aka One To Forsee For Puppies
Reactions to Edmund R. Schubert’s withdrawal as a Hugo nominee dominate today’s roundup, illustrated here by quotes from Lou Antonelli, N. K. Jemisin, Deirdre Saoirse Moen, George R.R. Martin and Dara Korra’ti. Annie Bellet elaborated on her own withdrawal in a comment left on Jim C. Hines’ blog.
The rest of the roundup takes note of new voices like Michael A. Rothman, Rachel Iliffe, John Popham, Moira J. Moore and Brenda Noiseux, and hears more from Amanda S. Green, Will McLean, Sandy Ryalls, T. L. Knighton, Vox Day, Sean Wallace, Nick Mamatas and others. (Credit for these titles belongs to File 770 contributing editors Laura Resnick and Matt Y.)
Lou Antonelli on Facebook
I don’t know how useful it will be to attend an event whose master of ceremonies is openly antagonistic to most of the potential honorees, and who is already predicting the outcome (below) and has – in other places – essentially vowed a blacklist (“It will take people a long time to forget how you tried to destroy the Hugos” or something to that effect). I mean, if I win one, will he hit me over the head with it? Where’s MY Safe Space?
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/592824983774179329
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/592825415145811969
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/592825835930910721
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/592826303138639873
Deidre Saoirse Moen in a comment on Sounds Like Weird
[Edmund] Schubert stated on the IGMS website that he didn’t know about the slates until afterward, and I’ve updated the post with a link to his statement. (I’d seen the link mentioned before my post, but I wasn’t able to get through to the site at that time.)
While I can see an argument for doubting his word, I’m of the “I take people at their word unless I have a reason not to” school of thought.
George R.R. Martin on Not A Blog
“Schubert Withdraws” – April 28
Edmund R. Schubert, the editor of ORSON SCOTT CARD’S INTERGALACTIC MEDICINE SHOW, has announced his decision to withdraw from the Hugo race…
I understand the reasons for his withdrawal and applaud his integrity. It cannot be easy to walk away from a major award, perhaps one that you have dreamed of someday winning. And this takes courage as well; like the others who have dropped off the Puppy slate, he will undoubtedly come in for a certain amount of angry barking from the kennels.
Dara Korra’ti on crime and the forces of evil
“edmund schubert bows out” – April 28
Edmund Schubert says he’s published queer authors in Intergalactic Medicine Show, and will continue to do so, and he says that’s with the full support of Mr. Card. Also stories by and of women, and various racial groups and religions. That’s good.
But I’ve got an assortment of assaults and a hospital visit and more money than I want to think about and years of lost time and decades of living in various degrees of fear all spent fighting for my legal and occasionally physical life against Mr. Card’s allies, and, to a lesser degree, Mr. Card himself. He and his friends on the social right have quite literally cost me and millions like me untold amounts of both blood and treasure.
And his erstwhile allies still are, across the globe, American fundamentalists exporting their religion of hate, getting execution laws passed, spreading the same lies they weren’t able to sell at home any longer.
So don’t expect that to stop mattering to me. And never, ever, dare tell me that it shouldn’t matter. Because, maybe, for you, it doesn’t have to. But to me? That’s quite a luxury. One I will never have.
Annie Bellet in a comment on Jim C. Hines’ “Choosing Sides”
Thank you for writing this post, Jim. The Us vs Them and points scoring thing overtaking what the Hugos should be is exactly why I withdrew.
I should clarify though that when I say I didn’t do it because of pressure from either “side” I am not saying there wasn’t pressure (I had plenty of messages on all sides telling me to hang tough, that my story was amazing, that I shouldn’t decline just because of who might have voted for me, etc, and messages saying I should be ashamed of myself, that I’d stolen the nomination from a real writer who actually deserved it, etc). I’m saying I made my decision for many other reasons. It’s one reason I took nearly two weeks to withdraw, because it was a very tough decision and I wanted to make sure I was doing it because it was right for me, for my own reasons, and not because of what people around me were saying was right or wrong. Because I wanted to make sure my withdrawal was for me and that it could be something I felt comfortable with instead of just a reaction to other people’s pain.
Hope that clarifies.
Michael A. Rothman on Facebook – April 28
For the Big-F Fandom community who feels aggrieved that people are acting unethically or against what you feel is right, then let me make a suggestion. [This is coming from a guy who participates and runs standards organizations, so it’s not exactly coming from someone who doesn’t have a clue.]
– Change the rules to match your expectations. That means no hidden agendas or intent, be forthright about what WorldCon and more specifically the Hugos are about and form the rules around that.
If you don’t do that, all your belly aching is just that. Pathetic whining that no adult should be doing and nobody who isn’t in your clique will respect.
If you set rules, you are drawing a line in the sand. Nothing more, nothing less.
All this argument over seemliness and the proper type of voter etc. is just not professional and not what people in the real world do. You come off looking silly and quite pathetic.
Rachel Iliffe on Rachelloon Productions
“#SadPuppies : Stop the Hugo Awards Bullies?” – April 28
In 2013 when I first started this blog one of my first posts was about the STGRB controversy. For those of you who don’t know, STGRB stands for ‘Stop The GoodReads Bullies’, and was a group who formed one side of another SJW conflict—however, this was a little different to the more recent debacles we’ve grown to love.
The basic background was this: a number of popular intersectional feminist book-reviewers had been declared ‘bullies’ by a group of mostly independent authors whose books had been criticised by them for reasons of sexism etc. Now, the timeline here was very murky, or at least it was when I first became aware of it, concerning who had stated this whole thing. There were accusations of ’rounding up mobs of fans’ flying back and forth from one side to the other (I’m sure the SJWs have a word for that in their Newspeak lexicon… eh, I probably don’t want to know) and of course, accusations of doxxing, threats and harassment.
Those who supported STGRB claimed that their books had been criticised unfairly, and that when this occurred more often than not the friends and followers of these feminist reviewers, many reviewers just as popular, would immediately give their book a correspondingly poor rating on Goodreads without even thinking of actually reading it for themselves—and with many of these being indie authors, drive the average rating of the book down significantly and negatively impact the impressions of potential readers.
Amanda S. Green on Mad Genius Club
“And the tantrums continue” – April 28
The logic of so many of them fails on almost every level, from assigning SP3 as some sort of partner or even tool of GamerGate to fear that if SP3 is successful we might — gasp — get a writer like Diana Gabaldon winning a Hugo and we mustn’t have that because she writes icky romances.
Give me a freaking break. (Yes, I said something different but I’m censoring myself this morning.)
I think it was this last one that sent me screaming into the night. The fear that someone who writes fantasy with a distinct romance bent might be nominated, much less win was so over the top. It was as if those making the complaint truly believes science fiction and fantasy are still pure genres. Obviously they haven’t read much lately. If they had, they would see that there is genre crossing all around. Yes, you can, with a lot of searching, find a pure hard science fiction novel, but they are few and far between. Fantasy has, for years, had some aspect of mystery or romance or the like in it. The mixing of genres, when done well, is a good thing.
I’ll repeat that, mixing of genres when done well is a good thing.
It helps by bringing in readers who might never have picked up a science fiction or fantasy book. That brings more money to the writers and publishers. It will bring in even more new readers as word of mouth spreads. Where is the harm in all that?
The very fact that some of those who are anti-Puppy are afraid that icky romance writers might invade their ivory towers of Awardland simply proves what so many of us have been saying. Those folks have gotten too comfortable with their hold on the awards and refuse to admit, even to themselves, that there might be award-worthy books outside their comfort zone.
John Popham on The Infinite Reach
“The House of Many Rooms” – April 28
Of course, it is an ill wind that blows no one good. If nothing else, the sturm und drang surrounding the Hugos appears to have re-energized the larger science fiction community’s engagement with the Hugo voting process. George R. R. Martin commented in his blog post What Now? that a air of complacency has surrounded the nomination process in recent years, with many Worldcon members abdicating the nomination process to a small group of Worldcon insiders. As I pointed out in 2,122, for every voter who submitted a nominating ballot this year, at least seven of the ~16,000+ eligible voters did not. I’d expect to see next year’s nominations get a lot of love from the science fiction community. With more fans voting, the 2016 nominations should represent a much broader cross-section of (lower-case) fandom’s population.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the Hugo Awards’ current open nomination process will survive beyond 2016. George R. R. Martin wrote in the same blog post that Worldcon members currently in control are crafting changes to the voting rules. The proposed changes are intended to preclude interlopers from nominating ‘undeserving’ authors and their works for Hugo Awards in the future. By definition, such rule changes would have to limit the democratic nature of the nominating process; shifting influence from the general public (who can buy a supporting Worldcon membership for $40) to insiders who can be, it is supposed, counted on to nominate works that reflect the will of Worldcon’s current movers and shakers.
Moira J. Moore on Archives of the Triple S
“moiraj.livejournal.com/364402.html” – April 28
Many people have come to feel that it doesn’t matter who gets what award at the Hugos this year, because the whole thing is tainted. There will always be an asterisk beside the awards handed out. To me, Schubert’s announcement is a stunt. Schubert is rejecting what has turned out to be a worthless award – leaving it so late that they can’t actually take the name off the ballots – and trying to look like he’s taking a moral stand, when he’s really just making the Sad Puppies’ argument for them. And pimping out his magazine.
Will McLean on A Commonplace Book
“Keep Calm and Carry On” – April 28
Team Puppies are not, in my opinion, covering themselves with glory at this time. The Sad Puppies are in the awkward position that their slate got a lot of mutual votes from the Rabid Puppies. So they must dance an awkward dance between “We have no association with the Rabids, although we have obviously benefited from their nominations” and “We refuse to disavow the Rabids in any way, because you can’t make us and we don’t want to, and we’re not saying we don’t approve of them, but we won’t say we do approve of them either.” I think they fall between two stools.
Brenda Noiseux on Women Write About Comics
“Hurtful Fandom and the Damage of the Puppies” – April 28
Since the location of each year’s Worldcon is selected by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) two years prior to the date of that convention, dedicated volunteers are working for two years to produce a great experience for their fellow fans in the community. On top of that, committees bid for the site of the Worldcon, a process that can take an additional one or more years. That means that volunteers could be working on a convention three to four years in advance.
Which brings me to why the slate voting campaign has bothered me so much that I don’t want to think about it. Producing Worldcon and celebrating the winners of the Hugo Award is a gigantic all volunteer collaborative effort. For a small group of disgruntled fans, to take advantage of a loophole raises a giant middle finger to all those who dedicated countless hours to the hard work of making the Worldcon, the science fiction and fantasy community, and ultimately the Hugos better. That people who claim to be fans and part of this community could do something so hurtful, feels so personal and leaves me feeling raw.
Yes, there are issues in the literary science fiction community. Yes, there needs to be more diversity in the works that are encouraged and celebrated while at the same time retaining the high standards. Yes, there needs to be an embracing of new fans, younger fans, more diverse fans.
Change is never easy nor does it happen overnight. Positive organic change is happening in the science fiction and fantasy community, and I’ll keep doing my part and putting in the hard work to help it along.
Sandy Ryalls on Black Gate
“The Proxy Culture War for the Soul of Middle-Earth” – April 27
Privilege Distress and the Proxy in the Proxy War
Privilege distress is better defined here than anything I can manage. For those who aren’t going to read another article: privilege distress is the feeling of unease felt by people who are having injustice that works in their favor re-addressed.
It’s a permanent fixture in the culture war, and most political discourse. There’s a reason that Republicans play well with white men and Democrats play well with women and members of racial minorities. That reason is that the broad strokes of the culture war are whether we want a society which favors those it favors, or whether we want one which works for everyone.
One of the major fronts of the culture war in the age of the Internet Native is the ongoing clash between the Social Justice (SJ) movement and the self-proclaimed Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs). Media is a pretty big part of that front because it’s a major principle of the overarching SJ philosophy that culture is important and shapes the rest of society.
SJ activists want geekdom (along with the rest of society) to be a safe, inclusive space.
The MRAs don’t think there is a problem and look upon attempts to change our culture with suspicion and hostility.
To MRA’s, the fact that women have buying power in the media sphere and people have ways of having social discourse that doesn’t pander to white maleness is a threat. This isn’t just ideology. It’s also identity.
I mention the Republicans because Coriella did. Because he flat-out crowed that the vandalization of the Hugos was an act of red state, culture war, privilege distress and he linked it to the gamer movement which responded to mild criticism of some video games with death threats, the leaking of personal information, and a threat to shoot up a university.
The proxy part is where this intersects with geekdom. One of the unfortunate shared experiences of most geeks is bullying. Most geeks feel outside of social normality because they’ve been put there by other people. The trauma carried by a lot of geeks surrounding this is very real and very unfortunate.
It’s also true that, in a lot of ways, the SJ philosophy is born of an intellectual liberalism; that its adherents go beyond geekdom; that it can often take a snooty, condescending tone; that outrage is certainly in its playbook; that problematic parts of geekdom can be caricatured in ways that are reminiscent of the bullying faced by a lot of white male geeks.
This makes it very easy for the places where the MRAs meet geekdom to paint the places where the SJ activists meet geekdom as judgmental, insurgent, outsiders intent on stripping away their solace and condemning them for the unforgivable sin of being a weirdo. To tie that white male geek identity with an antipathy to SJ activists as a group rather than engaging with the issues which are actually being fought over.
T. L. Knighton
“Tale of Two Fandoms” – April 28
First, let’s look at the CHORFs. Yes, I’m going to use it, and I really don’t care how bad someone we accuse of being a CHORF claims it’s never going to be a thing. Mostly because it is, so she can get over it. CHORFs also tend to lean left politically, but not universally.
The CHORFs tend to prefer more literary science fiction, which is fine. I don’t care for it, but the world isn’t built around my preferences. However, that’s not where it ends. The CHORFs seem to feel that they are the arbiters of taste and decency. They feel they’re also the arbiters of morality. They know why a bisexual person disagrees with them about things, and it’s things like self-hate and homophobia (and a bi person can be homophobic? Does that mean a black person actually can be racist?) because no sane person could possibly disagree with them.
CHORFs tend to control awards, because historically they’ve been the group that really cares about that sort of thing. They’re the masters of the whisper campaigns, the rallying of their buddies to get their names on the ballot quietly and behind the scenes, but would never do something as unseemly as try to rally supporters in public…unless they do it, then it’s totes different because reasons.
Mark Hemingway in The Weekly Standard
“Revenge of the Nerds” – April 27
[Note: TWS has given a new timestamp to the same piece linked here on April 17, if you were reading the roundup then.]
For more than 50 years, the Hugo Awards have been handed out at the annual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) to honor the best science fiction and fantasy writing of the previous year. But when the nominees for this year’s Hugos were announced, it touched off a firestorm unlike any in the awards’ history.
That’s because so many of this year’s nominees are perceived (not always correctly) to be conservative or libertarian. A group of right-leaning science fiction authors organized a campaign to stuff this year’s Hugo Awards ballot with writers they felt had been overlooked.
Kgbooklog in a comment on More Words, Deeper Hole:
Maybe it’s time for a new rule: If 10% or more of the finalists decline their nomination, the Hugo Award is canceled for that year and the time and space reserved for the award ceremony is used for the Business Meeting instead. (If I’m counting right, we’re up to 7.5% this year so far.)
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
Vile Minion pride – April 28
Dear Evil Legion of Evil, It has come to my attention that our vile faceless minions, in their abject loyalty to Our Evilness, crave more than the mere lash of our whips, the daily sustenance of SJW blood, and the occasional bones of an SJW on which to gnaw. Such is their pride in the growing spread of the dark shadow over lands hitherto unengulfed that they have begged for badges of recognition with which they can strike yet more fear into our craven and cowardly foes.
It is, of course, exceedingly risible to imagine that we should raise them up to the extent of providing them with names. Or, as one minion, who is unfortunately no longer with us after an accident that involved six Hellhounds and the untimely ringing of a dinner bell, once had the temerity to suggest, pay them wages. But it occurred to me, in a stroke of Indubitably Evil Genius, that it might be useful to be able to tell the difference between these otherwise indistinguishable, and indeed, faceless, creatures. Therefore, in my Tender yet Sinister Mercy, I have graciously acceded to their pleas.
Nate on The Pan Galactic Blogger Blaster
“Slight Design Change” – April 26
I am Number 1.
I am Nate… and I approve this message.
Dammit.
[Vox Day wrote that the first batch of numbered icons was gone in 45 minutes.]
Sean Wallace on Facebook – April 28
Without context, for James Nicoll, Mike Glyer, Michael J. Walsh, and Nick Mamatas: “Highlights included moderating the guest-of-honor interview with Tor publisher Tom Doherty (in which he revealed the facts that ebooks account for only $400,000 of Tor’s $100,000,000 annual gross sales, and that it now takes printing three mass-market paperbacks to sell one (it used to be that you only had to print two to get one to actually sell); and that SF (as opposed to fantasy) actually grew eight percent for Tor last year).”—Robert Sawyer’s website, 2005
Nick Mamatas in a comment to Sean Wallace on Facebook – April 28
Last year Tor grossed seven dollars, and killed and ate interns for food, and took out four mortgages on the Flatiron Building to get John Scalzi on the Dayton Daily News best-seller list for a single Thursday afternoon and in fact they are already bankrupt, out of business, and everyone has been fired and Tor exists only as one of those fannish in-jokes in the Hugo Awards, like Cordwainer Bird. Forever and ever, Amen.
[And finally, Sad Puppies meets Godwin’s Law.]
La scalata fascista del premio Hugo per la fantascienza http://t.co/DllfqArup3 #hugoawards via @carmillaonline pic.twitter.com/vzrtiiIfMv
— occhiopesto (@occhiopesto) April 28, 2015
Seen on Facebook today… 🙂 pic.twitter.com/Vz9kMw48Ax
— AmyCat ???? #ByeDon! (@BookUniverse) April 28, 2015
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Theo: It’s not the Hugo ballot – that is a problem, but I am solving it by gleefully voting No Award to lots of categories, and I think I will make a point not to read any of it just to annoy you – it’s the strutting and posturing and pronouncing of you guys that I find hilarious. OK, I tell a lie, some of you are just boring and lame, Kratman for example can’t even insult people creatively, but you have moments of pure comedy genius.
Frankly, in the great scheme of things, the Hugos are not very important. I mean, you can game the system for a while, you can even buy Tor, who knows? stranger things have happened. What does it matter? I wasn’t buying John C. Wright’s books before, I can continue not buying them whoever is publishing them. There will still be good books out there, there will still be smart and witty fans, and clever cat cartoons. Even the size of the fail-fandom-anon threads on your antics are growing smaller. Which is a pity ‘cos they were funny. So I am enjoying the show, for as long as it’s going on. By the time the next convention I’m attending rolls around, there will be another scandal du jour, and we will be happily discussing something else – very probably Ann Leckie’s new book.
Yes, it will be a pity if the Hugos are unreliable as an indicator of quality for a few years, but there are other awards. Fandom is a lot bigger than a few rockets. Fandom is a lot of people busily, patiently, competently doing their thing to make things like WorldCon happen, and I have been to a lot of WorldCons and the Hugos were a small part of that. One year I was standing in the cold to make sure that people didn’t cross into the danger zone where the fireworks were going off after the Hugo ceremony was over, and I was very happy indeed to be making friends by gophering instead of being in the auditorium – because that’s fandom. Life will go on, you know?
Meanwhile, your twirling moustache thing is adorable. And you are inspiring a lot of people to write great prose – Scalzi’s piece was a pleasure to read, and so was Sandifer’s. Please, do carry on, although I’m afraid you’ll be having diminishing returns.
VD may have more flying monkeys next year, but he’s going to have a much harder time conscripting human shields. And Sad Puppies may regret the slateyness of their 2015 slate, and put up something more like an actual suggestion list with more suggestions than ballot slots. That will make it harder for Day to use the SPs to boost his own signal.
Daveon: “That is the usage I’m using, its the usage that Nick, NelC, Rick, Mike OGH and all the others disagreeing with you are using.”
I appreciate your trying to make an intelligent point. At the risk of pedanticism, yr. humble servant actually made a point of opting out of irrelevant tussling over dictionary definitions of words. There’s a post I wrote about that on my wife’s blog that I was surprised to see Theo quote from over on blogspot as the basis for his ‘Why Sun Tsu Still Matters’ editorial (though he quoted a slightly different snippet):
[Commenter ‘BankerPup’ had asked me ‘Do you have an opinion on what makes a slate a slate that you’d like to share?’]
I replied:
rm> “Who, me? I’m not sure I care to editorialise on what is a ‘slate’ and what isn’t — but I’ll chance some metacommentary. I’ve seen a lot of really crappy, time-wasting argumentation in the last few days (such as a couple of jokers over at File770.com) regurgitating various dictionary definitions of ‘slate’ and purporting to prove thereby that some canines or other either did one or not. I don’t propose to add to that pile of dross.”
“Point is, it’s irrelevant what some dictionary defines a ‘slate’ to be. Irrespective of whether that English word is absolutely ‘le mot juste’, I think it’s abundantly clear what about the Beale and Torgersen campaigning and (apparent) acquisition of nomination votes has made habitual Hugo voters and Worldcon co-goers very annoyed and (in my estimation) in a mood to terminate what they see as behaviour hostile to the Worldcon.”
“Call it a slate or call it Betsy and put a nightgown on it. Arguing about its correct name is missing the point. I am very sure that habitual Hugo voters have not missed the point, and the only immediate question is which way those amazingly inflated (and spectacularly growing) numbers of supporting memberships are leaning on balance.”
Meh, indeed, you are correct. I need to let go of the ‘prove X’, X is proven, ‘oh, no, not X, I meant Y, prove Y’ and so on and so forth that we have here over:
– what is a slate
– what is a ‘good’ book
– how Amazon rankings are a great guide to ‘good’
– how everybody against puppies is an ‘SJW’/of low sexual rank/intellectually changed/homogeneous
– how this has always happened
– how old and fuddy duddy the WorldCon is versus the cool hip young new things… like a 46 year old White guy who lives in Europe, or another mid-40s white writer, or an early 40s white writer, or a late 30s white male writer etc… seriously, Portuguese? Really?
Anyway, it’s astounding how things go around and then the same group turn up on a new thread making the same points afresh.
Andrew (1:08pm), you appear to have missed the many times that people have pointed out that each Worldcon is a separate entity. Any additional net income which may be received by SWOC, the Washington state non-profit corporation running Sasquan, as a result of higher membership in this year’s Worldcon, has no bearing on the finances of MASFFC, Inc., the corporation running MidAmeriCon II next year, nor on the finances of whatever organization will run the 2017 Worldcon or any later years. And yes, I know there are traditionally “pass-along funds”, which are a tradition and not an obligation. And Worldcons which have had a net loss (e.g. Baltimore in 1993 and Nippon in 2007) have not kept future Worldcons from awarding the Hugos.
James: It sounds like you’re talking about the Grinnell System, in which a team shoots three pointers, uses the full court press all game long and substitutes frequently. It has led to a small Division III school leading the nation in scoring for 17 out of 19 seasons.
Alexvdl @ 1:49 pm- You asked me a polite question. I believe under the current definitions, that makes you a sea-lion. Welcome to the club.
And to answer you, no. Historically, there can be and have been unwritten rules. But going back almost 4,000 years, people recognized the potential for abuse posed by unwritten rules. As the identity of the insiders who know the unwritten rules change, or their opinions change, or their self-interest changes, the unwritten rules themselves change so there is no continuity, no stability, no faith in the law. Hammurabi recognized the potential for abuse and required his laws to be written and posted in each village.
Today such things as secret clubs and little boys in their treehouses still have unwritten rules. Violation of the unwritten rules can result in expulsion or being mocked by their friends. But secret clubs (Skull and Bones!) and young boys in treehouses are not notorious for fair dealing and even handedness.
WorldCon is not a secret club (though I’ve noticed several members acting like little boys who’ve discovered a girl in their treehouse). WorldCon is very public, very open and very democratic. And it’s rules are written.
Kevin Standlee, who is far more versed in this than I am for very obvious reasons, can correct me but Article 2 of the WSSF Constitution appears to say the Hugo Awards are to be administered in accordance with the Constitution and Standing Rules. It requires that WSSF Constitution and Rules be published and delivered to attending members, including proposed changes. The Standing Rules also outline the processes to make a rule. Again, one of those is publication and distribution to the members. At the risk of being a sea-lion, have the unwritten rules been published and distributed to all attending members? And how was this accomplished?
The answer is WSSF has no unwritten rules. What I think people mean by an “unwritten rule” is tradition, custom, practice, etc. However, even these are also supposed to be codified (written up) per the Standing Rule 7.7.
SP/RP complied with the written rules. Those who don’t like it can refer back to their list of secret unwritten rules and, maybe, bring them forward at the business meeting so those rules can be debated and voted on. I’d be curious as to what other unwritten rules are out there. As a member, I wouldn’t want to inadvertently violate one.
You asked me a polite question. I believe under the current definitions, that makes you a sea-lion.
No, constantly asking the same questions over and over again, then re-framing it when you get an answer you don’t want is the Sealioning bit. Ask about a slate? Get a definition you don’t like. Reject it and ask for more. Ask about rules. Get a reply you don’t like. Reject it and ask for more. Repeat ad nauseum.
The answer is WSSF has no unwritten rules. What I think people mean by an “unwritten rule” is tradition, custom, practice, etc. However, even these are also supposed to be codified (written up) per the Standing Rule 7.7.
It burns Rick, IT BURNS!
Steve Moss:
Honestly, when you are saying that there are no unwritten rules, the only thing you’re really saying is that you haven’t got the social competence to notice them. Even when people write them on your nose.
“Today such things as secret clubs and little boys in their treehouses still have unwritten rules.”
Why did you omit the possibility of little girls in their cubby houses having unwritten rules?
At the risk of repeating what has been said before. The Puppies have broken no rules… they have broken a multi-decade ‘gentlemen’s’ agreement about not doing what they have done ( insert space for more regurgiposting about when a slate isn’t a slate, that GRRM said everybody did it, and a dozen other things asked and answered )… they have done so for no clear reason, at least none that stand scrutiny ( secret cabals, too much ‘message’ fiction, TNH hurt my feelings, Trufans were rude to me etc… )
So, sure, they could do, it wasn’t against the rules. It doesn’t mean that the people who abided by those rules have to be happy about it.
Now others could counter with more formal slates – in the meaning of the word that I and everybody else _except_ Steve Moss is using – but that essentially breaks the whole point of the nomination process. So what is likely to happen is that the people who actually can be bothered to go to the convention and attend the WSFS meeting, will tighten those rules to make gaming the nomination process harder in the future.
When this was proposes, however, Theodore Beale stated that he would effectively destroy the Hugos rather than let that happen – whatever he means by that.
But we’ve been over this. You’ve said all these things before, and we’ve said all of this back to you and now you’re trying to rehash it again in a different way while pretending you’re being reasonable. That’s being a Sealion.
Oink. Oink. Clap.
Would you like a ball to balance too? Or would you like to dispute the meaning of ‘slate’ again? Or ask for a link to where Theodore Beale said those things? Or ask for a definition of Gentlemen’s agreement? Or any of the other things you do next in this un-ending sequence of splashing you’re indulging in?
> Today such things as secret clubs and little boys in their treehouses still have unwritten rules. Violation of the unwritten rules can result in expulsion or being mocked by their friends.
All organizations consisting of more than a handful of people have unwritten rules. The formation, and the adherence to, unwritten rules is a basic part of human social interaction; among other things, recognition and adherence to the rules is used to signify group membership.
I’m married to diagnosed with high functioning Asperger’s. One of the ways that this manifests is that he has difficulty detecting and understanding unwritten social rules, and as a result he has a hard time bonding with most social groups. It’s an interesting thing for me to watch.
“”I nominate this statement for an award for the greatest oxymoron of the year.””
Maybe it’s too early and I haven’t had enough coffee, but I don’t see how this follows.”
There already are several awards for romance novels, it seems.
We need a safe space for Science Fiction.
If you feel that there is a need for an award for Romance Novels with a Hint of Science, Selkies, Dinosaurs, Space Piracy or even novels that deal with anyone’s idealized view of relations between men and women with a hint of Science or whatever, you can suggest to various bodies that such an award be created.
Romance does not belong in Science Fiction and vice versa.
If you want to get all social-sciencey, it’s mores and folkways that prevented most actors (except the Scientologists) from engaging in legal exploitation of the rules, and honestly, based on the reports I’ve read, the Scientologist exploit was radically different. It was closer to the campaign to get The Wheel of Time on the ballot, only with actual sponsored vote-buying, not just banking on the popularity of a freight-train of a bestseller.
The 1989 (?) scandal was actually a rules violation, buying memberships for people who didn’t know memberships were being bought for them and voting for them. The evidence of a series of sequential postal money orders from the same shop was pretty damning evidence.
> Romance does not belong in Science Fiction and vice versa.
The Second part of _The Gods Themselves_ was arguably a Romance.
We never write down rules until someone breaks one of the unwritten rules. For instance, there wasn’t a rule against using flame throwers in the masquerade until someone used a flame thrower in the masquerade. Don’t even ask about peanut butter.
@BeyondAnon “Romance does not belong in Science Fiction and vice versa.”
Could someone please tell Lois McMaster Bujold she needs to return a bunch of Hugos? Tim Powers, please step out of the genre. Dunsany, we’re exhuming you and removing you from the SF/F Writer’s Graveyard.
Or is it only books by Harlequin you object to, BeyondAnon?
I pity your poor, paltry, tiny genre, sir, that it needs such high fences and strong walls erected around it.
Morris Keesan says:
They’re an opt-in obligation. A con pledges to pass part of its surplus (if it has one) along to the next three cons which also promise to pass along part of their surplus. IIRC, Sasquan and MidAmeriCon II are both participating, and all of the 2017 bids have said they will too. So any surplus which emerges from Sasquan will affect their budgets in a small way.
OTOH, to answer Andrew’s original point, a spike in memberships doesn’t necessarily mean a surplus. All those supporting members get a copy of the con publications. Printing and mailing them to other continents costs the con more than $40/member. Even if most of those new members are in the US (as seems likely given that it’s a US culture war being brought into the Hugos), they’re not contributing much to Sasquan’s bottom line.
I thought the programs etc. were on request, not mandatory.
@BeyondAnon: Romance does not belong in Science Fiction and vice versa.
You’ll have to pry my copy of A Civil Campaign out of my cold, dead SFF-fan fingers. Because the gloriously doomed dinner scene is to die for. And the genetically engineered butterbugs are… icing?… on that cake.
@Milt Stevens: Don’t even ask about peanut butter.
OGH was on the case. I wasn’t there in ’72, but can picture it. Among other senses.
“[Scott] Shaw laughs as he retells the grim details in his video. Thanks to him, Rotsler’s Rules for Masquerades [PDF file] admonishes fans —
7. Parts of your costume should not be edible or smell. Parts of your costume should not fall off accidentally, brush off against other contestants, or be left lying around on the stage.”
Romance does not belong in Science Fiction and vice versa.
What about Planetary Romances? Or Time Travel Romances? Or Day Million?
It’s Bellet. Not Bellett. One t, not pronounced (like ballet but with an e).
🙂
@Rick Moen:
I’m going to have to disagree with you there. I’m in the process of editing an indie author’s first book, a romance that is only made possible because of a fantasy element. I could certainly see it working as an SF tale, but not set in the present day, which is a key factor as written.
Nick Mamatas, what the WSFS Constitution says is, “1.5.2: The rights of supporting members of a Worldcon include the right to receive all of its generally distributed publications.” I don’t know whether recent Worldcons have interpreted this as being “on request”: the last time I had a supporting membership in a Worldcon was in 1985, and I’m sure that I got all of the publications without having to make any special requests.
Oops – sorry, Rick, I meant to address that to Beyond Anon. Mea culpa.
Nick Mamatas @ 1:51 pm- In your opinion, both I and Meriam-Webster’s Dictionary is wrong. Thank you for your opinion. In my opinion, you are wrong. If we were in a bar, I’d offer you a beer and change the subject.
Daveon @ 1:52 pm- I would be very interested in reading your Harvard trained immigration attorney’s brief on the issue, as opposed to your interpretation of your Harvard trained immigration attorney’s opinion. I stand willing to be persuaded. To my knowledge, police and prosecutorial discretion is very much part of the written law (usually case law). It’s what empowers them to let you go with a warning, if caught speeding, or if a prosecutor thinks you committed a heinous crime but thinks he lacks evidence to convict, to decline to pursue charges.
You might be referring to selective enforcement. This is when a prosecutor selectively targets people/criminals. If it is for a rational reason (i.e. we only prosecute people who publically confess to dodging the draft as we lack the resources to investigate all the claims), the courts allow it. If it is for improper reasons (i.e., the prosecutor hates blacks and orders that plea offers must be 5 years more for blacks than whites), the courts don’t. The Courts have published standards that prosecutors can refer to, or aggrieved citizens, when it comes to selective enforcement claims. And yes, as a selective enforcement claim places the burden of proof on the aggrieved, sometimes prosecutors get away with things they should not. The lack of proof is a potential problem in every case. But that isn’t because the rules are unwritten.
Daveon @ 1:55 pm- Are you actually asking me to rely on wikipedia as a source, as opposed to a dictionary? I think my children’s elementary school teacher would like to have a word with you about proper research and sourcing.
For sake of discussion, however, I’ll adopt your additional phrase of “have the same or similar policies, or some other reason.” So what? It’s not wrong for Torgersen and Corriea to promote writers which they believe are good and have been neglected, just like it is not wrong for GRRM, Moher, etc. to promote and list books he thinks are good and he wants to draw his fans attention to (shock, horror), or Scalzi promoting his own works and, occasionally, those of his friends (which he doubtless thinks are good). The common policy is the promotion of good books. You’ll then argue that SP/RP is about politics. I’ll respond that SP/RP nominated a diverse group of writers from a wide variety of backgrounds, and if politics are involved, it’s the benefits that an insular group (fandom) grants to its members (just how many Hugo nominations due some people have, compared to the greats?). You’ll deny fandom rewards it’s own and allege that SP/RP are either tokens or meat shields. I’ll think you’re denying the obvious and you’ll reciprocate.
Have I got it right?
I also see no difference between a list or slate, whether of 1 book or of 20, as both all the promoters have a common theme, promote good books. So I fail to see the problem, other than Torgersen and Corriea have been more effective than most (mostly as they appear to be more liked by their fan base or their fan base is more energized). If you dislike slates (or lists), and you do, then propose a rule change. I’d love to see the factors you’d provide to determine the pure or evil hearted intentions of the publisher of the list (good) or slate (bad).
rcade @ 1:59- A “longtime commentator” at Vox Day’s site? I’m not sure how long I’ve been aware of Day’s existence (I think about the time SP2 blew up, but I could be wrong). I think I’ve posted on his site 6-12 times, more or less, total. I’ve disagreed with him and his posters about the Ukraine intervention (I was for it), defended GRRM and Jim Butcher, hoped the USMNT advanced in the World Cup, agreed with criticisms of so called pink SF/F and the assault weapons ban, and acknowledged that there might be a genetic component as to why Kenyans (a fragment of the world’s population) win the majority of the world’s marathons. I think that’s about it. I’ve also posted on many other SF/F websites, including but not limited to, Torgersen, Corriea, GRRM, Will Shetterly, Steven Brust (including one where I asked him to remember the people who drive BMWs might also be one of his fans), Jim Butcher (690 times, this does not include his email list before the website) and many others. By way of comparison, I’ve posted on the soccer team I support’s website over 4,000 times over 6 or so years.
So at the risk of being called a sea-lion again (I’m becoming fond of the animal), exactly what is the basis for your accusation that I’m a longtime commentator on Vox Day’s site or are you simply making things up as you lack the moral fortitude to discuss the substance of the issues civilly and rationally?
James @ 2:05 pm- That’s called tactics. I’m sure the Spartans had similar complaints about Epaminondas’ unconventional battle plan at Leuctra.
I thought there wasn’t a formal definition of science fiction as regards Hugo nominees, that whatever the voters chose to nominate would be put on the ballot.
That of course includes fantasy (although not, apparently, very often).
And fantasy does not require one iota of science.
Romantic fantasies, I should think, would be a welcome stretching of the bounds of what is considered good Hugo material, and from what I hear romance fandom could teach SFF fandom a thing or two about running conventions and community outreach.
At any rate, I see no reason to object should enough fans find a fantasy romance well written enough to nominate it for a Hugo.
No Steve, not in my opinion. Nobody who knows anything about any particular topic finds general-use dictionaries acceptable for terms of art. A list of all Presidents is a slate if you have your way, as is a list of all New Jersey politicians found guilty of corruption since 1803. Clearly that makes the idea of a slate meaningless.
Go find a legit source about voting, elections, or political science that agrees with you or acknowledge that you have no idea what you are taking about.
“… what is the basis for your accusation that I’m a longtime commentator on Vox Day’s site …”
A web search of his site and a calendar.
Re: Supporting memberships receiving publications
from memory, you can chose between receiving publications by physical mail, or via email. Additionally, if you have multiple members living in the same house, they can opt to receive one set of publications for the household.
(I’m in Australia, so I chose the email option so as to not burden them with additional postage costs. Also, my wife hates clutter, so I probably wouldn’t get away with maintaining a collection of worldcon programs.)
Annie Bellet: Fixed now. Thanks for pointing the mistake.
Rick Moen @ 214 pm- Spot on. This dross is addictive. Don’t take the first hit, even if it’s for free. 🙂
Daveon @ 2:45 pm- I think you must be referring to someone else. I don’t believe I’ve asked you to prove your definition of “slate”. Instead, I’ve asserted mine and disagreed with your opinion.
Beyond Anon @ 2:53 pm- Failing to reference a possibility, is not excluding the possibility. Also I know more about boys in treehouses (having been one) than I do about girls in their playhouses.
Daveon @ 2:56 pm- Finally! Something upon which we might agree.
rcade @ 4:32 pm- Then we have vastly different interpretations as to what it is to be a “longtime commentator.”
Steve Moss: Did you miss this bit?
( insert space for more regurgiposting about when a slate isn’t a slate, that GRRM said everybody did it, and a dozen other things asked and answered )
No, 1 person is not a slate – except, it seems in your head. Nice try though. I don’t believe for a second that you’re actually not getting this so we’re back to no standard of evidence being good enough for you. Sealioning in it’s best form, good for you, why yes it is annoying. All your points have been asked before, and they’ve been answered before, ignoring the previous answers and reposting them in a slightly different way doesn’t change the answer.
If you really are struggling with the concept of breaking the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law, I just googled that query and there are about 23 million articles on it. So given this is obviously a gap in your knowledge, I’d suggest you start reading. I’d give you Karol’s number but she’s busy and she charges for consultations.
Interestingly for you, as I assume you’re American, there are whole branches of constitutional law that are based on the distinction and how it applies. Have fun, I’d say you’d find it educational but I suspect you won’t.
Lol, I had ten times as many views on my blog today as I’ve had on my best days since starting the blog–and I’m pretty sure those days came from family members discovering it. WordPress didn’t inform me until about five minutes ago that I’d been linked to from here, and I didn’t notice that there was a section on the stats page that told you where your views had been referred from until a couple of hours ago, so I had no idea what was going on–now I really wish I’d done more research before writing up my post, and used the term ‘SJW’ less: looking over my own work now makes me think of myself as kind of childish–ironic, as I criticised others for that same behaviour in the post!
All the same, thank you very much for taking notice!
examples of some unwritten rules not just for boys in a secret treehouse club …
– don’t swear in church
– don’t go back for seconds until everybody has had firsts
– thank people even for gifts you don’t like
– don’t run up the score on a weaker team
break these rules if you like, there will be no legal consequence … but don’t be surprised if people don’t like you and don’t invite you back to church/dinner/Christmas parties/ballgames.
“I am solving it by gleefully voting No Award to lots of categories, and I think I will make a point not to read any of it just to annoy you”
Thank you, very useful indeed. Just tweeted that.
“It is within the rules, Kip, but I’ve never yet known a skunk to be welcome at a picnic.”
RAH
Well Theo you can quote me that I’m trying to read all of it just incase there’s a hidden gem.
daveon, good luck, I’ve been making my way through the short stories, novellas and novelettes, and so far haven’t even encountered a competently polished turd.
Steve Moss:
*BZZT* Wrong answer. As Dave said. And I have personal experience of it. Cheryl Morgan was coming and going to the USA multiple times over several years, never broke the letter of the law (I know that she was very careful to keep track of her time in-country and to never overstay either the single-stay or total-days-per-year limits), and the US immigration people on their own volition and their own discretion deported her. No appeal. No recourse.
This is not some castle-in-the-air theory. It’s real. It’s part of why Cheryl Morgan is the second Hugo Award winner whom I know (Peter Watts is the other) who is forbidden to enter the USA.
So don’t spout theories at me. I have seen how the system works on the sharp end of it, and it’s not pretty at all. Individual human beings have complete control over other people’s lives, and as far as I can tell, there is nothing anyone at all can do about it. Welcome to Fortress America.
James:
I think it was before the adoption of the shot clock in college basketball. A team got the lead, and then put the ball into a “freeze” for a huge amount of time, not trying to score, but just to keep the ball out of the hands of the opposition and run out the clock. It wasn’t illegal, but it was completely against the spirit of the rules. the NCAA responded by changing the rules and instituting a shot clock.
What we may see here is something similar, in which people appear to have violated the spirit of the rules but not their letter. Other people are responding in the short term by vowing the vote No Award above any work they think broke the spirit of the rules (this is not illegal either) and in the long term changing the rules to make such behavior more difficult.
Daveon @ 4:41 pm- So we’re no longer discussing the “unwritten rule”, but have moved on to allegedly violating the “spirit of the law”.
What WSFS law (or rule) has SP/RP violated the spirit of? In other words, what rule did SP/RP violate the intent of?
The Constitution and Standing Rules aren’t that terribly long. I scanned the Flyspeck Committee’s notes in only a few minutes (and especially liked that an 11 year old member was allowed to second a vote in 1990 and the issue of Pluto as a planet was ruled in order (but never ruled on) in 2006). They are actually kind of interesting. I’d recommend that people look over them. There are records from the 1970s forward; that’s a lot of history.
clif @ 5:12 pm- That’s called good manners, or good sportsmanship in the last example.
Daveon @ 5:33 pm- Good for you. I don’t think anyone can ask for more.
Morris Keesan:
Times actually have changed here. Have a look at Section 1.5.3 of the 2014 WSFS Constitution, and you’ll see this:
1.5.3: Electronic distribution of publications, if offered, shall be opt-in.The strikethru type means that an amendment ratified last year removed a restriction that required Worldcons to explicitly require people to opt in to electronic versions of publications if the Worldcon offered such versions. With the restriction lifted, the Worldcon now can define “generally distributed” to mean that electronic versions are the default unless the member specifically requests paper publications. Sasquan is the first Worldcon held under this new version of the rules. Note that what was removed was a restriction. The Constitution doesn’t say, “Worldcons may offer electronic publications” or anything like that. It doesn’t mention e-pubs at all, which means it’s left up to the individual Worldcon to decide what they want to do with their publications.
The effect of all of the additional memberships on Sasquan depends a lot on whether the members request paper versions of their publications.
In the long run, I expect Worldcons will set their Supporting membership rate in such a way that it only includes e-pubs, and that supporting wanting paper versions of the publications will be charged an supplement that depends upon where they live because of postage charges. This isn’t forbidden now because WSFS doesn’t define “generally distributed.”
I think a case can be made that the “unwritten rule” was that you got paper publications. That’s unraveling now under the increased expense of providing those publications.
Peace Is My Middle Name on April 29, 2015 at 4:20 pm said:
“I thought there wasn’t a formal definition of science fiction as regards Hugo nominees, that whatever the voters chose to nominate would be put on the ballot.”
Nope, there isn’t. The Hugo Administrators will put on the ballot what the membership says to put on the ballot. Though Fantasy isn’t even an edge case, as the Hugo is for SF *and* Fantasy.
They put the Moon Landing on the ballot. They put “Wisdom From my Internets” on the ballot. If we’d told them to, they’d have put Bridges of Madison County on the ballot (and then a ton of us would vote it below No Award).
As a sad, Sad Puppy, I thought I would offer my perspective – if nothing else it will give you folks someone new to chew on… xdpaul and Steve Moss have been getting a workout…
Why am I a sad, Sad Puppy? Because I came across the Sad Puppy campaign, got intrigued, read the suggestions, and nominated several of them. I was much richer for the experience and am grateful to Larry and Brad.
I participated in Larry’s book bombs and encountered several new authors that I really liked – whose work I subsequently nominated. I eagerly awaited the arrival of the Hugo ballot and was thrilled that several of the works that I nominated were there. And then came the explosion of anger and bad feelings, etc. No need to rehash the details of all the subsequent unpleasantness…
Unfortunately, there was too much Puppy Success and quite a few folks are pissed. I can understand that, but I think it is really a shame that so many authors got attacked who did not deserve to be. I nominated stories by Annie Bellet and Kary English that touched me. Neither of them deserved the abuse that they got as a result of their nomination. I have read some really mean-spirited attacks on Kara’s work in particular that made me shake my head and reflect on the unkindness of mobs…
I also had to shake my head in amazement at the whole kerfluffle about notifying folks that they were recommended – or put on the slate. I know there has been long discussions about what is/isn’t a slate, etc. Anybody who googles “my hugo nomination” will come across lots of ballot recommendations. I doubt if anybody who made one contacted the authors involved to see if they agreed to be listed. Yes – I get it that there is a difference between displaying your ballot and making recommendations and the Sad Puppies Campaign – but I think a fair assessment is that the main difference is in the success of the propositions (and the notion that SP3 was politically motivated – which I would disagree with).
At one point I almost regretted my participation with SP3 given the outcome; but, on further consideration – I was proud to vote for both Annie and Kary’s work and the work of several others from the Sad Puppies ballot. I was also proud to vote for Tom Kratman and John Wright’s work (I was already a fan of both prior to the Sad Puppies).
While tastes vary and I understand someone not agreeing with me – I deplore the mean spirited attacks against authors who had the fortune/misfortune to have their work recommended by the Sad Puppy campaign.
I will be voting for the works that I think are worthy of the Hugo. I get it that many will be No Awarding as a way to discourage coordinated nominations. But the impact on deserving authors makes me sad…
@ULTRAGOTHA: Heck, they put Chris Garcia’s on-stage Hugo acceptance on the ballot for BDP, just because a significant fraction of Fandom Wanted to Tempt the Gods of Recursion to See What Happens.
(I think if he’d gone on ten minutes longer, the Hugo Administrator would have moved his nomination to BDP Long Form.)
Peace:
No, there isn’t, but also note that in the actual definition of the Hugo Awards, at Section 3.2.1 of the WSFS Constitution, it says:
This means that there is no need to attempt to define some division between “science fiction” and “fantasy.” (This is also why I object to proposals to split Best Novel between SF and F, because there’s no objective way to do so in my opinion.)
This does of course lead to the next question, “What is Science Fiction or Fantasy?” and the definition has heretofore been “What the members collectively point to when they say ‘Science Fiction or Fantasy.'” Of course, the “unwritten rule” has been that no significant number of members would choose to nominate something that is obviously not SF/F and try to force the Administrator’s hand. Administrators have ruled things off the ballot for being insufficiently related to the field, for instance, such as when A Brief History of Time was disqualified for Best Related Book. WSFS voted to broaden the definition of Best Related Book (the category now known as Best Related Work) so that such science books would be eligible in the future.
I see no reason why a romantic SF or Fantasy story wouldn’t be eligible for a Hugo. But a romance with no SF/F elements at all? You’d put the Administrator on the spot and force him/her to have to make a subjective decision, and I know from having been there three times that we hate to do that.
Oh, come on, Rick! It was dramatic as all hell and short, too. 😉
I nominated the Retro Hugo Ceremony from LonCon3 this year.