Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
I am getting the impression from posts here that all with the Hugo's was as pure as driven snow before the advent of the Puppies. Human nature and politics, however, make this quite unlikely. What the Puppies have done is to introduce one very public slate for their group. But before this, how did nominations work in practice? Was there a particular group that dominated such nominations, whether out of their own strength or the apathy of others?
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Bleah, lost reply when I timed out. In the past, there were always recommendations by fans/fanzines/bloggers/magazines (like Locus) out during the nomination window. Some were probably more influential than others. I think it was common to for fans to list of few of their favorites, and most that I've seen included some commentary why they thought them nomination worthy. Recommended reading lists, like the ones from Locus, NEFSA and Emerald City usually had at least 15-20 recommendations for each writing category. While Frank Wu's analysis of the 2001-2005 Hugos showed that most of the winners and nominees showed up in these recommendation lists, it's hard to say whether the list compilers just had similar tastes to the nominators, or if the nominators were using the lists as a guide.
There have been a couple of cases where someone was known to have tried to buy a Hugo, like the time a set of Worldcon memberships were bought with mail order checks with serial numbers in order, and then they all voted for the same work(s). I think it may have been for Battlefield Earth or another Hubbard novel.
There's no doubt that fanzines, bloggers and other social media can be very influential. The backlash against the puppy slates this year and last were in large part due to social media campaigns. Likewise, I think various authors, fans, and bloggers have been influential in the nominations and votes for best editor. For example, I think Charlie Stross campaigned for a Hugo for his editor Ginjer Buchanan, who was retiring last year, and she won. I don't think anyone prior to Ted Beale (Vox Day) had ever so blatantly campaigned for the Hugos by publishing a slate where 4 of 5 nominees for Novella were published by him, 1 of 5 Novelettes, 2 of 5 short stories, 2 of 5 related works, and of course, him for editor in both categories, and then advertised on it his blog as "sticking it to the SJWs" (or something close to that).