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I largely agree with the parts about the Asian audience, as far as I know, but this part seemed funny to me: The Hugos are an "elitist snobfest" and irrelevant because the self-published independent stuff you read doesn't win? That sounds more like "too mainstream" than too elitist. The nominees (and winners) tend to be pretty mainstream, high selling books, as far as I can tell.
The Hugo's have NO relevance in the past decade to me, nor my interests. They are some elitest snobfest for those who think they are better then everyone else to hand out awards which no one really cares about anymore because NONE of the books have any relevance to anyone but those who vote for it.
I will say, that the books I've been most interested in the past two years are almost ALL independent books printed via Kindle, Nook, or others, normally by the authors themselves instead of TOR (which has really fallen off my radar as they don't publish the good stuff I enjoy like they used to).
If these new people bring more attention to the independent scheme...more power to them.
Regarding the bold part: Err, that's the point of how voting works. Those who like a book vote for it, those who don't either vote for something else or for nothing at all. This is a little bit like complaining that nobody wanted Obama as president except the people who voted for him.
The choice to require payment for voting rights will have some effect, obviously. Generally speaking requiring people to pay an substantial amount of money just to add one vote to a couple of books they like could definitely work as a filter through which only the most hardcore fans will pass. That, in turn, could cause books that are less popular but of more value to the hardcore readership to take the prize a seemingly disproportionate amount of time.
But, the Hugos are but one award among many, and they have no responsibility beyond that which they choose to take among themselves. They choose to be a so called "prestigious" award, with everything that entails, and that's fine. If someone does not belong to the group that cares about such things, well... kudos to them, but that doesn't make the award itself irrelevant, especially since it serves as a vassal that helps authors establish themselves.
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I've only been skimming this thread but I just had a "Eureka!" moment when I realized that SJW stood for Social Justice Warrior.
Up until then, I was scratching my head wondering if it meant "Single Jewish Women," which didn't make any sense to me.
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Just for the record: Castalia House is a lesser publisher. Barely known even in Finland, as far as I can tell. Maybe just an e-publisher, I'm not sure. So on that front it qualifies.
OTOH, it's Vox Day's project. He's lead editor. So his Rabid Puppies slate doesn't look so much like a principled struggle for either smaller publishers or against leftist bias, but just using backlash against SJWs to push his own business. Without, by the way, making that connection clear on the post where he recommended the slate.
Yeah, it looks like Vox got a taste of the glory with his nomination last year, and releasted a tangential slate of stuff he published, either because he wanted it again so badly, or he wanted to burn it all down. After all, he is, as far as I can tell, literally a professional internet troll.
On the other hand, the only two pieces of John C. Wright's fiction I've read, I both liked and nominated (one was a short story not on the ballot), so I'm optimistic about the rest of his nominated stuff.
My biggest disappointment is that I couldn't get "Video Game High School" or "Too Many Cooks" on the shortlist for Dramatic Presentation...
Also, I did check on the Rabid Puppies list. My estimation for them goes down a little on the 'publisher VS self-published' category, at least when it comes to 'Best Novella'. Unless "Castalia House" is a lesser publisher there (Finland, I believe?), then that seems to go against the 'variety' approach I prefer. The rest of the categories I still stand behind.Just for the record: Castalia House is a lesser publisher. Barely known even in Finland, as far as I can tell. Maybe just an e-publisher, I'm not sure. So on that front it qualifies.
OTOH, it's Vox Day's project. He's lead editor. So his Rabid Puppies slate doesn't look so much like a principled struggle for either smaller publishers or against leftist bias, but just using backlash against SJWs to push his own business. Without, by the way, making that connection clear on the post where he recommended the slate.
I found it interesting that of the main Sad/Rabid Puppy supporters, Larry Correia turned down a nomination for his book, partially over concerns over impropriety (i.e. perspective that the roster was about him, not their "cause"), but Vox Day certainly had no problem staying nominated.
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That's the accusation. I'm not sure it's even all that true. SF has long had a trend towards liberal positions, at least culturally. It may be that fans just lean that way as well.I used to believe that until I actually went to conventions and met more of "my own kind". It's probably more accurate to say that SF has a trend towards libertarian positions, although many of them aren't Randian in orientation. Most of the old line SF authors, tend towards a mix of conservative viewpoints with some having more liberal ones only in the areas of social privacy. Many tended towards a technocratic viewpoint, and tended downplay both artistic and social science disciplines.
From what I have observed...science fiction tends to attract the extremes of different positions. So on the right you have a lot of libertarians, while on the left you get a lot of socialists and other strains of progressives. It's never been that difficult to find libertarian sci-fi authors, and some of the classic authors of the genre like Niven, Pournelle, etc all lean that way.
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Of interest to the discussion: Larry Correia (guy who started Sad Puppies) open letter about Sad Puppies
-TimD
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The use of a slate, while not against the rules, is gaming the system and many view it as dishonorableUse of legitimate tactics is not dishonorable. Nor is it bullying.
I did not call it bullying. I still stand that the use of a slate when everyone is supposed to voting their personal choices is gaming the system (by focusing votes which would otherwise be more spread out) and therefore dishonorable. If you do not see it that way... I am not sure I can bridge the gap.
but it is the first instance of multiple influential people pushing the same list.Is it? Or just the first openly visible one? If those who support it are to be believed, this process was already going on behind the scenes, with specific choices picked out ahead of time by those who previously influenced it.
To the best of my knowlege it is. It is the first visible one. An invisible slate would be useless since its power comes from focusing voters. People have published who they think is worth considering and hosted pages for people to post what they think in comments. This is multiple people pointing to the same list, and a tone shift from "this is who I like" to "vote the party line to take back the award". One could make the argument that it is the same kind of thing that has happened before just upped in organization and intensity, I disagree with that, but even in that case they have escalated things.
letting their "superior numbers" win the day for themThat's how voting works. No sense getting upset at it when it's working as intended. Unless 'intended' is 'exluding people with those views', in which case it deserves to be distorted as it supports a specific faction.
I must have been unclear. In my view they did not do that, just that I would have been fine(well a bit salty but not actually upset) if they did. If they had joined and voted for who they thought best it would have been different. Instead they joined and voted on a slate to game the system, it was not majority rules, it was coordinated voting defeats people following the letter and spirit of the rules.
If they lose despite three years of trying to game the system it proves them the minority. Worldcon profits from the money they paid to vote AND Worst case is next year there are competing slates, basically creating political parties. I think the professional world (minus lunatic fringes) is too big and interconnected for that to happen.That is the logical conclusion, yes. But it's better to have multiple parties than a single one.
It is better to have none. For 62 years the Hugos managed it. I think you are wrong about a there being a party before Sad Puppies. Next year there may be two parties and then the award will not go to the book the voters like most, but instead to the pick of the winning party.
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I've only been skimming this thread but I just had a "Eureka!" moment when I realized that SJW stood for Social Justice Warrior.
Up until then, I was scratching my head wondering if it meant "Single Jewish Women," which didn't make any sense to me.
In another discussion on another board on this topic, SJWs were referred to as Social Justice Witches, which I personally like as well.
<-- Goblin Justice Witch
I largely agree with the parts about the Asian audience, as far as I know, but this part seemed funny to me: The Hugos are an "elitist snobfest" and irrelevant because the self-published independent stuff you read doesn't win? That sounds more like "too mainstream" than too elitist. The nominees (and winners) tend to be pretty mainstream, high selling books, as far as I can tell.
The Hugo's have NO relevance in the past decade to me, nor my interests. They are some elitest snobfest for those who think they are better then everyone else to hand out awards which no one really cares about anymore because NONE of the books have any relevance to anyone but those who vote for it.
I will say, that the books I've been most interested in the past two years are almost ALL independent books printed via Kindle, Nook, or others, normally by the authors themselves instead of TOR (which has really fallen off my radar as they don't publish the good stuff I enjoy like they used to).
If these new people bring more attention to the independent scheme...more power to them.
Regarding the bold part: Err, that's the point of how voting works. Those who like a book vote for it, those who don't either vote for something else or for nothing at all. This is a little bit like complaining that nobody wanted Obama as president except the people who voted for him.
The choice to require payment for voting rights will have some effect, obviously. Generally speaking requiring people to pay an substantial amount of money just to add one vote to a couple of books they like could definitely work as a filter through which only the most hardcore fans will pass. That, in turn, could cause books that are less popular but of more value to the hardcore readership to take the prize a seemingly disproportionate amount of time.
But, the Hugos are but one award among many, and they have no responsibility beyond that which they choose to take among themselves. They...
Not necessarily. Only US citizens voted in the US elections, but MANY outside the US actually like Obama.
Voting doesn't necessarily mean that the only ones who like the winner are the ones they voted for.
However, it seems the Hugo's constantly have gotten the WRONG winners over the past decade and ONLY those who vote like those books.
ON the otherhand, other elections have winners that appeal to a broadbase outside that election.
For example, (well, maybe not the best example, but they do better then the Hugos), the Oscars/Academy Awards are pretty much voted on by an even MORE elitest and snobfest group, but a majority of their votes are normally enjoyed by MORE than just that small elite group.
I don't agree with most of the politics by those pushing the nominations thing with the Hugos currently (in fact I think I wrote a post a year ago or more about how I felt Correia was not that great a person from what I read, if I recall correctly), but they are right, it's been an elitest group of people who think because they pay they are better then everyone else. What's worse, they feel as if they actually represent the rest of us who aren't there and don't pay.
They in NO WAY have represented me nor many others for the past decade (prior to that, they may have, I wasn't too much into them then, but I did read Ender's Game and enjoyed it and I also loved Dune and the Foundation Series), so I think the complaint that the Hugo's don't represent what they state they represent is absolutely valid. (Not that I think the Slate votes are necessarily representative either).
Why do I love the independants, it gives me more freedom to choose what I want to read, cuts out the politics which publishers have in who they publish (ever wonder why such and such an editor or worker or nephew or son of those in the publishing house business are the ones published, it's not necessarily who the best writers are, but who has the political connections in many instances), and overall has allowed a LOT MORE DEMOCRACY and FREEDOM for the COMMON PERSON in the literary field. If someone is a really good writer, I can read them and they don't have to worry about never getting published because they aren't the right person (relatives, editor, best friend).
You get a lot of TRASH and total junk in this field too, but if you want something more for the common person rather than the elites, that's why you look at the independents today. I see the elitest throwing insults at the indie publishing, but I think it's simply because they are losing their control over what the everyday person can read and see.
Even my more mainstream publishers I read these days are still Indie, or started very Indie like. Paizo, though not an Amazon Indie, started out as basically an Indie company, especially when they had to go out on their own and publish themselves and create their own game.
They KNEW they could no longer rely on a Big publishing house or publisher to get sales, those sales were going to be based on what they themselves did. I love them for it, because they chose to go with quality and customer service. It's something you WON'T get from the big publishers and other big wigs in the industry.
They are getting bigger now, but Paizo gets love from me to a degree because I see them as one of those Indies that proved the big guys wrong. I'm not certain if any of the PF fiction books have been nominated for a Hugo, but if I had my way, there are one or two of them that were just as good as any of the older Hugo books I've read (though elites who have been in control probably would turn up their nose like snobs and declare that I have no taste).
The good independent authors and publishers, the reason they need to be better represented is because many times the ones that are successful are those who are successful for the same reason Paizo has been. They put quality over simply other connections and things to that degree.
Obviously, this is personal feelings on the matter in regards to why I consider the Hugo's NOT representative of readership in the past decade, but I think there are many that feel the Hugo's have no connection to them.
I don't think that's a wrong assumption at all (though perhaps they aren't elite snobs who are voting either, that's a BIG perception error, but it's a perception I think many have of those voting on the Hugo's as well, much like there is for the Academy Awards at times).
To be clear, that doesn't mean I agree with the current nominations or how the process has gone or the proponents behind the process. It simply means that their perception that the Hugo's have gone downhill because it only represents a very small elitist group of people is probably not too far off the mark.
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Torgersen says we need more "swashbuckling fun."
I'm gonna write a story about the swashbuckling adventures of an asexual bi-romantic Japanese/German woman and her genderqueer pansexual Native American lover. They fight against Nazi u-boats that time-traveled back to the Napoleonic Age and setup a secret underwater cloning base at Trafalgar so they could replace key historical figures with homophobic white-supremacists, altering the course of history.
That sounds like a fun story to me.
Oh, wait, so that's where I recognize Correia's name from. That horrible thread about racist GenCons.
Awkward.
I'm not certain if any of the PF fiction books have been nominated for a Hugo, but if I had my way, there are one or two of them that were just as good as any of the older Hugo books I've read
Actually, I believe the only piece of media tie-in fiction ever nominated was The Butcher of Kardov (a novella based on Warhammer) last year. And it got there via the Sad Puppies campaign.
But as we're seeing now, it doesn't take much to get something on the ballot in the shorter fiction categories, so if the Paizonians wanted to get behind one of the web fiction pieces...
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Torgersen says we need more "swashbuckling fun."
I'm gonna write a story about the swashbuckling adventures of an asexual bi-romantic Japanese/German woman and her genderqueer pansexual Native American lover. They fight against Nazi u-boats that time-traveled back to the Napoleonic Age and setup a secret underwater cloning base at Trafalgar so they could replace key historical figures with homophobic white-supremacists, altering the course of history.
That sounds like a fun story to me.
I am well familiar with Julie :)
It's a shame history is being so overtaken with political correctness and witch hunts (the not-fun modern ones, I mean). :(
Oh, wait, so that's where I recognize Correia's name from. That horrible thread about racist GenCons.
Awkward.
Yeah, he's the one that cited Paizo as a company that promotes diversity in gaming. That thread was actually what reminded me to try to catch up on his books again and where I heard about Sad Puppies 1 & 2 (this is year 3).
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I got to say, looking at the Sad Puppy list of authors if you claim they organised a politically biased list, I will laugh at you. It contains people from a broad political spectrum who wrote a fairly diverse body of work.
As for the morality of it, if all it takes is a group smaller than a college science fiction club publicly announcing they are going to rig your vote to successfully rig your election, you have bigger problems for one of the most prestigious science fiction awards.
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I got to say, looking at the Sad Puppy list of authors if you claim they organised a politically biased list, I will laugh at you. It contains people from a broad political spectrum who wrote a fairly diverse body of work.
As for the morality of it, if all it takes is a group smaller than a college science fiction club publicly announcing they are going to rig your vote to successfully rig your election, you have bigger problems for one of the most prestigious science fiction awards.
Both decent points. Not all the authors in the slate are slimy, AND the Hugo awards are not a perfect system.
However,
1) While there IS a spectrum of voices in the slate (which leads to believe that the claims of the leaders of the Sad Puppies move are at least partially honest when they say they want what they consider to be the good kind of SF to win), its existence also lead to some convoluted singularities. One author had 6 of his works nominated, which is an all time record. Generally speaking, the slate does lean significantly to a political view, and the motive behind it is quite clearly political in nature. That's a level of meddling that is not strictly prohibited or even clearly "wrong", but it should be unsettling for anyone who cares for the integrity of the reward. Hence, the "Hugo awards controversy".
2) The nature of some of the categories make them more vulnerable to this sort of "attack" than others. For example, in short stories since there's such a huge selection compared to novels, a story really only needs a dozen votes or so to get nominated - unsurprisingly, one of the categories most influenced by the slate is the short story category. So to some degree the problem is not with the awards themselves but rather with the way numbers work out in reality.
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Thejeff captures a lot of my response. I remain very very skeptical of statements that the "WRONG" authors are winning recent Hugos. It comes down to personal preference, and someone isn't wrong if they have different tastes than you.
Going through recent Hugo winners, I can't say I have read all or even most of the recent winners, but I do see a lot of authors I have personally enjoyed either as nominees or as winners. As someone who has never voted for the Hugos, it makes me very skeptical that these folks don't appeal to large segments of Sci-fi fandom, or that they are the WRONG people to vote for.
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Thejeff captures a lot of my response. I remain very very skeptical of statements that the "WRONG" authors are winning recent Hugos. It comes down to personal preference, and someone isn't wrong if they have different tastes than you.
Going through recent Hugo winners, I can't say I have read all or even most of the recent winners, but I do see a lot of authors I have personally enjoyed either as nominees or as winners. As someone who has never voted for the Hugos, it makes me very skeptical that these folks don't appeal to large segments of Sci-fi fandom, or that they are the WRONG people to vote for.
Especially when, near as I can tell, nobody every actually provided any data to support the claim that the less popular authors are winning (not sure how possible it is to provide such data as "popularity" is hard to measure), and show every sign of just assuming the mentality of their social clique is the dominant one. Which is funny, considering that this is the very sin they accuse the Hugo voters of.
To me, the fact that the Sad Puppies are the ones who feel the need to be on the defensive, is as close as I have to objective evidence that they are in the minority.
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Doing it as a slate is an attempt to outright shut out all nominees that are not on the slate. There's only 5 nominees, and the slate is an attempt to control all of the spots at once.
(Hell, I am actually surprised that there are categories that SP didn't ID 5 nominees for.)
You, uh, realize that these two parts are contradictory, right?
If they were trying to 'shut out' everyone, why whould they not do it to all categories?---
GreyWolfLord: Thanks for that info on the Asian 'side' of Sci-Fi. Very insightful, and I knew very little about that, so this was quite educational.
If these new people bring more attention to the independent scheme...more power to them.
Agreed.
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Just for the record: Castalia House is a lesser publisher. Barely known even in Finland, as far as I can tell. Maybe just an e-publisher, I'm not sure. So on that front it qualifies.
That's good to know, thanks.
OTOH, it's Vox Day's project. He's lead editor. So his Rabid Puppies slate doesn't look so much like a principled struggle for either smaller publishers or against leftist bias, but just using backlash against SJWs to push his own business. Without, by the way, making that connection clear on the post where he recommended the slate.
And I suppose Scalzi gets a pass for posting his own slate that included his own works? I mean, pushing one's own business seems to be something both sides are using here. I don't see what's not 'clear' about that, especially when they openly admit it.
Fortunately, at least Sad Puppies seems to have some principle.Despite all the "leftist"/"rightist" rhetoric thrown around, the brouhaha isn't really about economic systems or even the role of government. It's about "Social Justice Warriors", race and gender inclusion and the other usual culture war suspects.
And about big VS small publishers, and about perceptions of an inner clique/cabal running the thing, AND about support of good sci-fi that wasn't focused solely on social issues. Don't oversimplify things by saying it's "all about culture wars". It's only, you know, about 2/5ths to 1/2 that. ;)
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Up until then, I was scratching my head wondering if it meant "Single Jewish Women," which didn't make any sense to me.
Apparently everyone is against them! ;)
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After all, he is, as far as I can tell, literally a professional internet troll.
The more I read about Day, the more I wonder if Poe's Law applies. I mean.. seriously? Crazy stuff.
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I found it interesting that of the main Sad/Rabid Puppy supporters, Larry Correia turned down a nomination for his book, partially over concerns over impropriety (i.e. perspective that the roster was about him, not their "cause"), but Vox Day certainly had no problem staying nominated.
Having passed the Poe Threshold, nothing Day does really surprises me.
So on the right you have a lot of libertarians, while on the left you get a lot of socialists and other strains of progressives.
Libertarians are on the RIGHT? I'm not sure they'd categorize themselves that way.
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I did not call it bullying. I still stand that the use of a slate when everyone is supposed to voting their personal choices is gaming the system (by focusing votes which would otherwise be more spread out) and therefore dishonorable. If you do not see it that way... I am not sure I can bridge the gap.
You didn't, others did. I was merely trying to shoo them away when I was responding to your point.
Once this became an actual fight, 'honor' went out the window. Both sides accuse the other of it.An invisible slate would be useless since its power comes from focusing voters. People have published who they think is worth considering and hosted pages for people to post what they think in comments. This is multiple people pointing to the same list, and a tone shift from "this is who I like" to "vote the party line to take back the award". One could make the argument that it is the same kind of thing that has happened before just upped in organization and intensity, I disagree with that, but even in that case they have escalated things.
An invisible slate would be useful, as it's only invisible to the public.
I wonder how that list got made? Did, perhaps, one person do it entirely his/her self, or was it a communal effort of what they like that was all put together after the fact? Not that either matters in the ethical sense (perhaps in the 'honor' sense to some), but if multiple people put their suggestions in and one guy decided to compile that into a list? Entirely different story.Yes, they escalated things, and in a legal fashion. The options are either to adapt to the new system or change the rules. Their opposition is already considering both, but unfortunately for them, they seem to be split on 'nominating others' and voting 'No Award'.
If they had joined and voted for who they thought best it would have been different. Instead they joined and voted on a slate to game the system, it was not majority rules, it was coordinated voting defeats people following the letter and spirit of the rules.
1. What if they simply talked about it together first, before casting votes? Like, I dunno, people on forums do?
2. Coordinated voting IS majority rules. If it has a majority of support, it is 'majority rules'. Also, they did follow the letter of the law, which is why some people are so salty. The spirit? Maybe, I dunno. Seems everyone wants to define the 'spirit' their way. And you know what? This is a gaming site. Have you seen battles between those who support RAI and RAW? That's a problem we haven't solved here, and it's been going on since tabletop RPG's began.It is better to have none. For 62 years the Hugos managed it. I think you are wrong about a there being a party before Sad Puppies. Next year there may be two parties and then the award will not go to the book the voters like most, but instead to the pick of the winning party.
Perfect is the enemy of good. As well, there is nothing that is perfect. If you strive for an impossibility, don't get upset when someone who strives for something less gets better results.
If the parties are the voters, then the award WILL go to the book the voters like most.The system may be exploitable, but that's not the fault of either side that uses it to push their agenda. That's the fault of those who design and maintain the rules.
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I got to say, looking at the Sad Puppy list of authors if you claim they organised a politically biased list, I will laugh at you. It contains people from a broad political spectrum who wrote a fairly diverse body of work.
As for the morality of it, if all it takes is a group smaller than a college science fiction club publicly announcing they are going to rig your vote to successfully rig your election, you have bigger problems for one of the most prestigious science fiction awards.
THIS. So very much.
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That's a level of meddling that is not strictly prohibited or even clearly "wrong", but it should be unsettling for anyone who cares for the integrity of the reward.
I firmly think and believe that if anyone really cared for the integrity of the award, that they would have worked toward making a better and more transparent voting system, and regularly updated the rules as these things were discovered. You know, instead of saying "Good enough" and throwing their hands up in the air for several generations.
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I firmly think and believe that if anyone really cared for the integrity of the award, that they would have worked toward making a better and more transparent voting system, and regularly updated the rules as these things were discovered. You know, instead of saying "Good enough" and throwing their hands up in the air for several generations.
Then you firmly believe in a kind of behavior that is not common among humans. The old adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it" more usually manifests in reality as "if it doesn't look broken don't fix it."
Consider democratic nations - clearly almost everyone in them cares about the integrity of the election process, and according to your logic the specific mechanics and details of the way voting elections work should constantly be revised and tweaked so that it could improve, yet they remain largely the same for much longer than the Hugo awards have been around. Still, when something happens that compromises the integrity of the election process, a lot of citizens are concerned, and not disingenuously. The same is true in the context of this discussion.
Look, maybe this slate is the kick in the nuts that the community needed that shows that times and circumstances have changed and the awards need to adapt to stay relevant, or maybe not. As usual with such issues, time will tell and until it does we will bicker. However way you look at it, though, from the viewpoint of those who thought the system was working so far, the voting process this year is seriously unsettling.
The problem I have with Sad Puppies is that they have ruined Hugo voting for the next few years, potentially, at least. By pushing bloc voting, even if they were correct, or had proof for it, which I doubt, it will result in a backlash that all voting will be bloc voting for the next nomination. I've read several Hugo winners that I didn't like, but I won't read any that were pushed to win.
I can understand if one writer says "vote for me" or if the voting represents the actual reading population. From what I have read, more than 50% of sci-fi\fantasy readers are women, so the trend would be that way, and I'd understand that. I'm also dismayed that actual authors were either not included\included in the SP list (or not) are now affected by this, as their own merits, one way or another, are not important here. An author who won a nomination in one of the categories that SP dominated is always going to be doubted, right or wrong, which I don't like at all. By fighting a perceived injustice, they have potentially created more. I am a liberal white male, but I see this as more of a detriment to anyone in the long term. Next year, valid conservatives may lose out to similar actions. Or we'll just have a nuclear escalation that will only ruin Hugo awards forever. None of this is any good. I hope this, one way or another, will not continue next year. But, for now, this is not a positive for the nomination process. No votes, which some are advocating as a reaction, are not fair to valid nominees. But valid nominees are in question, which is sad.
I can only hope Skin Game wins. Butcher really deserves recognition for the amazing work he has done over the years and it was a very good entry in the series.
Just for the record: Castalia House is a lesser publisher. Barely known even in Finland, as far as I can tell. Maybe just an e-publisher, I'm not sure. So on that front it qualifies.That's good to know, thanks.
OTOH, it's Vox Day's project. He's lead editor. So his Rabid Puppies slate doesn't look so much like a principled struggle for either smaller publishers or against leftist bias, but just using backlash against SJWs to push his own business. Without, by the way, making that connection clear on the post where he recommended the slate.And I suppose Scalzi gets a pass for posting his own slate that included his own works? I mean, pushing one's own business seems to be something both sides are using here. I don't see what's not 'clear' about that, especially when they openly admit it.
Fortunately, at least Sad Puppies seems to have some principle.
For about the 10th time, Scalzi didn't "post his own slate". He makes a blog post where he lists those of his works that are eligible.
That's all. He lists them all. Doesn't try to drive votes towards one so he'll have a better chance. Doesn't list all the works that he thinks should win. Just says "This is what I've got that's eligible."
I'll admit, even that is considered a bit much by historical Hugo standards. But it's a far cry from what we're seeing now. And of course, you know it's him doing it. It wasn't clear to me until I dug deeper into it that Vox was publishing most of the stuff on his list and no one else on this thread mentioned it, so I assume they didn't realize it either. It certainly wasn't explicit in the posting of the list itself. Disclosure makes a big difference."Here's what I've written this year. Vote for them if you liked them." vs
They are my recommendations for the 2015 nominations, and I encourage those who value my opinion on matters related to science fiction and fantasy to nominate them precisely as they...
If you believe there is a difference I have a bridge to sell you.
Again, a book you thought should have won not winning is not evidence of it being "wrong".
Personally, that's the only book on the list I've never heard of. I've read all the others, with varying degrees of enjoyment. Sword of the Lictor is rightly considered a classic. Pride of Chanur was the start of one of favorite series.
Well you probably won't enjoy Courtship Rite if you ever read it. But I'll stand by my point, it was the most outstanding book on that list.
So tell me, as a reader I can't tell what the best book was on that list by reading all of them?
But somehow the Hugo picks correctly by this voting process?
And it's been pure and pristine the whole time it's been in existence until now... and ... and evil people are fixing the process.
Come on, if it is this vulnerable you're telling me this is the first time ever this kind of thing has been done with this award? Not buying it.
And curiously no publishing house would hav8e ever thought to put their finger on the scale? Ever? I mean "DAW books, publisher of this year's Hugo winner..." That's got to be worth something for sales or ad copy.
None of the voters were fan boys and picked a name like Asimov or Heinlein just because?
Considering there are people who sell NY Times best seller to authors (they pay large groups of people to go out and buy a book the same day to guarantee they make the list), I highly doubt that Hugo Nomination has stayed pristine, considering you can do it for less than $1000 for some categories.
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From talking to a few people in the industry as well as what I've seen online, it looks like the reaction that they're trying for is avoid that arms race, but instead to punish the bloc nominating by voting "No award" above all the nominees on the bloc slates. No award can actually win, so that could be effective.
I've heard no talk of building competing slates and much disgust at the notion.
For future years, as I suggested above, the best approach is to get more people to nominate. Drown out the puppies if they try this again.
Great. Punish good authors for being liked by the wrong kind of people. That will certainly heal the rift that is growing in fandom.
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Caineach - there is a difference, but I agree it's not a black and white thing. It's more like charcoal and ash (I don't actually know which of those is darker, but you get the idea).
One is introducing a bias of memory by making sure your eligible entries are considered. This makes sense, but would be better if it were more across-the-board. Maybe something that would have a list of all valid entries thus far, updated daily. Or maybe allowing writers to submit their name for official consideration. You could argue that in its current state it's implicitly asking people to nominate the whole list. This is where it edges into gray territory.
The other is explicitly asking people to submit entries they haven't personally considered. That's deliberately introducing a bias. It may be similar in shape, but the scale is different.
I'll also add on that unless there's consistent bias, humans are, in aggregate, good at making guesses. In my opinion, introducing a conflicting bias might be effective at changing the struggle, but it's not healthy to the process in the long run since it leads to factions. Diluting the bias (by encouraging "fair" people to vote but not attempting to directly sway that vote) or eliminating the bias (by convincing people to realize they're biased and attempt to counter its influence) are better ways to make that happen.
So if you still think I'd be interested in that bridge, let's talk price. :-)
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Great. Punish good authors for being liked by the wrong kind of people. That will certainly heal the rift that is growing in fandom.From talking to a few people in the industry as well as what I've seen online, it looks like the reaction that they're trying for is avoid that arms race, but instead to punish the bloc nominating by voting "No award" above all the nominees on the bloc slates. No award can actually win, so that could be effective.
I've heard no talk of building competing slates and much disgust at the notion.
For future years, as I suggested above, the best approach is to get more people to nominate. Drown out the puppies if they try this again.
Since I disagreed with your other post, I wanted to explicitly agree with you here. It's reasonable to say you disagree with the nominations and vote No Award. It's not reasonable to disagree with a third party's nomination approach and let them force you away from voting for something you actually enjoy.
From what I have seen (and taking people at their word when reasonable), I would consider Sad Puppies to be the wrong approach with the right motives. Rabid Puppies seems to take the worst parts of Sad Puppies and manipulate them into something orders of magnitude worse.
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Caineach - there is a difference, but I agree it's not a black and white thing. It's more like charcoal and ash (I don't actually know which of those is darker, but you get the idea).
One is introducing a bias of memory by making sure your eligible entries are considered. This makes sense, but would be better if it were more across-the-board. Maybe something that would have a list of all valid entries thus far, updated daily. Or maybe allowing writers to submit their name for official consideration. You could argue that in its current state it's implicitly asking people to nominate the whole list. This is where it edges into gray territory.
The other is explicitly asking people to submit entries they haven't personally considered. That's deliberately introducing a bias. It may be similar in shape, but the scale is different.
I'll also add on that unless there's consistent bias, humans are, in aggregate, good at making guesses. In my opinion, introducing a conflicting bias might be effective at changing the struggle, but it's not healthy to the process in the long run since it leads to factions. Diluting the bias (by encouraging "fair" people to vote but not attempting to directly sway that vote) or eliminating the bias (by convincing people to realize they're biased and attempt to counter its influence) are better ways to make that happen.
So if you still think I'd be interested in that bridge, let's talk price. :-)
Is it asking people to submit entries they didn't read? I read it as "these things are awesome, and we think you will agree". You have no evidence that people didn't actually read the things before submitting them. Your talking about lists circulated on author's websites. By their very nature, the people on those sites are likely avid readers. Not only that, but Sad Puppies did book bombs, where they bought copies of the works and sent them out for people to read.
Sure, getting people organized to read things they may not have otherwise read is an escalation, but it isn't some demonic scheme that a lot of people are making it out to be.
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I have absolutely no problem with "These books are great. Read them and if you like them, I encourage you to nominate." The quote you responded to and called the same as providing a list of eligible options was:
"They are my recommendations for the 2015 nominations, and I encourage those who value my opinion on matters related to science fiction and fantasy to nominate them precisely as they are. I think it is abundantly evident that these various and meritorious works put not only last year's nominations, but last year's winners, to shame."
This is Rabid Puppies and it doesn't encourage people to read them or think about it. Sad Puppies has much more reasonable language like "recommend" and the like that I think puts it more in line with what you're suggesting. I don't oppose Sad Puppies on principled grounds, I just don't think it has a good endgame.