The Hugo Awards

[Silvanus]

Item one, Beale IS Day. Same person. Really, we don't need more than one.

Oh, really? Oop.

Item two, you could have read the post 5 up from yours where I quote a post from Dave Freer on that very subject. And if you are dubious about what he claims, why, you could go look at the log rolling in the Nebula vote totals prior to 2010 yourself if you wished. Then you could note the names of those doing the log rolling and lo and behold, a series of VERY familiar names pops up.

That's a pretty colossal wall-o'-text, in all honesty. I'd appreciate a summary.

As for the log, it's unfortunate, but hardly demonstrates that merit was dismissed in favour of other considerations.

Non-Sad Puppies Author John Brown just posted an interview with VD asking him bluntly he genuinely believes. There is an insightful follow-up discussion with a bunch of sci-fi authors, too.

http://www.johndbrown.com/what-vox-day-believes/

Jesus Christ, that's utterly painful to read.

"It increasingly appears that a society is improved by widespread female education through high school, and harmed by it beyond that level. If you look at the demographics, a society that sends its women to college stops breeding. How this is supposed to benefit a society, I do not understand".

[...]

"The reason women shouldn?t vote in a representative democracy is they are significantly inclined to vote for whomever they would rather f***".

Charming.

Basically my thought is that you can only have a war with at least two sides. If a group shows up with heavy politicization we would only ever even hear about it if someone decides to fight them on it. In this case we automatically got the fight, because as you said the new group (is it weird that I can't bring myself to type the name? it sounds so stupid to me...) claimed that they were the ones showing up to fight the first group.

Those arguing against the Puppies may simply be reacting to what they see as a highly-political attempt to affect the awards, not because they're an entrenched group protecting their interests.

Look at me; I'd fight them on it, and I'm not a part of any established clique. Look at GRRM, whose concern is for the awards.

But eventually, the people who showed up to fight because they heard there was a fight are going to get bored and leave. Around the same time the news services shut up, typically. Once they do, the only people left fighting are the people who were always part of the Hugos - and if there are enough to actually swing votes one way or the other, then chances are it means that ideology has played a role in the past. Before the fights took place under wraps - not because of nefarious schemes, but because people were voting politically on their own and one side just had more people - but now the genie is out of the bottle, so the fights will be public or not at all from now on because each side now knows the other exists.

Well, we can hope.

 

[vallorn]

Non-Sad Puppies Author John Brown just posted an interview with VD asking him bluntly he genuinely believes. There is an insightful follow-up discussion with a bunch of sci-fi authors, too.

http://www.johndbrown.com/what-vox-day-believes/

Jesus Christ, that's utterly painful to read.

"It increasingly appears that a society is improved by widespread female education through high school, and harmed by it beyond that level. If you look at the demographics, a society that sends its women to college stops breeding. How this is supposed to benefit a society, I do not understand".

[...]

"The reason women shouldn?t vote in a representative democracy is they are significantly inclined to vote for whomever they would rather f***".

Charming.

I can follow the logic but the premise is the part that is utterly and completely flawed. He assumes that women serve better as breeders than anything else which is so stupid I cannot even (Seriously, not even the weirdest MRAs I've talked to believe that). As well as that, with the second paragraph. If I wanted to put on some neon blue hair dye for a second I could say that men objectify every woman they see so they would obviously only vote for women they want to fuck (Oh god the nonsense it's in my BRAAIIIN!)

He's against equality of opportunity and in the end I will ALWAYS disagree with him on that front, just as I will disagree with nonsense spewers who want equality of outcome. The man is a fool and though I have never read his works I will find it harder to judge them on their own merits while knowing this. Especially if he starts inserting this pseudo philosophy into them.

I still think a work should stand on it's own merits but Jesus Christ that man is making it difficult to maintain my usual attempt at detached objectivity with regards to his own books.

 

[EvilRoy]

Those arguing against the Puppies may simply be reacting to what they see as a highly-political attempt to affect the awards, not because they're an entrenched group protecting their interests.

Look at me; I'd fight them on it, and I'm not a part of any established clique. Look at GRRM, whose concern is for the awards.

Fair enough, although I think that should similarly come out in the wash. As the political attempt dies down due to bordom etc., the people defending will drop off because they aren't under attack anymore and then we're back to the awards as they were - presumably largely apolitical.

Most of what I'm talking about is conjecture anyway, but I find the idea of this kind of shakeup to be fascinating, and possibly very necessary. It's not that I honestly feel the the awards must have been skewed or dominated by one group, its that people got crazy defensive. Like, when a stupid asshole accuses you of something untrue, you call them a stupid asshole and move on with your life. I get really nervous when someone is accused of something and they start making counter claims or dodge the issue or blah de blah blah. Even if it really isn't true, there's gotta be something worth talking about here for people to react this way.

 

[dragoongfa]

No wonder Vox Day's followers call themselves 'Rapid Puppies'.

As always the amount of stupid drawn out by 'internet wars' is astounding.

 

[UmberHulk]

Was "If you were a Dinosaur My Love" really that bad I though it was kind of cute. Probably not award wining but still it wan't offensively bad.

 

[Mikeybb]

Having scanned this thread to see how the Hugo situation was developing, It's occurred to me that aside from reinforcing my lack of faith in awards and the titles that wear them, I don't need the stress of watching another internet poop fight.

I do agree greatly with the stance a quoted individual up above takes regarding the reprehensible trend of unpersoning those you don't agree with that seems to be de rigueur these days.
I can't remember the person making the point nor do I have time to dredge back and find the specific quote, but I assure you it's up there.
Unless my mind was wandering and I made it up again.

 

[ZiggyE]

Long story short, an award for sci-fi/fantasy authors was basically being controlled by a small group keeping the nominations within certain political lines [...]

[...] list of authors selected based on how good their writing was, not how important to social justice their story was, as in the previous few years. The same people complaining about this year's group were happy to do the same thing with their social justice authors the last few years.

I'm inclined to agree with him. All these people complaining about the Hugo's being "rigged" all of a sudden had no problem when it was rigged for the past 5 years, except now it's no longer being rigged in an ideology they favour [...]

A number here seem to have accepted at face-value the claim that the Hugos were previously judged regardless of quality, or even "rigged"-- or, if that wasn't accepted at face-value, then nobody's presented anything to substantiate it.

Is there any compelling reason to think that's the case? I'm not inclined to place trust in the word of individuals like Beale and Day. Show me something aside from hearsay.

"Rigged" was hyperbole, but is there discrimination against conservative writers by the voterbase is recent years? Absolutely. I haven't been following this thread so I don't know if this was posted already, but it's a good run down of the situation.

http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

No, but I wish you wouldn't quote the entire posts of thousands of words because it makes the thread unreadable. And in the case of Brad's posts, I've already read them prior to joining this thread, so it makes the thread even more unwieldy. A link, some key quotes and then some actual synthesis of information makes for a far more robust conversation. I mean, I could mass post all of GRRM's responses without commentary, but I think that is inferior to highlighting relevant points to the current and ongoing conversation on Escapist and if people want, they can read everything GRRM had to say on his website.

ZiggyE
Yes, that was already linked- on the previous page.

 

[Silvanus]

*twitch* So, to sum up, you involve yourself in a discussion about BOOKS, generally between 150,000 and 200,000 words, being primarily discussed among authors who in the course of the past week have each written anywhere from 10-40,000 words on the subject, demand to be shown proof not from a source you consider tainted(Although I'll point out that NOBODY has caught Beale in a lie, asshole though he may be), and when said source is shown to have already been served up in the thread, complain TL;DR and then dismiss the evidence of prior collusion that is log rolling and say "but is their any evidence that they chose unworthy nominations". One would think this would be obvious enough from the fact that a piece of utterly mediocre fanfic written by a professional author won in 2013. Apparently one would be wrong. In any case, if they only choose the nominations from a smaller pool than ALL of SF/F, then it doesn't matter whether or not the noms are otherwise worthy.

You say "demand to be shown proof", as if it's an outrageous request I've made. I don't need something utterly conclusive, but a reason to believe it aside from hearsay, yes.

It's not bloody unreasonable to ask for something a little more concise than the gigantic wall of text, as I would really prefer not to spend half an hour to get to the relevant part. I didn't request it in a particularly aggressive manner; I said I'd appreciate it. That's all. Calm down.

"Rigged" was hyperbole, but is there discrimination against conservative writers by the voterbase is recent years? Absolutely. I haven't been following this thread so I don't know if this was posted already, but it's a good run down of the situation.

http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/

I did have a read through that earlier in the thread, and found it pretty interesting, but there's not really anything there to support the claim that merit has been sidelined by ideology. The closest was a discrepancy between Goodreads ratings and Hugo nominations, which is hardly unexpected-- there's no reason the opinions of the nominators would particularly reflect the opinions of a bunch of other people.

 

[Silvanus]

Had you merely demanded proof, that would not have been an issue. But then you get picky. You demand it from a source that is not Beale, not because you have any reason to believe that he is dishonest other than he is an abrasive asshole with views different from yours. Done.

Actually, I didn't say that. What I said was, "I'm not inclined to trust the word" of Beale. I'm not taking hearsay at face-value.

That gigantic wall o text is the proof. Moreover, I tell you where you yourself can CONFIRM said proof.

...Only by saying I should read said wall of text. Just give me something that takes less time than it takes an Ent to finish a conversation to read and I'll read it.

You then DISMISS said proof and effectively say, okay, they were log rolling the Nebulas, the same sort of people are involved in the Hugo noms every year and said log rolling is patently against the rules, but unless you present proof that the nominations weren't worthy then that doesn't matter.

Uhrm, I asked for the relevant section, that's all; I didn't "dismiss" it, I asked you to save me the age it would take to read. I didn't "effectively say" they were log-rolling the nebulas; I said the same few people were nominating, but you can't really blame them for the fact that other people weren't nominating.

It also doesn't evidence that they were voting without regard to merit.

I point out the execreble Redshirts. And then, THEN, you tell me to calm down. Why in the Nine Hells of Baator should I? Where EXACTLY, are your goalposts? Should my source have four SJW grandparents to become acceptable perhaps?

My goalposts are, "some evidence, not hearsay, and please provide me with the relevant section".

Unreasonable, I know. I asked you to "calm down" because you've adopted a condescending, insulting tone-- which is unwarranted, as my request was fair and fairly stated.

 

[rgrekejin]

As a lifelong reader of science fiction, I feel somewhat conflicted about this. To me, a book that wins the Hugo is a book that goes on the reading list, no questions asked. I've read every novel that's ever won one, and as many of the winners in other categories as I can get my hands on. Looking back at some of the names and books that have won it, you can feel the weight of history associated with the title of "Hugo Winner". I also tend to consider myself a pretty apolitical reader - oftentimes when I read a book I won't even look to see who wrote it, and only really take note if I either really liked or really hated the book, so I know who to seek out more of and who to avoid. So when I'm reading something, I usually don't even really know who wrote it, let alone what their politics are.

So in that respect, the claims of the Puppies to be nominating works solely on quality ring a little hollow. Larry Correia writes popcorn flick gun-porn. It's not bad by any means, and it can entertain an audience, but that sort of fare lost any sense of newness for me after Robert Asprin wrote the Rolling Thunder belt-fed shotgun into the 'Phule's Company' books. I've only read one collection of Brad Torgersen's work, a short story collection called 'Lights in the Deep'. I found it utterly unremarkable. Not bottom-of-the-barrel bad, just... unremarkable. Nothing against either man personally, I just don't think their work to date has been Hugo-quality. I doubt if I've ever read anything by Vox Day. In fact, I'm quite certain I have not. Maybe I should sometime, just to see if all this fuss is really warranted.

Maybe the tastes of the Puppy voters differ from mine, and they really think all these things are the best works of the year in review. Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time I've disagreed with the Hugo voters. I've never understood the appeal of Joe Haldeman, and regard both his best novel winners ('Forever War' and 'Forever Peace') to be absolute rubbish. Great as Isaac Asimov was, I feel like his win for 'Foundation's Edge' was a bit like Al Pacino's Oscar for 'Scent of a Woman' - sort of a make-up award for past works overlooked, rather than a meaningful commentary on the work at hand. Hell, J.K. Rowling won the 2001 Hugo for 'Goblet of Fire' over a relatively weak slate of novels that didn't even manage to include the hands-down best novel that year, Tim Powers's breathtaking 'Declare'.

Heck, it may even be that the tastes of the non-Puppy Hugo voters are diverging from my own. I've been supremely disappointed with the last two Best Novel winners - I found 'Ancillary Justice' pretty underwhelming, and although I have no problem with giving 'Redshirts' a Hugo, the one it actually got was in the wrong bloody category! 'Redshirts' was a Best Related Work if there ever was one, but it's an embarrassment as a Best Novel. In fact, I don't think we've had a truly great Best Novel Hugo winner since 2007, when 'Rainbows End' took the prize.

All of which brings me, I suppose, to what is probably the controversial part of this post.

Knowing what I know now about his politics, and having seen the reaction to his nomination play out in real time, I've got to believe there's no way John Wright would ever have been on a Hugo shortlist without the Puppy slate.

Which is a shame, because he's one of the best SF writers I've ever read.

He writes like a cross between Gene Wolfe (Who, for my money, is the best living English-language writer. Not SF writer, just writer, period... come to think of it, how has Gene Wolfe never won a Hugo?) and E.E. Smith. He can adapt his style to reflect that of another author when writing in-universe better than anyone I've ever seen. His imitation of A.E. van Vogt in 'Null A Continuum' was spot-on, but his William Hope Hodgson pastiche, 'Awake in the Night Land' might have been better than the original. And Big Picture stories... no one does Big Picture stories like Wright. The sheer scale he's envisioned in 'Count to the Eschaton' is unlike anything I've seen in a very long time.

And yet, as far as I can tell, he's never even been considered for a major award before this year. Why? If it's because of his politics, that would make some sense. There was enormous enthusiasm for him when he first burst on to the scene, but since then, it seems like he's been quietly shunted off to the backroom somewhere, and Tor never really seems to promote or even really talk about him much. I stumbled on him basically by accident - it certainly wasn't through normal SF channels. And it isn't like his politics really come through in his work. Well, his SF work - I understand that 'Transhuman and Subhuman' is uncomfortably polemic in places, (I haven't read it) but it's a collection of essays, not a story.

Since this whole brouhaha has whipped up, I've looked into the politics of a couple of authors, something I almost never do. While I suspect Wright isn't as bad as he's being made out to be here and a lot of other places, I admit there's plenty there to find objectionable. But I'm also a pretty strong believer in separating the art from the artist, even in the super-icky cases, like Woody Allen... although I've never liked Woody Allen, so maybe it's easier for me than most. So, in the end, I'm mostly just left confused about how to feel about this whole thing. I'm not a fan of slate voting, but I've seen enough evidence to know that it's always been at least a little bit of a thing. I'm not a fan of nominating stories solely due to author politics, which it appears has probably happened. But I'm also against blackballing stories based on author politics, which the vehement anti-Puppy backlash has made clear to me probably also happens. I guess the best thing for me to do at this point is just wash my hands of the whole affair and wait and see what happens. In the meantime, I'll keep doing what I always do - read stuff without really caring who the author is.

 

[kurokotetsu]

"Rigged" was hyperbole, but is there discrimination against conservative writers by the voterbase is recent years? Absolutely. I haven't been following this thread so I don't know if this was posted already, but it's a good run down of the situation.

http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/

Interesting article, poor analysis. First, the devide in "publisher" submission is only for one branch of one publisher and not a general trend. And it's only submission, we don't know the makeup of published works (which could explain the later chart abou higher female note on GOodreads).

Second, the charts are horrible, almost unreadable. And convey unaccurate information. ALl recen winners are over 3.6 and the "chasm" is sometimes less tha .5 (or ina over ten system, less than a point, less than ten percent of possible points) and sometimes as low as .2. The difference is exagerated by the scale used. THe highest difference is ana anomaly recognized by the text itself.

Third, speaking if the text, he says that COrreira Warbound is far higher than the winner that year. It alos has a fifth of the reviews (and both under what he conisders the average number of reviews). Those numbers mean it may be altered.

Fourht he only uses the average. He completely disregards the standar deviation (a simple tool he could've used) which means that the "anomalous" short run may fall perfectly within the acceptable and statistical expectations of results. Hell the "short run" (which is tooo short for a run really, only three years) is only deviated form the "average" by .3 points again less that 10% of the possible points that a book might get. THat is hardly a chams or great devide or anything It is pretty small.

Interesting but very flawed and not proving SP points at all. Least that there is a clique. Just that thee last 4 years some nominees where more liked. But Correira work presented here has a better score that Don Quixote in general and doubt that says anything at all about what is better.

I've noted in the past that Vox Day is an arsehole. But he hasn't, IMO, ACTUALLY advocated the truly horrible shit attributed to him. In particular, his supposed support for honor killings and acid attacks on women and such. From my research, any such statements have been rhetorical thought experiments designed to illustrate how he doesn't believe these things, but logically, or so he thinks, his opponents must for whatever reason.

He also may possibly be prejudiced against black people. I'm undecided simply because there's only really one incident I know of.

From what I see in this blog post http://voxday.blogspot.mx/2012/06/scientist-beats-up-pz.html where the allegatiosn come from, VD doesn't say his opponents propose those. He goes into a discussion between two bloggers about the benefits of religion form an evolutionary stand point, ans takes PZ Myers' rethorical questions about terrible religious practices and answers them in a "logical" way. ANd what I see problematic is his "Logical hypothesis" being terrible with statements like "Because female independence is strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills." and "Because female promiscuity and divorce are strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills" as "logical" reasons why those things are accepted. Putting forth those "hypothesis" as a possible answer to questions of "What is good about honour killings/throwing acid" is a bit telling about his thought process. Of course you may take it as a simple "thought experiment" but reading implications into those hypothesis isn't out of the realm of the reasonable.

Also tried to read ravenshriek's proof. The bile was so hideous and the slanted politics so obvious and the style so infurating I couldn't do it. THe "proof" seem to be two articles and time and grand chest puffing wihtout any true show of facts about the "liberal bias" or the "existance of a clique" beyond the especulatiosn of a writer. Hardly proof and barely readable.

 

[Silvanus]

The relevant section? What, you think TNH and PNH screamed from the rooftops their collusion? That was a 3000 word analysis of the evidence that is available and exactly how it proves collusion. There is no single sentence of 'proof' and you demand not to be fed 'hearsay'. As such, one must assume you want the evidence itself. Yet you are too lazy to read said evidence. Tis an impossible conundrum to solve.

There's really no way to cut down the essay? That would kind of suggest really bad structuring, but I'll read it when I have the time.

 

[Schadrach]

Still, is there actually any reason to believe these books were judged without reference to quality? All we have is the hearsay of (extremely dubious) individuals.

Who is claiming this? Let me put it another way: If I ask you for the list of your top 10 games ever, and the list of your top ten indie games ever, I'd be willing to bet that both lists will contain good games with an eye for quality, but that AAA titles will be excluded from the second list regardless of quality (because being a AAA title would actively exclude them).

This is what is being alleged happened with the Hugos in recent years. It's not that quality isn't considered, but that some works are being excluded on the basis of the politics of their authors. To put it in a way that might make more sense, they're saying that if it were written today, Ender's Game wouldn't even be nominated for a Hugo (as opposed to winning Best Novel like it did) because Orson Scott Card is against gay marriage.

EDIT: On a side-note, and spoken generally, the notion that "good" or classic sci-fi/ Fantasy has typically been free of strong political/social themes seems bizarrely ignorant to me. To discount strongly political work in Science Fiction, one would have to discount Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clark, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick-- some of the greatest contributors ever. To discount it in Fantasy, you would have to discount Tolkein, which is enough said.

Again, who is claiming this? The closest I've seen is people claiming that "good" or classic sci-fi/fantasy does not all follow the same or similar political lines, that is, that a specific political ideology is not a requirement. When people claim that the SP3 slate is apolitical, they aren't claiming that the works are individually apolitical or that being apolitical is a sign of merit in a work, but rather that the politics of the works and their authors is not a determinant for selection.

Basically, the allegation is that recent Hugo nominations have essentially been "best sci-fi/fantasy books that also pass a political litmus test" rather than "best sci-fi/fantasy books." SP2 I think did a pretty good job of demonstrating that by getting a nominee up who was a rather nutty fringe conservative and watching people flip their shit over it last year. SP3 has basically shown that the handful who could essentially control the awards because of, well, voter apathy can be rather trivially overthrown if you just get out the vote (it's worth noting that Sad Puppies 3 did nothing wrong, they just encouraged people to vote, and to vote for their slate).

It's also worth noting that one of Wright's nominations has been disqualified for reasons that didn't disqualify people in previous years. Almost like they're applying different rules to some works than others.

 

[Silvanus]

Who is claiming this? Let me put it another way: If I ask you for the list of your top 10 games ever, and the list of your top ten indie games ever, I'd be willing to bet that both lists will contain good games with an eye for quality, but that AAA titles will be excluded from the second list regardless of quality (because being a AAA title would actively exclude them).

This is what is being alleged happened with the Hugos in recent years. It's not that quality isn't considered, but that some works are being excluded on the basis of the politics of their authors. To put it um a way that might make more sense, they're saying that if it were written today, Ender's Game wouldn't even be nominated for a Hugo (as opposed to winning Best Novel like it did) because Orson Scott Card is against gay marriage.

Right, but that's unsubstantiated. Its a claim of prioritising ideology above merit, and its without substantiation.

Again, who is claiming this? The closest I've seen is people claiming that "good" or classic sci-fi/fantasy does not all follow the same or similar political lines, that is, that a specific political ideology is not a requirement. When people claim that the SP3 slate is apolitical, they aren't claiming that the works are individually apolitical or that being apolitical is a sign of merit in a work, but rather that the politics of the works and their authors is not a determinant for selection.

Brad Torgerson did, bemoaning how "these days" novels might turn out to be about egalitarianism or what-not rather than simply "rousing stories" like in the past. The quote is on page 3.

It's also worth noting that one of Wright's nominations has been disqualified for reasons that didn't disqualify people in previous years. Almost like they're applying different rules to some works than others.

I'll have a look.

 

[Nielas]

Rigged wasn't hyperbole. They controlled prior to SP the nominations process completely being the only clique large enough. If you control the noms entirely, then the winner doesn't really matter. Moreover, due to australian rules voting, they could ensure than any work that miraculously made it through the noms they didn't approve of tanked in the final voting process. That is the DEFINITION of rigged.

Actually that is the definition of democratic voting. The candidate with the most votes gets selected. The Hugos are voted on by fans and the nominations are also voted on. I have not heard any accusations of "ballot stuffing" or fake results so there does not seem to be any 'rigging' going on.

 

[Schadrach]

Who is claiming this? Let me put it another way: If I ask you for the list of your top 10 games ever, and the list of your top ten indie games ever, I'd be willing to bet that both lists will contain good games with an eye for quality, but that AAA titles will be excluded from the second list regardless of quality (because being a AAA title would actively exclude them).

This is what is being alleged happened with the Hugos in recent years. It's not that quality isn't considered, but that some works are being excluded on the basis of the politics of their authors. To put it um a way that might make more sense, they're saying that if it were written today, Ender's Game wouldn't even be nominated for a Hugo (as opposed to winning Best Novel like it did) because Orson Scott Card is against gay marriage.

Right, but that's unsubstantiated. Its a claim of prioritising ideology above merit, and its without substantiation.

Again, who is claiming this? The closest I've seen is people claiming that "good" or classic sci-fi/fantasy does not all follow the same or similar political lines, that is, that a specific political ideology is not a requirement. When people claim that the SP3 slate is apolitical, they aren't claiming that the works are individually apolitical or that being apolitical is a sign of merit in a work, but rather that the politics of the works and their authors is not a determinant for selection.

Brad Torgerson did, bemoaning how "these days" novels might turn out to be about egalitarianism or what-not rather than simply "rousing stories" like in the past. The quote is on page 3.

It's also worth noting that one of Wright's nominations has been disqualified for reasons that didn't disqualify people in previous years. Almost like they're applying different rules to some works than others.

I'll have a look.

Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, has made changes to the final Hugo ballot to reflect eligibility rulings by Hugo administrator John Lorentz.
?Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus? by John C. Wright was previously published on a web site in 2013 prior to its inclusion in The Book of Feasts & Seasons in 2014, so it is not eligible for the 2015 Novelette Hugo.

John Scalzi declared Old Man's War as self-published in 2002. Three years later it was published by Tor in 2005 and was nominated as Best Novel in 2006. Wright never claimed to have self-published the story in question. He had posted some work in progress on his website, which was removed when he signed a contract to have it published.

So having self-published something doesn't count as publishing it and thus discount you from nominations once it is published, but posting some work in progress until a publisher picks it up does?

Unless you can find some point between 2006 and 2014 (read: after Scalzi's nomination but before this year) where they changed how that should be handled and applied it to the kinds of works that the allegation is are being favored, then I'd consider that holding some works to different rules than others.