Of course I’m talking about the Hugo Awards.
It’s such a huge mess – a huge, sticky, smeary, treacly, chunky, smelly, unnecessary mess.
But bitching about it won’t clean it up and won’t make it go away.
I’ve been reading all week. There are some excellent suggestions regarding voting, plans for future changes to the rules and some “stay calm, all will be well” posts out there.
But there’s one thread that seems to run through all of the SP/RP related posts and commentary and that thread is:
Voting No Award is a silly, useless, detrimental idea that robs nominees of due consideration, those doing it are hypocritical anti-diversity people, etc. etc., blah, blah, blah.
Remember that old expression about seeing smoke and being pretty darned sure there’s a fire around somewhere?
The anti-No Awards commentary is so similar in both tone and argument that one might think some folks were coordinating their responses…checking in with a central authority. Something that a group capable of organizing a “successful” Hugo awards voting campaign would certainly never do. Right.
This concerted, seemingly coordinated effort to attack the No Award idea suggests that the slate voting is vulnerable to it. In other words – if it weren’t a concern to the puppy folks (of whatever breed), they’d be harping on something else.
Let’s be clear, when I say the voting No Award idea I mean voting against slates: where a category is completely slate-derived, place No Award in the number one slot and nothing else on the ballot; where a category is comprised of both slate and non-slate works, give the non-slate works due consideration, place them on the ballot if you think they deserve to be, in whatever order you choose and then stick No Award immediately below them.
Recently it seems that there was a blow-up between the two puppy breeds, with one declaring that getting us all to vote No Award was the goal all along, and the other responding that they couldn’t support that goal. Doesn’t matter whether it’s theater (designed to make people reticent about voting No Award) or a genuine disagreement between the parties. It matters not, as all it does is sew more confusion on the proposition, a result that still favors either or both groups (if it convinces you to not vote No Award or split your ballot between voting for some slate items and not for others).
The reaction to No Award (read – not voting for or endorsing slates of any kind) clearly indicates that it is a workable concept, one likely to succeed in denying the award to those who tried to game the system. Other wise, there wouldn’t be so much smoke.
Right now we’re in the long haul leg of this so-called race. Anyone paying attention who resents this unprecedented and untoward assault on a 60+ year tradition already knows what to do. Wait it out. Be patient – we’ve got at least two years to go before this whole sorry affair will be resolved. Stay strong – fandom can survive this.