The First Ever Call For Hugo Bloc Voting

Sad and Rabid Puppies are spending unlimited effort to find old Hugo recommendation lists in order to prove with geometric logic that people were trying to manipulate the awards before they came along.

Allow me to spare you further digging!

I now provide definitive evidence that the earliest appeal to organize bloc voting for the Hugos occurred in the very year the awards were invented.

What may surprise you is that the appeal came from the Philcon II committee itself. See the second paragraph below from the August 1953 Progress Report.

Philcon2r4-03 CROP

116 thoughts on “The First Ever Call For Hugo Bloc Voting

  1. ‘the puppies of various pathologies are progressive social justice warriors?’

    Considering they seem to think SJWs are an over-reactionary mob pushing their own political agenda on social media?

    Yep. They’re SJWs.

  2. @S1AL- My daughter and nephews agree with you. That’s at least 4 votes for Riordan next year.

  3. Yes Mike actually something like that. 🙂

    Something done twice? That’s rite.

    It isn’t all that long ago that worldcon fans were being castigated for being the bastions of conservatism that we obviously are. Except when we’re progressive liberal nutters.

    I am positively dizzy trying to keep up.

    (Says Dave wondering just how far he is going to be able to stick his tongue into his cheek without being injured )

  4. Steve Moss: I’m in the middle of a Riordan series my own daughter loves. Hasn’t he written the book after House of Hades? The Kindle store is drawing a blank.

  5. Then again the ability of fandom to hold and bear a grudge is impressive. I know of fueds dating back decades over restaurant bills. I do wonder how long this one will last.

    Some people think in terms of next year. I’m worried about how this will look in 2064 :p

  6. So blocs happened before? Is there proof?

    I see proof of a a rather tongue-in-cheek call for blocs, but not any proof of bloc voting.

    I mean, this was the fanzine and SF club era. Stuff was written down. Who voted for what?

  7. Also amusing—weren’t bloc voting and slates defined out of existence the other day by the folks now saying that they were happening all along?

  8. Nick: you are not looking at this from the correct zen perspective. Or is that newspeak?

    I’m loosing track.

  9. I’m chaperoning a field trip for my daughter’s class and she informs me it is indeed Blood of Olympus. It’s the last in the second 5 book Percy Jackson series.

    Next up is a Norse mythology featuring a relative of Percy’s girlfriend. She’s seems quite involved in it.

  10. @Nick Mamatas- Nice try. What was actually debated was whether there was a functional difference between a “slate” and a mere list of recommended works.

    As for your demand for more proof, I think that is what is referred to as sea lioning.

  11. Steve Moss, if you define “slate” as any list of candidates, then there is no such thing as a slate. That’s how we *know* you and your insistence on M-W.com was nonsense.

    Oh, and I didn’t ask for *more* proof, I asked for *any* proof. So produce it.

  12. Yes. That is in fact correct Steve. The common language usage of the term slate is common. But you accepted money not to bring that up again if I remember correctly.

  13. @Daveon- That was dependent on the check clearing. It hasn’t.

    Sorry, Nick. I don’t speak sea-lion. Have some fish.

  14. Steve Moss doesn’t have any proof of his claims as usual. He’ll keep makin’ ’em though. Maybe a famous right-wing writer will notice him if he works hard enough on behalf of Puppies here…maybe one will talk to him!

  15. Strangely I *just* lost to the labour students slate when I ran for Student Union President many years ago. If only I had know that their slate of candidates from the same party which people were meant to straight vote for was only a list and didn’t matter.

    *sigh*

  16. I’m astonished that no one seems to have noticed that we have at least one runner-up to Alfred Bester’s Demolished Man., ie Bob Tucker’s Long Loud Silence. In the Howard Devore’s standard reference book on the Hugos, he does NOT list any runnerups to Demolished Man. Is this a bit of Hugo history that has been lost? Are there more nominees in the short form that are mentioned? I’ve never even HEARD of the Tucker book before, and to think that it was good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Bester’s DM makes me want to go to a good used bookstore and find it.

  17. Agree with those above that at least the sad puppies seem to be SJW:s. Their leader at least. Brad Torgersen has a long marxist text up on the class perspective of the Hugos.

    https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/why-do-it/

    In it he takes a stand for the the working poor and how they should reach out for social justice against the corrupt elites. At least we not have a name for the SJW:s. It makes it so much easier when we read the rants from Beale. It is Torgersen he’s referring to.

  18. My thoughts were,

    1) Harlan Ellison Best Fan of 1953??

    2) let’s mount a mock campaign to resolve to retroactively withdraw Alfred Bestor’s (sic) Hugo at the next business meeting, and see how many people take us seriously

    3) can we all get back to campaigning for our favorite stuff now?

  19. James Geer,

    “The Long Loud Silence”

    Oh, wow, look at those stellar reviews from Knight and Kornbluth.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Loud_Silence

    Also:

    “Cyril M. Kornbluth wrote that Tucker’s original ending had the protagonist eat his erstwhile mistress, but that Tucker’s editor persuaded him to have the two join forces instead.”

    Time for an unexpurgated edition?

  20. Mike, CSI: Fanac called. Something about your fingerprints all over a can of Kerosene…

  21. Ed Green: And I’ll have you know, that stuff was not “Smoooooo-oooth!” going down….

  22. Nick,

    “I see proof of a rather tongue-in-cheek call for blocs”

    To get serious for a minute: my reading of this is a little different.

    I would think that “there is still time to do a little campaigning to line up a solid bloc of votes for your favorites” is a tongue-in-cheek recognition of a fact obvious in both August 1953 and April 2015 that proselytizing on behalf your beloved favorite things is a) a core fan instinct and b) a great way to get people interested in participating. Whad’ya know.

  23. You don’t think that it was more an element of, ‘we’ve never done this before, it would be really embarrassing if, like, only 12 people end up voting, ‘cos you know Asimov is going to fucking ask to see the numbers and Heinlein will be standing next to him with a slide rule and an attitude?’

  24. I mean once you know people will vote, it’s kinda tasteless to game the system, especially as a concom…. Just saying. Taste. Mmmm….

  25. Daveon:

    “You don’t think that it was more an element of, ‘we’ve never done this before…”

    Yes it seems like it was partly that, and I’d view Mike’s discovery as less of a “gotcha!” proving that one side is right, and more of an insight into the way a discussion about how fans should approach fan awards has been around since at least the beginning of time.

  26. “It’s really tough for you socially challenged individuals when people don’t telegraph their jokes and follow them up with emoticons, isn’t it.”

    Says the man who took that page as a serious call for bloc voting, and thought that Scalzi was admitting to be a rapist…

  27. “Says the man who took that page as a serious call for bloc voting, and thought that Scalzi was admitting to be a rapist…”

    In light of the revelations about Ed Kramer and Marion Zimmer Bradley, are you absolutely 100 percent confident that John Scalzi did not mean it when he wrote: “I’m a rapist. I’m one of those men who likes to force myself on women without their consent or desire and then batter them sexually.” – John Scalzi, 25 October 2012

    And just so we’re clear, let’s get you on record, Alexvdl. Is it acceptable to joke about raping and battering women?

  28. ‘And just so we’re clear, let’s get you on record, Alexvdl. Is it acceptable to joke about raping and battering women?’

    Lying by omission is still lying.

  29. hahaha.

    Yes, please Mr. Marital Rape Isn’t a Thing, make rape your hill to die. Mr. If You Say a White Person Raped You, You’re Lying is the perfect person to try and denigrate others for what they’ve said about rape.

    Like all subjects, it’s not black and white. Using satire to point out inequalities in the system, and to mock a group of people that are making it much harder to correctly prosecute rape is a lot different than “What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?”

    I mean, we know from your prose that subtlety escapes you, but… there it is.

  30. You didn’t answer the question, Alexvdl. You have insisted that John Scalzi didn’t mean it when he said: “I’m a rapist. I’m one of those men who likes to force myself on women without their consent or desire and then batter them sexually.”

    Now, please stop evading the question and answer it. Do you consider it acceptable to joke about raping and battering women? It’s a yes or no question.

    And since you brought up satire, I’ll add a second question. Do you consider it acceptable to satirize women being raped and battered?

  31. ‘You didn’t answer the question, Alexvdl. ‘

    STOP ECADING THE QUESTION ALEXVDL! He’s got this whole thing set up and he needs his gotcha and you’ve got to walk into the fiendishly clever spring-loaded trap with the bird-seed in the middle of the net and the sign saying ‘fre burd sid’ and the arrow pointing at the bird seed in the trap, and go on go on eat the bird seed Alexvdl, yes or no, the bird seed, the dichotomy, the dialectic, the socratic dialogue the context-freee spring-loaded question, he’s been making a fool of himself saying John Scalzi is a rapist for God knows how long and it’ll all be worth it his the cunning genius will stand revealed if you JUST EAT THE BIRD SEED!

  32. Well, Mr. Beale, I’d have to say that your constant need to reduce things to yes/no answers is part of your problem. Context is a pretty important piece of humor. I explained that clearly. To answer you bluntly “It depends on the joke. Depends on the satire.”

    Of course I don’t expect a lot from someone who wrote “If the definition of rape is stretched so far to include women who have not given consent, then I am absolutely a serial rapist. So, too, is every man I know.”, and then doubled down on it in a recent interview.

  33. Maybe the Hugos need an award for “Year’s Best/Worst Trolling” (just one category). Couldn’t everybody be happy then?

  34. Nobody made any jokes about raping and battering women where we’re talking about.
    Deeply caustic satire about rapISTS, yes. But that’s not the same thing.

  35. Said it before, will say it again, in order for us to know that you’re joking Mr zbeale you need to start adding Mwahahahaha! At the end of the jokes, maybe a picture of you twirling your mustache?

    John Scalzi’s a better writer, it also helps to be able to notice that he was also parodying the style of some stuff being writen in the press at the time. His time as a journalist does help there.

    But seriously, for somebody who hates him you sure do think about his a lot. Do you have somebody to talk to about this?

  36. @Nick,

    “I DON’T SEE PROOF”

    Lord almighty I’m not going to do your research for you. Mike posted a list of slates and recommendations here. Go back and look. He has now posted the 1953 call for block voting, which isn’t evil, in fact it is a normal human tribal thing to do. We are well aware of your tribalism (per @rcade “I saw 0 of my nominees when I normally see 2-6” [ed: paraphrase from memory]). Well we have our own voting blocs…one’s we weren’t _per the stats_ consistent on.

    Not only BLOC voting but a RUNNING TALLY. I would have found such a thing fun but it would have probably caused heart attacks today

    But again, I’m not going to convince you. It is the guys watching you blow past an interesting article and the fan related fun it represents to stand on a soap box and proclaim something that is ludicrous.

    @Daveon,

    “You want to party like its 1953 you get to get all of 1953….”

    Daveon every once in a while you sound rational and then you say things like this. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. If it wasn’t for “all of 1953” we wouldn’t be here. I happen to think it does us good to reflect what Chesterton called the “Democracy of the Dead” did for us. Like say, the polio vaccine being invented, England getting its best monarch in a very long time with Elizabeth the II, the US getting one of its best presidents in Eisenhower (the guy who discussed the oft cited in liberal press military-industrial complex), or the structure of DNA all of which are “all of 1953”.

    But hey, you don’t want any of that. Your call. That willingness to throw out the good of the past with a sneer is one of the problems that the Puppies have with the current crop of SF.

  37. GK,

    Well if it isn’t the old liar, back again, and with a manufactured quote to boot! Yes, of course you won’t do research for me, because as out last thread showed, you lie about what people say, as I showed. Remember the whole “message fic” thing?

    No, Mike has never produced a list of slates (liar) and recommendations aren’t slates (liar), and no you are certainly not aware of “my” tribalism (liar) as you have no idea how I vote, and has already been explained a bloc is not defined by 100 percent compliance with straight-ticket voting (not a lie, but just another sign of the sort of intellect you’re bringing to this discussion).

  38. “We are well aware of your tribalism (per @rcade “I saw 0 of my nominees when I normally see 2-6 …”

    Calling it tribalism when I vote for Hugos as an individual, in concert with no one else, is ridiculous. You live in an up-is-down world.

  39. It’s especially silly for GK to accuse me of tribalism based on what someone else said, while he simply apes the tired old talking points of his allies.

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