[NGTM-1R]

And you confuse your own beliefs about Ctuhluh for the reality. You do not speak for Reality.

And yet I do. You agree with me on trends and definitions. You're still talking about it like what else you said matters. It doesn't. Your beliefs are not relevant to the environment in which science fiction is written and read. No individual's beliefs are relevant.

11 generations ago doesn't matter. One generation from now does. And the trends of now aren't slowing.

No one is locking the right out, either, as you have amply demonstrated. Your argument is incoherent and self-defeating.

[karajorma]

Less than half is not 0%. Again, you are not analyising this with your brain in full power here.

And you've failed to follow my argument yet again. It doesn't need to be zero. The entire argument fails if even one other non-sad puppy book would have been on the slate. Cause if one other book was there, you can't argue "Well the entire list was sad puppy books that were there on merit and yet none of them won. That can only be due to politics" any more.

The odds of this happening without politiking is zero. ZERO. And all that even if we *didn't* have so many people on the record with recommendations to burn the whole puppies' books down because they were Puppies, NOT because they were of "poor quality".

If you remain in the corner that all of this backlash from the Hugo Awards to the Slates is entirely about Quality, I won't comment. Not even the majority of people who are deeply aghast by the Puppies would even manage to get themselves to even think about that justification. It wasn't and it isn't.

I repeat here. If the position anti-Puppies is that "We won't stand for these tactics and that's why we did what we did", at the very least I'll respect it. Not your position, I just find that ridiculous.

And we're back to the strawmen again. And a world view that encompasses everything being black or white.

I'm arguing that the fact that they were on the puppies slate had something to do with it, but not the simple "They're only puppies books on the slate, so I'm voting No Award" which you are insisting is the only possible reason for this.

I'm sure some people did take that stance. But I doubt that it was everyone. Hell, I doubt it was even the majority. I think it's very likely that a lot of people knew the background for the slate and did the very human thing of voting "No Award" because they felt that none of those books deserved the prize they were up for.

If you were in a position to vote and can think of 3-4 novellas you read that year that were better than anything on the puppies slate it's quite possible that the reason you'd vote "No Award" simply because you feel that none of the novellas you could vote for were best of the year. Not that they were terrible, simply that none of them deserve the title "Best Novella of the Year".

If you find that ridiculous, perhaps it's not me working with half a brain here. 

[Luis Dias]

Karajorma, we have people parading the fact that they hadn't even read the books they had fought against. I'm over with it. You are now making a much more moderate stance, but one that I don't feel is true. Most people that did vote like they did they did so because they were either *told* to do so (ah, but that ain't a slate I tells ya!), or they simply felt that they didn't want Vox Day to have his way, period.

The result of the slate is not that bias is corrected; the slate expresses active bias itself, and bias beyond the merely political, but into the personal. If there was some kind of left-wing conspiracy blocking the Hugos before, it might, perhaps, have been an appropriate response, but I haven't seen that alleged.

This I do agree, and I think there's a wider phenomena taking place, mostly stemming from american politics, which is a trend of increased polarization on every single situation. And I do believe that social media is just amping up this trend into whole new levels.

And yet I do.

Riiiiiight.

You agree with me on trends and definitions. You're still talking about it like what else you said matters. It doesn't. Your beliefs are not relevant to the environment in which science fiction is written and read. No individual's beliefs are relevant.

I don't agree with your trends. I just accepted them as brute facts temporarily to make the simple point that 10 generations is not an infinite number of generations. I've just now come from reading another article where the reader was also all like "this X doesn't matter, Y doesn't matter, Z doesn't matter", and I was like, wtf, why do people think they are somehow some kind of incredible Oracles that can determine by fiat that people should just accept the fate of some ill defined trend of some vague general ideological direction because they are irrelevant somehow?

It just blows my mind. No, you don't get to be so sure of this. Trends are not even smooth in their speeds, they are a lot more chaotic.

11 generations ago doesn't matter. One generation from now does. And the trends of now aren't slowing.

If all of this were just inevitable, we wouldn't have the massive social mobilizations to worry about how books and media are written and produced because of the effects of the imagination within them imply and affect the new generations.

Clearly, these things do matter. And if they matter it means that the "Trend" only works if people are working on it - just like Moore's Law. Moore's Law is not a Natural Law, in many ways it's rather a Program. And if the Trend only works if people work on it, then it necessarily follows that if you work on the opposite direction, you will affect the Trend.

This is not rocket science.

No one is locking the right out, either, as you have amply demonstrated. Your argument is incoherent and self-defeating.

Chricton is dead and he would never win a Hugo these years. The struggle is in the present, not the past.

[Grizzly]

Only one "No Award" displaced a Castallia House edited winner. So your argument falls.

How many Castallia House nominees ended up on the voting lists?

edit:As it turns out, ehrm... quite a lot of Castallia House edited works were displaced by "No Award", so I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion.

[Goober5000]

I think it's very likely that a lot of people knew the background for the slate and did the very human thing of voting "No Award" because they felt that none of those books deserved the prize they were up for.

If you were in a position to vote and can think of 3-4 novellas you read that year that were better than anything on the puppies slate it's quite possible that the reason you'd vote "No Award" simply because you feel that none of the novellas you could vote for were best of the year. Not that they were terrible, simply that none of them deserve the title "Best Novella of the Year".

This sounds like a reasonable, dispassionate position, but the reality of the vote was anything but.  The Worldcon attendees cheered each time No Award was announced, instead of murmuring or sighing.

And your position is contraindicated by both the history of the No Award vote...

the number of No Awards this year equals the total in the entire history of the Hugo Awards.  Prior to this year, the most recent No Award was in 1977.

...as well as the fact that George R. R. Martin held his own parallel awards ceremony after the show which was based on the statistics if the Puppies nominations were not included.

[DarkBasilisk]

The problem is that Correia, and similar authors, and followers (I know about the first because of passionate friends saying 'is so intelligent') shoe horn all opposition, everything they don't like, into this package deal enemy group called Liberals. It's pretty easy to see a monolithic group crowding out all choices when your definition for what it is, is horrendously unfair. And please don't trot out the over-tired 'Liberal Academia' line, that's much of the same thing. It's not anything as ego-inflating to say that reality has a liberal bias, it's that sense of " when you see most discourse as unfairly against you, you'll see enemies everywhere". I've had a lot of family trot out that line after I went to college about biased people 'infecting me', even when it was something as simple as when someone posted a video about tax reform, I did the math the person proposed, and pointed out it was hilariously off on the end results.

I don't think the Left is some magical always right sort of thing, in fact my calling out the low-effort style activism trend directs a lot of anger towards that group falling to this, but when a lot of people repeatedly box things into 'everything other than what I say is liberal', and carry around a big box of "these, concepts, no, these very WORDS, belong to the other side, and we can never support anything in them"... well, I guess when faced with that choice, I'll end up being part of their artificiality constructed, fake, monolithic, enemy 'group'.

Gotta keep feeling persecuted, after all. Think this is all crap? Think for a second. No matter what is proposed, it's hard to construct some plan of "I want to make a big change that helps people" and not have it fall under these people's "Liberal" box.

Sci-fi is extremely often written with that drive in its soul. The people that dream either bright dreams, or fearfully warn about nightmare situations, are looking at, either positively or negatively to what great lengths humans can go. We might laugh about stories from the past generations that were set in the "hyper advanced future year of 2015", but the date is often set quite nearby because the writers wanted to picture themselves as living to see that change. Or at least their children seeing it.

As people keep making this stronger and stronger line in the sand, stand offish situation with rest of the discourse of ideas, they're going to find themselves increasingly more isolated when it comes to sci-fi.

[Grizzly]

It seems perfectly possible for me to see Karajorma's statement (people voting for No Award because they felt none of the novellas deserved to win) and to see Goober's statement (people cheered for the No Award) and see that they are not contradictory at all. People cheered at No Award because they felt none of the novellas that were nominated deserved to win, and indeed had not won.

That people feel strongly about this because those novellas appeared on the nominee list via means considered illegitimate doesn't matter in that case.

[Luis Dias]

Only one "No Award" displaced a Castallia House edited winner. So your argument falls.

How many Castallia House nominees ended up on the voting lists?

edit:As it turns out, ehrm... quite a lot of Castallia House edited works were displaced by "No Award", so I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion.

Because I looked at the lists and compared the No Award winner to the second place.

[Grizzly]

But why would you look just at the second place? There's a disproportionate amount of Castallia House edited books on the list. Look at the Novella catagory: If you don't care much for the type of books Castallia House edits, you only have one other option before voting for No Award.

That is something that should be kept in mind: For as much as people shout that renouncing Vox Day is political or whatnot, that he went forward with a list of works that consisted almost entirely of works where he earns money from should not be overlooked as a major factor in his motivations. Meanwhile, Vox Day having a very different taste in what books are good vs, say, that of the better selling publishers should not be overlooked here either.

[Luis Dias]

I looked at the second place because it proved the point I was making: that the No Awards displaced people who were *not* from Castallia House.


All of your other points remain, and that's why I said I respect their position. However, the awards where this thing about Castallia was relevant were not the only awards, and they still pissed on the others, just because.

[Grizzly]

and they still pissed on the others, just because.

I'm not sure if the widely publicized stance of not supporting the puppies in any way because doing otherwise would affect the integrity of the hugo awards (as is the reasoning of those withdrawn) can be considered "pissing on others just because".

[karajorma]

And your position is contraindicated by both the history of the No Award vote...

the number of No Awards this year equals the total in the entire history of the Hugo Awards.  Prior to this year, the most recent No Award was in 1977.

I don't see how that proves I'm wrong though. The very existence of previous No Awards is actually evidence that in the past the slate hadn't contained any entries that people considered to be the best one. And funnily enough, when the slate was manipulated so as to almost certainly not contain the best candidate, suddenly it happens again.

...as well as the fact that George R. R. Martin held his own parallel awards ceremony after the show which was based on the statistics if the Puppies nominations were not included.

And did any of the Puppies nominations win there? Cause it's only if they won there, that you might have an argument.

[Grizzly]

To add to my previous point with courtesy of Karajorma: The chance that people wanted to vote a nominee that was bumped off the nominee list due to vote rigging and therefore just decided to vote no award is a very real possibility which, again, does not show political motivations persé.

[Goober5000]

I don't see how that proves I'm wrong though. The very existence of previous No Awards is actually evidence that in the past the slate hadn't contained any entries that people considered to be the best one. And funnily enough, when the slate was manipulated so as to almost certainly not contain the best candidate, suddenly it happens again.

Well, it's not mathematics.  One can prove bias against conservative writers in the Hugos; one cannot prove that voters had a particular motivation for voting the way they did.

But the pattern of commentary is very telling.  Those who are celebrating No Award are specifically citing the motivations and politics of the Puppies.  None of them are citing the quality of the works themselves.  And according to people who have run the numbers, the Amazon rankings of Puppies-nominated works for this year are higher than the Amazon rankings of Hugo award winners of recent years.

And nobody has disputed my point about No Award being chosen in the two Best Editor categories, which are about people, not published works.

...as well as the fact that George R. R. Martin held his own parallel awards ceremony after the show which was based on the statistics if the Puppies nominations were not included.

And did any of the Puppies nominations win there? Cause it's only if they won there, that you might have an argument.

I'm not sure how you expect any Puppy nominations to win in a ceremony where Puppy nominations are excluded.

[Scotty]

I'm not sure how you expect any Puppy nominations to win in a ceremony where Puppy nominations are excluded.

He's alluding to the fact that Martin's ceremony was one without the obvious and deliberate Puppy vote stuffing for nominations.  If one of the Puppy nominations deserved to win, it would have at least been nominated in the other ceremony.

[karajorma]

As Battuta pointed out, one of the authors on the puppies slate was nominated on merit anyway. Did he win?

But the pattern of commentary is very telling.  Those who are celebrating No Award are specifically citing the motivations and politics of the Puppies.  None of them are citing the quality of the works themselves.

Oh come on. Those celebrating No Award are political. Really? What a surprise!

What about those who aren't celebrating, i.e the exact same group of people who would fit my argument.

And according to people who have run the numbers, the Amazon rankings of Puppies-nominated works for this year are higher than the Amazon rankings of Hugo award winners of recent years.

It's like you have no understanding of how cause and effect works. Can you not see that if you have something like Sad Puppies, where a lot of books are suddenly talked about, a bunch of people will go and review those same books and therefore inflate the ratings somewhat? That doesn't require any conspiracy, it's a natural outcome of something being popular. Sorta like how when a pop star dies their album becomes number one.

And nobody has disputed my point about No Award being chosen in the two Best Editor categories, which are about people, not published works.

What's to dispute? People thought there were better editors.

[Goober5000]

If one of the Puppy nominations deserved to win, it would have at least been nominated in the other ceremony.

As Battuta pointed out, one of the authors on the puppies slate was nominated on merit anyway. Did he win?

So the opinions of Puppy supporters should not count when determining whether a nomination deserves to win?  I thought the Hugo awards were supposed to represent all of SFF fandom?

Oh come on. Those celebrating No Award are political. Really? What a surprise!

What about those who aren't celebrating, i.e the exact same group of people who would fit my argument.

Those voting on No Award are a subset of those celebrating No Award (not the other way around), as evidenced by the cheers and applause at the convention.  You know, the same convention attended by the actual voters.

It's like you have no understanding of how cause and effect works. Can you not see that if you have something like Sad Puppies, where a lot of books are suddenly talked about, a bunch of people will go and review those same books and therefore inflate the ratings somewhat? That doesn't require any conspiracy, it's a natural outcome of something being popular. Sorta like how when a pop star dies their album becomes number one.

It's like you thought I wouldn't have anticipated that contingency.  The nominations were announced April 5th.  The analysis was posted April 7th.  The Amazon ratings at the time of the analysis predate all of the post-nomination publicity.

What's to dispute? People thought there were better editors.

So, there exist editors who were not on the nomination list that are better than those nominated, and better to such an extent that No Award was preferable to honoring any of the nominees?

I'll quote Brad Torgersen here:

Toni Weisskopf got 1,216 first-line #1 votes. Arguably the most of any editor in the history of the Hugo awards.

Sheila Gilbert got 754 first-line #1 votes. Again, second only to Toni, arguably the most of any editor in the history of the Hugo awards.

By contrast, Patrick-Nielsen Hayden won a Best Editor Hugo in 2010, with just 140 first-line #1 votes.

[Scotty]

If one of the Puppy nominations deserved to win, it would have at least been nominated in the other ceremony.

As Battuta pointed out, one of the authors on the puppies slate was nominated on merit anyway. Did he win?

So the opinions of Puppy supporters should not count when determining whether a nomination deserves to win?  I thought the Hugo awards were supposed to represent all of SFF fandom?

Ladies and gentlemen, the incredible moving goalposts.

If the Hugo awards were supposed to represent all of SFF fandom, then apparently all of SFF fandom decided that the Puppies nominees were inferior to giving out no award.

[Goober5000]

Apparently you can't keep straight the difference between the Puppies position and your own.

What you and karajorma are saying is that the Hugo awards "deserve" and "merit" consideration based on a subset of the votes that excludes the Puppies.  Which effectively means that a subset of SFF fandom should be excluded.

What the Puppies are saying is that the Hugo awards, currently, do not reflect the entirety of SFF fandom and therefore the Puppies votes are needed.  (Implying that more Puppies will join and vote next year.)

There is no contradiction here.  The goalposts have not moved.

[NGTM-1R]

@Luis

Censorship? The right being somehow frozen out? Controlling imagination? These are words you have used and demonstrate you have neither sense of proportion nor understanding of what is at hand.

This is an awards ceremony, by mass vote. This is the marketplace of ideas made about as literal as it can get.

None of these works were forbidden from being present; even with the bomb-throwing method chosen by their supporters to attempt to push them through, a method that's either the product of idiots or thinks it's more important to make a show than to effect any kind of change, all were present and could be voted for. Nobody was held out. No speech was prohibited (which is literally the basic necessity of censorship!).

It was shouted down. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to be called on your bull****, as Flipside had in his signature before his departure. Speech perceived as bad was countered by others who used the numbers of their speech to outweigh it. People saw bull**** and they called it. That's the underlying principles of free speech in action.

You're talking nonsense and trying to cloak yourself in some holy crusade against censorship that didn't happen, and you need to stop and take a good look at yourself in the mirror.