AwardsWatchWatch
SF Awards Watch sarcastically post the formula for dissing SF awards:
Standlee says:We’d also welcome suggestions as to how people come to the conclusion that the problem with SF awards is that the voters are all stupid and dishonest but this can be cured by having more such voters
Now, obviously no one has actually made that claim but again it is more true than he believes.
If you are interested in the outcome of an award rather than what it stands for then juried awards are preferable to popular (ie fan) awards. As a guide to the reader juried awards are always going best because the do truely seek to identify the best work. This is because yes, juries are expert but more than this they are comprehensive.
This doesn't mean popular awards are worthless, just that they have a different aim. This aim is to be a community reward. Obviously the votes of individuals are partial, based on incomplete information and personal prejudice, but so what? (I say this as a voter in the BSFA Awards.) However, such a community award is obviously strengthed and given greater legitimacy the more members of the community take part in it.
graham_clements's point is uncontroversial - he prefers juried awards to popular awards - and his post was actually mostly about the Australian SF awards. I have some more commentary on these, specifically the Aurealis Awards, here and here.
- SF awards are useless because they are voted on by too few people
- You can only be sure that awards will go to the “best” books if lots of people vote
- But awards selected by juries produce better results because the people on juries are experts
- Besides, most awards are voted on by fans, and as we all know fans don’t bother to read the books before voting
- Also fans are deeply patriotic and will only vote for authors who live locally to them
Standlee says:We’d also welcome suggestions as to how people come to the conclusion that the problem with SF awards is that the voters are all stupid and dishonest but this can be cured by having more such voters
Now, obviously no one has actually made that claim but again it is more true than he believes.
If you are interested in the outcome of an award rather than what it stands for then juried awards are preferable to popular (ie fan) awards. As a guide to the reader juried awards are always going best because the do truely seek to identify the best work. This is because yes, juries are expert but more than this they are comprehensive.
This doesn't mean popular awards are worthless, just that they have a different aim. This aim is to be a community reward. Obviously the votes of individuals are partial, based on incomplete information and personal prejudice, but so what? (I say this as a voter in the BSFA Awards.) However, such a community award is obviously strengthed and given greater legitimacy the more members of the community take part in it.
graham_clements's point is uncontroversial - he prefers juried awards to popular awards - and his post was actually mostly about the Australian SF awards. I have some more commentary on these, specifically the Aurealis Awards, here and here.