I have not hitherto taken a personal position in the whole Sad and Rabid Puppies saga, simply because I am not familiar with enough of the Nominations/Winners over the period concerned. I will add that I read Ancillary Justice which I enjoyed and thought was a deserving winner in its category and year. I was also unimpressed with the Puppies nominations this year which I thought were very good stories but lacked that something extra which should be present to win such an Award. However, if what has happened is what I suspect has happened then I am about to side with the Puppies out of sheer disgust and the credence that the Puppies allegations have been given by the apparent conduct surrounding the cancellation of these awards. The Hugo's site at:
http://www.thehugoawards.org/ states so far as relevant:
The members of the World Science Fiction Society rejected the slate of finalists in five categories, giving No Award in Best Novella, Short Story, Related Work, Editor Short Form, and Editor Long Form. This equals the total number of times that WSFS members have presented No Award in the entire history of the Hugo Awards, most recently in 1977.
I have had a quick look at the Constitution of WSFS and the only provision that I could find dealing specifically with the cancellation of awards in a category is as follows:
Section 3.6: “No Award”. At the discretion of an individual Worldcon Committee, if the lack of nominations or final votes in a specific category shows a marked lack of interest in that category on the part of the voters, the Award in that category shall be canceled for that year.
Looking at nomination and votes cast in the no award categories would seem to indicate that this rule could not apply.
Alternately, there is a business meeting at each Worldcon with a quorom of 12 members physically present. Only attending as opposed to supporting members can vote at this Business Meeting. There does not seem to be any specific power given to the Business Meeting to cancel awards in particular categories though a specific power may not be necessary. There are also Standing Rules and other guidelines I have not looked at. It appears, however, that a small minority has managed to frustrate the wishes of the majority. The Minutes of this Business Meeting will also make interesting reading as that Meeting seems to have authority to alter the Constitution.
If this is in fact what has happened then I am disgusted by it. A small group who consider themselves to have superior taste have apparently managed to subvert a democratic process.
UPDATE: There seems to be some suggestion that large numbers of voters actually voted for no award. I don't know off the top of my head whether such a vote would even be valid. However, if this is the case it may provide a justification for the application of Rule 3.6 I quoted above. However, I think the wording of the announcement as the decision to cancel being the vote of the members rather than just the Committee concerned and the "reasons" tend to indicate that the decision was taken by the business meeting. I suppose we will have to wait and see.