aka The Puppies Who Fell Up
Another burst of substantive, idea-filled posts highlight today’s roundup. The roll call includes Jeb Kinnison, Jaye Em Edgecliff, Brandon Kempner, Jeff Duntemann, Steve Davidson, Anthony Vicino, William Shaw and Kate Paulk. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Laura Resnick and Jack Lint.)
Jeb Kinnison on The Subtstrate Wars
“SFF, Hugos, Curating the Best” – May 2
“Curating” means selecting for quality and audience. WorldCon has been tending to curate for a small and eccentric audience, and favor-trading, log-rolling, and political prejudice has been apparent since.. forever. WorldCon has already recognized the outreach possibility of the Internet. There is no longer a reason for what purports to be *the* award of SFF fans, not Worldcon attendees, to be closed to the fans who can’t be there, or as GRRM remarked, aren’t fannish enough to regularly read fanzines. If the award is to be chosen by small groups with a certain Fannish mindset, then it’s not *the* award of SFF readers and not a useful guide to quality for those who don’t share the mindset. And it will tend to slight publishers and authors who haven’t sucked up to the attendees and “curated” their online presence to groom their own fans. Some decry the possibility that the Hugos might become a mere popularity contest, with “Twilight”-ish popular works swamping the less-accessible quality fiction; but that ignores that the status quo prior to Puppies was a popularity contest among a small and not necessarily representative group shot through with personal conflicts of interest and logrolling.
We can honor all the work of the elders who curated and nurtured the Hugos when there was no other way for fans to get together. We can also open up the nominating and voting to committed readers who haven’t been Fannish, and the effort involved is more software and thinking about systems than sitting at tables and handing out papers while chatting with passersby. There are problems with nominating voters being unaware of what qualifies, and problems with qualifications — suggestions about more classes for long works and allowing small pub and self pub books more time to be discovered are good.
As a new author, I’d like to preserve a large market for fiction because it is inevitable that larger media productions will be unable to pioneer new ideas or truly eccentric new virtual worlds — there are just too many people involved in these larger productions to take as many risks on unique visions, and until the tools for game storytelling, for example, are easily accessible and usable by singleton game authors, games won’t be the medium to create the experience of the great novel or story. Opening up the Hugos and doing more outreach to fans of other media would help a lot in renovating fandom and bringing in more new readers. And if the field doesn’t start gaining more readers, it will die, since it is already harder to make a living writing for SFF than it used to be. If the only writers left working are supported by academia or other jobs, the field will lose its finest future works.
Brandon Kempner on Chaos Horizon
“Hugo Best Novel Nominees: Amazon and Goodreads Numbers, May 2015” – May 1
Let me emphasize again that these scores have never been predictive for the Hugo or Nebula: getting ranked higher on Amazon or Goodreads has not equated to winning the Hugo. It’s interesting that the Puppy picks are the outliers: higher and lower when it comes to Goodreads, with Leckie/Addision/Liu all within .05 points of each other. Amazon tends to be more generous with scoring, although Butcher’s 4.8 is very high.
The 2015 Hugo year is going to be largely useless when it comes to data: the unusual circumstances that led to this ballot (the Sad and Rabid Puppy campaigns, then various authors declining Best Novel nominations, and now the massive surge in voting number) mean that this data is going to be inconsistent with previous years. I think it’s still interesting to look at, but take all of this with four or five teaspoons of salt. Still, I’ll be checking in on these numbers every month until the awards are given, and it’ll be interesting to see what changes happen.
Jeff Duntemann on Jeff Duntemann’s Contrapositive Diary
“Rant: Sad Puppies vs. Anti-Puppies, as the Kilostreisands Pile Up” – May 2
How in hell could a couple of mostly unknown authors turn the venerable Hugo Awards inside-out?
My answer: adverse attention. For a definition, let me quote from a textbook that I made up just now: Zoftnoggin & Wiggout’s Fundamentals of Sociometry.
Adverse attention is a rise in the attention profile of a previously obscure phenomenon caused by the actions of an entity that opposes that phenomenon. In the vast majority of cases, the triggering force is outrage, though it sometimes appears through the action of envy, pride, lust, asshattedness, butthurt, or other largely emotional psychopathologies.
This being sociometry, adverse attention may be quantified, and there is a standard unit for expressing it:
The fundamental unit of adverse attention is the streisand, defined as one previously uninterested person achieving a degree of interest in a phenomenon sufficient to compel them to email, share, or retweet information about that phenomenon to one other person in a social network. As the information propagates across a social network, the connectedness of the network influences the total amount of adverse attention that arises. For example, if each of ten previously uninterested persons receiving the information passes it on to only one previously uninterested person, eleven streisands of adverse attention have been created. If one of those previously uninterested persons has 200 followers on Twitter or 1000 Facebook friends, the number of streisands increases rapidly. In a sufficiently dense network, the rate of increase can become close to exponential until the number of previously uninterested persons asymptotically approaches zero.
I’ve seen evidence for this in the comment sections of many blogs that have criticized or condemned the Sad Puppies. A common comment goes something like this: “Wow! I never knew that you could vote for the Hugos without going to Worldcon! And I just downloaded the free preview of Monster Hunter International. This is way cool!” Zing! The world gets another Puppy.
The emotional tenor of the criticism matters too. I’ve seen a few comments that go something like this: “I’d never heard of the Sad Puppies before. I’ve been trying to figure out which side is right, but the sheer nastiness of the Sad Puppies’ critics makes me think they’re just sore losers. I’m more or less with the Puppies now.” ….
And those streisands just keep piling up.
It’s something like a sociological law: Commotion attracts attention. Attention is unpredictable, because it reaches friend and foe alike. It can go your way, or it can go the other way. There’s no way to control the polarity of adverse attention. The only way to limit adverse attention is to stop the commotion.
In other words, just shut up.
I know, this is difficult. For some psychologies, hate is delicious to the point of being psychological crack, so it’s hard to just lecture them on the fact that hate has consequences, including but hardly limited to adverse attention.
My conclusion is this: The opponents of Sad Puppies 3 put them on the map, and probably took them from a fluke to a viable long-term institution. I don’t think this is what the APs intended. In the wake of the April 4 announcement of the final Hugo ballot, I’d guess the opposition has generated several hundred kilostreisands of adverse attention, and the numbers will continue to increase. Sad Puppies 4 has been announced. Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen have lots of new fans who’d never heard of them before. (I just bought the whole Monster Hunter International series and will review it in a future entry.)
To adapt a quote from…well, you know damned well whose quote I’m adapting: “Attack me, and I will become more popular than you could possibly imagine.”
Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories
“No Award is Not the Nuclear Option” – May 1
One final note. Some are arguing that rejecting all slated items punishes those who were not willing participants/had no knowledge they were being included. The solution there is simple. If you have an eligible work in any given year, clearly state somewhere that you do not participate in campaigning for the awards, reject any involuntary inclusion in such and do not give permission for your name and works to be included. Most everyone who would be in such a position in years to come have already pretty much taken a position: they’re either happy to take advantage of whatever benefit may be derived from being included on a slate, or they do not want to have anything to do with it. I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of voters will take you at your word – whether you are ultimately included on a slate or not.
Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories
“Thoughts on the Hugo Voters Packet” – May 2
Participation by authors and publishers was always presented as being voluntary on their part. Largely unspoken was the implied strong-arming: if you didn’t provide copies of a nominated work, you were likely insuring that the work in question would not win.
Last year, commentary regarding the publishers that chose not to participate in the packet pretty much follow those lines – not to mention edging over into public castigation of the publishing house itself. (Bad, bad publisher for not giving us free stuff.)
What follows on those coattails is pretty obvious: a growing sense of entitlement on the part of voters – a trap I myself fell into this year. I’d fully intended to read Cixin Lius’ The Three Body Problem (having been assured by no one less than its translator that it was worth the read) but the buzz made it so obvious that the novel would be on the final ballot that I chose to wait to get my free copy. And then of course the puppies shit the bed, and the first uncensored thought that popped into my head was “dammit, now I’m going to have to buy that novel!”.
Of course things have shifted again and Three Body is back on the ballot, so I will be getting a free copy (presumably), but in order to punish myself for those uncensored thoughts, I’m going to be buying a copy today. (I sure hope I like it….spending good money on a flyer like that….when I coulda gotten it for free….)
I find it odd that I do not have the same sense of entitlement regarding review copies that are or are not supplied to me for free by publishers looking to get a marketing push. Sometimes stuff just arrives in the mail (hey! yay! Free Book!) and sometimes I write to the author or editor or publicist or publisher and request a copy. Sometimes I get one (hey! yay! Free Book!) and sometimes I don’t even get a courtesy brush off, but I don’t even think about booing.
Maybe I feel entitled to the Hugo Packet because I spent forty or fifty bucks on a Supporting Membership (or more for an attending membership)? But there ought to be a disconnect there because a Supporting Membership is not a discount book program. It’s supporting the convention, of which the Hugo Awards are but one part. It’s for supporting the people who have been working on the convention for probably the past three or four YEARS. It’s supposed to be my way of saying: I can’t be there in person this year, but I believe in what you folks are doing and want to see it continue, so here’s some money.
I am positive beyond any shred of doubt that I am not the only Hugo Voter who has had this creeping sense of entitlement grow upon them over the past several years.
Jaye Em Edgecliff
“Puppies…” – May 2
Do not, instead, decide that it’s about bringing back the good ol’ adventure yarn in places of “message fic” (also do not knock “message fic” while it is possible to witness your orgasmic pleasure you derive by merely typing the name Robert A Heinlen, it REALLY spoils your point), but then start bitching that things don’t qualify when numerous items are pointed out, but those items just happen to have females who play a role other than damsel in distress (Uh, one word for you, buddies, little thing you probably never heard of from the early 20th century Triplanetary … she wasn’t a damsel in distress), characters who incidentally are gay or trans or black or fuchsia or vegetarian or ¼ amphibian … If you’re trying to claim you aren’t over-privileged, white-supremacist, homophobic, transphobic, etc it’d help if you didn’t call things that are exactly the old-fashioned classic adventure yarn you claim to want “message fic about gay issues [for example]” just because a character is gay. Trust me, there’s a difference between a character being gay and a story dealing with gay issues. My stories touch on gay issues, they aren’t strictly about them, and in SF/F there frequently is the conceit that the society has no gay issues in the first place….
Anthony Vicino on One Lazy Robot
“Why Ratings and Reviews Don’t Matter Anymore (sort of)” – May 2
[A lot of interesting statistical analysis in here. Can’t even begin to scratch the surface with an excerpt.]
In particular, the books with the most lopsided ratings tend to be from self-published authors. What do I mean by this? Well, self-published authors, whether they be fairly popular, or not, tend to have significantly higher ratings than their traditionally published brethren.
Before we get into the why and the how, I want to substantiate this claim with some examples. I spent a little bit of time this morning compiling some datas that I now want to throw in your face. Incoming!
First, I googled top 100 science fiction books of all time. What pops up reads as a who’s who of sci-fi literary mastery. So I just went down the list, took the top 12 titles and searched their Amazon rating to get a baseline. Here we go:
William Shaw in Oxford Student
“Censorship and the Hugo awards” – May 2
You see, Beale and his supporters mounted this campaign because they believed that the awards were being dominated by broadly left-wing fiction because of the censorship of a shadowy group of left-wing authors, rather than because the books they wanted to see nominated just weren’t any good. And so they decided to stuff the ballot. They reacted to an unfounded conspiracy of censorship by actively engaging in censorship themselves. What happens to the Hugos as a result of this still ongoing controversy remains to be seen, but we can learn a crucial lesson from it. Which is that the would-be censor can all too easily turn anti-censorship rhetoric to their advantage. We must be mindful of that, and remain vigilant if we want to see truly free and open artistic expression.
http://t.co/5d3Tc4WOiD SLATES ARE BAD! hey can someone give me a slate of books nominate so I don't have to read them? #SadPuppies
— Nate (@bloggerblaster) May 2, 2015
Kate Paulk on Mad Genius Club
“A Mad Genius Goes to RavenCon (Part the Second)” – May 2
Much joyous conversation was had upon the nature of weaponry, the importance of ending the Sadness of the Canines of Youth, and the prospect of selling buttons with the arcane cantrip “Barfly Central is my Safe Space”. And lo! The Convention of Raven has not descended to the madness of the Safe Space, for among the Secret Masters of Fandom in the shining city of Richmond there are those who know the never-to-be-spoken truth: that the Safe Space so celebrated by the Glittery Warriors of Social Justice is merely the demon of Apartheid masquerading under a pretty name and suit of demonic glitter….
Upon completion of the panel, the warrior maiden did retreat to her “safe space” (Barfly Central) wherein she did converse with many of the Flies of Bar and did meet in person the redoubtable warriors John C Wright and L Jagi Lamplighter (for as with many in these modern times the warrior maiden had conversed with both through the Internet of Tubes). ‘Twas here that Kate the Impaler did learn of the attempt of the GOH of Wrongness to have a person ejected from the Convention of Raven and that the GOH of Wrongness did have no copanelists. Speculation there was that the GOH of Wrongness was of such wrongness that no other wished to join for any panel.
I should note that I have an actual conflict of interest there.
— Ted "Theodore" Logan (@calvinsdad) May 2, 2015
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What I wonder is if VD will sabotage Paulk’s slate the way he did Torgersen’s. Will there be a Rabid Puppies II?
‘Unless you truly think I am so dim and venal as to be shocked by this unexpected disincentive nine months after finishing below No Award last year.’
The sad thing, and the most telling, is that it didn’t incentivise you to write something better.
@Peace:
I find myself rather disinclined to ask. Certainly the original Alpha Puppy was clear and graphic on the subject. (I leave the question of whether her showy signaling constitutes its own form of glitter as an exercise for the reader, as I must now venture forth in search of brain bleach for merely framing it.)
@Mart:
I am a member of WSFS and have been reading science fiction primarily since the mid-1960s. My post is as a member concerned about the future of written science fiction, and how *we* might look into bringing in new readers. The Hugos are one of many tools to get indicators of quality to readers, and I was suggesting other ways to groupsource lists of best books for everyone’s reading benefit, to bring in more readers who like science fiction and fantasy in other forms. I think you’re reacting to other people who you think act entitled.
@GK Chesterton
The tools can’t exist if I don’t know about them. 🙂 I’m not personally ready to experiment with animation generation software to try to tell complex stories, a la those Korean re-enactments of news events. It’s possible to imagine a game with the depth of a great novel, but no single person can do that yet, I think, given the art and production requirements. Ditto comics — stories have to be simpler because much of the meaning and action are expressed in visual art. Which most writers can’t do.
What I’m suggesting is that the rate of production of really creative and high-quality work is declining, partly due to loss of readership, and that the WSFS should be concerned and work against that. There was a comment on yesterday’s thread expressing this well:
“And here we have Beale demonstrating the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.”
Not at all. I’m not denying that they are a part of GG. They may well be, if they’re not aGG shills. Not everyone in GG knows me. I don’t know everyone else in it. But there is a reason Pakman was talking to Mercedes, and Nero, and Sargon, and me, and not whoever they are.
“The other problem is that now people still don’t take you very seriously.”
I don’t see that as a problem.
“Wait, who on the Puppy side of things has been SWATted or had bomb threats?”
Mike Cernovich, who is not GG but is a Puppy, was SWATted. Daddy Warpig, who is a Rabid Puppy and GG, was at the DC Meetup which had the bomb threat called on it two days ago.
May one request links and documentation please. Those are very interesting, important and newsworthy charges.
‘I don’t see that as a problem.’
Neither does anyone else.
VD — Have you got a link to the Cernovich SWATting? I’m not seeing anything recent, only to the alleged incident last year, which timing doesn’t seem to fit with an anti-Puppy agenda.
As to the bomb threat last Friday, wasn’t that a Gamergate meet-up? Again, not obviously connected to Hugo 2015.
Lois:
What I wonder is if VD will sabotage Paulk’s slate the way he did Torgersen’s. Will there be a Rabid Puppies II?
How could there possibly NOT be? What’s kind of staggering to me is that none of the Sads appears to have mentally processed that they’re just a front for the Rabids (=VD).
Bruce Baugh:
You’re right (as usual), that’s how the Puppies seem to be evaluating things they read. I wonder if that’s why they don’t generally rec stories using something like the “What makes this book so great!” formula.
Basically, I can’t remember seeing *any* Puppy explain one of their nominations with What Makes This Book So Great. They talk about amazon rating or sales, but they don’t talk about why they found it *outstanding*, how it expanded their mind or fired their enthusiasm — which I think I saw you point out elsewhere, I can’t remember where.
They’ll say “I just read for good stories”, but I don’t even know what kind of thing goes into making a story good, for them. What kind of pleasure do they mean? Certain tropes, I guess, and certain emotions — but what I’ve read from Puppies doesn’t have especially tight or dramatic or satisfyingly complex plots.
It all strikes me as extremely odd, for a group of people united by their reading choices to apparently spend so little time talking or thinking about reading.
“which timing doesn’t seem to fit with an anti-Puppy agenda.”
Neither the SWATting nor the bomb threat were anti-Puppy in any way. The point is, given the fact that Puppies are known to have endured such things with equanimity, they are not likely to be dissuaded by mere threats to not give them awards.
The anti-GamerGate SJWs are observably worse than the SF variants.
‘The anti-GamerGate SJWs are observably worse than the SF variants.’
Of course they are. That’s why all the brave Gamergate retaliatory rape threats, doxxing, and SWATting had to be gotten in first. And second. And third. And fourth. Etc.
‘they are not likely to be dissuaded by mere threats to not give them awards.’
Any chances that the failure to win any awards might drive some of them to write better? Y’know, that being the point of the awards? Though you’ve obviously nothing contempt for all of that, it’d be nice to see a literary award drive a literary response instead of… whatever this is.
what I’ve read from Puppies doesn’t have especially tight or dramatic or satisfyingly complex plots
That’s what I’ve found, also. Some of the stories I’ve read are okay, but none of them seem to be particularly memorable, and I wouldn’t say that any of them are better than ‘not good enough for a Hugo’.
(I’ve been reading Analog since about 1961. It isn’t what it used to be, and it never was the magazine the puppies seem to remember it being.)
@Bruce Baugh brings up an interesting point. When I first started rating books, I really struggled with how to assign stars. I finally settled on giving a book a star rating *relative to its genre*. So, for example, in Sci Fi I mentally divide books into “beach reads” and “literary”. While I may give one of the Dresden novels and Goblin Emperor both a 4 star rating, that rating is relative. If I had to give them ratings relative to each other, the Dresden novel would lose a star for being a less interesting, challenging, and beautifully written.
I’ve spoken with many other Goodreads and Amazon reviewers who do something similar.
So when you are comparing star ratings to star ratings, you may not be comparing apples to apples.
Oh, Teddy, nice to know you’re spinning blatant falsehoods now.
Mike Cernovich, has been a gater since he was brought in when people thought he would take Eron’s case. Furthermore, he wasn’t SWATed at all, he was afraid of being SWATed, so he went and lived in a hotel for a few days, while talking to the police so he wouldn’t be SWATed in the futre.
And, as of right now, the police have made no statement as to the reason the bar in DC was evacuated. The “bomb threat” mantra comes from one person who says he talked to a cop. I’m sure as a man of dialect and genius, that you’ll want to make sure to be precise in your accusations. 🙂
Katya, that context sensitivity makes a lot of sense. So do a lot of other approaches, which is why any simple reliance on ratings is such a bad idea. I tend to trust people to be doing something that makes sense in light of what they know and are interested in, until they give me any real reason to believe otherwise. But that doesn’t ever have to mean we’re all doing comparable things.
given the fact that Puppies are known to have endured such things with equanimity, they are not likely to be dissuaded by mere threats to not give them awards.
The awards are not given to Puppies. The awards are given to authors, for their work.
And withholding an award is only a “threat” to someone who thinks they are entitled to the award in the first place. If I tell my plumber “If you don’t fix my toilet, I won’t pay you”, is that a threat?
“that the Safe Space so celebrated by the Glittery Warriors of Social Justice is merely the demon of Ap…” Jesus F. Christ but that is some tedious shit. The problem with these people is, they make it seem like any moron can be a skiffy writer.
“Furthermore, he wasn’t SWATed at all, he was afraid of being SWATed,”
AKA “Pulling a Wu”
“GG has no ideology.” Yeah, it’s about ethics in game journalism {rolls eyes}.
@VD: “We expect absolutely nothing from you but all-out cultural war. It’s almost bizarre that you seriously think threats of not winning an award are a disincentive to a large group of individuals who aren’t even remotely dissuaded by SWATtings and bomb threats.”
@NelC: “Again, not obviously connected to Hugo 2015.”
@VD: “Neither the SWATting nor the bomb threat were anti-Puppy in any way.”
It is to laugh.
GK: ” That is, some books fall out of favor even though they are good because the author or the material is no longer seen in a favorable light. See: Orson Scott Card, Lovecraft, Howard.”
We’re actually in the midst of a huge boom of Lovecraftiana; Lovecraft’s fiction and the fiction of people working in that mode has never been so popular or so acclaimed. The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft (which should have been on the Best Related Work ballot for the Hugo Awards) has moved almost 15,000 copies of the hardcover on Bookscan, which is very good given the high price, huge size of the book, the fact that all the stories—minus annotations—are all available for free in the public domain, and the fact that this is actually the third volume of annotated Lovecraft. (ST Joshi produced two volumes in the 1990s.)
Card’s recent stuff hasn’t been a huge hit, but his Enderverse stuff still sells like hot cakes and Ender’s Game is a perennial best-seller.
@Nick:
While Lovecraft’s Mythos is enduringly popular, I’ve always had trouble with the author’s original works. IMO, they read like the scribblings of a man who has just experienced something insane and is trying to Get It Out onto the page before it can drive him completely mad. Very evocative, given the subject matter, but hardly the easiest reads on the planet…
Judging by the comments of hers I’ve read, Kate Paulk sounds like she’s taking pages from the “Vox Day”/RP playbook, as opposed to the SP playbook. It seems likely more metaphoric Molotov cocktails will fill the air on her watch.
“Vox Day” is a less endearing Trelane.
The lovecraftian mythos is popular because it brought something new to horror, because it was open to other writers, because the mythos setting was recognisable when used by other writers either straight, or parodied, or used as an element in a genre mash up, and because lovecraft had a distinctive voice.
I’m not much of a horror reader, but it seems to me that lovecraft’s enduring popularity is mostly down to the fact that other people continue to play in the mythos. I know I wouldn’t have found my way to reading it if not for Gaiman, Stross and Moore.
Robert Reynolds — ““Vox Day” is a less endearing Trelane.”
I’m enjoying more than I’m sure I should the image of VD in a Liberace jacket playing the harpsichord.
VD — “It’s almost bizarre that you seriously think threats of not winning an award are a disincentive to a large group of individuals who aren’t even remotely dissuaded by SWATtings and bomb threats.”
I don’t think it’s a threat so much as an expectation that if they don’t get a Sad Puppy win, the unterhunden will get bored and chase after some other brightly coloured toy.
What’s funny is that Beale so idolizes Card that he named his son Ender…
And I actually enjoyed Card’s Empire duology, especially since I saw it as commenting on how similar the two “sides” of the political spectrum really are
Rev. Bob—see, that’s what’s good about Lovecraft’s work!
“Kate Paulk sounds like she’s taking pages from the “Vox Day”/RP playbook” Indeed. I spent some time reading at Mad Genius Club and Kate’s stance on Vox is that his racism and misogyny are ‘nuanced,’ and, apparently, not so bad on closer examination.
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the Sad Puppies turning over SP4 to Kate Paulk meant they’re winding down after this.
SP started with Larry Correia, attention-getting and prolific paperback bestseller with a huge personal blog following. Then the banner was turned over to Brad Torgersen, a new writer and not a prolific one, but he had credibility at the time, since his one novel and handful of stories were well-received and he’d got some legitimate Hugo nominations before getting involved in this Puppy shit.
But I doubt I’m the only person who thought, “Who’s Kate Paulk?” when she was announced as SP4 leader. So I looked her up… and I’m STILL wondering, “Who’s Kate Paulk?” As far as I can see, she’s got one self-published novel released a few years ago that was completely ignored, a little-visited website with a blog she hasn’t updated since last year, and her only “power base” for the SP4 campaign is her participation in a vitriolic group blog where 3 of her blogmates are perhaps getting their profiles raised a bit by being on the Puppy ballot for Best Fan Writer–but she is not.
As the next public face of SP4… this doesn’t seem like there’s much “there” there, and it makes me think that that SP is winding down after this.
So Paulk will be more beholden to VD than Torgersen was.
@Anthony,
“Thanks for voicing your thoughts, GK!”
Not a problem. Was pointing out what I thought might be holes in the analysis. It seems you thought of them but discounted them for length.
@Alex
“who is stopping you from voting, GK”
No one. Did I say otherwise? Let me help you, no.
@Martin,
“care for the social norms of my fandom,”
Ah yes. We’ve mentioned something about that. When the social norms are forty or so votes appear in a block fashion and vote in things like “Redshirts” and “If You Were” then we have no respect for those norms. However, this is a fan award right? One where we vote for what we think is the best? It is amusing SO many puppies have pointed this out but we are all drones to the Dark Lords of the Evil Legion of Evil.
Oh, and reading that excerpt today… she comes across as just a hanger-on, as someone whose notoriety is based on blogging about hanging out with people of note.
“However, this is a fan award right? One where we vote for what we think is the best? It is amusing SO many puppies have pointed this out but we are all drones to the Dark Lords of the Evil Legion of Evil.”
Having read through most of the nominees that certainly seems to be the case. There is no reasonable way for Wright to have gotten 6 nominations without organizing votes for him. I’ve read his work and it just isn’t very good for this year. There’s no effective argument that the Puppies nominated and voted on merit. It is obvious Wright was nominated because he’s a friend of the movement. I suppose that was the plan all along. Whereas the Invisible SJW Cabal nominated their friends in secret the Puppies openly will nominate anything if the person is a friend of the movement. So, point made. Anyone can get anything nominated if they collude enough.
Oh are we doing the thing where GK forgets what he’s said in the past and then when called on it won’t respond to that conversation ever again?
GK:” Either that or follow the rules and let us vote. ”
Me:“who is stopping you from voting, GK”
GK: “No one. Did I say otherwise? Let me help you, no.”
See… wanting someone to follow the rules and let you vote, heavily implies that they are NOT following the rules OR letting you vote. It’s sorta how the English language works!
By the by, I’m still waiting for you to admit that snark is indeed a large part of SF/F fandom and that by no means do ““We as a group tend to hate snark.”
Dela: If Kate only wote about notables that might be a view to take, but her RavenCon report seems to name everyone she ran into or was on program with. Some of them have been made more notable by being mentioned than they were before.
@Alex,
“See… wanting someone to follow the rules and let you vote, heavily implies that they are NOT following the rules OR letting you vote. It’s sorta how the English language works!”
Seriously, no insult, is English your second language?
I’d say ” Either that or follow the rules and let us vote. ” suggests that the speaker believes people are violating the rules specifically by denying them the ability to vote.
I went back and read it in context, and that still seems to be the thrust of the statement. It is presented as a false choice in GK’s statement, that we should either not have an issue with people voting en Bloc, or that the hugo voting should be shut down. And this false choice certainly proposes that by attempting to remove the incentives for bloc voting, or exploring rules changes intended to lower the impact of bloc voting, we are suppressing the vote of the puppies.
On the whole, a nice albeit cheap rhetorical trick. Suggesting vote suppression, while still being able to protest “I didn’t say people were stopping us voting”. English seems to be GK’s native tongue, its a shame he uses his abilities in it to obfuscate rather than to attempt to communicate honestly and openly.
No it wouldn’t not when the quote is:
“If that is true than shut down the voting process entirely. It will make your life easier. Either that or follow the rules and let us vote”
That is it is a call to action. Alex has shown a tendency to lie. Here I’m not sure if its that or he honestly doesn’t understand English.
@Mickey,
“It is presented as a false choice in GK’s statement, that we should either not have an issue with people voting en Bloc, or that the hugo voting should be shut down.”
Uh…also no. I was responding to Kevin who was complaining about the increased workload and again telling us to go elsewhere and found our own award.
And that makes it less of a false choice because ….? Kevin indicated no intention to suppress your vote. The Hugo voting public may act to do what they can to ameliorate the impacts of bloc voting this year and next year with the use of No Award. The WSFS may act to reduce the power of bloc voting voting in future years with nomination process changes. Kevin will, I have absolutely no doubt, continue to be scrupulous and fair.
His post didn’t say “Fuck off and create your own award” it said “If you don’t like the way the Hugo voted on, or the outcomes of the process, maybe a better use for all your energy and your surety that you know a better process would be to follow the lead of the Tiptree and the Prometheus and create an award following your desired processes and priorities” (Kevin, if this isn’t an accurate summary of your post, my apologies)
Your comment is a false choice presented to Kevin (who has already indicated by his actions a commitment to follow the letter and the spirit of the Hugo voting rules), but by extension to all of the Hugo voters and all members attending the WSFS business meeting. It is these voting bodies which will follow the rules, allow you to vote, and hopefully, demonstrate that bloc nominations are not a valid path to a Hugo.
Brian Z: “Still we should probably resist the temptation to blame the other side for all the damage without giving consideration to possible negative effects of our own actions.”
Oh, quit pretending you’re not a Puppy, Brian. Your comments have repeatedly, quite clearly shown where your allegiances lie.
Hell, at least it can be said for VD that he’s upfront about who and what he is and doesn’t pretend otherwise.
Surely you could manage to do the same.
Jeff Duntamenn ‘In other words, just shut up.’
While I thought this blog post was cleverly written and enjoy the streisand as a unit of measurement of offense, this is kind of a ridiculous way to end it as if it were an answer. If having a contrary opinion generates offense and the best way to deal with it is stay silent, well the SP/RP group shouldn’t have barked in the first place then from what he’s saying.
There’s an overabundance of opinion, sure, but keep it to yourself doesn’t seem like a healthy suggestion. Hope he likes the MHI books, it’s a silly reason to buy them but hey, whatever gets people reading.
JJ, I actually made a good faith effort to read Grimnoir last year. Something about a band of brave white men plus token woman/minority who secretly control the world? I couldn’t quite figure it out as I only read like a couple chapters before losing patience. But you can project your own biases onto other people all you want, and I already said I won’t try to stop you.
“Alex has shown a tendency to lie”
*laugh* Sure. Sure. Feel free to post a single time I’ve lied. I’ll wait. 🙂
GK:
Name one person who paid their membership dues to WSFS who was not allowed to vote.
My frustration is aimed at people who think that the members of WSFS should not be allowed to impose any limitations of any sort on voting (including requiring that voters be members of the organization giving the awards), and that voting should be by any person in the world who has consumed SF/F pop culture entertainment, and that anything other than that “isn’t fair.” You are being intentionally dense when you choose to misinterpret this. Basically, what you want is for other people to put in the effort to give prestigious award to things you personally like, period.
Well, you know, there actually is such an award already out there: it’s called the Locus Award. You don’t have to pay to vote. They do give double credit to their subscribers, but other than that, voting is absolutely free.
But assuming that’s not free enough, I specifically challenge you, GK, to create the Perfect Puppy Awards System to be presented by the Perfect Puppies for the Perfect Puppy Reasons. Since of course I’m sure you are always right about everything, the award will be perfect in every way, and everyone in the world will beat a path to your door. If you weren’t a pseudonymous troll, that is.
@MickeyFinn: English seems to be GK’s native tongue
Well, American, anyway. ;->
GK:
That isn’t what I said, and you know it.
MickyFinn:
It is a perfectly accurate summation of my post. I have no problem with anyone setting their own award system run the way they want it, as long as they don’t tread on someone else’s intellectual property while doing so. (Specifically, WSFS owns some registered service marks, and any SF/F award should not use those marks because they belong to WSFS.) But other than that, I tell people, sure, there’s always room for more. Set up something that works The Right Way and maybe you’ll supplant everyone else because of the wonder and beauty of your self-evident Rightness.
“Name one person who paid their membership dues to WSFS who was not allowed to vote.” That’s not the issue; they weren’t allowed to win.