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I think HN may be interested in another recent instance of the Hugo awards running into difficulties because of its rules: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_P

I think HN may be interested in another recent instance of the Hugo awards running into difficulties because of its rules: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies TL;DR: A conservative block of voters swept the nominations for certain categories. At final voting, members voted to not give awards at all in those categories.

TwentyPosts 3y ago
Is there any summary of what happened from the side of the proponents? Given Wikipedia's track record when it comes to certain topics, it'd be very nice to have some points of comparison here.
- gred 3y ago
  https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/06/a-letter-to-the-smofs-moderates-and-fence-sitters-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/ https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/06/a-letter-to-the-s...
  - melagonster 3y ago
    notice this from article! >Go through our list of nominees for yourself. You’ll find that we have liberals, conservatives, moderates, and question marks who’ve kept their politics to themselves.
    - eropple 3y ago
      Over the years since, I think the primary characteristics you'll find from their slate are either "quickly disavowed the Sad Puppies movement when they found out they were endorsed" or "have in the years since turned out to be just fine with people being pricks in shared spaces."
- Arn_Thor 3y ago
  You think it’s biased because it’s using words like “right-wing” and “anti-diversity”? I’ve usually found such terms to be right on the mark, even if some don’t like it pointed out
  - TwentyPosts 3y ago
    I assume that "right-wing" and "anti-diversity" are correct labels here, that's not really my problem. It's frankly less about bias, and more about the fact that the Wikipedia article is pretty sparse, and all I could see is the link to Correia's blog. This is completely disconnected from my own politics, really. I don't need to read articles on how a "right-wing voting campaign got owned at the Hugo awards". That story writes itself. The other side of the story is more interesting.
    - Arn_Thor 3y ago
      Thanks for explaining your reasoning. That sounds more reasonable than I’d assumed. I stand corrected
jtr1 3y ago
IIRC they swept because Hugo membership is open and they made a coordinated effort to join and sweep those categories. The idea of a coordinated anti-diversity effort pissed off a lot of people. For a few friends of mine who are lifelong sci-fi nerds, it was motivation to finally join Hugo so they could vote “no award”.
- light_hue_1 3y ago
  They swept for of the same reason the Chinese worldcon was a mess: we are used to operating much of society by an unwritten set of rules that assume everyone is pretty much a good actor. Sure, they may have an axe to grind, and might stretch things, but no one will deliberately find loopholes at scale to abuse. This worked for several millenia. Whole countries used to not have written constitutions, just unwritten agreements on how to behave. But in the age of the internet, it's much easier to find communities that you can break this way. These systems are resilient to a few people who are bad actors, but totally fall apart if there are coordinated actions. It's exactly what the Republican party is doing in the US now. And what Trump supporters plan to do if he's elected with Project 2025.
- cstross 3y ago
  Amusingly (or enragingly) one of the effects of the Sad Puppy voting slate in 2015 was that it pushed William Patterson's magisterial and definitive biography of Robert A. Heinlein -- who the Puppies mostly adored -- off the shortlist for Best Related Word (a Hugo category usually occupied by scholarly works of SF history and criticism) in favour of utter garbage like "Wisdom From My Internet" by Michael Z. Williamson because the Sad Puppy organizers were so out of touch with events outside their bubble that they weren't aware the biography had been published. You can take this as an illustration of the risk of an organized voting slate scoring a huge own goal. Sad Puppy 2015 slate: https://www.scifiwright.com/2015/02/sad-puppies-3-announces-its-2015-hugo-sample-slate/ https://www.scifiwright.com/2015/02/sad-puppies-3-announces-... Patterson biography, volume 2: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Heinlein-Dialogue-Century-1948-1988-ebook/dp/B00HTJ05PA/ https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Heinlein-Dialogue-Century-1948...
deleted 3y ago
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ooterness 3y ago
The only fun thing that came out of that mess was that Chuck Tingle was nominated for a Hugo Award.
- defrost 3y ago
  The nomination of Space Raptor Butt Invasion in 2016 was a Sad Puppy footgun. He disavowed their coordinated campaign and then engaged further: Satirical erotica author Chuck Tingle's massive troll of conservative sci-fi fans, explained Right-wing sci-fi writers tried to delegitimize the Hugo Awards by nominating a writer no one took seriously. Here's how he took them all by surprise. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/26/11759842/chuck-tingle-hugo-award-rabid-puppies-explained https://www.vox.com/2016/5/26/11759842/chuck-tingle-hugo-awa...
  - mock-possum 3y ago
    Also people who don’t take him seriously have not been paying enough attention. Chuck Tingle is a master craftsman.
LanceH 3y ago
I would agree that a group swept the nominations. (and I don't agree with them) Having attended a couple conventions, including a worldcon just before this happened, I would say that the same low voter turnout that made sad puppies possible was being abused to prop up obscure books based on the identity of the author rather the quality of the story. The sad puppies effort was more mutually assured destruction than really trying to win. They know their books are pulp. But they also believed that nobody actually read those other books. I've been to conventions biased one way or the other and they have one thing in common: nobody seems concerned with whether a story is good or not. This is probably why we keep getting superhero movies.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  > I would say that the same low voter turnout that made sad puppies possible was being abused to prop up obscure books based on the identity of the author rather the quality of the story Which undeserving stories/authors exemplify this?
  - LanceH 3y ago
    Of the winners, I've only read The Three Body Problem, which I liked for a number of reasons. I'm not familiar with any of the other winners. Which of these are monsters on par with the big winners from the 60's through 90's? There are a lot of people saying that the current trend is a backlash against sad puppies (which would also be wrong) while simultaneously denying that it was happening before sad puppies. My experience is they were doing this, the sad puppies blew it up, now it seems to be happening with impunity. There are alternate more conservative cons out there, maybe the two groups have separated entirely. Putting all the blame on the sad puppies (who, again are wrong, but I have to say this because people like painting anyone who disagrees as right wing fascist) isn't taking in the whole picture.
    - sangnoir 3y ago
      >> I would say that the same low voter turnout that made sad puppies possible was being abused to prop up obscure books based on the identity of the author rather the quality of the story > Of the winners, I've only read The Three Body Problem, which I liked for a number of reasons. I may be misunderstanding you, but if you didn't read the books, how did you judge the quality of the stories? Did you perhaps read the nominations, if so, please let me know any that you feel was not deserving and the possibly got nominated based on author's identity.

TwentyPosts 3y ago

Is there any summary of what happened from the side of the proponents? Given Wikipedia's track record when it comes to certain topics, it'd be very nice to have some points of comparison here.

gred 3y ago
https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/06/a-letter-to-the-smofs-moderates-and-fence-sitters-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/ https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/06/a-letter-to-the-s...
- melagonster 3y ago
  notice this from article! >Go through our list of nominees for yourself. You’ll find that we have liberals, conservatives, moderates, and question marks who’ve kept their politics to themselves.
  - eropple 3y ago
    Over the years since, I think the primary characteristics you'll find from their slate are either "quickly disavowed the Sad Puppies movement when they found out they were endorsed" or "have in the years since turned out to be just fine with people being pricks in shared spaces."
Arn_Thor 3y ago
You think it’s biased because it’s using words like “right-wing” and “anti-diversity”? I’ve usually found such terms to be right on the mark, even if some don’t like it pointed out
- TwentyPosts 3y ago
  I assume that "right-wing" and "anti-diversity" are correct labels here, that's not really my problem. It's frankly less about bias, and more about the fact that the Wikipedia article is pretty sparse, and all I could see is the link to Correia's blog. This is completely disconnected from my own politics, really. I don't need to read articles on how a "right-wing voting campaign got owned at the Hugo awards". That story writes itself. The other side of the story is more interesting.
  - Arn_Thor 3y ago
    Thanks for explaining your reasoning. That sounds more reasonable than I’d assumed. I stand corrected

jtr1 3y ago

IIRC they swept because Hugo membership is open and they made a coordinated effort to join and sweep those categories. The idea of a coordinated anti-diversity effort pissed off a lot of people. For a few friends of mine who are lifelong sci-fi nerds, it was motivation to finally join Hugo so they could vote “no award”.

light_hue_1 3y ago
They swept for of the same reason the Chinese worldcon was a mess: we are used to operating much of society by an unwritten set of rules that assume everyone is pretty much a good actor. Sure, they may have an axe to grind, and might stretch things, but no one will deliberately find loopholes at scale to abuse. This worked for several millenia. Whole countries used to not have written constitutions, just unwritten agreements on how to behave. But in the age of the internet, it's much easier to find communities that you can break this way. These systems are resilient to a few people who are bad actors, but totally fall apart if there are coordinated actions. It's exactly what the Republican party is doing in the US now. And what Trump supporters plan to do if he's elected with Project 2025.
cstross 3y ago
Amusingly (or enragingly) one of the effects of the Sad Puppy voting slate in 2015 was that it pushed William Patterson's magisterial and definitive biography of Robert A. Heinlein -- who the Puppies mostly adored -- off the shortlist for Best Related Word (a Hugo category usually occupied by scholarly works of SF history and criticism) in favour of utter garbage like "Wisdom From My Internet" by Michael Z. Williamson because the Sad Puppy organizers were so out of touch with events outside their bubble that they weren't aware the biography had been published. You can take this as an illustration of the risk of an organized voting slate scoring a huge own goal. Sad Puppy 2015 slate: https://www.scifiwright.com/2015/02/sad-puppies-3-announces-its-2015-hugo-sample-slate/ https://www.scifiwright.com/2015/02/sad-puppies-3-announces-... Patterson biography, volume 2: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Heinlein-Dialogue-Century-1948-1988-ebook/dp/B00HTJ05PA/ https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Heinlein-Dialogue-Century-1948...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ooterness 3y ago

The only fun thing that came out of that mess was that Chuck Tingle was nominated for a Hugo Award.

defrost 3y ago
The nomination of Space Raptor Butt Invasion in 2016 was a Sad Puppy footgun. He disavowed their coordinated campaign and then engaged further: Satirical erotica author Chuck Tingle's massive troll of conservative sci-fi fans, explained Right-wing sci-fi writers tried to delegitimize the Hugo Awards by nominating a writer no one took seriously. Here's how he took them all by surprise. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/26/11759842/chuck-tingle-hugo-award-rabid-puppies-explained https://www.vox.com/2016/5/26/11759842/chuck-tingle-hugo-awa...
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Also people who don’t take him seriously have not been paying enough attention. Chuck Tingle is a master craftsman.

LanceH 3y ago

I would agree that a group swept the nominations. (and I don't agree with them) Having attended a couple conventions, including a worldcon just before this happened, I would say that the same low voter turnout that made sad puppies possible was being abused to prop up obscure books based on the identity of the author rather the quality of the story. The sad puppies effort was more mutually assured destruction than really trying to win. They know their books are pulp. But they also believed that nobody actually read those other books. I've been to conventions biased one way or the other and they have one thing in common: nobody seems concerned with whether a story is good or not. This is probably why we keep getting superhero movies.

sangnoir 3y ago
> I would say that the same low voter turnout that made sad puppies possible was being abused to prop up obscure books based on the identity of the author rather the quality of the story Which undeserving stories/authors exemplify this?
- LanceH 3y ago
  Of the winners, I've only read The Three Body Problem, which I liked for a number of reasons. I'm not familiar with any of the other winners. Which of these are monsters on par with the big winners from the 60's through 90's? There are a lot of people saying that the current trend is a backlash against sad puppies (which would also be wrong) while simultaneously denying that it was happening before sad puppies. My experience is they were doing this, the sad puppies blew it up, now it seems to be happening with impunity. There are alternate more conservative cons out there, maybe the two groups have separated entirely. Putting all the blame on the sad puppies (who, again are wrong, but I have to say this because people like painting anyone who disagrees as right wing fascist) isn't taking in the whole picture.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    >> I would say that the same low voter turnout that made sad puppies possible was being abused to prop up obscure books based on the identity of the author rather the quality of the story > Of the winners, I've only read The Three Body Problem, which I liked for a number of reasons. I may be misunderstanding you, but if you didn't read the books, how did you judge the quality of the stories? Did you perhaps read the nominations, if so, please let me know any that you feel was not deserving and the possibly got nominated based on author's identity.