2015 Hugo Award winners

[tompe]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

And I support the WSFS constitutional amendments to make it much harder for them to do it again in the future.

I've recently read that the person running next year's Sad Puppy campaign is intending to not call it a slate, will list the top 10 suggestions for each category, and make all suggestions available for viewing. If it had been done that way this year, there would have been no outrage.

What does available for viewing mean? Why not suggest 50 works? Why just 10? 10 works will probably have to much impact.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I honestly don't see it as a problem. Anyone is free to completely ignore their recommendations. It's a free vote: if someone wants to vote for a "slate" they are perfectly entitled to do so, just as you or anyone else are entitled to suggest one.

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's nothing "immoral" about recommending a book (or a slate of books) to someone. You don't have to agree with the selection. Nobody has to agree with it. It's simply a recommendation. You have a very strange idea of morals if you consider that to be immoral!

You have made your opinions clear many times -- you appear as a general rule of thumb (correct me if I am wrong) to value the legality of something far more than the morality. It is a very bureaucratically-minded view of the world.

In the case of the Hugos, legality equates to falling within the stated rules of the award.
Morality equates to doing the right/polite/socially friendly/community-minded thing.

No one other than you is suggesting that @tompe meant "morality" in the sense of "overarching concept of the fundamental forces of good and evil as understood by the human race".


IIRC, you have cheerfully pointed out to people on several occasions that you have no sense of humor? This seems to be more of the same -- a fundamental lack of appreciation for the specific values that other people want out the Hugos.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

You have made your opinions clear many times -- you appear as a general rule of thumb (correct me if I am wrong) to value the legality of something far more than the morality. It is a very bureaucratically-minded view of the world.

In the case of the Hugos, legality equates to falling within the stated rules of the award.
Morality equates to doing the right/polite/socially friendly/community-minded thing.

No, I'm afraid you've entirely misunderstood the reason for my disagreement with the views expressed by Tommy and others. I see the attempt to restrict the freedom of people to nominate whichever books they wish as an attack on the very principles of the democratic nature of the Hugo awards. Those principles include the rights to campaign for your favoured nominations.

[DustyDisks]

Politics for the good and many times for the bad, rules in most all human endeavors.

[jjmgreen]

Originally Posted by Rizla

With respect, I think you're missing the point. The Hugo is supposed to recognize great science-fiction writing. That is not what Sad Puppy (or whatever their name is) is doing. They are more concerned with pushing a political / ideological agenda than they are with good science-fiction writing.

No, that's a complete reversal of the puppies - they want to push
good science-fiction, regardless of the political/idealogical agenda
of the story or author (well, that's the Sad Puppies. Rabid Puppies
appears to just be Vox Day trying to antagonize as many as he can)

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by jjmgreen

No, that's a complete reversal of the puppies - they want to push
good science-fiction, regardless of the political/idealogical agenda
of the story or author (well, that's the Sad Puppies. Rabid Puppies
appears to just be Vox Day trying to antagonize as many as he can)

Then they need to do a better job of nominating good science fiction, because the past attempt was nothing short of second-rate pulp. You know, L. Ron Hubbard level second-rate pulp. When they start nominating better stories, I'll start giving them their due. Until then, they're just whiners.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, I'm afraid you've entirely misunderstood the reason for my disagreement with the views expressed by Tommy and others. I see the attempt to restrict the freedom of people to nominate whichever books they wish as an attack on the very principles of the democratic nature of the Hugo awards. Those principles include the rights to campaign for your favoured nominations.

So you actually think it is OK and not a bad thing and bad action (morally) to nominate a book you have not read or nominate a book you think is crap? Yes or no?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

So you actually thing it is OK and not a bad thing and bad action (morally) to nominate a book you have not read or nominate a book you think is crap? Yes or no?

How do you know whether anyone (other than yourself) has read a book they're nominating or voting for? It's futile to try to "legislate" for such things. What are you going to do? Make every voter provide proof that they've read every book they're nominating?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How do you know whether anyone (other than yourself) has read a book they're nominating or voting for? It's futile to try to "legislate" for such things. What are you going to do? Make every voter provide proof that they've read every book they're nominating?

It was a simple question. Why can you not answer it? It was not a question about how to detect things. It was a question about if you thought a certain action was OK or no (morally).

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How do you know whether anyone (other than yourself) has read a book they're nominating or voting for? It's futile to try to "legislate" for such things. What are you going to do? Make every voter provide proof that they've read every book they're nominating?

I would like to socially discourage people from publicly encouraging people to do so.
Beyond that, I will simply hope that people do he socially friendly and community-minded thing. Most people seem not to have a problem with that, until lunatics start waving slates around.


As I suggested earlier, and you vigorously denied, you seem to think the legislation is the be-all and end-all.

[HarryT]

@Tommy,

Because, unlike you, I'm not willing to set myself up as a moral arbiter on the "correctness" or otherwise of someone's decision about whom to vote for. I'm disagreeing with what seems to be an attempt to make the process less democratic by restricting the right to recommend books. That's where we differ.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

As I suggested earlier, and you vigorously denied, you seem to think the legislation is the be-all and end-all.

Precisely the opposite. I am opposed to rule changes that will restrict choice. It's the people who are complaining who want to change the rules, not me.

[eschwartz]

Do we have a different definition of "recommend"?

eschwartz -- recommend: tell people about a book you liked, and encourage them to try it out, see if they like it, and maybe vote for it in the Hugos.

HarryT -- recommend: encourage people to vote for a book whether they have read it or not, on the grounds that it deserves to win the Hugos, "because discrimination".

[HarryT]

Are you deliberately setting out to misrepresent my views? You certainly seem to be. Please don't tell me what I'm saying when you get it so very wrong.

Let me try to make it clear:

I am not encouraging anyone to do or not to do anything. It's none of my business why someone chooses to vote for a book, and I don't think it should anyone's business except the voter's.

Why do you keep going on about "legislation"? I'm not suggesting that any rules be changed. Please stop suggesting that I am!

[DrNefario]

I think the problem here is that the slate nominations are not about having your say but about denying everyone else their say.

I nominated this year, and might as well not have bothered since I didn't have a few hundred willing drones to back up my votes. I foolishly nominated the best things I'd read. I feel that it's personally disrespectful to me and everyone like me to block-vote a slate like that, and the thousands of unaligned fans like me would seem to agree.

The point of the shortlist is to stop you needing to read everything to give a fair vote. It will only be something approximating the best if people play fair. If the stuff that has been creating a buzz and which has made up all the other award shortlists doesn't feature, then you've got to suspect that the system hasn't worked.