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I really don't want to get involved in this thread any more than to say that I've read the Monster Hunter blog, and haven't had any sense of rabid nonsense or any of the other things Correia has been accused of. I think no malfeasance has occurred here and it is really just people being upset because the boat has been rocked in a way they don't approve of.


I have also found Correia's handling of all of this above reproach as he has written reams of his own thoughts on what is going on and exhaustively linked things he is talking about rather than obfuscate and/or make up entire articles.

 Bromsy wrote:
[...] rather than obfuscate and/or make up entire articles.

Such as Entertainment Weekly:

CORRECTION: After misinterpreting reports in other news publications, EW published an unfair and inaccurate depiction of the Sad Puppies voting slate, which does, in fact, include many women and writers of color. As Sad Puppies’ Brad Torgerson explained to EW, the slate includes both women and non-caucasian writers, including Rajnar Vajra, Larry Correia, Annie Bellet, Kary English, Toni Weisskopf, Ann Sowards, Megan Gray, Sheila Gilbert, Jennifer Brozek, Cedar Sanderson, and Amanda Green.

This story has been updated to more accurately reflect this. EW regrets the error.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/06/hugo-award-nominations-sad-puppies

At least they has the shame/integrity to issue a correction.

 Manchu wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
As for the rest, let's review the conversation:

Yes, let's:

Peregrine: LEFT-LEANING AUTHORS DID NOT LOBBY FOR VOTES!!!
Manchu: Can you back that up?
Peregrine: SELL ME YOUR FORGEWORLD SUPERHEAVIES!

I couldn't not see it

I think it was more like lawyers got in touch with them. It happens when you slander people who can afford lawyers

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:
I couldn't not see it

It would be a far more productive conversation ...

Sining wrote:
It happens when you slander people who can afford lawyers

Not a bad point. EW's coverage was certainly slanderous. What gets me is they not only effectively admitted to reprinting from other sites but also admitted to doing a terrible job of it.

Sining wrote:
I think you guys honestly think the people who followed sad puppies aren't capable of making up their own minds. It's hilarious really. That's like believing a republican would only vote republican on all possible ballots just because they were told so.

Umm, if people didn't follow Republican and Democratic tickets there'd be no reason to have organised political parties in the first place. The fact that not everyone follows the tickets slavishly doesn't mean you can claim that having the tickets has no effect (which would require no-one to follow the tickets).

And given the number of works on the ticket that made it in to the various shortlists, it's utterly ridiculous to claim the campaign had no effect.

No one is claiming the campaign had no effect. People are claiming however that the sad puppies aren't necessarily going to blindly follow whatever is on the slate without necessarily liking what is on the slate. But this may be too fine a distinction for you to understand

 Frazzled wrote:
Manchu has the way of it. ALthough sci fi often explores some serious philospohipcal stuff (often this is when sci fi is at its best), lets not kid ourselves about the amount of KILL SPACE ALIENS that is out there and has a place too.

KILL SPACE ALIENS doesn't just have a place, it is probably the most important part of the whole industry.

It's just that if someone read twenty KILL SPACE ALIEN books and two BOOKS THAT ARE REALLY ABOUT POVERTY OR HOMOSEXUALITY OR MAYBE EVEN HOMOSEXUAL POVERTY OR WHATEVER, and then you ask them which was the best, there is a pretty good chance they’ll say it was one of the last two. This may be because the former were fun time wasters but didn’t really change how the reader understands the world. It may also be that he answered that way because he wanted to sound smart by listing the more heavy going book as his favourite, or maybe he wanted to say something about his own political beliefs by. And often it’s a combination of all three.

It is actually a problem with pretty much every awards process on Earth. The problem is you don’t solve it by organising voting blocs.

You're really generalising there. You're assuming that mostly everyone will vote for the two books just because they were different. Also, voting is secret (afaik), unless the guy is going to brag about it, he can vote whatever he wants and say anything about what he voted as number 1.

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Manchu has the way of it. ALthough sci fi often explores some serious philospohipcal stuff (often this is when sci fi is at its best), lets not kid ourselves about the amount of KILL SPACE ALIENS that is out there and has a place too.

KILL SPACE ALIENS doesn't just have a place, it is probably the most important part of the whole industry.

It's just that if someone read twenty KILL SPACE ALIEN books and two BOOKS THAT ARE REALLY ABOUT POVERTY OR HOMOSEXUALITY OR MAYBE EVEN HOMOSEXUAL POVERTY OR WHATEVER, and then you ask them which was the best, there is a pretty good chance they’ll say it was one of the last two. This may be because the former were fun time wasters but didn’t really change how the reader understands the world. It may also be that he answered that way because he wanted to sound smart by listing the more heavy going book as his favourite, or maybe he wanted to say something about his own political beliefs by. And often it’s a combination of all three.

It is actually a problem with pretty much every awards process on Earth. The problem is you don’t solve it by organising voting blocs.

If you read Correia's blog; he isn't so much trying to 'solve' it. He was trying to point out (based on his personal experiences) the sheer amount of hatred and slanderous lies that are pedaled by a very vocal minority of Worldcon against anyone that does not fit their ideal of what an author should be, with the explicit point being made that much of the hatred is directed at him and people like them because of who they are and what their beliefs are - in many cases by people who have never and will never read his books rather than criticizing the works themselves.

He refused nomination for a Hugo this year and publicly stated that he will never accept a Hugo.

Sining wrote:
No one is claiming the campaign had no effect. People are claiming however that the sad puppies aren't necessarily going to blindly follow whatever is on the slate without necessarily liking what is on the slate. But this may be too fine a distinction for you to understand

That they like the work is meaningless, if it isn’t the book they’d have voted for based on their own preference. That’s how block voting works – everyone getting together to vote in unison for something that’s good enough for everyone, instead of their own preference.

Four pages in to the thread and I find myself explaining the basic mechanics block voting, without which the other poster couldn’t have understood anything that’s been discussed so far. Such is dakka.

In the first place, no one is asking you to explain anything. If you find it such a chore, you can choose not to do it. Or you can drop your holier than thou attitude.

Secondly, you're again assuming that everyone isn't voting because they like the work and it's what they would have voted for anyway. I mean, if you have evidence, then please present it instead of constantly trying to imply it.

 Bromsy wrote:
He refused nomination for a Hugo this year and publicly stated that he will never accept a Hugo.

He did, however, nominate his own book for best novel as part of Sad Puppies 2 last year, and only declined this year's nomination because he didn't want his critics using it against him.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
He refused nomination for a Hugo this year and publicly stated that he will never accept a Hugo.

He did, however, nominate his own book for best novel as part of Sad Puppies 2 last year, and only declined this year's nomination because he didn't want his critics using it against him.

Probably got more and more disillusioned as time went by

 Peregrine wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
He refused nomination for a Hugo this year and publicly stated that he will never accept a Hugo.

He did, however, nominate his own book for best novel as part of Sad Puppies 2 last year, and only declined this year's nomination because he didn't want his critics using it against him.

Or, maybe somehow in that year of time his opinion and/or outlook changed because he is a person and that happens? That ax you seem to be grinding for whatever reason must be getting down to the haft by now.

Sining wrote:
In the first place, no one is asking you to explain anything.

Apparently you are, because you keep posting things that demonstrate that you don't really understand how block voting works.

Secondly, you're again assuming that everyone isn't voting because they like the work and it's what they would have voted for anyway. I mean, if you have evidence, then please present it instead of constantly trying to imply it.

If everyone is voting for the works that they would have voted for anyway then what's the point of organizing people with similar views, selecting a single list to represent the Sad Puppies campaign, and promoting it as the single list of books to vote for?


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 Bromsy wrote:
Or, maybe somehow in that year of time his opinion and/or outlook changed because he is a person and that happens? That ax you seem to be grinding for whatever reason must be getting down to the haft by now.

How exactly is it "grinding an axe" to point out that he did seek the award last year, or that his refusal to accept the nomination this year is about shutting down the "you just want to get everyone to vote for you" accusations instead of a rejection of the award as a whole?


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 Manchu wrote:
Words.

And I'm done having this discussion with you. All you've done is nitpick about who has the burden of proof without providing any evidence that my claim was wrong. You clearly don't understand how proof works or what is reasonable to ask for, and now we're just going in circles.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sining wrote:
In the first place, no one is asking you to explain anything.

Apparently you are, because you keep posting things that demonstrate that you don't really understand how block voting works.

Secondly, you're again assuming that everyone isn't voting because they like the work and it's what they would have voted for anyway. I mean, if you have evidence, then please present it instead of constantly trying to imply it.

If everyone is voting for the works that they would have voted for anyway then what's the point of organizing people with similar views, selecting a single list to represent the Sad Puppies campaign, and promoting it as the single list of books to vote for?

The problem with your notion of block voting is that you kind of assume everyone is going to do this because it's what's on the block. You have basically reduced the humans who have voted down into this into statistics that you feel only voted that way because they were told to. I mean, in general, that just seems to espouse a pretty dim view of other people in general. And yes, I know how block voting works, I just don't think your notion is applicable in this context, which you guys seem to keep missing.

Secondly, the list is nominations of what they consider to be the best by the organisers. They do not say that everyone must vote for it. In fact, I suspect SP3 would fail horribly if they tried to be authoritative. Why do some of the nominations on the list end up being voted for? You guys are claiming it's because it's on the list so that's the only reason it's voted in. Meanwhile, you forget there may simply be other factors at play. There could be people who already like those authors and were going to vote them anyway, people who were never exposed to those authors but now are and like them and will vote them.

Are there people who will vote just because a list tells them to? Yes, but thankfully I believe they're really a very minor segment of humanity and I don't think that's the case here.

Sining wrote:
The problem with your notion of block voting is that you kind of assume everyone is going to do this because it's what's on the block.

No, I'm assuming that a significant number of people will do that. The SP3 organizers are also making the same assumption, otherwise they wouldn't bother with their current strategy.

 Peregrine wrote:
And I'm done having this discussion with you.

It's been over from the beginning. You made a claim, insisted it was unsupportable, then further insisted that I somehow have to prove its opposite. 0/10

Also, I find it far more telling that certain people will not go and directly ask Larry and his sad puppies at a link that's been posted here several times what their intentions were and did they just mindlessly vote. Instead, they rather skulk here and post spurious claims about the other peoples intentions


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 Peregrine wrote:

Sining wrote:
The problem with your notion of block voting is that you kind of assume everyone is going to do this because it's what's on the block.

No, I'm assuming that a significant number of people will do that. The SP3 organizers are also making the same assumption, otherwise they wouldn't bother with their current strategy.

I guess that's because at the end of the day, you're just looking down on other humans. There's a difference between 'guys, I love these books and I think you will too' and 'guys, vote these books because I tell you to'

 Peregrine wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bromsy wrote:
Or, maybe somehow in that year of time his opinion and/or outlook changed because he is a person and that happens? That ax you seem to be grinding for whatever reason must be getting down to the haft by now.

How exactly is it "grinding an axe" to point out that he did seek the award last year, or that his refusal to accept the nomination this year is about shutting down the "you just want to get everyone to vote for you" accusations instead of a rejection of the award as a whole?

Oh, I was speaking to your general tone and comments throughout the thread. You lead off with

 Peregrine wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
I operated under the notion that Science Fiction's was rooted in progressive themes, so I am surprised by the backlash.

It is. The whole issue is driven by a bunch of whiny s who want to return to the good old days when Heinlein wrote all of those completely non-political adventure stories (lol) and the original Star Trek never dared to feature a left-leaning agenda. Once you look at all at the history of science fiction it's pretty clear that their complaints are really just a cover for their real objection: that "SJW" stories and authors get more attention than the right-wing ideology they embrace.

The only unfortunate thing here is that voting in unison for the political agenda instead of for the works each individual voter prefers gives them voting power far beyond their actual numbers and destroys the credibility of the award. If they didn't have this disproportionate voting power they'd be an irrelevant minority that nobody pays any attention to.

Which is fairly inflammatory and biased for a fourth post in the thread with absolutely nothing to back it up, and you continued in that same vein throughout, accusing at the very least Correia of basically being a liar. You seem oddly fixated with painting these folks as being terrible, but you also seem unable to provide links or quotes of them being terrible - something the other 'side' for whatever that means in this debate has had no trouble doing.

 Bromsy wrote:
If you read Correia's blog; he isn't so much trying to 'solve' it. He was trying to point out (based on his personal experiences) the sheer amount of hatred and slanderous lies that are pedaled by a very vocal minority of Worldcon against anyone that does not fit their ideal of what an author should be, with the explicit point being made that much of the hatred is directed at him and people like them because of who they are and what their beliefs are - in many cases by people who have never and will never read his books rather than criticizing the works themselves.

He refused nomination for a Hugo this year and publicly stated that he will never accept a Hugo.

I haven't read Correia's blog, though I have read about his treatment at the Reno worldcon and wonder how much of this nonsense has come out of that bad experience. I agree, by the way, that he shouldn't have been treated like that, and that personal politics shouldn't be used to judge the merit of a work, especially when those politics aren't even in the author's work.

It's worth pointing out, though, that despite the claims of the Sad/Rabid Puppies that they just want to judge the merit of the work, they keep complaining about author's who's left wing politics doesn't show up in their nominated works.

 sebster wrote:
It's worth pointing out, though, that despite the claims of the Sad/Rabid Puppies that they just want to judge the merit of the work, they keep complaining about author's who's left wing politics doesn't show up in their nominated works.

Yeah, but the point there is that the left-wing authors' books are mediocre at best and wouldn't get any attention without the author's left-wing politics getting people to vote for them. There was a lot of "SCALZI ONLY WINS BECAUSE HES A SJW FEMINAZI" whining when Redshirts won "best novel", despite the book itself having no real political content.

Sining wrote:
In the first place, no one is asking you to explain anything. If you find it such a chore, you can choose not to do it. Or you can drop your holier than thou attitude.

I'm trying to discuss the issue in a constructive way where we all come away with a better understanding of the issue. To achieve that, everyone involved needs to have a basic understanding of concepts like block voting. Fair enough if we were establishing that stuff on page 1, but it's now page 7, and it's clear that you've been making your arguments all this time without understanding how the process works.

Secondly, you're again assuming that everyone isn't voting because they like the work and it's what they would have voted for anyway. I mean, if you have evidence, then please present it instead of constantly trying to imply it.

The complaint from Sad/Rabid Puppies is that their preferred works were being neglected. This year they dominate the nominations. Is your argument that that domination would have happened anyway? Really?

Because if it would have happened anyway, then you should believe that the Puppies campaign has only sullied what should have been a triumphant year for their kind of authors, and so the campaign should be disbanded.

Either that, or you do the common sense, honest thing and accept that the campaign had a massive effect on the nominations, and then set about defending that effect as positive for whatever reason.

Perguine's view of Larry is almost comical in its mustache twirling portrayal.

 Peregrine wrote:

 sebster wrote:
It's worth pointing out, though, that despite the claims of the Sad/Rabid Puppies that they just want to judge the merit of the work, they keep complaining about author's who's left wing politics doesn't show up in their nominated works.

Yeah, but the point there is that the left-wing authors' books are mediocre at best and wouldn't get any attention without the author's left-wing politics getting people to vote for them. There was a lot of "SCALZI ONLY WINS BECAUSE HES A SJW FEMINAZI" whining when Redshirts won "best novel", despite the book itself having no real political content.

I have to admit it's hilarious how every time you have to discuss this you have to strawman with the "SJW FEMINAZI" while the same could be said towards the animosity towards SP.

 sebster wrote:

Sining wrote:
In the first place, no one is asking you to explain anything. If you find it such a chore, you can choose not to do it. Or you can drop your holier than thou attitude.

I'm trying to discuss the issue in a constructive way where we all come away with a better understanding of the issue. To achieve that, everyone involved needs to have a basic understanding of concepts like block voting. Fair enough if we were establishing that stuff on page 1, but it's now page 7, and it's clear that you've been making your arguments all this time without understanding how the process works.

You're pretty much trying to discuss the issue in a way that only you and perhaps Pere agree upon while ignoring everything else. Also, the counter-argument that 'no, your arguments are made up' is pretty petty isn't it. I've already said if you have proof that your view of block-voting is occuring, that people ARE voting only because it's on the list, you are welcome to show it. Instead, you rather come up with deflections and accusations.

Secondly, you're again assuming that everyone isn't voting because they like the work and it's what they would have voted for anyway. I mean, if you have evidence, then please present it instead of constantly trying to imply it.

The complaint from Sad/Rabid Puppies is that their preferred works were being neglected. This year they dominate the nominations. Is your argument that that domination would have happened anyway? Really?

Because if it would have happened anyway, then you should believe that the Puppies campaign has only sullied what should have been a triumphant year for their kind of authors, and so the campaign should be disbanded.

Either that, or you do the common sense, honest thing and accept that the campaign had a massive effect on the nominations, and then set about defending that effect as positive for whatever reason.

 Peregrine wrote:
Yeah, but the point there is that the left-wing authors' books are mediocre at best and wouldn't get any attention without the author's left-wing politics getting people to vote for them. There was a lot of "SCALZI ONLY WINS BECAUSE HES A SJW FEMINAZI" whining when Redshirts won "best novel", despite the book itself having no real political content.

Sure, which ultimately is a very, very silly way of seeing the world. I mean, I didn’t like Redshirts much, but the guy who lent it to me loved the hell out of it, just because that kind of meta-sci fi stuff is his thing. Him and the other person I know who loved it are probably the least political people I know (one I suspect wouldn’t be able to name the US president… yes, seriously).

The issue is going from ‘I didn’t like that book/I don’t think the book should have won’ to ‘and it only won because there’s some vague conspiracy keeping out the authors I do like’. But then, that’s pretty much how political fringes work – everything gets dragged in to their culture war. Every injustice ultimately reduces down to their politics/political enemies. Even with exactly zero evidence that the awards are dominated by the opposing political set… they’re happy just to assume it.

Incidentally, GRR Martin’s second blog post on the issue is up. It’s basically a long breakdown of previous winners of Hugos across all categories, both overall and more recently. He finds pretty much no bias towards SJWs or any other political group.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/418285.html


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Sining wrote:
Read the above. Seriously, do you only cherry pick points?

I've already pointed out to Pere, and you've obviously seen the reply because you're replying to something after that, that the nominations could easily have let people discover new authors they didn't know existed and wanted to vote for. As it is, you have no proof that people voted these people just cause it was on a list and not because they didn't enjoy them but you seem intent on arguing that point.

Did the campaign affect the nominations? Considering they were advertising certain nominees pretty publicly, it had the same effect as advertising would. If you can PROVE (and here's the point that you keep missing) that voters just voted cause they were told to vote for them, then do so. Otherwise you're just being incredibly bitter

Yeah, okay. On the one hand we can conclude that an effort to provide a standard vote approved list for the Hugos among a certain community… led to that community block voting for the approved titles.

Or we can conclude that the mere act of mentioning these titles led to thousands of fans learning about them and loving them and voluntarily choosing to vote for them in a way that’s indistinguishable from if they’d just obeyed the block vote recommendations to prove a political point.

I guess we could argue both things are possible. We won’t, because I think the suggestion is comically ridiculous, but I guess you can carry on doing whatever the hell you want.

Sining wrote:
]

The problem with your notion of block voting is that you kind of assume everyone is going to do this because it's what's on the block. You have basically reduced the humans who have voted down into this into statistics that you feel only voted that way because they were told to. I mean, in general, that just seems to espouse a pretty dim view of other people in general.

And yet this is exactly why, apparently, the authors who are complaining and organising this "event" hadn't won or been nominated before.

Not, maybe, what they wrote perhaps not being very good. Or at least viewed as being not as good by a really small number of people.

And yes, I know how block voting works, I just don't think your notion is applicable in this context, which you guys seem to keep missing.

One would suggest that this is/was the exact same case before as well then.


For the record Redshirts is great

Larry has been nominated before. It's how he got to be there at the Hugos. Secondly, if they're a statistically a minority then there should be no problem because the process will correct itself. If they're not, then they're going to remain.

I mean, let's look at one of the nominations. Jim Butcher. Who's also been nominated for a Hugo before. So if he's on the slate and somehow ended up on the nominations as well, somehow this is because of the evil sadpuppies conspiracy and not because people think he's a good author.

What I'm getting here is that certain people don't like it that apparently people can campaign for fresh members to vote vs an insular in-crowd and actually manage to get nominations. Because remember, when Scalzi does it, it's recommendations. But when Larry does it, somehow he has the evil power to force everyone who's in sad puppies to follow his list to the letter.