The Hugo Awards

[rgrekejin]

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.

To be fair, the administrator of Sasquan has weighed in on this, saying that he believes that it was wrong to allow 'Old Man's War' on the 2006 ballot and that it wouldn't be accepted if it was nominated today, but it's probably too late to do anything about it now.

 

[Silvanus]

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.

Yep, looks inconsistent to me.

Examples of poor judgement or inconsistency like this are relatively common, throughout not only award events but institutions of all kinds. When something becomes politicised, as the Hugos have, then such individual examples get held up as an example of something entirely different from a mundane error of human judgement, because it's easy to see things in those terms.

It doesn't make it an entirely rational lens through which to view things, though.

John,In retrospect, ?Old Man?s War? probably should not have been allowed on the ballot in 2006.
But things weren?t as clear-cut when he first posted the novel on his web site in 2002. I was able to attend more Worldcons in the early 2000?s than I have in recent years, and I remember there being a lot of discussion during the business meetings during those years as people tried to define what was meant by ?published? (we were coming out of the years when only only way to distribute stories or books was by printing them on paper).

They finally settled on that it meaning whenever the text was presented to the public, whether it was on a web site, in an e-book or printed on paper.

Now, with many stories and articles being nominated that came from online magazines or sites like Baen.com and Tor.com, there?s no question that web publishing is a major means of publishing. So posting a work on a public web site is treated as equivalent to printing it in a magazine.

I sincerely believe that a situation such as Old Man?s War won?t happen again?as long as the Hugo Administrators are aware of the initial publication. (Since the Hugo Administrators change from year to year, I can?t guarantee that to be the case. But if a future administrator reverted back to how Old Man?s War was treated, I?d certainly disagree with that action and I think most other people would, also.)

[?]
I hope that helps clarify the situation. The Hugo administrators each year are only human, and we all make the occasional mistakes.

If this were something systemic, I'd say it's a very valid concern. I'd say it was right to raise the question here anyway. However, human error strikes me as a far more likely explanation, and it happens all the time.

 

[Schadrach]

Yep, looks inconsistent to me.

Examples of poor judgement or inconsistency like this are relatively common, throughout not only award events but institutions of all kinds. When something becomes politicised, as the Hugos have, then such individual examples get held up as an example of something entirely different from a mundane error of human judgement, because it's easy to see things in those terms.

It doesn't make it an entirely rational lens through which to view things, though.

John,In retrospect, ?Old Man?s War? probably should not have been allowed on the ballot in 2006.
But things weren?t as clear-cut when he first posted the novel on his web site in 2002. I was able to attend more Worldcons in the early 2000?s than I have in recent years, and I remember there being a lot of discussion during the business meetings during those years as people tried to define what was meant by ?published? (we were coming out of the years when only only way to distribute stories or books was by printing them on paper).

They finally settled on that it meaning whenever the text was presented to the public, whether it was on a web site, in an e-book or printed on paper.

Now, with many stories and articles being nominated that came from online magazines or sites like Baen.com and Tor.com, there?s no question that web publishing is a major means of publishing. So posting a work on a public web site is treated as equivalent to printing it in a magazine.

I sincerely believe that a situation such as Old Man?s War won?t happen again?as long as the Hugo Administrators are aware of the initial publication. (Since the Hugo Administrators change from year to year, I can?t guarantee that to be the case. But if a future administrator reverted back to how Old Man?s War was treated, I?d certainly disagree with that action and I think most other people would, also.)

[?]
I hope that helps clarify the situation. The Hugo administrators each year are only human, and we all make the occasional mistakes.

If this were something systemic, I'd say it's a very valid concern. I'd say it was right to raise the question here anyway. However, human error strikes me as a far more likely explanation, and it happens all the time.

If it was just a ruling they hadn't shaken out entirely at the time, then there's the other obvious test we can place against the history of the Hugos.

Can anyone point out cases where the current rule *was* applied after Old Man's War but before this year? Something like a work in progress on an author's website, not a mass sold e-book edition (as in no, the Kindle edition isn't the same thing).

Otherwise it still creates the appearance of something fishy going on to go "Yeah, we did it wrong before, but we're going to start doing it right conveniently with this one case that's contentious, and where people have been actively looking for reasons to disqualify people on this slate."

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

Actually, what you would really want is a similar case PRIOR to Old Man's War. If it was standard policy that was broken, ignored, or forgotten by Old Man's War and then reapplied after, then you might have an argument. However, if the issue simply didn't come up before Old Man's War, then the Occam's Razor explanation is that it was a new situation and that they retroactively felt it set a bad precedent and from then on they were going to apply the new rule.

 

[Silvanus]

If it was just a ruling they hadn't shaken out entirely at the time, then there's the other obvious test we can place against the history of the Hugos.

Can anyone point out cases where the current rule *was* applied after Old Man's War but before this year? Something like a work in progress on an author's website, not a mass sold e-book edition (as in no, the Kindle edition isn't the same thing).

Otherwise it still creates the appearance of something fishy going on to go "Yeah, we did it wrong before, but we're going to start doing it right conveniently with this one case that's contentious, and where people have been actively looking for reasons to disqualify people on this slate."

Not sure where to get that information; it's a pretty specific thing to find.

Is it not pretty compelling that various other works are routinely disqualified by various rules, though? Another nomination was disqualified alongside Wright, for example, who wasn't on the Puppies' roster. It would show they routinely disqualify regardless of personal belief, at least.

 

[TDA WP]

So another update on some of the goings on with Wikipedia. Vox Day's bio is still getting hit with someone trying to use "Freethought blogs" as a "reliable source" for claiming Vox Day supports acid attacks on women [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=656727849&oldid=656727580]. Another attack thrown into the article came from PresN, someone those that followed the GamerGate Wikipedia dispute might recognize [https://archive.today/5eO1x], where he cherry-picked and misrepresentated an interview Vox Day did with another author. The last source is technically allowed in an article since it is an interview with him and thus a primary source, though FTB's incendiary framing of someone else's interview is definitely not allowed as a source.

What it illustrates is how these kinds of defamation attacks can work on Wikipedia. People find the worst thing a person has said on their blog or in an interveiw and start shoving it into the person's bio to make them look bad, often misrepresenting it or taking it out of context. To compare, it would be like if someone used Anita Sarkeesian's worst tweets as sources in her biography and used them to insert statements such as "Anita Sarkeesian expressed satisfaction over the death of Christopher Hitchens" or "Anita Sarkeesian has routinely alleged that school shootings are a product of male culture" in her bio. None of the people doing this to Vox Day's bio would ever allow that kind of defamation attack to occur on her page.

 

[Schadrach]

Actually, what you would really want is a similar case PRIOR to Old Man's War. If it was standard policy that was broken, ignored, or forgotten by Old Man's War and then reapplied after, then you might have an argument. However, if the issue simply didn't come up before Old Man's War, then the Occam's Razor explanation is that it was a new situation and that they retroactively felt it set a bad precedent and from then on they were going to apply the new rule.

That depends, are we claiming that Old Man's War was given unusual treatment or that the John C. Wright work is? I'd argue the latter. Evidence that the rule the way it's being applied to JCW is the way it's been applied in the past, and not (as Vox Day and JCW would claim) a new change not announced until it was applied here and made specifically to discount that work is what would be relevant to discount that claim.

You'll also note that no one is particularly complaining about the artist who was disqualified (at least until someone can pull out a qualifying work), or either of the works that were not disqualified despite being previously published in some form because they had been significantly expanded upon (in line with previous precedent, Ender's Game being an example of that rule in use).

Just the one case where they seemingly ignored precedent to rule something controversial disqualified. Which brings up the question of if and to what degree the decision was tied to the controversy.

 

[TDA WP]

Just as expected, after the material on Vox Day's bio had been removed by another editor the admin PresN restored all of it [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=657129767&oldid=657091986]. It was improved a bit in subsequent editing [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=657230859&oldid=657129767], but the cherry-picking itself is staying.

 

[Nielas]

I point out the execreble Redshirts.

????

Redshirts is a great book and quite deserving of a nomination.

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

@Schadrach
Ah, I see. I thought it was both that were considered abnormal- log rolling and all that. It's hard to know for sure considering so much about this year is abnormal.

@ravenshrike
Is it an example of log rolling? Or is just an example of something winning that you don't think should have won? I for instance, thought that the Lego movie should not only have been nominated for best animated Oscar, but should have won it too. But I don't think that the lack of nomination is an example of logrolling. It really isn't much more than conjecture, but you are treating it like fact.

 

[kurokotetsu]

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.

So, just to be clear, you were reading the post at Mad Genius Club by Dave Freer which was 5 posts above the Silvanus post I quoted right? Because if you were, I would rather like specific examples of 'bile' in the post. I would also like to know how PNH became prescient. If you weren't, and were reading other posts which by definition weren't meant as proof, I would like to know how you managed to misconstrue them as such. And how you got 'bile' from either of those three.

Didn't count the posts but it was the first thst you made and yes I think itnwas of Dave Freer (the one where you said abou being a friend with a Trotsykist
like it was relevant to something).

The bile I felt came mainly form the excessive use of caps lock. A cursory reading also reveals calling guillible to all the people that don't make the same logic leap based on the unproven assumption that the Nebulas are rigged and so the same people rig the Hugos in the same way, even a layman like me knows that the voting process is different in both. Also making assumptions about statiatics or how it "should" be distributed Which are alos unproven. That is going without detail because I can't stand how he writes (too accusayory and pompous).

About that Nielsen Hayden or whatever (never heard of him not part of the fandom) he was probably leaked. Or not being the editor of a popular magazine maybe he recieved the list early and btoke the embargo, a possibility I don't know if that is how it works it might be as an embargo because people already have the info just aren't supposed to talk about it nit that it still was only in the Hugo administration. Even if he was leaked there is no evidence of what he says being more than his assumptions about why it happened. The whole thing reads (or all the pieces I'be read) as a conspiranoids blog about the Hugos where the only "evidence" is his "logic" about what happened. Even is Mr. Hayden Nielsen was leaked itnproves nothing else that he was leaked.

But that is just how the piece felt to me. But taht there is little to no proof about "rigging" still seems like the position I will hold. Because his interpretation of articles written amd comments is not solid proof. There may be no bile and just my reaction to how it was written (although I expressed why I think there is) but that is no solid proof I still hold that.

 

[TDA WP]

The edit war on Day's page [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&offset=20150422000000&action=history&tagfilter] is still raging as the editor, WeldNeck, who has been most persistently removing the attacks from the bio popped in again [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=657329251&oldid=657323066]. Another editor arrived to restore it [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=657331702&oldid=657329251], followed by an IP [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=657376456&oldid=657335254], but it was ultimately kicked out again. Minimal discussion occurred [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Theodore_Beale&oldid=657730137#BLP_concerns] regarding the additions. Barely a day passed before yet another editor jumped in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=657512214&oldid=657482294] with cherry-picking from Day's blogs and inserted various labels such as "neo-fascist" and "white supremacist" to his bio.

There was some wrangling between this editor and WeldNeck that concluded with the other allowing the stuff quote-mined from personal blogs to stay out, but restoring the labels [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=657564885&oldid=657554853]. At this point that editor, who seemed to appear after a little over three months of inactivity [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Amber388&offset=&limit=500&target=Amber388], had made four reverts over the course of two hours. WeldNeck, who had also made roughly six reverts in a 24-hour period, reported the editor to a noticeboard for edit-warring and after some back and forth with an admin who insisted most of the material was acceptable, he locked the page [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring&oldid=657851807#User:Amber388_reported_by_User:WeldNeck_.28Result:_Protection.29] for a couple days.

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

A blow by blow wiki edit war seems tangentially related to the Hugo awards.

 

[kurokotetsu]

Clearly you didn't read very closely. The voting patterns behind the Nebulas until 2010 are a matter of public record. They only became anonymous after that year. The same people guilty of log rolling in the Nebulas are very involved in the Hugos. The nomination patterns are very similar to the type of literature that 'wins' the Nebulas. Yet somehow you think the very people willing to log roll the Nebulas are unwilling to do so to the Hugo noms? And you wonder why Freer references the planet Gullib.

As for the Hugo Admin leaking, that would be a neat trick seeing as the WorldCon administration quite literally changes completely each year. So you would have to find not one, but two completely different people willing to throw their integrity away just to inform people the details behind the nominations a few weeks early. Given the rather obsessive nature of Fandom and the types behind WorldCon, that is a rather unlikely occurrence. As for the Haydens' guessing, the only way to have ANY idea that the Hugo noms would have gone the way they did without certain knowledge that their clique was the only one large enough to successfully nominate would be to have contacted every potential 2015 nominee except for the SP/RP slate authors and get a definitive answer as to whether they made the nominee list. Which is rather fucking unlikely.



Oh, and since you wondered why Flint being a Trotskyite was relevant, the accusations in the media blitz were that the SP were trying to keep the field safe for white right wing male authors.

No I didn't read it closely. i said as much in my first post. I can't stand the tone of the text and the style so I just glanced over it and saw nothing to appeal to me.

If the Nebula's were rigged prove it. Show statistical prove that is was: Annonymous voting is not necessarily evidence of wrogn doing (there are several other reasons to do it, like avoindg preassure to people because of how they voted). And how, if the administration of the Hugos is changes each year (being it dependant of WorldCon as you said) how can it be influenced by the same people? And what poeple specifically? And how did they influence? Both clubs have different standars of admitance and amount of people in hte,. The correlation may be simply due that winning an award atracts attention to the work and increase the probability of winning other awards. Thinking that there are other possibilities is not being guillible, is just not agreeing with Mr. Freer. And saying that is does, is insulting to me.

And probably hundreds of people work counting, administrating, doing paper work for the Hugos. Finidng one or two that will talk is porbably not that hard. Hell people talk about the NSA or CIA or the police too and those are more dire consequences. Do we even know who leaked? Do we know anything about the leak to theorize about it beyond that it occured? Twice yes, and maybe more, it is just that we know about these leaks. Maybe this happens every year and no one talked about it. Those are possibilities. As it is making a guess based on social media buzz and talking to poeple in the fandom and seeing forums as Nilesen hayden may do, seeing he runs a fanzine and is pretty involved with the community. he may guess out of experience and heresay. it is after all a guess. Or did he say "i konw and these authors are"?

And showing a token doens't disprove the allegation that SP/RP are a primary right wing group. We would have to make a statistical analysis of the supporters adn see the ratio of politcal leanings to say anything about that. So the leanings of Mr. Freer or his firends is irrelevant.