and there was NO AWARDing
- August 25th, 2015
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So. Where do we start?
It is far too late to start at the beginning, so let’s start where we last left off.

Those of us who have been calling for a NO AWARD vote above any slate nominee for the Hugo have, I am told, won. We have doubled the number of NO AWARDs given throughout the previous history of the awards, and blocked the meaningful slate candidates pretty much in their entirety. We are being congratulated, and for that, I thank you.
But I cannot consider this winning. I consider it… oh, let’s call it the least bad possible disaster given the position in which their machinations put us. That’s important. It shows that the large influx of supporting members who voted were not a Puppy rush. It shows that World Science Fiction Society fandom cares about the Hugo awards quite a bit, in fact, and thank you very much. It shows that gaming the system and violating decades of voting tradition will not be rewarded. Well done, fandom.
But it is not a “win.” It is not even a victory, because it does not end anything.
There are many who have said that a resounding defeat for political slates on this order would discourage them, and they would not return again. They say that any changes to the Hugo voting system are premature, even though any such changes would require at least two years – and two rounds of endorsement by WSFS fandom – to take effect.
That assertion has consistently struck me as naive at best. Movements driven by ressentiment are actually fuelled by defeat, at least in the short term. It merely proves to them that what they rightfully own and deserve has been stolen, unjustly, by the undeserving – which was in fact the line on Twitter from slate supporters on the night of the Hugos.

And further, as you can see in the tweet above, Rabid leader Vox Day has already promised another run at it, telling Wired that his intent has been to destroy the Hugo awards altogether – to, and I quote, “leave a big smoking hole where the Hugo Awards were.” Again in his words, “All this has ever been is a giant Fuck You — one massive gesture of contempt.”
He also claims to have an army of people who are not fans at all, and are “very anti-SJW [and] said, ‘Okay, we want to get in on this.'” And recruitment into the GamerGate misogynist crowd was certainly ramped up that night.

I don’t know that this continuing activism and agitation will convince the honest naysayers – those against reform for non-slate-related reasons, who are convinced this is an anomaly – that this problem is ongoing. I hope it will, but… I have my doubts.
However.
My big worry was that there would be a large and organised Rabid presence at Worldcon, and/or at the business meeting. I actually did not think it was likely – though signing in to the first meeting immediately after Lou “Let’s Set the Cops on a Guest of Honour” Antonelli didn’t make me feel any better.
But a distinguishing characteristic of the GamerGate phenomenon has been an unwillingness to appear in person. It’s not completely unknown – a GamerGate faction lied their way into a booth at a gaming convention last year, and disrupted several panels before they were ejected – but it’s rare.
And in one of those cases where no news really is good news, there was no organised disruption. There were a couple of very minor incidents – such as a really nasty flyer left anonymously on the flyer rack, claiming to be from SFWA – but nothing on a genuinely large scale.
And there were self-identified members of the Puppies present. But they were of the Sad faction, at least some of whom are actual fans – regardless of their actions regarding these Hugos – and had every right to be there. And they behaved, for the most part. One did leap to accuse me of slander during the Business Meeting, but sat down when told he was both wrong by definition and that his motion was Not Well Taken by the Chair. There were a couple of dramatic Storming Outs – including one by Lou Antonelli someone unidentified (see comments) at the Hugo awards ceremony – but that’s all well within the range of ordinary fannishness. I’ve seen bigger drama over points of canon in Tolkien.
So as is the history with these things, when it comes to taking action in person… you don’t tend to see these people showing up so much. Will that continue? We can’t know, but we can hope.
And so, while the business meetings may’ve run very long, and spanned four days instead of three, we got a lot done. In particular, there are two voting reform proposals which passed first reading and were passed on for final ratification next year, one of which I support strongly, the other of which I oppose just as strongly. And I will talk about both, later this week.
This part of a series of posts on the Sad/Rabid Puppy candidate slate-based capture of the Hugo Awards, and resulting fallout.
4 comments on Livejournal, 2 comments on Dreamwidth.
Very balanced reaction. Thanks for sharing your perspective on this! I hope they can put a curb on slate voting. I never thought it was a very good system.
I’m trying to be conciliatory a bit to the honest Sads, of which there are a decent number. I kind of have to work at that, because literally every personal interaction I’ve had with Sads has been horrible, with an immediate ramp-up into YOU’RE A { BIGOT | SLANDERER | NAZI GETTING READY TO SHOVE JEWS INTO CONCENTRATION CAMPS } FOR OPPOSING OUR SLATE!! in every single case.
But I try to remember that there are also Sads like the one at the Business Meeting who spoke in favour of what I consider the good voting reform proposal, the one called E Pluribus Hugo. If we can put that kind of agreement in place, I think there’s still time for the Sads to calm down and come back in from the cold. (As it were.) Throwing away seven decades of tradition and jamming through a slate for expressly political purposes was a dick move, but pulling a dick move doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. Everybody can be a douchecanoe once in a while.
I hold no such opinion of the Rabids, of course. Fuck those guys.
Uh, I did not storm out of the Hugo ceremony. Toni Weisskopf did leave early, but I didn’t. I stayed to the bitter end.
Huh. Well, okay. I’ll edit to note.
I was told you did by someone who wouldn’t’ve lied to me, so I guess it had to be name confusion. A lot was going on, so that’s not too unsurprising. I do wonder who it was, though – multiple people told me it happened.
Well crap, I’m old and fat and have a white beard – I look like a hundred people at a con. But no, I wouldn’t disrespect the ceremony that way. I would think the confusion was caused by TONI being confused with An TONE lli. I’ve been called Tony many times in the past because of my last name – which is derived from the Italian for Anthony. But no, I stayed put.
I have to say that everything else aside, I highly approve of your user icon.
(BB irregulars 5eva)
Thank you!
May as well add this from Kate Paulk, who I understand is heading up the Sad Puppy effort for 2016:
I was going to mine the Intertubes for Nazi quotes that the Puppy-Kickers could have said if they’d been about Puppies or white men rather than Jews, but alas, even in translation Hitler and Goebbels are so much more articulate the comparison would be utterly unfair to the Puppy-Kickers (and remember, these are writers and editors – but the Nazis beat them on all fronts when it comes to articulating points of view. I suppose I should be relieved: pointing and shrieking tends to be rather less than effective as a means of converting the undecided).
Oh, and for those who are wondering? The reason I didn’t use quotes from Mao, Lenin, or Stalin was that an awful lot of Puppy-Kickers would be flattered to be compared to such luminaries of the world’s most lethal ideology.
So, let’s call them for what they are. Nasty, petty, bullying socialists who would fit in just as well with the Nazis as they would with their equally murderous Communist cousins. They even have a racial agenda, and while they’d deny it, they’re so US-centric it’s hilarious (as well as sad).
And what’s even sadder is this pathetic collection of power-hungry little Hitlers have destroyed what was once a genuinely respected award. Whether it can be resurrected by the Campaign to End Puppy-Related Sadness or not, I consider the cause to be worthy.