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Well, the awards came in.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/23/434013387/amid-a-hubbub-at-the-hugos-puppies-see-little-success?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150823

Votes were up 65% on their previous record, so lots of people came in to counter the puppy thing. Whether they can be assumed to be genuine fans wanting to retake control of sci-fi, or SJW who are just as partisan as the puppies is up for everyone to decide (guess) for themselves.

In the end, the only Puppy entry that won was Guardians of the Galaxy which doesn't count for fairly obvious reasons. Five sections ended up with 'no winner' - I think these were the categories where all entries were from the sad/rabid puppies.



Here's a link to the previous thread where lots of people, myself included, took this a lot more seriously than we probably should have;
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/643769.page

"No winner", short-hand for throwing one's toys from the pram when everyone doesn't fall in line with the groupthink.

Heh, the thing you’re complaining about is probably the only thing in this whole mess with a simple and easy answer – when all five entries on a ballot are works you don’t like, then you vote ‘no winner’. Which is fairly obviously going to happen when a fringe movement mobilises to get all five nominations from their preferred list. Even if you take politics out of the equation that’s how it is supposed to work.

I mean, there’s lots of debateable, subjective stuff this whole incident, about whether there was a real issue for the puppies to protest, whether their method of protest was right even if it was, whether similar methods were justified by left wing groups in response, whether any left wing groups made any such methods and so on. But the thing you’re complaining about is probably one of the only obvious non-issues in the whole thing.

Yet if you look at the response from Day and the like, they are claiming a victory because of the "no winner" votes. At the same time they are clamiring on about the other side "moving goalposts" when they evidently haven't picked up a mirror in quite some time.

 sebster wrote:

I mean, there’s lots of debateable, subjective stuff this whole incident, about whether there was a real issue for the puppies to protest, whether their method of protest was right even if it was, whether similar methods were justified by left wing groups in response, whether any left wing groups made any such methods and so on. But the thing you’re complaining about is probably one of the only obvious non-issues in the whole thing.

So I'll be honest in that I really haven't followed this, but I read a bit about it last night....

Does giving no award out for the categories really make it a "win" for the SJW-y side? This "no win" nonsense feels like just that. A load of nonsense to me. Does the nominations process need to be revamped that much?

Was The Martian not eligible?

I don't know what to think about this whole Hugo awards thing at this point. I generally agree with Eric Flint on this issue. That the puppies crowd is more stupid than anything else. But also the Hugo awards have issues and the crowd that votes there every year doesn't really represent the average reader of sci-fi anymore.

That said the "SJW" crowd refusing to give awards and just voting for "no award" is also stupid. Your are accused by your critics of voting for things based on your politics, and then you decide to vote on your politics to screw over your "opponents". All you end up doing is the same thing you were accused of in the first place.

It actually is a good result. It shows that instead of being interested in the awards and using it to promote good authors, the SJW just want to push their agenda. In the end, they achieved turning the Hugos into a laughing stock. Great job.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
But also the Hugo awards have issues and the crowd that votes there every year doesn't really represent the average reader of sci-fi anymore.

That's pretty much every award for everything. Guardians of the Galaxy was by far one of the best films of 2014 and it wasn't even nominated at the Academy Awards (while 4 films that were basically unknown were). The Nobel Prize in Literature is notorious for picking winners based on politics (even picking winners no one has heard of outside of specific colleges/universities where the author works).

Welcome to awards, where a small group of people decides what they like best and makes sure everyone else knows it.

That said the "SJW" crowd refusing to give awards and just voting for "no award" is also stupid. Your are accused by your critics of voting for things based on your politics, and then you decide to vote on your politics to screw over your "opponents". All you end up doing is the same thing you were accused of in the first place.

This assumes that people who voted "no winner" voted solely because they disagreed with Puppy politics, rather than the actions of the group. Had I voted, I'd have voted 'no winner' simply because the entire thing was slowed and couldn't possible have produced a worthwhile result (and I most certainly agree with Puppy in that the Hugo awards do resoundingly favor conservative leaning works)..

 LordofHats wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
But also the Hugo awards have issues and the crowd that votes there every year doesn't really represent the average reader of sci-fi anymore.

That's pretty much every award for everything. Guardians of the Galaxy was by far one of the best films of 2014 and it wasn't even nominated at the Academy Awards (while 4 films that were basically unknown were). The Nobel Prize in Literature is notorious for picking winners based on politics (even picking winners no one has heard of outside of specific colleges/universities where the author works).

Welcome to awards, where a small group of people decides what they like best and makes sure everyone else knows it.

Exactly. You can't create an award show where people politics don't play any part of what they pick. Also Hugos don't represent the average reader anymore either. Eric Flint puts it this way:

“What’s involved here is essentially a literary analog to genetic drift. Biologists have long known that the role played by pure chance in evolution is greater in a small population than a larger one. The same thing happens in the arts, especially those arts which have a huge mass audience. The attitudes of the much smaller group or groups of in-crowds who hand out awards or do critical reviews are mostly influenced by other members of their in-crowd, not by the tastes of the mass audience. Over time, just by happenstance if nothing else, their views start drifting apart from those of the mass audience.”

 LordofHats wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
That said the "SJW" crowd refusing to give awards and just voting for "no award" is also stupid. Your are accused by your critics of voting for things based on your politics, and then you decide to vote on your politics to screw over your "opponents". All you end up doing is the same thing you were accused of in the first place.

This assumes that people who voted "no winner" voted solely because they disagreed with Puppy politics, rather than the actions of the group. Had I voted, I'd have voted 'no winner' simply because the entire thing was slowed and couldn't possible have produced a worthwhile result (and I most certainly agree with Puppy in that the Hugo awards do resoundingly favor conservative leaning works)..

I am pretty positive that a lot of people that voted for no winner were doing it because they don't like the puppies politics (and their tactics). You do see that a group that is somewhat conspiratorial is going to take that vote as proof that you are conspiring against them right?

I think it is jumping the gun to say that people are protesting the politics rather than protesting the behavior. There's no way to really know what caused people to vote the way they did. Such speculation serves no purpose but to push the very kind of political agenda people are complaining about.

If it's not Ben Bova, it's CRRRRAP!



Avatar, 20 years before Avatar. Only with Apes and 6-legged Lions instead of sexually assaulting animals to gain mind control of them...

fething weirdo.

 LordofHats wrote:
I think it is jumping the gun to say that people are protesting the politics rather than protesting the behavior. There's no way to really know what caused people to vote the way they did. Such speculation serves no purpose but to push the very kind of political agenda people are complaining about.

Yes we can't read people minds, but this is the internet people are going to speculate. But what is the no vote really going to accomplish? Other than breathing more life into the controversy and turning the award show into a joke?

You're meant to vote No Award above all the entries you don't think deserve the award. It's exactly what they should have done if they didn't think the work was Hugo-quality.

I thought the counter-Puppy plan was to vote No Award in every category stacked by the Puppies, without regard to the merits of the works in question; i.e., as a protest against the Puppies.

I think the biggest thing we learned, both good and bad, is that it's very difficult to raise the specter of "political correctness" or "social justice" in an otherwise mostly subjective process without looking at self interested, and at worst bigoted.

As others have pointed out, it's an easily gamed, small sample size vote, which makes any result political by definition. Complaining about that, whether in general or in the specific, is pretty much always considered gauche. It's like pointing out that the emperor is naked. To paraphrase Neil Gaimen: It has always been the province of children and fools to point out that the emperor wears no clothes. But the emperor remains and emperor, and the fool remains a fool.

There might be some valid points to be made about prior Hugo voting blocs. Throwing a temper tantrum about it just makes you look petty (at best), and some of the allies to this movement were unsavory folk.

So, little is actually done. People took sides, some are going to get (fairly or not) tagged with the implication of bigotry, and maybe, best case scenario, the system is fixed to prevent this sort of nonsense.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I think it is jumping the gun to say that people are protesting the politics rather than protesting the behavior. There's no way to really know what caused people to vote the way they did. Such speculation serves no purpose but to push the very kind of political agenda people are complaining about.

Yes we can't read people minds, but this is the internet people are going to speculate. But what is the no vote really going to accomplish? Other than breathing more life into the controversy and turning the award show into a joke?

I'd argue the award is already a joke, and has been for quite some time.

I mean, Orson Scott Card is basically the darling of the Hugo Awards, and the guy is pretty scary. Virtually every book he writes contains ridiculous undertones of homophobia, fascism, racism and a fascination with prepubescent girls. Not that I don't enjoy his books mind you. Just saying, read them and some disturbing trends pop up

 LordofHats wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I think it is jumping the gun to say that people are protesting the politics rather than protesting the behavior. There's no way to really know what caused people to vote the way they did. Such speculation serves no purpose but to push the very kind of political agenda people are complaining about.

Yes we can't read people minds, but this is the internet people are going to speculate. But what is the no vote really going to accomplish? Other than breathing more life into the controversy and turning the award show into a joke?

I'd argue the award is already a joke, and has been for quite some time.

I mean, Orson Scott Card is basically the darling of the Hugo Awards, and the guy is pretty scary. Virtually every book he writes contains ridiculous undertones of homophobia, fascism, racism and a fascination with prepubescent girls. Not that I don't enjoy his books mind you. Just saying, read them and some disturbing trends pop up

Fair enough.

 LordofHats wrote:
ridiculous undertones of homophobia, fascism, racism and a fascination with prepubescent girls

 LordofHats wrote:
Not that I don't enjoy his books mind you.

More revealing than you intended?

 Manchu wrote:
I thought the counter-Puppy plan was to vote No Award in every category stacked by the Puppies, without regard to the merits of the works in question; i.e., as a protest against the Puppies.

I think what most people did in the end was just vote for what they thought deserved it. It seems like the categories that got No Award were the ones filled with puppies - even categories with 4/5 puppy entries gave an award. Some of the puppy entries did actually beat No Award, just none of them came in first (other than Guardians of the Galaxy, which, well...)

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
It seems like the categories that got No Award were the ones filled with puppies

This seems to support the Puppy protest strategy explanation more than the merits of the work explanation.

 LordofHats wrote:
while 4 films that were basically unknown were.

Oh really? Which were those?

I'm looking at that list and can't see any "unknowns' on there...

People are protesting puppies? Sweeps terminate them!

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is the issue here? Hugo handing out rewards to who, and the Puppies protesting what by how?

 cincydooley wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
while 4 films that were basically unknown were.

Oh really? Which were those?

I'm looking at that list and can't see any "unknowns' on there...

Boyhood? The film was virtually unheard of until it was nominated. Whiplash. Selma. EDIT: Even after these films are little known of, unless you pay attention to the awards.


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 Manchu wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
ridiculous undertones of homophobia, fascism, racism and a fascination with prepubescent girls

 LordofHats wrote:
Not that I don't enjoy his books mind you.

More revealing than you intended?

*gasp* They're onto me!

 cincydooley wrote:

Does giving no award out for the categories really make it a "win" for the SJW-y side?....

Was The Martian not eligible?

The awards were the best result of a bad situation. Of the myriad of reasons Torgersen, Correa and Day gave for what they did 'speaking out for the true sf fans' was front and centre, and the awards proved them wrong. If those were their true reasons we could congratulate the winners and move on. But this was always about them, not SF as a whole, so we can expect the whole show again next year. Although, I suspect, to a lesser degree.

For a start the wave of gamer gate-ness the RP supporter rode on has petered out, also authors will be aware if one of the SP organisers approaches them to be a slate. Plus SF fans have been mobilsed, and will hopefully be as active as they were this year.

Perhaps the nomination rules will change, we'll see, but the organisers of woldcon are very aware that what makes the Hugos is how open they are, so don't expect a closed nomination process.

And to answer your question, yes the Martian was eligible for a Campbell award for best new writer, but the nomination votes released since show that they SP snomination slate voted it down to get their own noms on the list, so you can thank them for that.

Also, if anyone was in any confusion as to the type of people who organised the SP / RP slates, here's a lovely article outlining the kind of person Day is, and Torgersen is busy editing non SP comments on his blog to make him look like the victim.

 LordofHats wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
while 4 films that were basically unknown were.

Oh really? Which were those?

I'm looking at that list and can't see any "unknowns' on there...

Boyhood? The film was virtually unheard of until it was nominated. Whiplash. Selma. EDIT: Even after these films are little known of, unless you pay attention to the awards.

Boyhood is a linklater film. If you're into movies at all you know him and his work.

Selma was the Oprah movie. Hardly obscure.

I guess I'll give you whiplash, but buzz started for that early. And was sustained.

And it was better than Guardians.

 cincydooley wrote:


Boyhood is a linklater film. If you're into movies at all you know him and his work.

That's kind of my point. If you're into movies. Most people aren't into movies. They just watch them.

That isn't a crack against the quality of the films nominated, but a completely valid point that this is how awards are. If you were to have the average film goer vote on the nominees for the Academy Awards, you probably wouldn't have seen any movie but American Sniper nominated, and maybe Grand Budapest Hotel. Instead of Whiplash, Selma, or Boyhood we'd have Guardians of the Galaxy, Hunger Games, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and The Hobbit. Because the Academy Award isn't looking at average movie goers when it considers films for awards (and I'm not saying they should).

It's the same thing with the Hugos more or less, except everyone's whining and complaining every which way and appealing to 'true fans' (whatever that means).

 LordofHats wrote:
'true fans' (whatever that means).

The beauty of it is that it means whatever you want it to, or need it to.

I don't like ambiguity!

 cincydooley wrote:
So I'll be honest in that I really haven't followed this, but I read a bit about it last night....

Does giving no award out for the categories really make it a "win" for the SJW-y side? This "no win" nonsense feels like just that. A load of nonsense to me. Does the nominations process need to be revamped that much?

The short answer is that it isn’t a win, because the only way you ‘win’ at an awards ceremony is when a work you really like win.

However, this is a very unusual set of circumstances. The Puppies, especially the rabid puppies, had come in really hard in the nomination process, and in some categories they’d managed get every single nomination. It isn’t acceptable to let some ideological group stuff the ballot with their own favourite politics, especially when a lot of the eventual nominees were really minor works.

I mean, flip it around, assume that the left had done this, and some categories were entirely filled with overtly progressive works, including some pretty crappy works that had no business being on any award list. How would you respond? And if you managed to avoid any of those stuffed ballots claiming a win, wouldn’t you be pleased given the circumstances you faced?

The real question is what happens next year? Ideally everyone will realise how silly this is and stop organising political factions to vote in some sci-fi awards. But that’s not going to happen. So when the Puppies, and especially the Rabid Puppies put out their list of politically approved nominations, how will the left respond? By putting out there own list of politically approved nominations? That’s a question with no good answer.


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 Sigvatr wrote:
It actually is a good result. It shows that instead of being interested in the awards and using it to promote good authors, the SJW just want to push their agenda. In the end, they achieved turning the Hugos into a laughing stock. Great job.

So to make this fit your own little worldview of ‘boo left, yay right’, you’ve just built a fiction where you pretend that all the political stuff done by the puppies was actually done by the left.

Score one for ideology led delusion.


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 LordofHats wrote:
That's pretty much every award for everything. Guardians of the Galaxy was by far one of the best films of 2014 and it wasn't even nominated at the Academy Awards (while 4 films that were basically unknown were). The Nobel Prize in Literature is notorious for picking winners based on politics (even picking winners no one has heard of outside of specific colleges/universities where the author works).

It’s true, but it’s worth pointing out that in this instance ‘political’ is not liberal/conservative, but the politics within the academic literary world. So Arundhati Roy writes about poverty and classism, but plenty of others do it more stridently without being critical darlings. She wins because she writes magical realism set in India, and every magical realist book set in India seems to win either the Booker or the Man Booker.

This assumes that people who voted "no winner" voted solely because they disagreed with Puppy politics, rather than the actions of the group. Had I voted, I'd have voted 'no winner' simply because the entire thing was slowed and couldn't possible have produced a worthwhile result (and I most certainly agree with Puppy in that the Hugo awards do resoundingly favor conservative leaning works)..

It’s worth pointing out that it’s only in the categories where every entry was a Puppy entry that resulted in ‘no award’. Where non-puppy entries were on the nomination, they won. And where there was a Puppy entry that everyone loved, Guardians of the Galaxy, it won.


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 Manchu wrote:
I thought the counter-Puppy plan was to vote No Award in every category stacked by the Puppies, without regard to the merits of the works in question; i.e., as a protest against the Puppies.

That was a proposed plan by some people, when the response to the Puppy tactics were still being decided. Given that ‘no winner’ only got up in the categories dominated by the Puppies, it’s doesn’t appear to the strategy most voters took.

There was another strategy suggested – if there’s a work there that you love, vote for it, and if there isn’t vote no winner. Seeing how the awards played out, it looks like that strategy was the one more often employed.