Six Days Left

[grrm]

Less than a week remains to cast a vote for this year's Hugo Awards. Voting closes on July 31, but it would be wise not to wait until the last day. Sasquan has already warned that its servers may overload if there is too large a rush of last-minute ballots. Remember, you can vote NOW, even if you haven't finished reading, and return later to

Comments

[grrm]

Getting more people to take part in the nominating process is the main thing. I have been trying to do that for years.

It's cool if people suggest books and stories and editors and fan writers on their blogs and facebook pages, pointing other fans towards things they loved. The more recommendations the better. And that includes the Puppies.

I do see a vast difference between me saying (as I did), "hey, STATION ELEVEN is a great novel and should be nominated for a Hugo," and putting together a slate and saying, "here are five novels, nominate them all," thereby locking up the ballot.

What we want is people talking about the stories... saying what they like, why the work is brilliant, original, award worthy, whatever. What we DON'T want is this crap about cabals and conspiracies and CHORFs and SWJs, and all the mean-spirited name-calling the Puppies injected into the process. The last thing fandom or the genre or the world needs is another attack on that dinosaur story (which did not even WIN the Hugo, for chissakes).

I am against all the proposed rules changes. I think those are overreactions that may have the unintended consequence of making this whole situation worse instead of better.

[gman109]

Thanks for that reply George.

It's funny you know, a lot of my circle consider anyone who describes themselves as "very liberal" to be in favor of more and more regulation in any given situation. Your answer here shows the folly of that perception, and I agree with it - more/different rules and regulations can't ever fix what the puppies did or could do in the future IMO.

It's not what I would have expected you to say either tbh, and I think I understand you better now. You put a lot of time, blood, sweat, and tears into writing about puppygate, it's obvious to anyone that the issue was very important to you, yet instead of fighting fire with more rules and regulations, it sounds to me like you're willing to trust the better angels of our nature, and to promote an intelligent solution to the problem in the future. I'm not sure how well that will work out for next year, but it impresses upon me the idea that unlike most of the puppies/rabbs, you're able to...I don't know, rise above it I guess.

I hope I'm understanding your point of view correctly George - again, I wouldn't have expected a self proclaimed "very liberal" person to shy away for just trying to regulate the problem away.

I think this is an important factoid, something the other side of this issue could take a page from.

Liberlaism

[peerchen]

"It's funny you know, a lot of my circle consider anyone who describes themselves as "very liberal" to be in favor of more and more regulation in any given situation"
Well thats just means that "liberal" is just a tag and is not really saying much.

(This is one of the problems I see: The idea that your political leaning automaticly means you have to like these books, but will hate these other bookjs...)

[grrm]

It is one of the ironies of modern political discourse that both liberals and conservatives say they are fighting for "freedom" and the other side is against it.

[gman109]

Agreed.

You're a good man George. Wise, untempered, and fair opinions, and still able to stick to your guns throughout the puppy/rabid nonsense honorably, with sound advice for all.

It's a pleasure and privilege to be able to exchange ideas here with you. Thank you very much for taking time for all of us here, it's appreciated. I've enjoyed getting to know you and your thoughts a little better here at LJ/NAB.

[kevin_standlee]

While I agree that increased participation is a laudable goal, it's unclear that simply increasing the total number of people nominating actually counteracts deliberate slate voting, given that it's merely the first five past the post. If the total nominations go up but are highly diffuse, a dedicated group of slate voters can likely still dominate the shortlist with only a tiny number of actual ballots cast; probably less than 5%.

I'm awful leery of counter-slates myself. It effectively is saying that fandom must form political parties, with all of the negative baggage that entails.

[ext_1407911]

Kevin

Much as I'd like to believe that increasing the number of people nominating would work, I agree that the mathematics say it wouldn't; 5% of total nominations voting as a slate can take all or most of the places on the ballot, as it did this year.

That leaves the remaining 95% of us locked outside for the heinous crime of nominating works which we felt were worthy of a Hugo, whilst the 5% enjoy themselves nuking the Hugos; there is no way to prevent that other than by changing the rules.

Any rule change will take votes for it in two succeeding years, which means that next year we'll be staring at a heap of steaming rejects from the slushpile masquerading as Hugo contenders once again; that is a terrible prospect, but I think most fans will soldier on, aiming for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Frankly, if there is no end in sight because the rules remain unchanged then I suspect that most fans won't continue because we are not masochists, and we have much better things to read, art to admire, and performances to see. Worldcon will survive, but the Hugos will become an unamusing joke...

[soon_lee]

"I am against all the proposed rules changes."

I am surprised you don't support "E pluribus Hugo". It's a clear improvement on the current system. EPH doesn't change the culture of nominating; you still nominate up to five works you deem Hugo-worthy. It's only the tallying that is different. It doesn't prevent bloc-voting but rather, EPH mitigates bloc-voting to a level of influence commensurate with actual voter proportions. How is that a bad thing?

What other solutions are there? Talking might work with the Sad Puppies, but it's really the Rabid Puppies who got their works onto the ballot, and you've said there is no talking to Theodore Beale. Beale and his Rabid Puppies show no signs of stopping as this appears to be a long term (~10 years) grudge on his part & he has expressed a desire to destroy the Hugos. I think EPH will mitigate their influence; if they can only get one or two finalists, bloc-voting will no longer a dominant strategy able to shut-out whole categories & Beale will probably lose interest after a while (I suspect part of the attraction for him is gaming: leveraging a relatively small number of nominators to achieve a big impact on the Hugo ballot). If we do nothing, Beale and his group will be able to continue gaming the Hugos and shutting out whole categories. I cannot accept that. Do you have an alternative?

As for increasing the nominating numbers, well there have been efforts for years toward that but although Hugo nominating numbers have been increasing in recent years, the growth is slow. And even if more people nominate, under the current system bloc-voters will still have a disproportionately bigger influence on the nominations. If the nominating system remains unchanged, the number crunching says that we need at least five non-slate voters for every slate voter as ~200(?) out of ~1000 nominators were able to shut-out a number of categories this year. I am not confident that more nominators will be the solution unless we also change the rules.

We have "No Award" as a last resort for the real dross when it comes to voting, but I would rather read & vote on Hugo-worthy candidates than have to deploy "No Award".

You have said previously that it is an honor to (merely) be nominated. If we get mostly slated finalists every year, that won't be true anymore.

[grrm]

You have no certainly that we will get slated nominees every year, however. At this juncture, no one knows if this is going to be a continuing problem, or if this is all going to be forgotten in a year or two. Making sweeping rules changes just to address what happened this year seems a massive overreaction to me.

In my original post on this, I pointed out the year that the Scientologists successfully stuffed the ballot to nominate one of L. Ron Hubbard's book. Fandom was horrified... but we did not immediately go out and pass a rules change. Even though, in theory, there was nothing to prevent the Scientologists from amping up their efforts and doing the same thing again, and again, and again.

[soon_lee]

But there is also no certainty that there won't be slated nominees every year either.

Any rule change has to pass at this year's Business Meeting *and* be ratified at next year's meeting before it can be implemented the year after.

If we pass EPH this year, we still have a year's grace to consider whether to ratify for it to be implemented for the 2017 Hugos. If we don't pass EPH this year and decide a rule change is needed next year, this year's Business Meeting agenda has "Popular Ratification" which will add another year to any rule's passage, so it won't be until the 2019 Hugos that EPH can be implemented. It's the choice of the potential of one more year of slates shutting-out categories vs three more years.

Theodore Beale (and his Rabid Puppies) is qualitatively different from the Scientologists. I don't think any amount of opprobrium will cause Beale to desist; I could be wrong but I highly doubt it because this sort of disruptive behaviour is how Beale gets his jollies.

For me, approving EPH at this year's Business Meeting is the no-lose scenario.

[grrm]

I think we are all crediting Beale with more power than he actually has. How many of his followers, most of whom are not fans and have more interest in the culture war than in SF, are going to be willing to pony up $40 -- going to $50 next year -- for Supporting memberships year after year after year just to fuck with the Hugos?

I don't know. Time will tell, I guess.

Until it does, I'd rather not mess with the Hugo rules.

[ext_729154]

"In my original post on this, I pointed out the year that the Scientologists successfully stuffed the ballot to nominate one of L. Ron Hubbard's book. Fandom was horrified... but we did not immediately go out and pass a rules change. Even though, in theory, there was nothing to prevent the Scientologists from amping up their efforts and doing the same thing again, and again, and again."

Yes, but in this case, this is the third year this has happened, each year getting progressively worse, and we already have promises that it will happen again next year. Plus, we have VD promising to 'destroy' the awards.

EPH seems like a reasonable solution that devalues slates of ANY sort without destroying anything else. Also, it's not as though WC uses only one voting method for everything. They already have a completely different arrangement for the actual Hugo vote.

[lagopus_muta]

I think you are overly optimistic about future slate behaviour, and exaggerate the consequences of the proposed rules changes.

Slates seems more likely than not for the foreseeable future. The Sad Puppies campaign is in its third year already, and the organizers have said clearly that they plan to continue next year. I suppose "Sad Puppies IV" might be a honest recommendation list and not a "vote thise way"-slate, but considering the way puppies have defended their actions so far I wouldn't bet on them suddenly becoming housetrained. On the rabid side, Beale have expressed a desire to "burn down" the awards, and he seems perfectly capable of holding a grudge for a long time. We also don't know who else might get funny ideas - I worry that the puppies, by demonstrating how effective a slate can be, have opened Pandora's Box.

The E Pluribus Hugo proposal keeps the nomination process mostly intact. Voters nominate the same way as we do now - we list 1 to 5 works that we consider worthy. The difference lies in the details of how nominations are tallied, and this makes a practical difference only if there is a pattern of bloc voting. EPH reduces a voting bloc's ability to select all the works for the shortlist, but if there's no voting bloc it produces the same end result as the current system. In a year with a normal distribution of nominations - the kind of distribution we get when all voters are honestly nominating the stuff they like - E Pluribus Hugo and the current system will usually give the same result.

As for the Scientologist campaign, there's a couple of differences to the puppies. First, the Scientologists didn't have enough eligible works to sweep the shortlist the way the puppies have done. They had only one nominee, and the amount of influence they had on the shortlist wasn't a big deal. (Hubbard could have written and published five new short stories in one year and then have his church help him sweep that category - but I think fans would have started to talk about rules changes then.) Second, the Scientologists wanted a Hugo for Hubbard. When they realized they couldn't get that, they had little reason to go on. The puppies is on their third year with no sign of stopping.

[grrm]

I think we will have to agree to disagree on EPH.

I will be voting against it.

The 4-and-6 proposal actually appeals to me for, having the virtue of simplicity. But not enough for vote for that one either.

Nor do I support the addition of a "Best Saga" category. We have to stop adding categories to the Hugos. Truth be told, we'd be better off dropping some, but that will never happen. Every existing category has its own constituency now, who will fight to the death to resist the elimination of their slot.