again, e pluribus hugo is a requirement
- April 26th, 2016
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So the Hugo finalists are out for the 2016 Worldcon, and, again, the Rabid Puppies put up a slate, and, again, it’s the same as it ever was: one political party vs. no political parties: the party always wins.
The damage, if you’re curious, of Rabid Puppy slate vs. finalist positions:
2/5 Best Novel (40%)
4/5 Best Novella (80%)
4/5 Best Novelette (80%)
5/5 Short Story (100%)
5/5 Related Work (100%)
5/5 Graphic Story (100%)
1/1 Editor Short Form (100%, but four positions were left open)
3/5 Editor Long Form (60%)
2/5 Dramatic Long Form (but both actually very popular: The Martian and Avengers: Age of Ultron) (40%)
3/5 Dramatic Short Form (60%)
5/5 Professional Artist (100%)
4/5 Semiprozine (80%)
5/5 Fanzine (100%)
5/5 Fancast (100%)
4/5 Fan Writer (80%)
3/5 Fan Artist (60%)
4/5 Campbell Award for Best New Writer (Not a Hugo) (80%)
A lot of people were opposing E Pluribus Hugo on the basis that if you just had a lot higher turnout, the one party running as a political slate would be swamped.
We got that huge turnout. We got the biggest turnout in the history of the Hugo awards. From memory, it was roughly twice the size of last year’s record – and Puppy-fuelled – turnout.
And it had fuck and all impact on the party vs. no-party problem. And it never will. And that’s how we have Chuck Tingle’s “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” with a Hugo nomination.
No, really, it is, thanks to the Rabid Puppy slate voters.
e pluribus hugo must pass second reading at the 2016 Business Meeting. I hope people get that now.
Now, as expected, this year, we saw some sabotage nominations, as well as some genuinely-popular nominations in Long Form. The goal, clearly, was to trigger a repeat of last year’s response: NO AWARD all Puppy nominees, with a revised goal of blocking all Hugo Awards from being given. They said that outright last year: if they can’t win, they will destroy all the awards forever.
So for this year, I am proposing a different strategy:
NO AWARD above anyone connected to running this slate. Anyone who supported it, anyone who promoted it, anyone who worked on it: NO AWARD over them. NO AWARD above Vox Day, NO AWARD above Castalia House (and all its works), NO AWARD above all of it.
Everyone else, vote for the best. Last year was a highly effective action showing rejection of all slates. But this year, the targets must be the specific perpetrators directly. It must be the people who are doing this, because while half of their interest is destruction, another half is self-promotion and boosting the visibility of their own works.
And until slates can be stopped via electoral changes, until e pluribus hugo can pass second reading at this year’s Business Meeting, this must be opposed. Because a vulnerability, once exposed, will be exploited. This will not stop, until it is stopped.
Particularly since Vox gets to spend all of daddy’s money on whatever little ragefest his neofascist heart desires.
e pluribus hugo is now the minimum requirement to save the Hugo awards, in anything like their current form. We knew this would take two years to fix, and this is year two; e pluribus hugo must pass second reading in Kansas City. Fandom, if you care at all about the Hugo Awards, do not fail.
eta: Well, this isn’t good. (File 770 is down, hard, with an owner-please-contact-administrator notice.) Anybody know what’s up? Here’s an archive.
eta2: Mike Glyer says on Facebook that it’s not a DDOS, and that his ISP is working on it; they’re migrating to a new server.
eta3: And there’s our first withdrawal: Tom Mays has pulled “The Commuter” from consideration.
This is a part of a series of posts on the 2015/2016 Hugo Awards capture by a rightist political group whose focus has now shifted to destroying the awards.
2 comments on Livejournal, 2 comments on Dreamwidth, 1 comment elsewhere I feel like framing, 10 comments on a Facebook reblog.
And since so many fans are visiting today: we are musicians, and we have a page just for our free-download fan music. Click here!
What’s needed is a general post and discussion over several fora paring down the nominees to “worthy for consideration” and “puppy-shit”. Those in the former category can be discussed even if people don’t think they’re Hugo-worthy (“Seveneyes”) and those in the later can wither and die, even if their authors were coopted by the dickheads (“Space Raptor”).
Do you mean “weren’t co-opted”? I don’t know, but I suspect Chuck Tingle is just one of their troll nominations. (As is, say, all of Related Works.)
Really, no matter how you spell it, this year is mostly another lost year due to the ongoing exploit. It’s sad, but there it is nonetheless. EPH will at least knock it down to one nomination per category from a slate – hopefully that will let them declare victory (inevitable regardless of what happens) and sod off.
Dara, I can’t help wondering if you get special visits from the Give the Right Advice at the Right Time fairy, every year during Hugo voting season, because IMO you’re now two for two. As special powers go, wise counsel appears to be pretty awesome.
Aw. Thanks! Mostly, I just have a pretty substantial amount of experience with reactionary political activists.
My current plan is to make some judgement calls on what would have made the ballot anyway, even if the Sads or Rabids hadn’t slated it. Uprooted (on the Rabid slate) got lots of positive mention from nonPuppy fans, as did Ancillary Mercy (on the Sad slate), for example.
Call it the “GotG waiver.” That’s going to make a difference to whether and how I read finalists.
That should certainly block out the organisers and promoters, which is the main concern from my POV. Personally, I’m going to corral in as few people as I can, and the ones I’m confident about. I’m not going to try to make that judgement call about who would’ve/might’ve, etc.
I disagree. The Martian was an excellent film. I nominated it, and I am not a Puppy.
My double-negatives were a bit thick; we are in fact in agreement. (I also nominated it, and I am obviously also not a puppy.)
(“There’s no way that The Martian would not have been on the ballot [even] without Puppyshit all over it,” meaning, The Martian would have made the ballot without Puppy help.)
Both MM:FR and Martian were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, which goes a long way in an argument that they’re the best two on the ballot.
n.b.: This linkback is to a Rabid who is deeply convinced everything the Rabids do is utterly genius.