its activities, so I don’t have an opinion about any of this–except that that’s a pretty eye-popping list of accusations he’s posted, one that I’d feel compelled to research before joining HWA, if I had an interest in joining.
How, indeed, does an org simply FORGET to hold elections? That’s the sort of thing that’s included in an org’s annual To Do list, along with the accounting and legal paperwork that has to be done every year…
Also a little surprised that fancast isn’t on that list — there must be more fancasts than I’d believed.
The number of fancasts is probably pretty large. For example, I nominated:
Galactic Suburbia
Under Discussion: The Undergophers Podcast
The Audio Guide to Babylon 5
Alethea Kontis’ Fairy Tale Rants
Dive into Worldbuilding
I suspect that a lot of other people nominated Galactic Suburbia, but I also suspect that there is limited crossover with the other four choices on my list. I seriously doubt that there is anyone else with my exact set of choices in this category.
On a happier topic, might I recommend people have a look at The Sweetest Skill, by Tony Pi from today’s Beneath Ceaseless Skies?
It’s a clever story, a fun read, and if you like it, there are two more about the same character. Although they’re in sequence, the reading order doesn’t really matter. This is the best of the three, but they’re all fun.
Great analysis from Kyra, Jon and especially Greg. It makes an unfortunate amount of sense. “Get more non-slate nominators” was never a winning strategy in isolation. It’s a useful component of a solution that has an unfortunate whiff of duty about it, but it’s not the full picture.
Nor, IMHO, is EPH a forever and sufficient solution. There have been so many illegitimate and ill-intended criticisms of EPH that I think some some people get defensive about acknowledging EPH’s real shortcomings. But once you get outside the popular categories, EPH is unlikely to restrict a slates share of the shortlist to their share of the nominators. e.g. a slate that draws 20% of nominators in the short-story category isn’t going to place one nominee; it’s going to place at least 3-4.
My view, again, is that the MACII business meeting attendees should absolutely ratify EPH because it’s better than nothing. But it’s not a forever and sufficient solution to the problem, and I’m not sure anyone as smart as the EPH team is seriously considering next-stage approaches*.
—————————-
*Yah yah this makes me an Ideas Guy, I know. But I’m genuinely not qualified to solve this problem. Other people might be!
Well, given that voters now have almost doubled the number of nominations it’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out in the finals; I haven’t a clue what the Rabids will do since minions are, by definition, minions and would be just as happy voting for a slate emailed by VD as something on his website.
I do think that EPH has to pass to provide some protection against Hugo slates of any kind in the future…
ETA
I agree with Jim…
@Aaron
My only exposure to Galactic Suburbia was voting last year. I’m disinclined to spend more time with them as a result.
The subject of the Babylon 5 podcast is pretty obvious. Can you provide a brief thumbnail of the other three and why you like them? I’m always up for a new podcast.
—
Regards,
Dann
Here’s the whole list:
0.948275443 -1.100918934 Best Semiprozine
0.973266013 -0.970201121 Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
0.960739043 -0.862131286 Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
0.893054044 -0.861356719 Best Editor, Short Form
0.987948537 -0.813150477 Best Graphic Story
0.978771025 -0.783392748 Best Professional Artist
0.939982641 -0.716871628 Best Editor, Long Form
0.957351721 -0.709828304 Best Related Work
0.983682974 -0.703787603 Best Novella
0.951426133 -0.696525038 Best Fancast
0.94058942 -0.632496338 Best Fanzine
0.963743416 -0.631019715 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
0.984626421 -0.621469923 Best Novel
0.964866249 -0.588306651 Best Short Story
0.946127838 -0.586183273 Best Fanwriter
0.943314499 -0.541696748 Best Novelette
0.96358505 -0.525270032 Best Fan Artist
The first number is the R^2 coefficient–it’s a measure of how well the data matched a power-law distribution. The second number is the exponent. (Ignore the minus signs).
I’m aware that last year’s members were entitled to nominate this year. However it’s possible that some of them might not bother, if they aren’t actually interested and just joined up last year as a culture war activity.
The Undergophers is primarily a role-playing game podcast, but it has a variety of episodes in which the members interview authors, or do things like draft super-hero teams or starship crews. They have a long-running series called “forced filmography” where they watch bad movies that one of them has seen and all comment on it and another called “I can game that” where they discuss how to turn media properties into role-playing game scenarios. Basically, the podcast is a group of guys from Kansas City who game together who podcast about the geeky things they enjoy.
Alethea Kontis’ Fairy Tale Rants is a YouTube series by author Alethea Kontis, who is probably best known for her Woodcutter Sisters series (Dearest, Fairest, and so on) and the children’s book Alpha Oops. In the series she talks about various fairy tales, giving a synopsis of the tale and a little (often snarky) commentary. She has guests on an infrequent basis, mostly people in her circle of author friends.
Dive into Worldbuilding is a YouTube series about worldbuilding. It is hosted by Juliette Wade, and features a different special guest each time: Ken Liu, Henry Lien, N.K. Jemisin, and so on. The fancast tackles various worldbuilding topics and delves into the process that each author uses to develop their fictional worlds.
To be honest, if you didn’t like Galactic Suburbia, you may not be the target audience for Fairy Tale Rants and may not enjoy Worldbuilding either.
@ Petréa Mitchell
Of the new anime, the only one I’ve really liked has begun Flying Witch. It’s n been competed a litre to Kiki’s Delivery Service, and yeah, one could see it as a sequel of sorts. But it seems to have its own zanier element to it as well. Like casual dealing with harvesting of roots that can kill everybody nearby.
It also has the same sort of scenery porn that shows like Natsumi’s Book of Friends have, and some really charming serves (like the serious kid’s reaction to being taken on a broomstick ride) . Overall, I’m looking forward to more.
The other new show I’m watching is Space Patrol Luluco, where the producers of Kill la Kill turn their eye on the Space Opera genre. It’s…very frenetic and silly. But hey, the episodes are short.
@Jim Henley
I suspect people want to see how well EPH really does, and whether the slate people stick around afterwards. For example, the hard-core Hugo haters might content themselves with sticking one really embarrassing work like “Space Raptor” into each category.
The best idea I have for that is “tentative disqualification.” The idea would be to give fans a way to recommend that certain works be disqualified. They’d appear on the ballot with an asterisk, and if they failed to beat No Award, then the disqualification would stand. If the slaters tried to use it (e.g. to disqualify black authors) the fans would easily vote those works above No Award, rescinding the disqualification.
My best idea for how that might work would be to let fans have an option of identifying such works on their nominating ballots. EPH would be run twice–once on the normal data and a second time counting each “disqualification vote” as -1. The second list would be the actual list of finalists, but anything from the first list could appear with an asterisk, provided the author requested it. So for something like “Space Raptor,” if Chuck Tingle never responded to the Hugo folks, the disqualification would stand.
The rules for when fans can disqualify something would be broad. “Anything that fails to meet the requirements or which would damage the reputation of the awards.”
This depends on the honesty and integrity of the final vote of the fans to police any attempts at abuse. Much as the fans rose up in anger over the slates, I’d expect them to do the same thing over any attempt to disqualify legitimate works.
It’s probably too complicated (the system is already complex), but it’s the best I’ve come up with.
@ StephenFromOttawa:
Yes, that’s one of the questions no one can answer, in terms of the math: How many Puppies who are eligible to nominate this year because they joined last year specifically in response to the high-profile combined SP3/RP1 campaign and media circus of 2015… have remained engaged enough to nominate this year?
Obviously there is a core Rabid group that follows VD’s blog year-round, just as there is a core Sad group that follows MCG year-round, and those core groups may well be nominating in 2016 according to the Hugo noms lists posted on those sites.
But it seems likely that there were also 2015 supporters who were attracted by the much more high-profile Puppy campaigning of 2015, including being attracted by Larry Correia’s involvement (and he has disengaged since then) and/or attracted by the Puppy-dominated ballot and media coverage from April/15 onward, etc., etc…. But who’ve lost interest since then, haven’t read VD’s or MCG’s blogs since some time last year, deleted he MACii email in their SPAM filter advising them it was time to nominate, and are not participating this year.
IIRC, 6000 or more people voted in the 2015 Hugos. About 4000 nominated this year. Mathematicians can extrapolate an estimate based on last year’s voting patterns, etc… But, realistically, we don’t know the composition of the 1/3 of 2015 voters who did not nominate in 2016. It -could- be (we won’t know until we see the ballot) that a disproporionate number of them are people who got really invested in the “culture war” aspect of the Hugos last year, after a lifetime of having no interest whatsoever in WorldCon or the Hugos, and whose attention had already drifted far away from the Hugos by this year.
(I also think the Sad effect on the ballot could be hard to determine this year, since there were a number of items on their list that many anti-Puppies (including me) also nominated for 2016.)
@Aaron
Thanks very much! I decided to listen to The Post Atomic Horror* podcasts beginning with #1 and I’m now current. As my list of podcasts is small enough that I don’t have enough to keep my ears full for a week, I’ll have to give those other ones a try.
Perhaps the sample for the awards last year was just a poor example of GS. My chief complaints were in order of importance:
– It took 30-45 minutes of gossip/dishing before they got the topic of the podcast.
– The beginning of the podcast suggested that they were going to discuss GamerGate and ethics in gaming journalism but instead they ended up talking about the horrid behavior of some people towards women without offering any meaningful discussion about gaming journalism.
Had they said that they were going to discuss bullying and other abusive behavior up front, I might have had a different reaction to that show. GamerGate is not my issue. I haven’t followed it terribly closely. But I thought it might be interesting to get their perspective regarding conflicts of interest in that genre.
*Matt and Al are reviewing every episode/show/series/movie of Star Trek ever made. In order. The PAH is the gold standard for SFF podcasting, IMHO.
—
Regards,
Dann
I think that voters are going to resist anything that adds a third round to the voting, such as the HWA’s “jury” or what not, or even something like a “disqual” phase.
@Laura Resnick
I looked at how nominations in one year compared to votes in the previous year. This year is about 10% above my “business-as-usual” estimate. That’s a little discouraging if you’re someone who put a lot of effort into trying to encourage more people to nominate. However, Sasquan’s numbers were so swollen that it seems quite a miracle that the numbers didn’t drop drastically. In other words, it looks like most of those first-time voters at Sasquan renewed their commitment and became first-time nominators this year.
That augers well for the future, regardless of what ends up on the ballot this year.
@alexvdl
Not a third round of voting; just an extra section on the nominating ballot “anything you’d like to disqualify?”
The “extra round” is just something the software would do with the data.
The beginning of the podcast suggested that they were going to discuss GamerGate and ethics in gaming journalism but instead they ended up talking about the horrid behavior of some people towards women without offering any meaningful discussion about gaming journalism.
The opening digression is typical for the podcast, and is part of what I (and apparently many others) like about it.
The other issue is that GG has never been about ethics in gaming journalism in any meaningful way. Any honest discussion of GG is going to have almost nothing to do with ethics in gaming journalism, because GG has almost nothing to do with ethics in gaming journalism.
That is not to say that there are not issues in gaming journalism, but GGers really haven’t focused on any of those, and have rather spent a lot of time harassing people, which is why the episode ended up spending time on that rather than ethics.
Did you mean Underdiscussion rather than Undergopher? I found the former as a Stitcher podcast. But I found it by Googling for the latter and then following the links.
Most of the non-NPR podcasts I listened to have some sort of digression at the front. Usually they are funny/entertaining/informative…….and don’t take up more than half of the podcast.
IIRC, in this case it took roughly half of the podcast (~45 minutes, IIRC) to get through it. I was pretty bored at that point.
FWIW, I “no awarded” it along with the Sci Phi Show.
MMMV as well as YMMV I suppose.
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Regards,
Dann
I suppose I’m the only person here who bought a Worldcon membership last year for the first time because someone was trying to screw up a process that had consistently provided me with good reading since I was a teenager and who nominated for the first time this year.
I guess that makes my point of view a little different and less informed, but:
The big winner last year was Mr. Beale, whose primary goal (in my judgement) is to build his business. (I don’t disbelieve his bigotry; I do discount it to a secondary motivation.) He got publishing rights to the new volume of a long-running anthology series, and that’s the real win for him, BS about victory conditions and such aside.
I also think that pretty much shot his wad, but I could be wrong about that. I expect he’ll have an impact on the down-ballot categories but not much else.
Next year, he’ll look for a new foil. Any thoughts on what that might be?
I also think that whether VD re-ups for gaming the Hugos in 2017 will depend almost entirely on how much attention he gets this year. For someone who craves attention as desperately as he does, the media circus last year, as well as the way discussion about his antics dominated the sf/f blogosphere for months, =absolutely ensured= he’d be back for more this year.
If the Rabid slate gets works onto the 2016 ballot and creates another round of months of satisfying attention for VD, he’ll persist in 2017.
But if the Rabid slate has little or no effect on the 2016 ballot, AND if people cease talking about the Rabids after a week or two of jubilation that VD didn’t succeed in gaming this year’s ballot, and assuming the media ignores him, he will declare victory (on whatever basis) and move on to some fresh obsession in pursuit of getting the attention he yearns for.
Did you mean Underdiscussion rather than Undergopher?
The official title is Under Discussion: The Undergopher Podcast.
As far as Galactic Suburbia goes, I would listen to the three of them read the phone book. I even subscribed to Alisa’s crafting podcast Champagne and Socks and I have no interest whatsoever in knitting or quilting.
I’ll play. Next year, he will target kittens, Santa Claus, and yogurt.
Currently he’s branched out to the Locus awards and the Dragoncon awards… I look forward to him going after the Eisner, the MTV Movie Awards, and the Teen Choice Awards.
Greg Hullender:
That doesn’t sound like it would work very well. Slates can slate the negative votes too. And it wouldn’t take that many downvotes to upset the ordering. An Evil Nongenius can pick out a few favourites among regular fans and instruct his minions to downvote those, thereby upsetting the ballot even more than otherwise.
At the same time, requiring that fans identify the dodgy works already at the nominating stage means that fans cannot respond to secret slates.
I liked the proposal Kevin Standlee outlined here a week or two ago better: Have an intermediate stage, where members can vote yes or no on the top 15 nomination getters. Works with more no than yes are disqualifed, and the top five of the rest go to the final.
Another option which I’m personally fond of but which I think is unlikely to be accepted in fandom is to allow/instruct the admins to use their common sense to disqualify obviously embarrasing works. And possibly also to dismiss entire ballots, based on slate adherence. But it requires that we are willing to trust the admin’s common sense.
@Laura Resnick
At this point, it’s his to lose.
However, regardless of whether any or all of his slate appears on the ballot, the best strategy for fans will be to vote for works based strictly on their quality–paying zero attention to who recommended them. As you say, he thrives on attention, and the less of it he gets, the better.
That advice is a lot easier to give than to live up to, though. 🙂
Johan P
That was the reason for allowing an author with a disqualified work to ask that it appear on the final ballot anyway, asking the fans to rescind the disqualification.
I’m not worried about secret slates.
I like that one too, but I worry that adding a third round of voting would be too much. But if people are okay with it, it’s definitely the best solution.
That was my idea too, with the same mechanism for authors to appeal to the judgment of the fans. I was told that traditionally, the fans have been very unwilling to give much autonomy to the administrators. All power is vested in the fans themselves. That’s where I came up with the idea of letting the fans do the disqualifying.
With luck, the slates will evaporate after this year and nothing of this sort will be needed. Otherwise, the Business Meeting in Helsinki may be a very interesting get together.
It requires giving actual power, as opposed to just administration power, into the hands of the Hugo Admins. WSFS is allergic to that. Every time the Hugo Admins have exercised more than just administrative judgement, the WSFS Business Meeting has responded with a big fat DON’T DO THAT.
In other words, unless the attitude or the demographics of the Business Meeting change drastically, it’s not going to happen.
And honestly? I’d rather put up with crap like last year than place those choices in the hands of the Admins. Yes, I am part of that demographic! But asking the Admins to make those kinds of judgments just opens them up for even more crap from both WSFS members and others. I don’t want any more Lorentz Hugo Admin Burnouts, thank you very much. This just begs Admins to flame like torches every year.