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Understanding the world science fiction convention

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Re: Understanding the world science fiction convention

#21

Post by Arn_Thor »

TwentyPosts wrote: post #20
Arn_Thor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 st…

Thanks for explaining your reasoning. That sounds more reasonable than I’d assumed. I stand corrected

Re: Understanding the world science fiction convention

#23

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

Boogie_Man wrote: post #17
p0w3n3d wrote: post #14

Fun fact: antipope is not an anti-catholic name, according to the site ( https://www.antipope.org/charlie/old/antipope.html ) "What sitename do you want?" he asked. I'd been posting on usenet under the alias "AutoPope -- pontifications by email". (If you don't know what the long word means, go look it up.) So I said, "How about autopope.uucp?" "Okay." Hic. Burp. And the next day, I was the somewhat bemused owner of a…

Historically being an antipope didn't mean that you were anti Catholic, it meant you believed yourself to be the true Pope in opposition to the Pope in Rome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope My fun fact: Some antipopes resided in Avignon France, and a (delicious) wine from that region (allegedly, I'm not a wine guy) is called Châteauneuf-du-Pape (House of the New Pope) for this reason.

> Châteauneuf-du-Pape

That reads more like "[The] Pope's New Castle" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teauneuf-du-Pape_AOC

In fact, Avignon was the site of the Apostolic See and indeed, seven canonically-accepted Popes resided there, plus two antipopes. https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/avignon

This period also featured Italian antipopes! It was dramatic! https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/western-schism

Re: Understanding the world science fiction convention

#24

Post by awithrow »

WBrentWilliams wrote: post #19

I've seen more than a few of these kerfuffle happen now. Other commenters have mentioned other times in other directions that the voting has come out weird. All I can say is that while yes, these awards do matter, they don't have to matter as much as you think. At best, all the outcome tells you is what someone else thinks is worth reading. Consider it a starting point. It follows that any given list of nominees is w…

They matter as a signal of quality for reading recommendations. As someone who has read many/most of the previous Hugo (and Nebula) winners, it used to be a high quality signal for good sci-fi stories.

And, while it's always been a popularity contest at it's core, I can't help feeling some disappointment at seeing it descend into whatever nonsense it has become.

So really I guess I miss them as the high quality signal it used to be and it's on me to find new signals

Re: Understanding the world science fiction convention

#26

Post by Boogie_Man »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #23
Boogie_Man wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically being an antipope didn't mean that you were anti Catholic, it meant you believed yourself to be the true Pope in opposition to the Pope in Rome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope My fun fact: Some antipopes resided in Avignon France, and a (delicious) wine from that region (allegedly, I'm not a wine guy) is called Châteauneuf-du-Pape (House of the New Pope) for this reason.

> Châteauneuf-du-Pape That reads more like "[The] Pope's New Castle" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teauneuf-du-Pape_AOC In fact, Avignon was the site of the Apostolic See and indeed, seven canonically-accepted Popes resided there, plus two antipopes. https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/avignon This period also featured Italian antipopes! It was dramatic! https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/western-schism

This is correct, thank you for clarifying! The information was relayed from an intoxicated man to an even more intoxicated man, so I didn't get quite all of it. Time to get reading!

Re: Understanding the world science fiction convention

#27

Post by resolutebat »

DonHopkins wrote: post #25
progbits wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is not banning books "woke" now? The word also never appears in the post so your summary is disingenuous.

[flagged]

I am precisely none of those things, but if I were, you would be doing a far better job of arguing the case against yourself than I ever could.

Re: Understanding the world science fiction convention

#28

Post by melagonster »

gred wrote: post #11
TwentyPosts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/06/a-letter-to-the-s...

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.

Re: Understanding the world science fiction convention

#29

Post by light_hue_1 »

jtr1 wrote: post #15
senkora wrote: post #6

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 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.

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”.

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.

Re: Understanding the world science fiction convention

#30

Post by eropple »

melagonster wrote: post #28
gred wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/06/a-letter-to-the-s...

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.

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."
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