Promotion -- voters see the name of someone nominated for a Hugo (probably a fan Hugo) and they also see that that person is involved in some nebulous way with organising the Hugos so it seems to them that there's a connection. It also leads to encouraging one of Kevin's bugbears, the widespread idea there's a nebulous secretive Hugo Awards committee who decides who gets nominated and chosen to win one. Of course these committee folks will hand them out to each other, goes the thinking. Better for anyone directly involved in administering the Hugos in any way to step back from the nominations and I think the Marketing Committee and the Mark Protection Committee are close enough to the process that membership should result in automatic disqualification from being nominated. Kevin's strawmen arguments about Guests of Honour etc. are just that; their focus is not tightly bound to the silver rockets the way the Hugo administrator(s) and the MPC are. Worldcon committee members and not the HAMC/MPC are the edge case in my opinion; I don't know the statistics but has any Worldcon committee member ever won a Hugo during their Worldcon? I feel that most if not all of them would actually refuse the nomination if offered in such a circumstance (or at least they should refuse it).
Similarly I don't know if a GoH has ever won a Hugo the same year they were honoured; it's entirely possible they did but they're not involved in operating the Hugo process the way the Hugo administrators, MPC, HAMC and the Worldcon committee are so conflict of interest cannot really be raised as an argument against them.
If I was at Reno I'd be voting against the resolution to overturn the marketing committee's decision. If it is overturned or even if it passes this first year I would expect many of those committee members to immediately resign, regarding the result as a vote of confidence. It will be interesting to see who would be willing to step forward and replace them at that point when it has been made clear their Caesar's Wife decision on a matter of ethics was rejected by the members of WSFS.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-08-11 11:24 am (UTC)Similarly I don't know if a GoH has ever won a Hugo the same year they were honoured; it's entirely possible they did but they're not involved in operating the Hugo process the way the Hugo administrators, MPC, HAMC and the Worldcon committee are so conflict of interest cannot really be raised as an argument against them.
If I was at Reno I'd be voting against the resolution to overturn the marketing committee's decision. If it is overturned or even if it passes this first year I would expect many of those committee members to immediately resign, regarding the result as a vote of confidence. It will be interesting to see who would be willing to step forward and replace them at that point when it has been made clear their Caesar's Wife decision on a matter of ethics was rejected by the members of WSFS.