20BooksTo50K. What is it?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It sounds like a fun read even though I disagree with the premise that alien invaders would go after the highest population centers. (John Ringo did it, too.)

The truth is that alien invaders tend to go after the country the story is set in.

I favor the Childhood's End/V formula of ships hovering over all the major cities of Earth.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

The clique was manufactured by the Puppies as an enemy to band together against. You always need an enemy. Ideally a secret conspiracy, so you never have to prove anything. And it's good to conflate several issues (conservative vs liberal, Baen vs Tor, adventure vs agenda, popularity vs art, etc) so you don't get pinned down.

Of course there are groups of people who agree about stuff, and maybe even campaign for each other, but the Hugos are an open book - anyone can sign up, anyone can nominate, anyone can vote - and the line is crossed when you start to act in bad faith, when you put your self-promotion (or your culture-war idiocy) over the good of the field as a whole.

The Nebulas are a little more closed-shop, since it's members of the SFWA that nominate and vote, but there are still plenty of those. The membership restrictions were recently relaxed to allow self-publishers - I doubt this bunch have done their fellow self-publishers many favours - and it seems from my limited engagement with the topic that this current controversy is just a bit of unsavoury self-promotion.

An award is only as good as its winners (and to some extent its shortlists). Gaming the system devalues the whole award, harming everyone - fans, publishers, writers - in exchange for short-term gain where you can cash in on its old kudos before you ruin it.

I've never been a huge fan of the Nebulas - it misses my taste more than some of the others - but I'd say it's probably the second most prestigious SF/F award.

So who do you think runs the Hugos and the Worldcon? Yea, I know what the Wiki says, but there is a group of people who have been involved for a long time.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So who do you think runs the Hugos and the Worldcon? Yea, I know what the Wiki says, but there is a group of people who have been involved for a long time.

There's that non-proven, secret conspiracy he just said was necessary to manufacture an "enemy."

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So who do you think runs the Hugos and the Worldcon? Yea, I know what the Wiki says, but there is a group of people who have been involved for a long time.

I've been attending worldcons for about a decade, and if there's a secret cabal plotting the Hugo award choices, they inducted me into it by sending me an ID to use for nominating online, with a blank form.

Strangely enough, many of the Hugo nominees make it on best of the year lists, and I'm pretty sure that that with the exception of the rabid puppy Hugo award slate created by Vox Day, none of the rabid puppy finalists published by Vox Day's publishing house made it on best of the year lists. I have no doubt that if Tor, or Orbit, or any other publisher had done what Vox Day did with the rabid puppy slate, the Worldcon attendees would have been voting no award for them, too.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So who do you think runs the Hugos and the Worldcon? Yea, I know what the Wiki says, but there is a group of people who have been involved for a long time.

"Runs" in the sense of "organises", not "controls". What do you imagine they can do?

I would say the evidence of their impartiality is provided by the puppies themselves, and the success they had in getting their stuff on the ballots.

And I'm guessing the Worldcon/Hugo organisers have little to no crossover with the Nebulas, since the first group are fans and the second are pros.

[pwalker8]

I guess most of you guys never went to high school and haven't belonged to clubs and thus don't understand what cliques are and how they operate. Whatever, nothing I say will change your minds.

[DrNefario]

Some actual evidence might change my mind, but there isn't anything more than insinuation.

(Although, no, I didn't go to high school, I grew up in the UK and went to secondary school. )

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I guess most of you guys never went to high school and haven't belonged to clubs and thus don't understand what cliques are and how they operate. Whatever, nothing I say will change your minds.

Of course we understand cliques and how they operate. Many of us just don't view it as WorldCon being run by a "clique." It's just the current natural trend. It may stay the same for while, and it may change again. It's one thing to not like the current trend. It's another to say the old trend was perfectly fine while this new one is being driven by a cabal that's plotting to keep the old school SFF shunned and downtrodden. There's no "rightful order" that's being repressed or that needs to be restored.

And it's not as if you're exactly open to opinions that differ from your own either.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Of course we understand cliques and how they operate. Many of us just don't view it as WorldCon being run by a "clique." It's just the current natural trend. It may stay the same for while, and it may change again. It's one thing to not like the current trend. It's another to say the old trend was perfectly fine while this new one is being driven by a cabal that's plotting to keep the old school SFF shunned and downtrodden. There's no "rightful order" that's being repressed or that needs to be restored.

And it's not as if you're exactly open to opinions that differ from your own either.

That is, of course, a strawman. No one is claiming a cabal. A cabal is different from a clique. A cabal manipulates behind the scene, a clique simply exists and generally engages in groupthink. In this case, they complain about other groups doing formally what they have been doing informally. An example -

"
...
N.K. Jemisin’s third Hugo win for The Stone Sky last year made her the first person to win three consecutive Hugos. But that almost didn’t happen. Anyone who’s read The Broken Earth Trilogy knows these books are some of the best SFF written. Ever.

Yet in 2015, a white supremacist gamergate faction calling themselves the sad puppies (and also later the rabid puppies) decided that books with social themes (like Jemisin’s) were taking over SFF awards, and they would put a stop to it. Alex Acks gives an excellent analysis of the mess, but essentially, the sad puppies lost because SFF fans didn’t let them take over the Hugo Awards, and some of the rules changed. Fans became voting members in record numbers and voted the racists out.

But now is not the time to rest on our Jemisin laurels. If you want to read diverse and imaginative SFF, see diverse authors honored for their excellent work, and subvert racist schemes, then buy a membership and vote (if you’re financially able).
...
"

So basically, the small group of people who either attend Worldcon every year, or buy voting memberships every year (remember, you can only nominate if you had a membership by the start of the calendar year or went to the previous Worldcon) nominate their favorite authors and the same authors get nominated year after year. That's pretty much the definition of a clique. The overall number of voters in 2017 was 2339 voters. In 2015, the year of the sad puppy controversy, there were some 2122 nominating ballots and 5950 votes. So nominated works tend to get a few hundred first place votes, some years the number of nominating ballots is down in the 1000 range.

The people who nominate Hugos are a very small subset of SF&F fans for who the Hugo is an important part of their life. Most people who attend a Worldcon don't even know they can vote for Hugos. I attended the Atlanta Worldcon (1986 Hugos) and certainly no one mentioned voting to me.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That is, of course, a strawman. No one is claiming a cabal.

Oh yes. There are plenty of people who label it a cabal. One that has a stranglehold on the Hugos. And that it needs to be "set right."

You may not have used the word "cabal" yourself, but the word matters not. Because I don't even buy that there's clique that "runs" the Hugos. As I said; there's trends. And trends change over the years. Just like the Hugos have changed over the years (and will continue to change).

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Oh yes. There are plenty of people who label it a cabal. One that has a stranglehold on the Hugos. And that it needs to be "set right."

You may not have used the word "cabal" yourself, but the word matters not. Because I don't even buy that there's clique that "runs" the Hugos. As I said; there's trends. And trends change over the years. Just like the Hugos have changed over the years (and will continue to change).

Once again, you argue against something I never said. I never claimed that it needed to be set right, just that it exists. My two claims are that a clique exists and that the sad puppies were not a group of conservative writers, much less white supremacist as some of those outraged by the sad puppies claim. Correia is certainly conservative - Hoyt, not so much.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Once again, you argue against something I never said. I never claimed that it needed to be set right, just that it exists.

OK. For the love of all that's holy, let's get on the exact same page on the said/she said front, then.

You said a clique exists that is running the Hugos. I don't believe such a clique does exists. And you've shown me no evidence it does (nor has anyone else). Now. Are we properly disagreeing to your satisfaction? Or do we still need to hammer out some inane particulars before you get down to the business of offering actual evidence of a clique controlling the Hugos?

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

"Runs" in the sense of "organises", not "controls". What do you imagine they can do?

I would say the evidence of their impartiality is provided by the puppies themselves, and the success they had in getting their stuff on the ballots.

And I'm guessing the Worldcon/Hugo organisers have little to no crossover with the Nebulas, since the first group are fans and the second are pros.

It is true that Worldcon and the Hugo awards are run by a different group than SFWA and Nebula awards, but there are a lot of SFWA members who also attend Worldcon. If there is a "clique" of SFWA members who nominate the same things, the changes to the Hugo nomination rules would diminish their influence on the Hugo nominees, just as the rule changes made it much harder for the puppy slates to get more than one or two items nominated for any given category.

I personally don't nominate very often because I tend to be reading novels that are new to me, but published several years ago.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

OK. For the love of all that's holy, let's get on the exact same page on the said/she said front, then.

You said a clique exists that is running the Hugos. I don't believe such a clique does exists. And you've shown me no evidence it does (nor has anyone else). Now. Are we properly disagreeing to your satisfaction? Or do we still need to hammer out some inane particulars before you get down to the business of offering actual evidence of a clique controlling the Hugos?

Hey, it's easy to keep things straight. I'm not the one who brought up cabals and setting things right, you are.

As far as not believing in a clique, that's certainly your right. Of course, the quote that I posted sounded straight out of high school "Did you hear that Joey is running against Mary Lou for class president? We certainly can't let some loser nerd do that, let's make sure our girl gets elected and put those nerds in their place!" but if you are waiting for someone to post a youtube video cackling about their control of the Hugo I'm not going to try to convince you.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Of course, the quote that I posted sounded straight out of high school "Did you hear that Joey is running against Mary Lou for class president? We certainly can't let some loser nerd do that, let's make sure our girl gets elected and put those nerds in their place!

I'll just leave this here because it's funny. Funny because you seem to believe your original quotation is somehow evidentiary, and also funny because you believe your paraphrasing of it (whoever said it) is even remotely accurate. I read nothing in your quote that sounded highschool-ish. I read an accurate, intelligently written account of what was happening with S.P./R.P. at the time. And a plea to vote if you like diverse SF. *shrug*

You might want to have that paraphraser looked at. It appears to have an overactive bias-board.