2015 Hugo Award winners

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

but for the simple yardstick that more people voted this year than ever before

It has meant that I'll be nominating and voting next time. I still not sure that makes it a good thing.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

I'd call the puppy thing a great success, not because of the slate, not because of trying to include more mainstream (or whatever term you want to apply) books, but for the simple yardstick that more people voted this year than ever before, it's meant to be a popular award and was in danger of becoming very self-referential and irrelevant to the sci-fi reading public. Now most people know that they can vote if they want, the more people voting the less chance it can get derailed by any small interest group (sad, mad rabid, sjw or whatever), hell if the romance crowd took an interest there is nothing stopping historical-chick-lit completely sweeping the board with the amount of people voting now.

No it is not meant to be a popular award. It is meant to be an award to what members of Worldcon think is good. It had nothing to do with the reading public.

[ST-One]

Originally Posted by tompe

No it is not meant to be a popular award. It is meant to be an award to what members of Worldcon think is good. It had nothing to do with the reading public.

The very fact that you can buy into the voting process (becoming a member of Worldcon is rather easy) would suggest that you are wrong.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by ST-One

The very fact that you can buy into the voting process (becoming a member of Worldcon is rather easy) would suggest that you are wrong.

Well, tompe is, at least, sort of correct, which is why I didn't comment on it. The Hugo's are voted on by the members of the WSFS (Worldcon essentially), however, until recently it was always advertised as the award voted for by fans. It seems that wording is no longer in the Hugo FAQ, it was in the 2011 FAQ (http://www.renovationsf.org/hugo-faq.php#who) but it's not on the official Hugo site so that could have been an outlier.

At least I certainly always remember it as being awarded by the fans and the Nebula being awarded by the writers, but I'll admit it's been awhile and was probably before this new-fangled interwebs thingy and I may have got it wrong - it was always worth reading anything that won both.

For some reason (possibly sad puppy related) the reading public no longer seem to qualify as fans.

[DiapDealer]

I'll admit when Hugo "slates" started the intarwebs a-buzzing, I thought more nominators (lowering the price--maybe even one low price could buy years of nominating/voting rights) would alleviate the problem. Now I'm not so sure. I don't think thousands of honest--these are my favorites--votes will be much of a stumbling block for a determined bloc like the Puppies. In all likelihood, the additional numbers will probably increase the sheer number of books being nominated; making it harder for any of them to gain any traction "organically," and making it no more difficult whatsoever for an organized group to push their slate.

In short: I believe diluting the organic nominations (less total votes each for more total titles) will actually make it easier for a bloc to get the number of votes necessary for their slate to sweep whole categories.

In my opinion, the only way to effectively neutralize an organized bloc of voters is with another organized bloc of voters. Which is why my advice would be to give the Hugos/Worldcon to the Puppies and start a new award. With the two year process to get a rule-change through, they'll never "fix" the problem that way. The Hugos have ALWAYS been there for the taking (via their own stagnant rules); and now they got took. Game over. It's meaningless/mediocre titles or meaningless "No Award"s from now on. Time to cut bait.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

For some reason (possibly sad puppy related) the reading public no longer seem to qualify as fans.

It has always been that fans has not referred to just people reading books. Fan has been people actively discussion sf and people going to conventions.

Fans here refers to members of sf fandom. Which Wikipeida tries to describe as:

Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or fandom of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest. SF fandom has a life of its own, but not much in the way of formal organization (although clubs such as the Futurians [1937–1945], the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society [1934–present], and the National Fantasy Fan Federation [1941–present] are recognized features of fandom).

Most often called simply "fandom" within the community, it can be viewed as a distinct subculture,[1] with its own rituals and jargon; marriages and other relationships among fans are common, as are multi-generation fannish families.

[ST-One]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'll admit when Hugo "slates" started the intarwebs a-buzzing, I thought more nominators (lowering the price--maybe even one low price could buy years of nominating/voting rights) would alleviate the problem. Now I'm not so sure. I don't think thousands of honest--these are my favorites--votes will be much of a stumbling block for a determined bloc like the Puppies. In all likelihood, the additional numbers will probably increase the sheer number of books being nominated; making it harder for any of them to gain any traction "organically," and making it no more difficult whatsoever for an organized group to push their slate.

In short: I believe diluting the organic nominations (less total votes each for more total titles) will actually make it easier for a bloc to get the number of votes necessary for their slate to sweep whole categories.

In my opinion, the only way to effectively neutralize an organized bloc of voters is with another organized bloc of voters. Which is why my advice would be to give the Hugos/Worldcon to the Puppies and start a new award. With the two year process to get a rule-change through, they'll never "fix" the problem that way. The Hugos have ALWAYS been there for the taking (via their own stagnant rules); and now they got took. Game over. It's meaningless/mediocre titles or meaningless "No Award"s from now on. Time to cut bait.

Personally, I don't really see the problem here. The Sad Puppies (I don't know about the Rabid Puppies) came up with their list of recommendations by asking their readers, fans, blog-followers for their recommendation; they just added another level of nominations.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by ST-One

Personally, I don't really see the problem here. The Sad Puppies (I don't know about the Rabid Puppies) came up with their list of recommendations by asking their readers, fans, blog-followers for their recommendation; they just added another level of nominations.

And then they did not respect what was recommended and took there personal favorites instead.

But the problem is that it is a slate and they told people to nominate exactly as they said.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

But the problem is that it is a slate and they told people to nominate exactly as they said.

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.

[tompe]

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.

Yes, you have a moral that I find abhorrent. And not surprising that you do not see anything wrong in voting on a slate with the aim of destroying the price. Nothing that is legal seems to be immoral for you. And a lot of thing that most people think is pretty moral is for you very immoral just because it might be illegal.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes, you have a moral that I find abhorrent. And not surprising that you do not see anything wrong in voting on a slate with the aim of destroying the price. Nothing that is legal seems to be immoral for you. And a lot of thing that most people think is pretty moral is for you very immoral just because it might be illegal.

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!

[tompe]

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!

Do you understand what a slate is here? The slates was presented and people were told to vote exactly according to the slate regardless of what they thought about the work on the slate. Slate voting is also totally against the spirit of the price, it is immoral with respect to how the price works. Please read up on this and think a bit before saying more stupid things. The price have worked because people independently have read books and nominated the books they really like.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

Do you understand what a slate is here? The slates was presented and people were told to vote exactly according to the slate regardless of what they thought about the work on the slate. Slate voting is also totally against the spirit of the price, it is immoral with respect to how the price works. Please read up on this and think a bit before saying more stupid things. The price have worked because people independently have read books and nominated the books they really like.

Please do not be so impolite as to call me "stupid" because I have an opinion that differs from your own. Nobody appointed you the "guardian of morality" around here, and if I have a view of the matter which differs from yours, that does not make it "stupid".

I understand perfectly what these two groups of people have done and I support their right to do it.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I understand perfectly what these two groups of people have done and I support their right to do it.

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.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Please do not be so impolite as to call me "stupid" because I have an opinion that differs from your own. Nobody appointed you the "guardian of morality" around here, and if I have a view of the matter which differs from yours, that does not make it "stupid".

I understand perfectly what these two groups of people have done and I support their right to do it.

Please distinguish between "saying X things" and "being X". They are not the same.

Yes, but it is possible to think that what they did was immoral and that they still legally/following-the-rules had a right to do it. That you do not see that what they did was not moral at all and destructive is just absurd.