Yes, I know I’m trying to stop talking about them, but last year I promised the Feminist SF folks an article on how to minimize the cost of voting in the Hugos. It went online yesterday and, as it has been all over Twitter today, I guess I should link to it. Much of the advice is actually applicable to anyone who is short of money, not just women.
Mind you, I discovered from a comment on Tor.com yesterday that Hugos get won by people whose writing appeals to rich people, so maybe I shouldn’t be writing that sort of thing. Check out the whole thread, as it also includes a comment from someone who wants to keep the Hugos exclusive, and a lovely quote from Langford from 1987.
By the way, there are approximately 10 times as many people in the USA than in the UK, so really the fact that Americans do better than the British in what is a popular vote award should not be entirely surprising. Really, I’m not bitter about Brits never winning fan Hugos. I don’t think Dave is either.
Talking of minimizing your Hugo participation cost, you can get a free ebook copy of one of the most talked-about novels of 2009 – Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl (Juliet Ulman, ed.) – if you join the io9 book club.
And finally, Peggy Kolm has been talking about a very interesting short film made in Kenya. It is a 2009 production, and the trailer looks excellent, but at the moment the only way to see the whole thing is to go to Sundance. I’m hoping it gets online before the nomination deadline, and if not I’ll ask for an extension in Melbourne.
“If your only purpose in voting is to nominate [PERSON X] for Best [category] because you think she’s awesome, that’s OK.”
Ugh. I don’t think that’s remotely ok. Yes, there’s no rule against it, and no, it’s not worth bothering to try to stop on a small scale (absent a ballot-stuffing campaign), but this is entirely antithetical to the notion that the Hugos aren’t campaigned for, and are simpy supposed to a survey of what’s popular with an already existing body of people, the ongoing members of one or more Worldcons.
People seeking to join a Worldcon just to nominate or vote for only one person are by definition not just having their preferences surveyed, but are part of a campaign. I’d not encourage anyone that that sort of thing is ok, even if it’s not broadly abused into a large-scale campaign. If you don’t make clear at the start of someone’s Hugo experience that campaigning for Hugos is right out, other than to gently point out one’s eligibility, and make a polite request or two, then it’ll be immensely hard, if not impossible, to convince them later that it Just Isn’t Done, and is considered an abuse of the system and unfannish.
“Believe me, there have in the past been people whose ballots have contained only one nomination, for themselves.”
Yes, and we think that stinks and that people shouldn’t do it. There’s no rule about it, but we don’t tell people it really is ok!
Practically every time I say something about the Hugos someone complains that I’m either encouraging campaigning, or worse campaigning for myself. Well personally I’m sick of it. This whole “no campaigning” thing is just an excuse for people who vote regularly to keep out people who don’t vote regularly. If it had been applied fairly I might have more sympathy, but it hasn’t, so I’m ignoring it.
You weren’t around for the ERB-Dom fight, or some of the subsequent lesser examples of one-issue/person groups interesting not in participating in Worldcon, but in getting Their One Person/Thing A Hugo. The ethic in fandom against that has always been overwhelming.
“Practically every time I say something about the Hugos someone complains that I’m either encouraging campaigning, or worse campaigning for myself.”
I’m afraid I’m only responsible for what I say, rather than for other conversations you’ve had with other people. I do agree that the above experience sounds very unpleasant.
“Well personally I’m sick of it.”
Anyone who feels unlistened to or treated unjustly would.
“This whole ‘no campaigning’ thing is just an excuse for people who vote regularly to keep out people who don’t vote regularly.”
It’s not my excuse at all; as it happens, I’ve only been eligible to have voted in the Hugos about a dozen times, and have actually voted or nominated in the Hugos some fewer number of times, after almost forty years of activity in the field. I have never voted regularly.
It might not be most accurate to lump everyone with a particular or overlapping opinion into a homogenous mass, and attribute the same, let alone a single, motive to all of them.
“If it had been applied fairly I might have more sympathy, but it hasn’t, so I’m ignoring it.”
Nothing in life is applied fully fairly, but I certainly agree that there are countervailing issues to contend with, and I’m certainly 100% in favor of doing everything remotely practical to make sure the Hugos are as diverse and fair and representative and non-discriminatory, etc., as can be done. And I’m fully in favor of every member of WSFS having the right to whatever opinion they like about anything, particularly WSFS matters.
I don’t mean to make you feel attacked by speaking up to disagree with a sentence or point. I can understand that on this you clearly have past experience with other discussions with other people, discussions, I’m unaware of and wasn’t around for, in mind, and thus we’re not really on the same page, so please let me at least be clear that I didn’t and don’t in any way mean to make you feel as if I’m joining an attacking crowd, or anything like that, and that I apologize if I in any way wrote anything that encouraged such thoughts.
And having made my original point, I’m done now.
Also, congrats on doing a good post and a good thing.