| Comments: |
Ha. That's entertaining.
No, this is the sound of more and more people realising how irrelevant the Hugos are. I don't think there's much you can do about that - spend a few hundred dollars for the right to vote and change nothing? Cool!
Or... vote in the Locus awards for something slightly more representative?
Or just read what I want to, pay attention to reviews to the best of my ability, and blog about books I like when I get half a chance? Sounds good!
Although the Locus Awards have the issue that you can't be sure they won't change the rules after the votes have been collected to make sure the right works win.
Ha. Yeah, I know, you have a point there too.
spend a few hundred dollars for the right to vote A Worldcon supporting membership does not cost "a few hundred dollars." and change nothing? And why do you say that? The number of voters isn't that large right now. If doesn't take that many votes to be nominated for a Hugo Award. Or are you saying that it's the responsibility of the Hugo Awards to adjust to change to your tastes without you having to lift a finger to make it happen?
"Or are you saying that it's the responsibility of the Hugo Awards to adjust to change to your tastes without you having to lift a finger to make it happen?"
But surely that's precisely the challenge that faces all long-standing institutions?
All institutions need regular reform not just to suit the needs of their members but also in order to remain attractive to potential future members.
Institutions that fail to keep up with the times risk starting to look out of touch and irrelevant. If irrelevant institutions insist upon sticking around and claiming all kinds of social kudos then what you get is active resentment and that's what you see in a lot of the criticisms of the awards and Worldcon as a whole.
The response that critics should "shut the fuck up" if they're not going to participate (and apparently even if they do participate) is just encouraging those feelings of resentment and alienation.
But presumably you think that the con leadership should be you, and that you should be given the job because you deserve it.
This is quite an amazing leap from "there ought to be a con leadership". I mean, I don't think that Worldcon needs ongoing leadership, but I'd like to think I could debate the point without telling anyone to shut the fuck up. I feel totally motivated to vote in the Hugos now.
When you have been working long hours on those exact volunteer activities for fandom that are necessary to do something to improve the Hugo Awards and Worldcon, it's not surprising that encountering people who appear to be saying, "You should change to suit me, but no, I'm not going to do anything to help that change" is likely to tick you off.
The annoyance that you hear from Cheryl and me is a reflection of the fact that we have been trying to work to change things, and that it's not an easy job that can be done solely by internet whinging. You have to get out there and work in the trenches.
People who just sit back and whinge are leaving the field open to the people who actually show up and do the work. Don't be at all surprised if you don't get what you want that way.
Want to make things different with the Hugo Awards: Vote. Encourage other people to vote. Publicize those works that you think should be nominated in the various forums for making Hugo recommendations. Make a difference.
I did all of these things, Kevin. And I wouldn't have said anything directly to Cheryl if she hadn't so completely misrepresented my words in her blog entry about Adam's post. I will also note that though I have apologized for inadvertently angering her, she hasn't apologized for her profound incivility in response.
As far as I can tell, there is no way to criticize the Hugos that you would consider legitimate. Even when people jump through the participation hoops you hold up you find a way to dismiss them - when Nicholas Whyte pointed out that he has bought a supporting membership for the Hugo, your only response was that many people don't. Is it really fair to say that you 'encounter' people criticizing the Hugos? Because it seems to me that you're on constant lookout for them, the better to immediately jump down their throats. If any criticism, however civilly and mildly phrased, results in name-calling and cries of illegitimacy, what possible motivation do we have to protect your and Cheryl's delicate sensibilities?
Okay, you're right, I'm wrong, and I've been wasting my time trying to actually get anything accomplished. Why should I bother?
As usual, Kevin, you're responding to what you want to hear rather than what people have actually said. This conversation is not about what you do for the Hugos. It's about how you deal with people who have the temerity to express themselves about something that you seem to consider your exclusive property. If what you're trying to accomplish is to ensure that no one ever say anything critical against the Hugos without your express permission, then yes, I think you are wasting your time. But in general, it's you who tells people that what they're doing is worthless, not me.
Oh boy, oh boy.
Much more fun commenting on this piece of silliness than your reply to my comment. (Yes OK, supporting memberships are quite cheap. Doesn't change a thing.)
Yes OK, supporting memberships are quite cheap. Doesn't change a thing. Why does it not change a thing? Do you assume that your vote never counts? That one person can never make a difference?
I started to write this earlier, but was called away on more urgent business -- almost all of it related to actually organizing this year's Worldcon, BTW. As far as I can tell, there is no way to criticize the Hugos that you would consider legitimate. Which only shows you haven't been reading everything that I've written. Complaining that it costs too much to vote is a very legitimate complaint, and one with which I agree, and one that I've been working on, but which is unlikely to change for reasons I'll detail if you want to hear them. (There's an entire separate discussion on this.) However, I believe many of the people who complain about the "poll tax" would be equally unhappy with "free voting" -- they'd just change their reason about why the results are invalid. Complaining that the Hugo Award voters have bad taste is one thing, and in fact I wasn't terribly put out by the base article that started this. It's the follow-on comments that attack the fundamental legitimacy of the Hugo Award that simply boil my blood, particularly when they repeat -- well, maybe lies is too strong a word, but perhaps "common misconceptions" about how the Hugo Awards work, then I get riled up. There is a fairly simply answer to "the voters have poor taste," and that is: 1. Get people whose tastes you prefer to vote. 2. Do a better job of publicizing works you think should be nominated! 3. Post recommendations to recommendation sites! or, ultimately, 4. Work to change the rules so that things are done the way you want them done. Complaining about the voting system, as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) johnnyeponymous is prone to do (he would replace the current Instant Runoff Voting system with first-past-the-post), is understandable, although I think he's wrong, and I replied to him about it just yesterday. And while we disagree about it, we do so civilly, because neither he nor I assumes that the other's viewpoint attacks the very legitimacy of the award itself. What gets me angry are comments that make what I consider basic assumptions about the entire system, including:
- The voters are all idiots.
- The system is corrupt/broken/illegitimate.
- Popular-vote awards are all terrible.
There is nothing wrong with juried awards. There is nothing wrong with popular-vote awards. But saying that the Hugo Awards aren't legitimate because they don't meet one's standards of literary experimentation is maddening. Complaining about voters' tastes is in fact "a matter of taste" and since the Awards don't often track my own personal tastes closely, I'm not too troubled by that. Attacking the legitimacy of the Hugo Awards is something I do take personally and which really gets me (and Cheryl, and anyone else who works to keep the system working) angry. Can you see the distinction here?
I think you've misunderstood my question, Kevin. I'm not asking which criticisms of the Hugo you consider legitimate. I'm asking what a person has to do in order to legitimately criticize the Hugo on any front and in any way.
I am a fully paid up, attending member of Anticipation and a program participant (for which pleasure I am traveling halfway around the world and shelling out a not insignificant amount of money). I have nominated and voted for the Hugo. I have been reviewing the short fiction Hugo nominees for six years. I've been a blogger and a reviewer for genre magazines both on and offline for four years. What more do I have to do to earn the right to say whatever I want about the Hugos without you telling me that I'm not qualified to do so?
If you want to tell me that I'm wrong - and hell, that's not at all unlikely - then by all means go ahead. But what you and Cheryl have been doing is telling me that I don't have the right to talk, that I should, in Cheryl's quaint phrasing, shut the fuck up. The two are not at all the same.
What more do I have to do to earn the right to say whatever I want about the Hugos without you telling me that I'm not qualified to do so? Did I say you weren't qualified? If so, I withdraw it. Anyone is qualified to say anything they want to say. The right to free speech is also the right to be freely criticized for the contents of that speech. You've criticized me for my tone -- and to some extent, you're probably right. When someone says something controversial, and the reacts to criticism of their position by crying "free speech," they're playing victim politics. You have the right to say whatever you want. And by being a participating member of WSFS, you have done a great deal toward changing things to be more the way you want them to be. Now you just have to convince others do to do the same. Want to change the rules so they make the Hugos the way you want them? There's a process for it. I'll help you set up the structure, even if I oppose the change. Just get enough other WSFS members to agree with you and you get what you want.
You haven't been criticizing my position. You've been dismissing it. That is not a free speech issue, and certainly not one of tone. It's an issue of rhetoric - when every discussion about the Hugos devolves into you calling the other party out for not being the change they want to see, is there any chance of an actual conversation?
Well, if you want to say what changes you want, that would be something. Just saying things that can be simplified to, "The Hugos suck because the things I like don't win," isn't likely to be a position one can take seriously. It's like saying, "I don't like the taste of Coca-Cola; they should color it pink and make it taste like bubble gum, but still call it 'Coke' and package it in the same cans and bottles."
Remember, when I saw things were not the way I wanted them to be, I started working to change them. It's not a fast process, but some things have changed from twenty years ago, and IMO for the better. (Not everyone agrees that it's a good thing that we have two Dramatic Presentation Hugos, or things like that, but that's the sort of changes I mean.)
It is completely because I do put my money (and effort) where my mouth is that I'm somewhat skeptical of anyone who doesn't do anything. You, however, have taken some of the steps, and for that, you deserve applause. None of them are easy. Changing things is never easy. WSFS rules, in particular, are specifically designed to make changes come slowly and require people to think about the changes for at least a year and come back and vote on them again in a different part of the world. That a feature, not a bug.
Oh, and when I showed up in 1984 full of piss and vinegar, nobody took me seriously, either. Eleven years later, I was chairing the WSFS Business Meeting. Seven years after that, I chaired a Worldcon. Anyone can do it, if they work hard enough at it. But you know, WSFS still doesn't do everything I want, nor is it likely to ever do so. Some of my ideas turn out to be wrong, or at least so unworkable or politically unpopular that I lose the battles. *shrug* That's life.
Changing the course of WSFS is like steering a supertanker with a bent rudder, a navigation computer that only speaks Chinese, and three out of four engines out of service. But, like the saying about the lottery, if you don't play, you can't win.
This is all very wonderful, but has it ever occurred to you that sometimes when people talk about how the Hugos are broken, they're not saying 'let's fix the Hugos' or even 'the Hugos would be better if I ran them,' but simply 'the Hugos are broken, let's talk about why'? I know you think that you're doing something positive when, for example, you ask Jonathan McCalmont what he would do to fix the Hugos, but that's really no less disruptive than telling people that they should buy supporting memberships instead of complaining. People aren't trying to fix the world. They're trying to have a conversation. And you are barging in and derailing that conversation by insisting that its goals are invalid.
(And for the record, I think Adam's criticism of the Hugo was significantly more nuanced than 'the things I like don't win.')
I think this is my background as a computer programmer and logistics solutions engineer talking. (I design computer models to optimize companies supply chains.) If you say, "the Hugos are broken,..." I immediately say, "Okay, then how do we fix them?"
Saying, "...let's talk about why" without any obvious intention of correcting the perceived problem seems to me to be a waste of time. Discussing perceived problems with an eye toward solving them is potentially productive. Otherwise, it's like talking about the weather.
Saying, "...let's talk about why" without any obvious intention of correcting the perceived problem seems to me to be a waste of time.
You're perfectly within your rights to feel that way, and I'm sure there are plenty who agree with you. But walking into someone else's blog and saying, essentially, 'this conversation is a waste of time! Let's talk about what I want to talk about!' is rude, and as you've seen, tends to have negative results.
Discuss the Hugo Awards and you will attract the attention of people who pay attention to the Hugo Awards. Or as I put it elsewhere, discussing the Hugo Awards is likely to invoke me and a handful of others.
If I started rubbishing something you cared about, wouldn't it bother you?
If you want to keep your conversations private, don't publish them where Google can index them.
Edited at 2009-07-21 06:27 am (UTC)
Or as I put it elsewhere, discussing the Hugo Awards is likely to invoke me and a handful of others.
No, it is just you. Morgan may post about such instances on her blog but you are the only one who googles every instance of Hugo discussion and then posts the same boilerplate on everyone. It is you who is the joke, don't bring anyone else into it.
I wasn't aware that I had so many sock puppets. That's the only way to reconcile your statement with reality, unless you have a blind spot for every other comment anyone else ever makes on the subject. For example, I must have so many sock puppets that I created a new blog just to post on the subject and created two accounts to post comments on it as well. Wow, I'm really prolific! Edited at 2009-07-21 03:12 pm (UTC)
Someone writes a blog post and some of his regular commenters respond. What has this got to do with your divebombing of comment threads?
Oh, I get it. You think only "regular commenters" should be allowed to say anything. Well, that goes back to what I said earlier. If you only want you and your friends to see what you write, lock your posts.
If I started rubbishing something you cared about, wouldn't it bother you?
If you want to keep your conversations private, don't publish them where Google can index them.
Just so we are clear, if you talk what I consider rubbish, if I can google your post, I should feel free to come to your blogs and be as rude as you have been?
You don't need anyone's permission to do that; it's the default condition. Of course, the host is under no compulsion to listen to the speech, and can also ban the person if s/he dislikes what s/he hears sufficiently. In other words: if you show up and act sufficiently rudely, I'll probably throw you out. But some people define "rude" as "oh, boo hoo, he disagrees with something I said, how mean!"
I'm serious: If you don't want the public -- which is to say anyone else in the world with an internet connection -- to read what you write, don't post it in public. Unlocked LiveJournal entries aren't "private." If you only want to rant to people who think the same way as you do and without risking being criticized for it, lock your posts.
In other words: if you show up and act sufficiently rudely, I'll probably throw you out. But some people define "rude" as "oh, boo hoo, he disagrees with something I said, how mean!"
So you are saying you are one of the people who says "Boo hoo she disagrees with me, how mean"? Otherwise, do keep your strawmen to yourself please.
I tend to think of people's blogs as their front parlors. An open comment policy means that you're welcome to come in and chat, but you're still a guest in someone else's home and should behave accordingly. That doesn't mean always agreeing with the host, of course, but trying to derail the conversation is clearly a no-no. When Jonathan McCalmont makes an observation about the Hugos' prestige being out of proportion to their relevance and you reply by asking him what he'd do to change that, you're not actually engaging with what he said. You're just trying to direct the conversation where you want it to go, and it's not your conversation to direct. Just because you're involved with the Hugos' running doesn't mean you have an automatic controlling interest in every conversation about them.
you're not actually engaging with what he said. No? What would "engaging" be? Saying, "I think you're wrong," and then going away? Arguing with someone who just says "I don't like the current crop of Hugo nominees/winners" isn't something I try to do. Despite highbrow attempts to claim that there are objective standards of "good literature," the "the electorate has no taste" isn't really arguable because it is utterly subjective. Saying that the process is flawed because the works you personally like don't win is a different kettle of fish. I tend to think of people's blogs as their front parlors. I don't leave the front door of my house unlocked and open to anyone walking off the street. But there's another fundamental difference: a blog is just a magazine with a very fast publication rate, low distribution cost, and interactive letter column. If you published an article in LOCUS saying all of this stuff about the Hugos, you'd get people writing letters and articles reacting to it, sometimes just as vehemently as I have done. You appear to see blogs as sufficiently different from paper publications that the same rules don't apply. Well, an personal blog (or LJ or whatever) is just a form of perzine.
When you have been working long hours on those exact volunteer activities for fandom that are necessary to do something to improve the Hugo Awards and Worldcon, it's not surprising that encountering people who appear to be saying, "You should change to suit me, but no, I'm not going to do anything to help that change" is likely to tick you off.
I understand that it is annoying when people complain about the Hugos when you work hard to promote them, but there are always going to be people online who complain about them, and I think reponses like the ones above are counterproductive and undermine a lot of the hard work you are putting in.
You're right. In fact, why should I bother? Why should anyone bother?
As someone who's mostly indifferent to awards (but who finds the results interesting and does follow them in a relaxed sort of way) I can't say that I find your histrionic defensiveness a particularly compelling argument for getting involved in voting. You must have very expansive feet in which to fit all of these bullets; Liz makes an entirely fair and sensible point about how the approach you're exemplifying here doesn't help the argument you're trying to make at all, and you proceed to underscore that point for her.
Ah Ah, Stop that now.
Look, you should bother, becuase, well 800(?) people decided to support that bother by voting. I reckon that you would have, maybe 1,500 - 2,500 fans, very dissapointed, if they didn't have a hugo ceremony to go to. Thats an odd one, isn't it, so many people go, yet don't vote?
Its hugely blogged and reported on, which generally does help the GENRE and fan activities, it's a great night, I always enjoy it.
I have yet to meet anyone at the 3 pre-hugo parties I have been to, who wasn't excited, in one way or another, and it's a fun (in that altruistic hard work way) thing to do, I 'expect'.
I nearly always wish certain authours and Fan Ed's and Fan writers, best of luck before hand, and when I have voted, I let them know I really hope they win, the look in their eyes, tell it all. They hope so too. They are grateful that fans are prepared to work their rear ends off to pull it all togther.
It's a great thing, it's uniquie, it has it's own quirks, and is 'reprentitive' of the people who vote, it's very open and broad, unlike other awards where you must 'submit' or where some books are sought out, and well other genre ones are, just never considered or chased in the same way.
Some amazing people and works have won a Hugo Award, deservedly so. Sometimes the lists are ropey, thats OK, I think Gaimans books is a winner, really and am very very impressed with the fan end of things.
Critics, will be critical, and to a degree that is fair enough really, I do find it hard to believe anyone proponing that the Clarkes for instance are a better award, given the bloody debacle last year, and well one or two choices this year. And that not all books are even considered is in itself ropey.
That is wishful thinking anyhow. The Hugo's were here before me, and will be going well after me, a few dozen people online debating this years list, won't change that really.
If they wanted to, and we all could change and get more people going to worldcons, we could, but that is hard work. Sitting and hitting keys is easy.
Its an odd thing ye have done, to mix it in the fight, personaly, if I was involved in the Hugo awards, I would step back and avoid the online 'discussion'.
Be mindful, just because people row, or discuss strongly, does not mean thy are not supporters of the whole worldcon idea.
I wonder if ye were quiet, then it would be the secretive cabal, and since you come out fighting, its all agresive either way, its a homer bowling ball.
Definitley worth the bother though.
Can't wait.
| |
