Finalists: 2015 Hugo Award

[HarryT]

Thanks for posting the actual text involved. Having now seen it, it seems like a pretty mild form of campaigning to me; the kind of thing one would expect in any electoral process (which the Hugos are). I honestly can't see what the fuss is about: if this Day chap is as fringe a lunatic as has been suggested, why would anyone take any notice of his views?

[DrNefario]

I am always happy for more people to get involved.

I am not interested in ganging up and making a slate.

Right now, I'm fairly happy to step away from the Hugo and let it fail.

In the last few years I completed a project to read all of the Best Novel winners, and I did feel that the award is a good barometer of the field. It's less likely to go out on a limb than some of the juried awards, and more likely to reward crowd-pleasers, and that seemed like a good thing, to me. It remains the only award I have read every winner of. I'm a little sad to see it vandalised - it's a shame to throw away that history - but maybe it has had its day. I certainly don't feel I need it to find out what's hot, any more, now I have podcasts, and forums, and twitter, and blogs.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by jdege

In other words, to do exactly what the Sad Puppies are doing.

What good would that do?
The problem is not the titles they're stacking the deck with, the problem is that the deck can easily be stacked.

In 2014, it took 97 votes to nominate Mira Grant for best novel for the fourth year running (no disrespect to Grant, but c'mon: she wrote what some really thought was the best SFF novel of the year four years in a row?)

It also took only 69 votes to make Vox Day a Hugo nominated author.

http://www.thehugoawards.org/content...Statistics.pdf

It's time to make changes that increase the nomination pool enough that 69 (or 97) votes won't be enough to get something/someone nominated (not a difference of 69, 97 votes, but a total of 69, 97 votes). Either that, or it's time to close up the shop.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks for posting the actual text involved. Having now seen it, it seems like a pretty mild form of campaigning to me; the kind of thing one would expect in any electoral process (which the Hugos are). I honestly can't see what the fuss is about: if this Day chap is as fringe a lunatic as has been suggested, why would anyone take any notice of his views?

He has found a few other lunatics who share his views, or who simply want to cause trouble. It doesn't take many.

You really don't see the problem with a right-wing hate group occupying all 5 of the finalist slots for several of the award categories?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks for posting the actual text involved. Having now seen it, it seems like a pretty mild form of campaigning to me; the kind of thing one would expect in any electoral process (which the Hugos are). I honestly can't see what the fuss is about: if this Day chap is as fringe a lunatic as has been suggested, why would anyone take any notice of his views?

Understand that it is not mild when you require people to vote for a slate. You totally destroy the nomination process that way.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

if this Day chap is as fringe a lunatic as has been suggested, why would anyone take any notice of his views?

Because fringe lunatics (especially religious ones) gets a following and it is enough with maybe 200 person to totally destroy the nomination process.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

You really don't see the problem with a right-wing hate group occupying all 5 of the finalist slots for several of the award categories?

It's a democratic process; if anyone doesn't like the outcome, the answer is to campaign for those books that you think are better, just as in any other electoral process. Did everyone here who's complaining about it buy a WorldCon membership and make their own nominations?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

What good would that do?
The problem is not the titles they're stacking the deck with, the problem is that the deck can easily be stacked.

In 2014, it took 97 votes to nominate Mira Grant for best novel for the fourth year running (no disrespect to Grant, but c'mon: she wrote what some really thought was the best SFF novel of the year four years in a row?)

This was really annoying since I read all nominations and I really did not like these books. And yes this is a distortion that is unfortunate and irritating and a result of Seanan McGuire's blog following I would say (or readers bad taste but I wonder if that can explain it). But even if we got certain authors nominated just because of there following (Rob Sawyer and Resnick is other authors I suspect for that) we got variations and some really good books nominated also.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's a democratic process; if anyone doesn't like the outcome, the answer is to campaign for those books that you think are better, just as in any other electoral process. Did everyone here who's complaining about it buy a WorldCon membership and make their own nominations?

How do you nominate if you have not read extensively among the candidates? Are you saying you should just nominate stuff you have not read?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's a democratic process; if anyone doesn't like the outcome, the answer is to campaign for those books that you think are better, just as in any other electoral process. Did everyone here who's complaining about it buy a WorldCon membership and make their own nominations?

Yes, of course. Because the worthiness of one's concern can only be judged by a willingness to spend $50 to take part in a democratic process.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

How do you nominate if you have not read extensively among the candidates? Are you saying you should just nominate stuff you have not read?

I'm saying that it's lack of participation in elections by those with moderate views which lets in the extremists; this happens time and time again in all sphere of life; I've seen it repeatedly. The solution is not to throw away the democratic process, but to encourage more people to participate.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Yes, of course. Because the worthiness of one's concern can only be judged by a willingness to spend $50 to take part in a democratic process.

You don't need to spend $50 to encourage people to vote for the books that you consider to be worthy candidates. You could make your suggestions right here on MR; I'm sure there must be quite a few MR members who have WorldCon memberships.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The solution is not to throw away the democratic process, but to encourage more people to participate.

Finally! What do you think many of us have been advocating for? And suggesting changes that could increase the number of people participating in the nomination process?

Clearly, the money barrier is at least a part of what's keeping more people from participating. Which is why a plan that grants more than one year's nomination rights per supporting membership is interesting to me. It increases the pool-size and still allows them to sell voting rights every year.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You don't need to spend $50 to encourage people to vote for the books that you consider to be worthy candidates.

I don't want to encourage people to vote for the books I consider worthy at all. I want people to vote for the books they consider worthy. Not the ones that some successful campaign platform (regardless of the "honorableness" of its intent) convinced them they should consider worthy. I'm OK with it being a "democratic process," I'm just not OK with how easy it is to gerrymander the nomination process.

Loud-mouthed internet idiots will always attract more votes than a grassroots "hey, I'm a nice guy who think this book is really good" campaign. And I think there's some simple tweaks that could reduce the affect of either type of needless campaign on the nomination process.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't want to encourage people to vote for the books I consider worthy at all. I want people to vote for the books they consider worthy. Not the ones that some successful campaign platform (regardless of the "honorableness" of its intent) convinced them they should consider worthy.

I very much fear that any electoral process in which only supporters of the extremists do any campaigning can have only one outcome: the candidates supported by the extremists will win, because they will be the ones that people will have heard of.