Here I am huddled beside the still glowing ruins of my last computer ( it’s a vile slander to say I destroyed it myself with a sledge-hammer for answering back. Firstly I’d do a better job, and secondly my computer and I enjoyed many happy conversations).
Yeah, it is dead. Blue screen of death. FAT got shamed and left for parts unknown, taking with it Exel files of the data I’ve been putting together on the history of Hugo awards. Some family pictures, and some cover art, but no writing.
So there went my planned post for this Monday, which was interesting, informative and will now have to be redone. This leaves me short a computer, short of time, short of money, short a post, and just short. Fortunately, I am well practiced at all of those. One day, with all this practice, I’ll get them right.
But I still need something to write about.
You can scarcely mention the subject of Sad Puppies or indeed the Hugo Awards without a sudden hysterical bloodhound baying of Vox Day, Vooox Daaaaay, VOOOOOX DAAAAAAY! exploding from all over the Anti-Puppies (the AP). Now the puppies and friends have been frequently accused of being bad people because although they kept the rules (which the anti-puppies disregard as being for little people, which we must be in their supporter’s eyes because the silence is deafening about that.) they were just unsporting. Not fighting fair! The only logic I’ve been able to find for this is that the puppies told you what they were doing, did it all in public, and the AP didn’t take it seriously. Which is of course entirely unsporting and wicked of us. So: to make up for it, and because I’m short a post, I thought I’d do something ‘sporting’ to help to even the game. I mean, the AP have almost all the power in the Traditional Publishing world, loads of money, the ability to call down media libel, influence with just about everyone who is anyone in the literary world… they’ve used it as much as possible, and… the puppies still ain’t dead. Actually, um, some of them have done very well out of it. Their hated foe, Vox Day, now is getting around two MILLION page views a month – a long, long way above the real (not his inventive figures) of ‘Whatever’ with his stats right there on the home page. I gather it’s been just great for sales from Castalia House too. So: because the weakness of the AP seem to be in long-term strategy and forward thinking, and much seems to come down to reactive, short-term thinking, or maybe just ‘feelings’, the generous sporting thing for me to do would be to help. The AP plainly want to prove Jonathan Haidt dead right. They don’t understand us, but we understand them.
So: here you go. To defeat Vox Day… you need to become him – or at least a rival in power able to do so. Which means you need to understand that power, what attracts followers to him, and how instead to attract them to yourselves. To survive him, you at least need to understand him and those who oppose you.
Of course the problem with becoming that possible rival, that Saruman or Galadriel, is that firstly he is bright, secondly he seems to understand you. Thirdly, he is a long term planner and strategist, he writes well and is able to appeal to a large audience. He plans but seems able to flex from those plans. Of course he is obsessive and has ideas that don’t run in concordance with the ones you profess to follow. But those last features, which are all you ever focus on, are not conflict relevant, really. GRRM had a try at the wise councilor/Saruman bit, but he was not a great success. Scalzi… I wasn’t sure if he was trying Wormtongue to Larry, but as a Saruman he came over as petty and not too bright with his little twitter giggles of girlish schadenfreude glee at last year’s Hugos, just to name one of his outbursts… Anyway, let’s face it, he’s not your long-term thinker, otherwise he would have avoided attacking Baen last year. He’s a schemer and good at spin and vastly over-blowing his importance, but really, as a leader to mass a dark horde of men and Southern Orcs under, well, they’ll ruin his lawn. As for David Gerrold – I’m not sure if the purple dress is a Galadriel thing, really. (I think that’s supposed to offend us. Talk about really, really not understanding the people he hates. We don’t care, David. You could get the janitor to be the Hugo MC, in a burka, and we still wouldn’t care.) I’d avoid purple. In a purple dress people could end up thinking he was doing Barney imitations, not Galadriel. I like to try and understand my opponents and get a handle on their motives. I must admit I was puzzled by his rage and sheer throw-the-toys-of-the-cot petulance about all this, let alone the fact that he was bringing the unfortunate Con and its volunteers into disrepute by openly attacking and villifying some of the nominees and thus trying to affect the Hugo outcome. Most of us had nothing against (or for) the fellow. And an MC… he’s just there to hand out the prizes. It’s not about him. All he had to do was smile and wave, no-one expects the MC to much more, and certainly they must keep a distance and appearance of lofty decorum from the actual process. Then, while packing wallaby mince I had a Eureka moment. Fortunately, I was better dressed than Archimedes for this process, so I merely ran through the house dripping bits of raw meat (isn’t that better?) and yelling ‘eureka’ at the cats. It’s true, at times they do. Anyway, I decided that this was a little inverse gay wedding cake and the Christian baker. It’s a ritual he values and considers important into which the particularly chosen of his sect were initiated with great pomp and celebration, being defiled by vile unbelievers – and he was going to have to conduct the ceremony. Well now. I wonder what advice he would have given that baker?
Now, given the leadership on offer, I think the Saruman/Galadriel routine is a bad strategic choice for the AP. Besides New York publishing is already far, far too close to Mordor. People might start arguing about who got to be Shelob and Gollum. But seriously, what have the AP tried so far, and what success has it brought them? They’ve brought out media attacks accusing the Puppies and nominees of being sexists, racists, misogynist, homophobes – the usual made-up get out of jail cards rubbish with no substance and some funny twists – we’re all white Mormon men. Especially Sarah Hoyt. And a twenty year bi-racial marriage makes Brad Torgersen a racist. Then the voters weren’t real fans but slaves who voted to order (which was a true PR disaster, angering a huge circle of people). Then there were the ‘you’ll never work in this town’ again threats to careers and reputations – with the Nielsen-Haydens and David Gerrold shrieking ‘who will rid us of these troublesome puppies?’ and providing precise instructions of what to do. Not a ‘blacklist’ of course (slither). Just things that people would do, like exclude them from publications, cons and reviews. Unlike the puppies, who actively said that their people shouldn’t, for example, boycott Tor, no such criticism came out of the AP. We’ve had people inform us we’re mad (at great length. It was funny, and very revealing – about the bat-sh!t loony writer), and bad, and just downright unfeeling to poor David’s tender sensibilities. Some AP camp-follower called Jane Carnall of Edinburgh, who has written a few opinion pieces in ‘The Guardian, went off and followed the instruction issued on ‘Making Light’ and started issuing fake 1 star reviews on Amazon on John Wright’s stories. Oh and the cheering announcement that they will ‘No Award’ the Pups nominees out of existence, and we’ll never ever win Hugos. The latest (from a chorus, including Scalzi) has been that if the puppies and nominees do not immediately and forthwith viciously denounce Vox Day they will declare us stupid dupes and one with him. Deserving of his fate too. I’ve kind of lost track of the ‘if you do’ offer. Maybe we’ll be allowed to live out our short miserable lives like penitent whores in a nunnery, being kindly permitted to clean their chamber-pots with our tongues. Think for yourselves what you’d do given that choice: live free and maybe win or die, or surrender and live as a second – or third or fifth class citizen, continually used as a kicking boy? And if the AP told me otherwise, I wouldn’t believe a word, given their track record. The AP really have credibility issues they need to work on.
So far, casualties 3. None of whom could be considered AP enemies, all of whom the Pups have openly encouraged their supporters not to take it out on. On the other hand… I haven’t seen any sign of the SaurVox of their nightmares taking any damage from this. To the contrary, nothing since their attempt (where they broke their own rules – and thus, legal speaking have failed) to expel Vox Day from SFWA has sent him more readers. His publishing ventures do better with every shrill denunciation. Thousands more people have signed up for Sasquan, and will vote, some for, some against… but that cosy incestuous group that controlled the nominations for so many years have lost their monopoly. They don’t seem to grasp the nettle that almost every action they’ve taken so far has been essentially proving the Pups point… the more CHORFs with obvious interests in maintaining the status quo shriek and point and the more they attack and maul people who have really no axe to grind… the more people notice. I doubt more than three people in the Gamer Gate movement knew we existed before.They do now – entirely due to the stupid actions taken by the AP. And yes, some of us may never get an invite from some Cons. Do we care much? Maybe some people do. I don’t give a damn, and I doubt if their main targets do. They’ll get more invites from some other cons as a result. The AP haven’t been able to touch Amazon as a sales outlet, and both Baen and Castilia have got a bunch of new sales – not from the noms, but from the controversy. And you have to realize, being called a sexist, racist etc… attracts some people. Both people who have had the same garbage directed at them when it wasn’t true, but was convenient, and yeah, sexists, racists etc. That’s actually a lot of people, between those two groups. You simply have to look at the reaction to that Pizza Parlor, or Chick-a-filla, or Duck Dynasty, to realize that this is not a marginal group. They’re just a group who have, up to now, mostly been quiet. The CHORFs thought ‘quiet’ meant ‘gone’. This is not the case, and methinks, in the way those who learn from history know, the worm is turning. The conflict has moved into a place where the AP strategists would be pulling faces and drawing lots to NOT be the one to explain to the masters and mistresses of Mordor, that the army at their gate is not actually able to lose.
If they behave as they have, they send more recruits to SP and Vox Day. They make their enemy look sane, honorable and mistreated. If they go ahead an No Award the Pups, not only will it be seen as incredibly petty spite (my sandbox. if I can’t have all of it, I’m going to crap in it) but the favor will be returned next year (which many people would consider fair play). How many years will the Hugos survive that? If you have a Hugo… or ever hoped to get one, that’s the kiss of death. An award has value only by going on being awarded, preferably to top candidates, whose work does it proud. That’s been a problem for the Hugos for a while, and only going to get worse if poor quality candidates make it because they’re voted in by the CHORFs or the puppies from shrinking pools. The handful of AP candidates like Ann Leckie will be tarred with their brush of collusion and block voting (win or lose). And win a Hugo or not, the Puppies have proved their point – which as they stated well before, was their goal – not winning. Literally everything the AP done so far seems to have been anticipated by their foe, and played out against them.
So… given that they’ve done… not exactly well so far, what would I, kindly me, being sporting, advise them to do? Not to win, but survive best. Well, I’d say that Mike Glyer has been the most astute Anti-puppy so far. Mary Robinette Kowal has tried but failed to grasp the nettle and pull (she still clings to defending the indefensible.). Mike Glyer, after a very shaky start of alienating a lot people with his ‘not real fan’ has taken- at least to my eye – the sensible attitude of seeing making further enemies was not actually clever. So he’s now trying to give at least some coverage to both sides, and as far as I can see, trying not to spit into anyone’s eye. As a guy with a lot of Noms it’s hard to not be portrayed as part of the old order, and I respect the fact he’s actually been able to look the situation and see that as being wisest.
It’s easy to be wise in hindsight, but the cleverest tactic would have been for the CHORFs instead of their vicious and failed attack, to say ‘wow! So-and-so -Pup-Nom. He/she is an exiting writer!’ and made no fuss at all. There’d have been no new Worldcon sign-ups, Vox Day would would not have increased his blog following and there’d be no SP4, and no ‘No Award’ threat. And in two or three years, they’d have been able to go back to business pretty much as usual. But AP seemed to have been in world of arrogant short-sightedness, and now have a mess in which it’s more a case of ‘take casualties but try to survive’.
The first and most obvious thing I’d do is tone it right down and publicly break a few of the hot-heads screaming ‘no award’, and utterly and loudly disavow and cast out the Amazon review fakers. The ‘blacklist’ needs to be publicly walked back from really hard and fast (because that could backfire so badly if readers take it up) and this needs to be shown to be the case, with reviews, Con invites and publication invites – with the organizers, reviewers and editors making a point of saying that they’re doing it. It’s not going to be popular with some CHORFs but it needs to be done even if it means tossing David Gerrold and Neilsen-Haydens under a bus – which, tactically would be pretty smart. When the packages go out – accept – and cheer a few puppy Noms. Personally push a few to win. Forget the AP darlings – a clean sweep makes the puppies look less good. “I was doubtful about that book/story. but now I’ve read it, it’s a great book.” will go a long way. The single cleverest move – which I see no chance of the level of tactical sense need for, would be to put AP votes behind Vox Day for short form editor, because THEN he has reason not to nuke the process. ‘No Award’ the next year would then hurt him. Forget about all the stupid let’s change the rules’ – learn to live with the situation, put up your own slates of good reads to recommend… and here is the crucial detail – try for a diverse (socially, politically, religiously) slate yourselves – be seen to be inclusive of centrist and indeed right-wing authors. Try to actually get a bit closer to the demographics of the US in all respects. And pick new names, ones coming out of Independent publishing. You’d probably do well to forget Tor or Tor.com for about 5 years at the very least. Like it or not, they’re somewhat tainted by the process. That’s harsh on some authors, and I hope they can find somewhere else to publish. They can always go indy.
That’s lowest damage, best future I can see for Anti-puppies. No charge. I did it to be sporting.
Now do any of you sporting folk want to bet on the bulk of the AP going on with the same old playbook?
Crickets…
Pity. I could use some fix-teh-computer funds. :-). Oh well. I’ll just have to write something.
Mad Genius Club 
53 responses to “To Destroy/survive SaurVox/ Voxdemort/ the Evil Genius in his Volcano Lair”
*smile* Hey, if they write good stories, maybe they’ll condescend to write with *gasp* Baen?
Hm, bit my tongue.
LOL. Well they’d want you to wash your mouth out with soap after that! 🙂
Soap? That’d be right kind, since I would have thought that the CHORFs would want my mouth washed out with honey and fire ants.
But since we’re trying to be nice here… that suggestion was sincere.
Well, Baen *is* a four-letter word.
Especially among the Usual Suspects.
Scalzi had this to say about Baen back in Feb when his Tor contract ran out:
[blockquote]Here’s a true fact for you: When I turn in The End of All Things, I will be out of contract with Tor Books; I owe them no more books at this point. What do you think would happen if I walked over to Baen Books and said, hey, I wanna work with you? Here’s what would happen: The sound of a flurry of contract pages being shipped overnight to my agent. And do you know what would happen if John Ringo went out of contract with Baen and decided to take a walk to Tor? The same damn noise. And in both cases, who would argue, financially, with the publishers’ actions? John Ringo would make a nice chunk of change for Tor; I’m pretty sure I could do the same for Baen. Don’t kid yourself; this is not an ideologically pure business we’re in.
(And yes, in fact, I would entertain an offer from Baen, if it came. It would need many zeros in it, mind you. But that would be the case with any publisher at this point.)[/blockquote]
His problem is part of the Haidt effect. He knows Baen far less well than Baen knows him. Baen, let’s be honest, has neither the push nor the brick-and-mortar distribution strength of Tor or some of the others. Baen’s ‘hidden’ strength are the facts that their monthly release, and the chatter on the bar are keenly followed and bought, often on line. Unlike most other publishers there are a lot of people who buy on the logo. So: as he attacked the publisher very snarkily and publicly, these two are unlikely to work well for him. He’s not a bad writer, just not a writer so brilliant that many readers will relentlessly pursue his books. His best work is highly derivative, which has meant he caught those fans, but it’s not a deathless source, and much of what’s left slants quite strongly right – and the audience won’t buy it if it is by him. His blog following has been dropping, and twitter following translates very poorly into sales. All of this Baen knows. If they bought him, it would have to be at a price that covers that – which means ‘very cheap’ – and I don’t see him in a rush to sell cheap. So: while not impossible, what he speaks of is really wishful thinking.
I’ve found it interesting that for all the hate they send Vox’s way, claiming he’s so horrible and his opinions are horrible, they can’t seem to keep from actually placing emphasis on his opinions. He’s their boogieman, but they keep invoking his name and handing him more power over them. They don’t seem to be able think long term at all. And considering he’s a game developer (where you have think of and plan for all contingencies) they seem to be badly over matched.
It’d be funny if it weren’t so damned sad. I mean, it is funny, watching scads of people (virtually) running around with eeeeeevil, little Vox Days taking up so much room inside their skulls. At the same time, what a waste. They could (theoretically) be doing something useful with their time.
You would think they could at least charge him rent? Are there not laws against living in 9,000 sq feet of furnished space without paying a dime?
You think their heads are *that* swelled? I mean, 9000 sq ft egos, undoubtably . . .
With that many people and that much empty space…it adds up. It is like a homeless man that builds his shelter out of 1,000 egg cartons, individually small space but add them all together…
Yeah, you would think they would realize that a guy that was: in a band that actually charted charted several songs; who then went on to make games that were very popular and well known; and then went and wrote several successful books, (as well as starting a publishing house) would be someone they just might want to be careful about pissing off.
Vox is a very successful man, he’s done well at everything that he has turned his hand to. I suspect that he’s enjoying this new challenge, and if I was going to place money on who would win this contest, I would place it on -him-.
Considering what he’s hinted about it the pipeline, I think I’d be worried if I was a creator of Puppy Related Sadness. Castalia House is an amusing, but profitable *diversion* to him…
Sneering condescension over still using a FAT based OS. Blah, blah, blah, Linux.
Seriously, I’m sure you’ve got fans who can help fix things and recover the data.
My younger son is having a go. 🙂
@davefreer You were built for linux. Linux was built for you. What Bob said. And yes, you’d have hot and cold running helps with it.
Dave’s description makes it sound like the problem is just that windows went down and took the FAT with it. The right setup can easily recover files in that situation. Furthermore, I understand excel files are tolerant of part of the file being corrupt or missing.
I think I don’t have all the tools, neither Dave or I have funds to ship it to me and back, he doesn’t have the time to wait, and I’m already busy running like a headless chicken. I’m sure there are a least a few willing and able Aussie techies. Aff seems likely to have the skills for one, I just dunno about proximity*, and cannot speak for the rest.
I still have a couple of machines with FAT system drives. As for switching to Linux, keeping that old a windows system around can be fine as long as it never sees the internet. Switching OS can have a prohibitive cost in productivity lost to user retraining. That said, I doubt they’ve still got installation media, in which case Linux is probably the only way to get an OS back on that hardware.
*Hey Bob, you can fix this guy’s computer in Maine, Right?
I know. I’m a linux admin and also did some windows stuff back when FAT was current. I’m a bit rustier than you are, but I bet looking at old notes and talking to a friend or two, I’d take about two hours longer. 🙂
::Vox Day writes SJWs names in his death note:: “JUST AS PLANNED!”
It’s like that Vox’s enemies don’t understand that nothing makes nerds gravitate towards thinking a dude is awesome than by convincing everyone that he’s brilliant misunderstood evil genius mastermind… It’s the Magneto effect: “Sure, he’s the ‘villain’ but he’s brilliant and he… he has a point!”
O’Reilly even published a Nutshell book about it some years ago. “Evil Genius in a Nutshell” if I recall. A good read.
There is a reason why my tagline for Vox Day is as follows: “Like the Devil, you only please him if you hate him too much…”
Like so many self anointed elite the anti puppies are at their core petty and mean spirited. Reason, logic, honor, any manner of fairness, all are beyond their ken.
The CHORFs destroyed the integrity of the Hugo awards with their literary equivalent of insider trading, and now while the sad puppies try to resuscitate what may already be a corpse the anti crowd appears quite willing to stoop to using any nasty leftist trick to harm the opposition no matter what damage that may do to the underlying institution.
As to the computer issue, I will only observe that Mac OS-X is based on BSD Unix, very user friendly, and much less vulnerable to most cyber attacks. New models are rather pricey, but used or refurbished can be had and the typical longevity of most Apple computers puts windows models to shame.
Ehhh, typical windows components, sure, but if you buy the same price point of windows components, no. If you buy your PC based on price point alone, you get what you pay for. FoxConn makes HP’s workstation motherboards, too.
I’m just sadly amused by the whole brouhaha. I suspect that the vast majority of new Hugo Voters/Supporting Members tend to side with the Puppies. Which should make the post-awards freakout all the more memorable.
I rather suspect that someone is going to propose changing the rules at the business meeting. I doubt it will get far, and if anything DOES get passed, I suspect next year will be a Worldcon will have Puppysign the likes of which even God has not seen before. . .. (grin)
I’ve read some of the ML threads about new voting schemes, and really don’t have any problem with them. It’s even possible that they would help with the sort of voting patterns from the past that I consider suboptimal. In a way it’s kind of funny: in order to combat the OMG Evil Slate Voting!!!, they’re fixing their processes to address some of the original complaints. Though the way to really fix it is to get more people voting, which the Puppies have certainly succeeded in accomplishing.
I’m not sure if there’s really a push to only allow attending members to vote or whatever. If those discussions are going on, I assume they’re on private lists.
One thing I’ve noticed is that they are trying to fix the voting process based on a flawed premise–that the Sad Puppy Contingent is successful because of “slate voting”–and if they would take the Sad Puppies at their word, or even just listen to them, then they would know how flawed this premise is.
Indeed, to the degree that they themselves may be voting in a manner akin to “slate” voting, if they manage to succeed, they may very well be giving the Sad Puppies the advantage, to the degree that the Sad Puppies don’t vote via slates.
Their own analysis indicates that “get out the vote” is the key to ending Sad Puppies, regardless of voting system…except that they don’t realize that Sad Puppies *is* a “get out the vote” campaign, first and foremost!
I’d make it a personal point to be there m’self. Might get to meet some of my favorite authors that way.
Assuming they didn’t pull a Honey Badgers in Calgary and trump up harassment charges to throw you out.
I’ve said this repeatedly, but it bears repeating, so …
The only thing that needs to change to fix the problem is for some largish chunk of the Hugo-nominating-eligible members who never nominate to get off their butts and do so. Let me say this loudly: THE ABILITY TO GET BALLOT ITEMS PLACED BY LOGROLLING OR SLATE IS ONLY POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF THE MISERABLY LOW NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY NOMINATE. That was true before SP, and it was true with SP.
The “turnout” rate among WorldCon members eligible to nominate has, until the last two years, barely approached 10%. Even this year, with the major influx of memberships apparently purchased just to nominate and vote, it didn’t clear 14%.
Hit 20% real turnout and the problem of small numbers being able to take ballot slots by logrolling or slates is greatly reduced. Hit 30% (more than double this year’s turnout rate!) and it damn near vanishes without extreme efforts.
Shorter: Nor rules changes are needed. The system isn’t broken. The electorate is.
It will be really, really interesting if the 300 SP/RPs that the traditional gatekeepers estimate to be the cause of the current nomination field turn out to be a couple thousand. I have seen a few of them *begin* to speculate on what that might mean.
A shakeup is healthy. IFF feeding a troll is counter productive, AND VD – troll, then why the heck are so many AP behaving the way that they are? They may have unpersoned him, but he declines to play the role of first body discovered and slink away quietly.
But it was apparently OK for as few as forty or fifty nominations to put something on the Hugo ballot, before the Puppies showed up. So even if “only 300” or so Puppies contributed to each of “their” noms this year, that’s already a sizeable improvement over the status quo right there.
Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I’m fully expecting to see a “Cute Kittens” slate from the CHORFs next year.
One thing you’re right about, they (the con) needs to toss David. I’m actually shocked that they haven’t already. His entire hissy-fit made it clear he wasn’t suitable for the job, and if anyone thinks he won’t ruin the awards, well they’re delusional.
Right now, everyone suspects that he’ll do something. Because he said he would. His sudden change of heart just means he could as suddenly change back.
I’ve worked cons, and the last thing you want at them is any kind of blowup that can bring bad publicity, or worse, legal charges. Cons all run on a shoestring and just can’t afford that. David strikes me as petty enough to cause problems, because he already has.
Yes, I agree that there is a real danger for the Con. And honestly, the bloke has just fanned flames he should have been helping to damp. And no, I don’t trust him either.
He’s sworn he will be a good Toastmaster during the awards. In the meantime, he’s doing his damnedest to make them valueless and denigrate them as loudly as he can.
But don’t dare question his integrity. I mean, how could one doubt? 😉
It’s somewhat possible that the more screaming there is about the evils of slate voting, the more previously uninvolved people will look at the nominees and wonder why there is such a dreadful fuss over spilt milk, instead of making the best of a bad situation. They might wonder who this Vox Day character is, and why he seems to be the devil incarnate, and whether he is really all that bad. They might wonder how the Hugos are awarded in the first place. They might wonder what’s wrong with reading the works and voting their preferences. They might notice there’s something a bit snobbish about calling down the fires of hell upon those who disagree on matters of literary taste. They might, if they note the personalities involved and look up their public history, see that this is the latest episode of a standing feud. They might say “A plague on both your houses” and decide to just read the works nominated and see which ones they like. They might notice that the campaign to “No Award” authors and their works because Vox Day liked them is punishing the wrong people. They might take offense to the notion that just because they haven’t bothered to attend Worldcon to vote on the Hugo nominees, they aren’t real fans. They might think the strategy of calling a kinetic strike from orbit on your own position after it has been half-overrun by the barbarians smacks of desperation. They might notice that some of the better known names in the field are sitting tight and saying little. They might wonder why, if the people defending the integrity of the status quo are such excellent judges of literary taste, why the works they have give been giving awards to are about as enjoyable as a meal of sawdust and cardboard. They might think that the logic of those who most vigorously defend “diversity” is barely distinguishable from clinical insanity. They might, if they know anything about statistics, wonder if the members of Worldcon make up a sufficiently representative sample of fandom.
It’s also that possible that those who are urging drastic anti-puppy measures will realize what they are doing to themselves, but I don’t think that very likely.
BTW Dave, if you want raw Hugo data since 2000 I have that. I can probably get more years data too if you care enough.
http://sadpuppi.es/hugo.html
Thank you Francis. It will be a help in the restart.
You would think that such erudite, literary, media experts that the CHORFs think themselves to be…they would understand the Streisand effect and how their actions are similar to achieving that effect.
Not sure how it works, but do the people who pay to vote also get some say in how the Hugos are run? If so, the Puppies should create a new award catagory, Best Socially Consious Novel. The CHORFs will fall all over themselves to fill that void. An award for being the most socially justice justice warrior? Are you kidding me? They’ll throw themselves at that like gold diggers at a newly minted millionaire pro ball player. It will give the kiddies a safe place to play while the adults repair the damage done and get back to the business at hand.
The
Sorry about the below. As I was trying to say, the Hugo categories are part of the Constitution of the World Science Fiction Society. The Constitution can only be changed by the votes of two successive business meetings, and business meetings require attendance at the convention.
Month or so ago Sarah and Charlie Martin did an article on female winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards. I did the basic research, and have those records for all winners Hugo 1980-2013 and Nebula 1981-2011.
Happy to pass those along as plain text if you want them.
Thank you, to both you and Francis. What i had done was somewhat more difficult. I had just done the novels (it takes a lot of time, and I think would be impossible for the older shorts), but I had researched each nominee as best as I could, to establish years of publication prior, the number of publications prior, Publisher, the author’s political position (and this was of necessarium coarse, L,R, Centrist, Unknown and probably debatable) Religious belief if any (once again coarse, with quite a lot of Unknown, and also relating to the time of the award, not to later conversions etc.) and orientation if known. Married to a partner of the opposite sex was assumed hetero unless (MZB) this was known not to be the case. I am sure some of it was wrong – I planned to have the final data publicly viewable and I was willing to change it on evidence being shown. I still had the last 5 years to go on Saturday. A lot of work :-(.
That’s impressive. I did a 90 minute hatchet job on the raw data sifting strictly for gender, working to a tight deadline. You’re talking an order of magnitude greater depth and penetration, well beyond my modest efforts or even the analysis Sarah and Charlie did.
Still, if I can help in any way do not hesitate to get in touch. I’m around here, ATH, the Diner, and over at Baen’s Bar.
Thank you. Once i have my computer up and running again I will contact you.
Back up, back up, back up (and yes I know you’ve heard this a million times before).
Actually the problem here is that I set things up to back up work, automatically. So I kind of forgot about ‘not work’
Anything I think might be important I usually end up saving to a flash drive as well as to the hard drive of my computer. I’m still using an old XP laptop to surf the internet and do things when at work that I don’t want my boss knowing about. I refuse to pay all the huge money for an Apple product, and my limited use at work made me think it worked pretty much like Win8. I’d switch to Linux but my wife’s work does everything on Windows PCs, so we just keep getting Windows. I HATE Win8, but it’s what we’re stuck with until her work decides to get something different.
Ouch. Yes, I can see that happening 😀
That’s why I love my Mac. Time Machine is the best backup software I’ve ever seen, going back to the stuff for the original IBM PC. Basically it is a ‘Fire and Forget’ solution, which is what I need, since I tend to oh look at that chicken…
Smirk, you know, I was a submariner for 20 years, so being called “unfair” is something I’m quite used to. After all, we’re “underhand, unfair and damned un-English” according to Sir Arthur Wilson a hugely unpopular First Sea Lord. He even went so far as to say: “They’ll never be any use in war and I’ll tell you why.” snip “we intend to treat all submarines as pirate vessels in wartime and that we’ll hang all the crews.”
So Unfair? Hell, I’m used to that accusation, if that’s the best you (the A/P) have, well you’re pretty much focked.
I gotta tip the hat to you though Dave, you out did the SJWs on one of their patented routines, the “concern troll” BZ man, Bravo Zulu (naval signal for “well performed”) once again I can hear Liberal heads exploding from my house. (note the Big L Liberal, as opposed to the lower case l liberal… Many of my friends are liberals, Liberals HAVE no friends, merely fellow travelers that are handy until they make themselves a target ala’ Rhodes Pierre.)
What can i say? I’m a professional hack. Naturally I can do concern troll (or at least a sarcastic mockery of the same) as well as they do, or better. 😉
Hello to All,
Great post. If anyone is interested, I myself have a number of Puppies-related posts on this site that might be of interest:
http://www.voxmaximus.wordpress.com
I would love to get your feed-back (I was linked to a few times by File770). Greatly appreciated.