Gatekeeping and the Hugo Awards, and why we all need to attend the Business Meeting this year.

[seanan_mcguire]

All right: here's the skinny

Comments

[princejvstin]

I thought, for a while, that it was a bad idea that people like Jim (and Jim is a lovely person) won the Best Fan Writer, when "Real fans" didn't.

I managed to be convinced at a CONVergence panel this year that my beliefs needed to be re-examined. Writers (like you, or Jim or John Scalzi) are fans too.

If I was going to Worldcon, I would definitely be at that business meeting. The "take our ball and go home" vibe of this proposal needs to be squashed. Hard.

[seanan_mcguire]

I do think it's important that it not go to a professional writer every year; if that happened, it would basically become the "Best Editorial" Hugo, and I'd think there was a good case for reexamining it. But that doesn't happen. Instead, we get to see this wonderful spread of things, and more, bring that same wonderful spread to people's attention.

If we start saying professionals aren't fans, we create a gulf that I'm not sure we could fix. I'm glad you changed your mind. :)

Here's hoping we have the votes to stop both these proposals.

[seanan_mcguire]

Good.

[priscellie]

It boggles the mind. It takes all sorts to build and sustain a community. Trashing the Best Fan Writer and Best Fan Artist categories is like trashing the Best Student Film category at the Oscars. It doesn't diminish any of the more professional awards--rather, it demonstrates that hard work and vision are to be honored and recognized at all levels of participation in the sci-fi creative culture, which enriches the community as a whole.

Plus, it's downright hypocritical bullshit. This is a group of people for whom many were ostracized and excluded in youth, and even in adulthood. It's intolerable that many of them are so committed to ostracizing and excluding others as soon as they possess a glimmer of power themselves.

[vixyish]

That pretty much hits it on the head, right there.

[sylviamcivers]

Trashing the Best Fan Writer and Best Fan Artist categories is like trashing the Best Student Film category at the Oscars.

But but but the fans aren't paying the TRUE MASTERS for teching them anything!
Their just buying books and comics and films and manga and loving it so much tehy have to add on! The TRUE MASTERS must be compensated for other people poking in their gardens!

Even though the people most likely to complain about fans are... seldom TRUE MASTERS, so what do they care?

[seanan_mcguire]

Plus, it's downright hypocritical bullshit. This is a group of people for whom many were ostracized and excluded in youth, and even in adulthood. It's intolerable that many of them are so committed to ostracizing and excluding others as soon as they possess a glimmer of power themselves.

Yes.

Exactly.

[akiko]

I'm not a fan of the old style of fan writing and fan art and fanzine that currently takes up 60% of the nominee slots in those categories, but ffs, I don't want to see the category eliminated. I want to see more people like Mark and Tansy being nominated, see it change as fandom evolves.

There are always people who want fandom to be preserved in formaldehyde, in a jar on their trophy shelf, the exact way it was in 1970 or 1980 (or, in some cases, 1950). Let's hope they don't win.

[seanan_mcguire]

I am right there with you on the ratios, but things are changing. Things need time to change.

[beccastareyes]

Yes, this. To both of these. I do have the money now to go to the occasional con, but I don't have the time unless they are job-related*, and most of my friends aren't literary SF fans, so I'm more likely to head to an anime or media con with them. And, to be honest, big cons like WorldCon are a bit intimidating.

I don't care if I get all the printed WorldCon material -- it would probably save both myself and the con-runners some cash to not send me them -- but I do want to vote in the Hugos. I want to nominate books and blogs and comics and people who make fandom awesome. I'll tune in to the livecast to watch the Hugo awards and squee along with the audience.

If I was going to WorldCon, I'd vote against any attempt to gatekeep fandom. Fandom is bigger than that. (What that? Any that!)

* Which tends to mean 'astronomy' not 'science fiction', though if I get better at outreach maybe I could run some 'science of SF panels'.

[wendyzski]

I know that some SF cons have science tracks, and even Science GOHs. Windycon has repeatedly been host to Chris Ready (formerly of JPL) who brings amazingly accessible lectures and presentations on astronomy that are always packed. So contact your local con(s) and ask. Please.

[beccastareyes]

I might do that, especially if I end up a place that's a little less packed with astronomers than Ithaca, NY. Because I like talking about astronomy, and my dissertation is on Saturn's Rings.

ETA: But not this fall. Dissertation comes before almost everything else.

[rev_bob]

Check out LibertyCon in Chattanooga, TN - pretty hefty science track there. See libertycon.org for more info; it takes place at the end of June, ay the Chattanooga Choo Choo. (Yes, there really is one.)