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 Manchu wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It assumes that there is a left-wing group controlling the nomination process and keeping out authors that don't agree with left-wing politics, but also a bunch of left-wing authors that have been unfairly neglected.

From what I can tell, their actual premise is WorldCon membership has become significantly biased against right-wing politics. Sad Puppies, as Correia articulates it, is exploiting WorldCon rules to nominate works of merit without regard to the authors' politics.

 Peregrine wrote:
the authors later realizing that they need to repackage the message a bit to attract people who aren't rabid right-wing lunatics like Vox Day

Or maybe to prevent that nutjob from hijacking their initiative/prevent disinformation tarring the Sad Puppies by association (see e.g., Entertainment Weekly's retraction/apology).

 Peregrine wrote:
I'm asking which authors YOU feel are being overlooked for political reasons.

Nah, this isn't about me as I am not a part of the Sad Puppies movement or their ally.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
it is your burden of proof to show no author has been overlooked for political reasons

If someone claims no author has been overlooked for political reasons then it is on them to back that up. I'm perplexed that you don't understand this.

If that is correct perhaps it simply reflects a general social change, perhaps more women becoming interested in SF, for example, and voting for stuff they like which -- sexist generalisation -- is less likely to be military adventure stories.

I don't see how else to explain a bias in the nominations. It must either be an organised cabal, or the broad mass of SF fans (defined as people who think it is worth paying the $50 to become a member and gain the right to vote for the Hugos) acting independently.

in the comments

http://file770.com/?p=21780&cpage=1&hc_location=ufi#comment-250236
from Vox day

If No Award takes a fiction category, you will likely never see another award given in that category again. The sword cuts both ways, Lois. We are prepared for all eventualities.

FREEDOM 111

I thought there have been Hugos with no awards in a category before.

 sebster wrote:

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.

Larry has personally made the effort to push the books he felt were worthy of nomination and get more people to buy them. This was demonstrably proven by his book bombs for nominees increasing their sales and sales rank on amazon. The stories he pushed people to buy and read were written by various authors whose personal politics were across the spectrum, both men and women were included along with various races. The stories that he encouraged his fans to read were not some unified block of stories written by authors with the same political views or from within the same demographic they were just good stories that Larry thought his fans would also like and potentially want to vote for.

http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/03/04/sad-puppies-book-bomb-best-related-work-and-campbell-award-for-best-new-writer/
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/03/03/sad-puppies-short-story-update-free-championship-btok-and-tuesdays-with-molakesh-eligibility/
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/26/book-bomb-results-more-free-stories-and-sad-puppies-slate-update/
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/25/book-bomb-short-stories-from-the-sad-puppies-slate/
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/19/book-bomb-success-behold-the-power-of-sad-puppies/
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/18/book-bomb-novellas-from-the-sad-puppies-slate/

There you go, proof that Sad Puppies wasn't about politics. It was about getting talented authors more publicity, help them sell more books and introduce Larry's fans to stories they might like and if they did like them that they would be willing to vote for them for Hugos.

If the Sad Puppies supporters who follow Larry's blog were only interested in voting for whatever stories Larry told them to, why would so many of them buy copies of the stories? While there is no way of determining if everyone who bought the stories read them, there is no denying that Larry increased the sales figures of those books and it's perfectly plausible that people read the stories, enjoyed them and voted for them.

Here's the link to the official 2015 Hugo Award nominees list:
http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2015-hugo-awards/

You can see that not every category has the same number of ballots to because everybody who voted in Best Novel on the ballot didn't also cast a vote in all the other categories. If the Sad Puppies supporters were blindly voting en bloc for an entire ballot slate uniformly then you should be able to see that bloc show up in every category but it doesn't.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It must either be an organised cabal, or the broad mass of SF fans (defined as people who think it is worth paying the $50 to become a member and gain the right to vote for the Hugos) acting independently.

WorldCon membership does not constitute "the broad mass of SF fans." If anything, I doubt most people who like SF had ever heard of WorldCon before now; not that they will join up having learned WorldCon exists, by the way, or that a vastly larger amount of people who like SF are still unaware of WorldCon. WorldCon membership sans Puppy invasion (or even with) constitutes a very small group of people heavily involved in a very specific community. It is something like saying people who have posted on Dakka daily for a decade or more are the broad mass of 40k players.

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It must either be an organised cabal, or the broad mass of SF fans (defined as people who think it is worth paying the $50 to become a member and gain the right to vote for the Hugos) acting independently.

WorldCon membership does not constitute "the broad mass of SF fans." If anything, I doubt most people who like SF had ever heard of WorldCon before now; not that they will join up having learned WorldCon exists, by the way, or that a vastly larger amount of people who like SF are still unaware of WorldCon. WorldCon membership sans Puppy invasion (or even with) constitutes a very small group of people heavily involved in a very specific community. It is something like saying people who have posted on Dakka daily for a decade or more are the broad mass of 40k players.

That doesn't really matter. The point is that Sad Puppies is trying to influence Worldcon/Hugos, not the whole English-speaking world. He obviously thinks it is important.

It would be interesting if something similar happened at the Nebula Awards, or the British SFA Awards.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That doesn't really matter.

It matters quite a lot. First, it obviates the argument that Hugo nominations just reflect what SF readers, broadly speaking, think is good SF. Rather, Hugo nominations are the product of a far more specific culture, including its political characteristics. Which is to say, we don't need to posit the existence of some secret cabal to understand how ideology can color nominations. Second, instead of just being another backlash against multiculturalism, I believe this issue is actually motivated by the fact that the Hugo award is far more well-known and prestigious than the obscure and arguably outmoded fandom represented by WorldCon membership.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point is that Sad Puppies is trying to influence Worldcon/Hugos, not the whole English-speaking world.

No, I don't think Sad Puppies are actually interested in taking over WorldCon. In fact, that is exactly what seems to irritate a lot of WorldCon members. The only interest Sad Puppies has in WorldCon is the Hugo awards, precisely because those awards are meaningful to so many more people than WorldCon is.

George R.R made another post, though I'd like to point out this tidbit from it.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/418643.html

Most of them, frankly, suck. And the mere fact that so many people are discussing them makes me think that the Puppies won. They started this whole thing by saying the Hugo Awards were rigged to exclude them. That is completely untrue, as I believe I demonstrated conclusively in my last post. So what is happening now? The people on MY SIDE, the trufans and SMOFs and good guys, are having an endless circle jerk trying to come up with a foolproof way to RIG THE HUGOS AND EXCLUDE THEM. God DAMN, people. You are proving them right.

I don't know why but calling them True Fans, Good Guys just seems like compensation of Us Vs Them...Kinda what they were thinking to begin with.

The irony is lost on most of them sadly

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I thought there have been Hugos with no awards in a category before.

Vox is saying that if a catagory gets 'no award' this year, he's going to utilize the same resources he used for the current slate to push 'no award' for that catagory in every upcoming year.

 Bookwrack wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I thought there have been Hugos with no awards in a category before.

Vox is saying that if a catagory gets 'no award' this year, he's going to utilize the same resources he used for the current slate to push 'no award' for that catagory in every upcoming year.

But remember, it's all about giving opportunities to deserving authors.

What's amazing is that Vox isn't even the first person to suggest it. Instead, it's all the people hurt by SP3 that are suggesting awarding no awards just because SP3. And somehow Peregine makes it seem like Vox is the dirty one in this for suggesting they do the same thing to the people excluding them.

Not that I'm endorsing Vox's policy. Just pointing out the hypocrisy in this line of thinking. I also somehow doubt Vox has enough fans to push for no award in every category. Afaik, voting HAS to be done physically at worldcon while nominations can be done through the net.

Sining wrote:
And somehow Peregine makes it seem like Vox is the dirty one in this for suggesting they do the same thing to the people excluding them.

I guess you don't understand the difference between "vote for 'no award' this year because SP3 has given those authors an unfair boost" and "if we don't win this year nobody gets to win, regardless of how deserving they are or what political campaigns may be involved". One is a temporary response to a perceived skew in the voting this year, the other is a threat to trash the whole thing indefinitely out of spite.

Also, even if you consider it a valid tactic, it still points out the blatant dishonesty of Vox Day claiming that his campaign is about giving opportunities to deserving authors and isn't about right-wing politics. He'd rather have no Hugos at all than an award where he doesn't get to win, no matter which authors it hurts in the future.

Temporary response? If SP4 actually manages to keep getting people nominated, I expect it to become less of a temporary response and more of a normal response because let's be honest, I can't see some of the people involved in this changing their opinions a year from now.

Also, note that I didn't consider it a valid tactic but good job smearing people. And you're confusing Vox Day/Rabid puppies and Sad Puppies again. You do realise the 2 are different slates right

Sining wrote:
Temporary response? If SP4 actually manages to keep getting people nominated, I expect it to become less of a temporary response and more of a normal response because let's be honest, I can't see some of the people involved in this changing their opinions a year from now.

It's temporary because the suggestion to vote "no award" in response to SP3 only exists as long as there's "unfair" organized campaigning for votes. As soon as Sad Puppies (and anyone else who might be motivated to try their strategy with their own political beliefs) stop their voting tactics the people saying "vote 'no award'" will stop making that suggestion. Vox Day, on the other hand, is proposing an indefinite spite campaign to destroy the award as revenge for not letting him succeed with his plan.

Also, note that I didn't consider it a valid tactic but good job smearing people.

Did you miss the "even if" part which clearly presents it as a hypothetical statement, or did you deliberately ignore it so you could have something to argue about?

And you're confusing Vox Day/Rabid puppies and Sad Puppies again. You do realise the 2 are different slates right

I'm not confusing anything. In fact I made it quite clear in my post that we're talking about Vox Day and his anti-SJW crusade, not the SP3 group.

The problem is there's always going to be 'unfair' organised campaigning for votes. SP alleges there's an organised hidden campaign to vote for the right type of literature and that's why they're making a covert one. At the end of the day, this is just going to make next year's Hugos have even more campaigning from both sides. There is no letting the cat out of the bag for this. So no, this really isn't going to be temporary in any way.

Why would you even need to make a hypothetical statement about me when I already made it clear I don't endorse it?

Sining wrote:
The problem is there's always going to be 'unfair' organised campaigning for votes.

{citation needed}

SP alleges there's an organised hidden campaign to vote for the right type of literature and that's why they're making a covert one.

And they've provided no proof of this accusation. The Sad Puppies claims are on the same level as the tinfoil hatters screaming about mind control in the chemtrails.

At the end of the day, this is just going to make next year's Hugos have even more campaigning from both sides. There is no letting the cat out of the bag for this. So no, this really isn't going to be temporary in any way.

And that's the whole point! People want this ridiculous campaigning to go away and avoid having the Hugos become nothing more than a contest of which "side" can most efficiently organize a voting campaign, with the authors and books reduced to nothing more than pawns in a political argument. The point of voting "no award" is to deny the benefits of an organized voting campaign and remove the motivation to do it again in the future. If people get the hint and stop trying to organize SP-style campaigns then there's no more need to vote "no award". Vox Day, on the other hand, proposes trashing the whole system in future years as revenge for not getting to win.

Why would you even need to make a hypothetical statement about me when I already made it clear I don't endorse it?

I guess you don't understand the general "you" vs. the specific "you"?

Judging from the reactions of a lot of people, I'm going to say there probably was quite a bias present. A groupthink of sorts.

It won't happen because even if SP4 wasn't happening, there would be people who would be convinced that it all went dark and that the SP4 people are secretly gathering votes. And to counter this dark operation, they'll organise a campaign to do so.

At the end of the day, the Hugo isn't broken and it's doing exactly what it's meant to do. Just because someone is organising a campaign doesn't mean they're breaking the Hugo. If an author went out and campaigned for himself, I doubt we'd see as much furore over it. Yet because several authors went out and campaigned for other authors, this is somehow worse? I don't think so.

And considering the Hugo is a populist vote, the more votes the better. I have yet to see a democratic system that worked better the less votes you got.


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Also, don't put you when you don't mean you. There are other words in the dictionary if you want to give a hypothetical example

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If that is correct perhaps it simply reflects a general social change, perhaps more women becoming interested in SF, for example, and voting for stuff they like which -- sexist generalisation -- is less likely to be military adventure stories.

I don't see how else to explain a bias in the nominations. It must either be an organised cabal, or the broad mass of SF fans (defined as people who think it is worth paying the $50 to become a member and gain the right to vote for the Hugos) acting independently.

I wonder if people who used to buy books for fantasy action has moved on to computer games. So maybe it isn’t just that there’s more people looking for deeper themes in their fantasy, but that they have become relatively more important as the more action oriented audience has dropped away.

But on your overall point, I agree that it either must be an organised cabal or some kind of change in demographic among the voters. Given the complete lack of evidence for the former, I’m inclined to assume the latter.

Prestor Jon wrote:
Larry has personally made the effort to push the books he felt were worthy of nomination and get more people to buy them.

I’m not sure if you’re massively overstating the standing of Larry Correia in sci-fi and fantasy, or are assuming that no-one ever before encouraged people to read other people’s works. Either way, the insistence that Correia, or anyone else really, just saying ‘this is good you should read it and vote for it’ having a noticeable impact on sales and award recognition without anything else going on is comically stupid.

Seriously, if you want to be blind to the politics of this, be blind.

And why are you calling him Larry? Is he your brother, or close friend or something?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I don't know why but calling them True Fans, Good Guys just seems like compensation of Us Vs Them...Kinda what they were thinking to begin with.

Because there are sides, often one side is right and one side is wrong. Not in terms of book preferences, because people can like fast paced action and also like heavier stuff, or they can like just one of those types, or neither, and no-one ever has to draw lines and argue with people with different preferences.

But on other issues there are sides. And on this issue, where people have imagined up a vague conspiracy to keep out their kind of writers, and then gamed the system and ended up bringing in voters from outside of fantasy fandom (gamergate) to trump the vote… well it’s safe to call those people the wrong side.

This doesn’t mean whatever the ‘true fans’ do is right or justified, and if they respond very badly they will end up just as bad as the puppies (and the awards will be sunk entirely). But while it is likely they will end up as bad as the puppies, it hasn’t happened yet, and so before it does it is reasonable to differentiate the people who have acted badly from those who might respond badly.



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Sining wrote:
The problem is there's always going to be 'unfair' organised campaigning for votes. SP alleges...

That you can't see the problem there is fething amazing. There is zero evidence that anything like this has ever happened before. It's just people claiming it, and people like you accepting that claim as something that must be true, because you like the suggestion.

I mean, the left wing can't organise a campaign when they're operating publicly, the idea that they could continue such a scheme for years in secrecy without ever falling apart with infighting is just incredible fantasy. fething flying rodent gak, really.

I've posted a link here to one of the organisers. If you want you can go ask him directly for proof. He's more than willing to reply to random people. Have I seen all the proof? No, but I've seen some circumstantial evidence but nothing definite.

And there a reason why I used alleges. In case you don't know what that word means either.


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Also what makes you think there's no in fighting? Were you there the last twenty years this alleged bias was taking place? Oh no, wait, you're assuming things again


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Also the idea at implying someone is inappropriately close to Larry cause he called him Larry is hilarious. Larry Correia is pretty long to type out. What should we call him then that you feel is appropriate? Mr Larry? Mr correia? The international lord of hate?

But on other issues there are sides. And on this issue, where people have imagined up a vague conspiracy to keep out their kind of writers, and then gamed the system and ended up bringing in voters from outside of fantasy fandom (gamergate) to trump the vote… well it’s safe to call those people the wrong side.

Which didn't really happen, most gamergate folk didn't even know of it till people started lumping them together like some sort of insidious force because of one person. Most of the people on the Sad Puppies ballot has been there since even before GG was around.

So no, not really the "Wrong Side" so much as "Another Side"

Sining wrote:
At the end of the day, the Hugo isn't broken and it's doing exactly what it's meant to do. Just because someone is organising a campaign doesn't mean they're breaking the Hugo. If an author went out and campaigned for himself, I doubt we'd see as much furore over it. Yet because several authors went out and campaigned for other authors, this is somehow worse? I don't think so.

Authors have always campaigned for other authors, and sometimes for themselves. That you are unaware of this tells me how little you know of the Hugos, or of award ceremonies in general.

The issue is that this campaign is different in several ways;
1) The campaign came with a specific slate of prescribed votes, which is pretty clearly gaming the system.
2) The whole issue is absolutely steeped in politics, splashing over from the gamergate weirdness. People deny it, but just reading Correia's defence of what's happened, he talks almost exclusively about being attacked for his politics. The attacks against him weren't right, but when the defence is that other people were mean about a writer's politics, it becomes a nonsense to claim this issue isn't about politics.
3) Most of the votes came from people parachuting in to the awards, buying a supporting membership just to take part in the puppies campaign. It is likely that many such people did this motivated only by the politics of the issue, having no real engagement with fantasy writing.

If you can't see how that's different from someone saying 'hey, you guys should read ABC written by XYZ, and maybe even nominate it for a Hugo'... then I don't know what to say.


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Sining wrote:
And there a reason why I used alleges. In case you don't know what that word means either.

If you only meant there was an allegation, then you wouldn't have stated "here's always going to be" just before that.

Also what makes you think there's no in fighting? Were you there the last twenty years this alleged bias was taking place? Oh no, wait, you're assuming things again

Oh, so now there's been in-fighting... and we're talking about a group that organised a massive conspiracy to co-ordinate voting without ever leaving one scrap of evidence despite massive in-fighting. Uh huh.

Also the idea at implying someone is inappropriately close to Larry cause he called him Larry is hilarious. Larry Correia is pretty long to type out. What should we call him then that you feel is appropriate? Mr Larry? Mr correia? The international lord of hate?

You would call him Larry Correia for the first mention, and Correia after that. Are you seriously asking that question?


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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Which didn't really happen, most gamergate folk didn't even know of it till people started lumping them together like some sort of insidious force because of one person. Most of the people on the Sad Puppies ballot has been there since even before GG was around.

So no, not really the "Wrong Side" so much as "Another Side"

You don’t need many to be aware of it, for it to have a massive impact. Fantasy literature is a lot smaller than gaming, and Worldcon is only a very small part of fantasy literature. It would only take a very small portion of Gamergate to take an interest in expanding their nonsense campaign in to fantasy literature to dominate the Hugos.

Nor do their need to be any Gamergate people involved for the Puppies to be in the wrong. Based on a completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory they set about gaming the awards… that just makes them completely wrong by itself.

And then to repeat my earlier point, that doesn’t mean the non-puppies are right. Many of their proposals for how to respond are just as bad, and if they’re followed they’ll end up bad guys as well. But they haven’t responded yet, and so until then it’s a nonsense to equate the sides.

Nor do their need to be any Gamergate people involved for the Puppies to be in the wrong. Based on a completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory they set about gaming the awards… that just makes them completely wrong by itself.

So essentially, if gamergate did become involved they would automatically become wrong, do you not realize how hypocritical that is? There are some issues that have been pointed out that aren't unsubstantiated in that there is a rather vocal crowd for hugo that might be more liberal leaning and that there has been some incidents involving such. This one for example.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/03/01/when-jonathan-ross-was-presenting-the-hugo-awards-until-he-wasnt/
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/03/jonathan-ross-and-hugo-awards-why-was-he-forced-out-science-fictions-self-appointed

You don’t need many to be aware of it, for it to have a massive impact. Fantasy literature is a lot smaller than gaming, and Worldcon is only a very small part of fantasy literature. It would only take a very small portion of Gamergate to take an interest in expanding their nonsense campaign in to fantasy literature to dominate the Hugos.

So essentially, all it would take is someone with enough popularity to say "Vote for these people" and that happens, and now that it's happened people are complaining because this one gave a reason behind why he said "Vote for these people"

And then to repeat my earlier point, that doesn’t mean the non-puppies are right. Many of their proposals for how to respond are just as bad, and if they’re followed they’ll end up bad guys as well. But they haven’t responded yet, and so until then it’s a nonsense to equate the sides.

Along with all the articles smearing them (Several of which were so horrifically wrong they were outright retracted), the constant threats, the insults, the fact that they are now voting against people on the SP list in order "To Bite Back" rather then caring what content is within them while at the same time claiming all those he picked are white males involved in misogynistic writing, and you are telling me it is nonsense to equate both sides when they are both being as childish as could be? I can't claim either of them right, and to do so is disingenuous to the situation.

Sining wrote:
Judging from the reactions of a lot of people, I'm going to say there probably was quite a bias present. A groupthink of sorts.

Not really. The majority of the outrage over SP3 isn't the fact that conservative-leaning authors got nominated, it was that a group with any ideology attempted to exploit the voting process for political purposes. In fact, some of them have even explicitly stated that they'd be just as unhappy if a left-wing group used the same strategy.

At the end of the day, the Hugo isn't broken and it's doing exactly what it's meant to do. Just because someone is organising a campaign doesn't mean they're breaking the Hugo. If an author went out and campaigned for himself, I doubt we'd see as much furore over it. Yet because several authors went out and campaigned for other authors, this is somehow worse? I don't think so.

It's worse because it's encouraging voting as an organized block, not just saying "I like this and it deserves to win". Seriously, why do you keep refusing to understand the concept of block voting vs. normal voting? We've explained it to you many times.

Also, don't put you when you don't mean you. There are other words in the dictionary if you want to give a hypothetical example

Again, you don't understand the general "you". For example if I say "if you order $X from GW you get free shipping" it does not just apply to the person I said it to, it's a general rule for anyone. It's not my fault if you don't understand how English works.

(And yes, I see the flag by your name. If English isn't your first language then that's fine, just say so instead of continuing to defend your mistake.)


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Sining wrote:
I've posted a link here to one of the organisers. If you want you can go ask him directly for proof. He's more than willing to reply to random people. Have I seen all the proof? No, but I've seen some circumstantial evidence but nothing definite.

Why should we go ask him for proof? If he hasn't provided it yet then there's nothing to provide. The proof would just be far too useful to the SP side for anyone to keep it hidden. "Your side did it first" is pretty convincing justification that the anti-SP side can't really respond effectively to, if the claim is supported by sufficient evidence. So the fact that proof of organized voting isn't proudly displayed up front in every SP post is a pretty strong argument that no such proof exists.

Also what makes you think there's no in fighting?

The fact that nobody has come out and said "these people suck and are rigging the vote" after a hypothetical disagreement? Nobody has let an argument about the vote rigging get out into a public conversation/blog/etc? You're simultaneously assuming that the hypothetical left-wing conspiracy is large enough to rig the vote successfully and small enough that it can keep tight control over all evidence of its actions for years/decades at a time. That really doesn't make any sense.

sebster wrote:

Sining wrote:
At the end of the day, the Hugo isn't broken and it's doing exactly what it's meant to do. Just because someone is organising a campaign doesn't mean they're breaking the Hugo. If an author went out and campaigned for himself, I doubt we'd see as much furore over it. Yet because several authors went out and campaigned for other authors, this is somehow worse? I don't think so.

Authors have always campaigned for other authors, and sometimes for themselves. That you are unaware of this tells me how little you know of the Hugos, or of award ceremonies in general.

Thank god we have you here to enlighten us then

The issue is that this campaign is different in several ways;
1) The campaign came with a specific slate of prescribed votes, which is pretty clearly gaming the system.
2) The whole issue is absolutely steeped in politics, splashing over from the gamergate weirdness. People deny it, but just reading Correia's defence of what's happened, he talks almost exclusively about being attacked for his politics. The attacks against him weren't right, but when the defence is that other people were mean about a writer's politics, it becomes a nonsense to claim this issue isn't about politics.
3) Most of the votes came from people parachuting in to the awards, buying a supporting membership just to take part in the puppies campaign. It is likely that many such people did this motivated only by the politics of the issue, having no real engagement with fantasy writing.

If you can't see how that's different from someone saying 'hey, you guys should read ABC written by XYZ, and maybe even nominate it for a Hugo'... then I don't know what to say.

1)Prescribed votes in what way?
2) SP is in its third year. For those who don't know, this means it started before Gamergate. Unless there is a time machine somewhere we don't know about, people really need to stop linking the two.
3) Lol. Evidence? I think this is the CLEAREST indication of the type of mindset certain people have. "These SP3 voters aren't trufans! They're here to wreck this community" Seriously? I mean, please can you be any more exclusive?


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 sebster wrote:

Oh, so now there's been in-fighting... and we're talking about a group that organised a massive conspiracy to co-ordinate voting without ever leaving one scrap of evidence despite massive in-fighting. Uh huh.

So your evidence of no-infighting is that you didn't see anything happen? I mean, like I said, were you in the Hugos in the last 20 years? Do you know everything about the Hugos?

Also the idea at implying someone is inappropriately close to Larry cause he called him Larry is hilarious. Larry Correia is pretty long to type out. What should we call him then that you feel is appropriate? Mr Larry? Mr correia? The international lord of hate?

You would call him Larry Correia for the first mention, and Correia after that. Are you seriously asking that question?

Are you seriously trying to tell people how to refer to other people online?



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 Peregrine wrote:

Sining wrote:
Judging from the reactions of a lot of people, I'm going to say there probably was quite a bias present. A groupthink of sorts.

Not really. The majority of the outrage over SP3 isn't the fact that conservative-leaning authors got nominated, it was that a group with any ideology attempted to exploit the voting process for political purposes. In fact, some of them have even explicitly stated that they'd be just as unhappy if a left-wing group used the same strategy.

What political purpose? I mean, at the end of the day, BOTH left and right wing authors are in the same slate. If your argument is that they're doing it to screw over SJWs, SJW isn't a political purpose or party -_-

It's worse because it's encouraging voting as an organized block, not just saying "I like this and it deserves to win". Seriously, why do you keep refusing to understand the concept of block voting vs. normal voting? We've explained it to you many times.

Also, don't put you when you don't mean you. There are other words in the dictionary if you want to give a hypothetical example

Again, you don't understand the general "you". For example if I say "if you order $X from GW you get free shipping" it does not just apply to the person I said it to, it's a general rule for anyone. It's not my fault if you don't understand how English works.

(And yes, I see the flag by your name. If English isn't your first language then that's fine, just say so instead of continuing to defend your mistake.)

I was raised in the British system. Unlike you perhaps, I understand the nuances of english so perhaps a little less racial stereotyping here. Also I'm sure the hypothetical 'you' when referring to something that was vilified wasn't on purpose right after I explicitly stated that I disagree with the notion and it occurred during a time where I was the only person you're replying to (and whom you knew was reading this thread). And yes that was sarcasm. See what I mean by nuances?

Also, because you have no evidence people voted just because they were on the list.

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Sining wrote:
I've posted a link here to one of the organisers. If you want you can go ask him directly for proof. He's more than willing to reply to random people. Have I seen all the proof? No, but I've seen some circumstantial evidence but nothing definite.

Why should we go ask him for proof? If he hasn't provided it yet then there's nothing to provide. The proof would just be far too useful to the SP side for anyone to keep it hidden. "Your side did it first" is pretty convincing justification that the anti-SP side can't really respond effectively to, if the claim is supported by sufficient evidence. So the fact that proof of organized voting isn't proudly displayed up front in every SP post is a pretty strong argument that no such proof exists.

Also what makes you think there's no in fighting?

The fact that nobody has come out and said "these people suck and are rigging the vote" after a hypothetical disagreement? Nobody has let an argument about the vote rigging get out into a public conversation/blog/etc? You're simultaneously assuming that the hypothetical left-wing conspiracy is large enough to rig the vote successfully and small enough that it can keep tight control over all evidence of its actions for years/decades at a time. That really doesn't make any sense.

So...you rather complain about having no proof, refuse to ask people for proof and just complain here? Got it

Sadly if you have even visited the site, you would realise he has posted what he considers proof in reply to peoples comments that were exactly like yours.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
So essentially, if gamergate did become involved they would automatically become wrong, do you not realize how hypocritical that is?

No, that’s nothing to do with what I said. What was done was wrong because organising slates and dragging in culture war nonsense on what should be a simple question about which book you liked best is wrong in and of itself. If parts of gamergate have contributed to the nonsense, then that makes it worse, but it is already bad.

There is no hypocrisy there because as I have already said if the left responds with shenanigans of their own, which may well be happening, then they will be wrong as well.

There are some issues that have been pointed out that aren't unsubstantiated in that there is a rather vocal crowd for hugo that might be more liberal leaning and that there has been some incidents involving such. This one for example.

That first article is an idiotic mess, while the second article does a good job of describing most of the actual situation before eventually just covering the twitter nonsense. Showing twitter complaints and then claiming those twitter complaints must have been the reason someone a presenter got cancelled only indicates that the writer has no idea how twitter works. On twitter everything is complained about.

Ross got cancelled because he was only ever appointed by the chairs, without first having the decision reviewed by the full committee. I have no opinion on Ross as a host (I’ve only seen him on stuff like QI, where he’s middling, but I’m happy to believe he’s a good host for events like this), but I can see why people might not want him and would veto him as host.

The only real issue is announcing him as host before it was properly agreed, which is barely news, to be honest. As evidence of some kind of leftist control of anything, it’s a pretty ridiculous piece of evidence.

So essentially, all it would take is someone with enough popularity to say "Vote for these people" and that happens, and now that it's happened people are complaining because this one gave a reason behind why he said "Vote for these people"

Well, yes, if the reason given is anything other than ‘this work is good and if you read it and vote for it that’s awesome’ then it’s a bad reason.

But why on earth did you make that comment to what I said? It had nothing to do with the sentence you quoted.

Along with all the articles smearing them (Several of which were so horrifically wrong they were outright retracted), the constant threats, the insults, the fact that they are now voting against people on the SP list in order "To Bite Back" rather then caring what content is within them while at the same time claiming all those he picked are white males involved in misogynistic writing, and you are telling me it is nonsense to equate both sides when they are both being as childish as could be? I can't claim either of them right, and to do so is disingenuous to the situation.

Sigh, once again. One side is clearly wrong – they gamed a voting system in order to fight against a political conspiracy for which there is zero evidence. The other side has not yet acted, but merely made proposals. Most of those proposals are just as mean as the puppies, and if followed through then they will be as bad.

But just writing everyone off before the response has even happened is lazy. It is only done because then you can ignore that the side you’re cheering for has already committed to a nasy, mean-spirited approach.

Rather than admit to that, and wait on the response, you just lead with ‘just as bad’.

Sigh, once again. One side is clearly wrong – they gamed a voting system in order to fight against a political conspiracy for which there is zero evidence. The other side has not yet acted, but merely made proposals. Most of those proposals are just as mean as the puppies, and if followed through then they will be as bad.

But just writing everyone off before the response has even happened is lazy. It is only done because then you can ignore that the side you’re cheering for has already committed to a nasy, mean-spirited approach.

Rather than admit to that, and wait on the response, you just lead with ‘just as bad’.

So one side is clearly wrong, so they deserve to be slandered, insulted, and voted against in every manner of possibility by another political faction even those that Sad puppies has placed into its voting? You seem to have ignored my statement and simply spoke of "proposals", but they are very clearly running them through the mud with a variety of vicious libel.

So yes, "Just as bad" if not worse, It's quite obvious which side you are cheering for (With your own hypocritical statement to boot), as I dislike both groups for what they've done but you cannot even look beyond what they are doing now as they act.

Sining wrote:
What political purpose? I mean, at the end of the day, BOTH left and right wing authors are in the same slate. If your argument is that they're doing it to screw over SJWs, SJW isn't a political purpose or party -_-

Oh FFS, if you don't think SP3 is political then I really don't know what to say. Even if it's SJW vs. anti-SJW instead of left vs. right it's still political. And it has been political from the moment Larry Correia made his first post on the subject.

Unlike you perhaps, I understand the nuances of english so perhaps a little less racial stereotyping here.

You really are just looking for things to argue about. Nothing in there was in any way a racial stereotype.

Also I'm sure the hypothetical 'you' when referring to something that was vilified wasn't on purpose right after I explicitly stated that I disagree with the notion and it occurred during a time where I was the only person you're replying to (and whom you knew was reading this thread). And yes that was sarcasm. See what I mean by nuances?

Sigh. Is it really that hard for you to admit that you made a mistake? It was clearly a hypothetical "if one believes X" statement that did not in any way claim that you did in fact believe X.

Also, because you have no evidence people voted just because they were on the list.

Really? This again? If nobody (or very few people) voted for things because they were on the list then SP3 had no purpose.

So...you rather complain about having no proof, refuse to ask people for proof and just complain here? Got it

So let me get this straight: Larry Correia has proof, has presumably been asked for proof by a long list of people in the massive flame wars (both on his own blog and elsewhere), had strong incentive to post any proof he has as soon as Sad Puppies was announced, but for some bizarre reason he is waiting until I ask him for it? What makes you think that another person saying "where's the proof" is going to change anything?

Alternatively, since you have no better argument, you're just trying to evade the tough questions with "go look elsewhere".

Sadly if you have even visited the site, you would realise he has posted what he considers proof in reply to peoples comments that were exactly like yours.

I've read some of his original posts on SP3, I haven't been reading everything posted on the subject because I have better things to waste countless hours on. Perhaps instead of insisting that we go ask him for proof you could post a link to his post? After all, if you've seen it then you should have no problem posting a link.

How on earth is SJW even political? They're not a party. Are they left? Yes? Oh wait, there are left authors on the slate.

Also, I notice you know how to use the hypothetical one now instead of the hypothetical you now.

Also, you do realise I said he has already posted proof on his own website which I linked right? I mean, the answer is there. You're welcome to go to the link and look for it. I mean, I'm not sure but I'm supposed to be the one who has a hard time understanding english here when I told you exactly where the proof was?

Better time to spend yet spends countless hours arguing on this instead of going to a website and reading proof.


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Also, your argument is that there exists a list. People who were on this list got nominated. Therefore, this list is the sole reason why they were nominated. Not any of the explainations I gave before, but because their names were on this magical list of mind-compelling , they got nominated.

But if other people of other political beliefs make a list of what books they enjoyed, that list is perfectly fine.

Sining wrote:
How on earth is SJW even political?

I thought the very definition of SJW made them political. Not political as in member of a party, but because they deal with political issues.