Anyone else hear about this and/or been following it? It appears a group very similar to GamersGate has gain significant control over the voting process for the Hugo awards. They felt there was too many progressives (read as non-white, gay accepting, women, etc) being awarded and decided to do something about it. One article I read said that the Hugo always had some political factor to it, but now it's almost entirely political. What they do is block vote for what they want and because voting participation is not strong (maybe several thousand considering 10,000 people are allowed to vote), it skews the process. Some authors are rejecting nominations because of this.
A more balanced overview: http://www.pornokitsch.com/2015/04/justin-landon-on-the-hugo-awards-an-entity-at-war-with-itself-.html
This isn't true, and why people should take the time to sort through the facts before posting. EW posted something to this effect, and then had to issue a correction as follows: I think it IS fair to say, though, that the SP slate and the promotion of it has harmed the award and will do so further if it continues.
I'll read that article. Thank you for showing me another side of the argument. All I was finding from a google search was one side of the argument.
This is not "another side", but rather an attempt to provide an overview that doesn't stick to either side. I fully agree with the text. Indeed, I follow a few people who are critical of the SPs on Twitter, and to me it seems there's a part of the left (the so-called "SJWs" by right-wing activists) that does their best to promote non-white, non-male writers only for the sake of their race and gender. And it's very annoying, it sounds like cheap propaganda. If a book isn't a "rainbow", it gets demoted. To me this Puppygate thing is nothing but fight for power, in which both sides pretend to be the voice of the whole community. The left-wingers aren't any better than the conservatives, sadly. The very same thing happens with the Oscar, except reversed. SJWs complain that the Oscars are too white and male, and that there should be more non-white, non-male members in the Academy. They pretend the people they want to choose the winners aren't partisans themselves and will judge movies only by their merits. Well, there's also a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I don't think it's the Sad Puppies we need to worry about, it's the Rabid Puppies. As soon as I hear that Vox Day is involved with something, I suspect it's going to be a problem. And I respect the crap out of Connie Willis, and she's backed out of the awards because of this mess. (http://azsf.net/cwblog/?p=116) And while I wish GRRM would stop writing blogs and get back to his books, I think he's got a lot of good insight into the situation. He's saying he thinks the Hugos may be permanently broken. (http://grrm.livejournal.com/) The whole thing is a hell of a mess.
The thing is, depending on which side you believe, you'll find the Hugos have been broken for a long time, and the Sad Puppy movement was just the final nail in the coffin. Complaints about representation in art aren't new. The far left has taken a liking to pushing for minority writers in a Caucasian-dominated field, and they want to go as far as changing ethnicity of well-established characters for the sake of representation, for example. The "Oscar is too white" complaint was basically the same thing, except you can't change who votes at the Oscars, of course. And fantasy writers complain that general fiction writers are prioritized in general literary awards... There are all kinds of flavors to this controversy. The only difference here in the Hugo's case is that the voting system allowed the Sad Puppies to actually skew the polls in their favor. From experience, both sides are extremely partisan. The far left would love to live in a world where the right didn't exist. And the right wishes the same upon the left. Historically, they've been like that, which is why people lived through both communist and fascist dictatorships, and this hasn't changed one bit.
That's all the theory, and I agree, the theory is equally polarizing on both sides. I have my favoured pole, but I can see how the best solution is probably going to be somewhere in the middle. But Vox Day's threats about 'if No Winner wins any category, that category will never function again'? What the hell is that? It goes beyond theory, into either delusions or serious conspiracy. It's Vox Day, so 'delusions' is obviously always a possible option, but if he actually has the power to back that shit up, it's pretty terrible. And considering the success of the Rabid Puppy voting block, I'm not sure he doesn't.
Eric Flint wrote a good post about this: http://www.ericflint.net/index.php/2015/04/16/some-comments-on-the-hugos-and-other-sf-awards/
To be fair, I'm not sure how much more it could be harmed. When I was a kid, the Hugo was a sign of a book I'd want to read, but, in recent years, it's become a sign of a book to avoid. The last time I tried to read a Hugo winner, I got through three paragraphs before I gave up (actually, I would have given up after two, but I was sure it had to get better; it didn't). But the whole scandal does seem rather like monkeys throwing poo at each other. A number of writers I previously read are now on my 'do I really want to give money to this person?' list as a result of the crazy things they've been posting.
@Edward M. Grant sometimes social media can be harmful to an author. There is one author I like and used to recommend quite a bit, but who I no longer read after the author proved to be kind of a nasty person on Twitter.
I didn't even know about this guy or his works before. Had to look it up. So, um, science is convenient when used to support his racist nonsense, but otherwise it's like "GTFO science, you don't know nothing."
I haven't encountered a single person IRL or online who didn't think Vox Day is an asshole, and dishonest and manipulative at that. Sure, every loud lunatic has a few likeminded folks buzzing around, but I doubt the number will ever become significant. He's even trying to suck up to the Gamergate movement for more support (apparently hoping they would support him if he supported them by, I dunno, using the hashtag here and there or whatever), but none of the GG crowd I've seen want to have anything to do with the guy, and for good reason. Some of them seem to lament their inability to prevent a delusional racist like him from using the hashtag to gain more publicity, but with hashtags you can't do much except disavow the weirdo and whatever bullshit he's peddling. The best policy with lunatics like him would probably be to pretend they don't exist unless perhaps for the kinda sorta sad real life comedy that extremists on the left and right inadvertently provide for those closer to the middle.
Which is actually surprising considering mainstream media measures GamerGate by the jocks who send rape and death threats to Anita Sarkeesian and other women instead of the people interested in healthy arguments. You'd think GG would be fertile ground for guys like Vox Day.
When I heard the name "Vox Day", I didn't know it was the name of a guy, I thought it was some sort of event or something.
Absolutely he did. He's trying to play on Latin to push his views. I was reading his wiki page and this: 2014 Hugo Awards In 2014 Beale's novelette, "Opera Vita Aeterna", was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novelette.[21] It came in sixth out of five nominees, behind "No Award."[22][23][24][25] Had me giggling. That's pretty bad.
Theodore Beale, apparently a writer, but mostly just a sad, angry little boy. Spews a lot of hate and is mostly treated as a crackpot, but does have a few allies in his quest to make the world a whiter, male-r, uglier place.
Is he advocating female infanticide now? I mean, this thread isn't exclusively about him, but one gets morbidly curious when characters like this appear in the public eye.
Well, as this thread has discussed, he led a group that has certainly messed things up for this year. (Interesting how many of the Rabid Puppy 'nominees' came from his publishing company, too).
