kevin_standlee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kevin_standlee) wrote2011-09-01 08:50 am
kevin_standlee) wrote2011-09-01 08:50 am
Entry tags:
Sad
Cheryl's withdrawal from many of her current projects saddens me, although it doesn't surprise me.
If there is anyone out there who wants to continue to insinuate that the Hugo Awards are somehow "corrupt," and who has any better evidence than "I didn't win" or "The things I wanted to win didn't," I want them to actually come forward and produce it.
I've said this before and I'll keep saying it: The failure of works/people to win the Hugo Award that you want to win is not a failure of process. Why is it so difficult for people to get it through their heads that not everyone thinks exactly the same way they do? Is it so important to you to consider yourself The Standard Person?
If there is anyone out there who wants to continue to insinuate that the Hugo Awards are somehow "corrupt," and who has any better evidence than "I didn't win" or "The things I wanted to win didn't," I want them to actually come forward and produce it.
I've said this before and I'll keep saying it: The failure of works/people to win the Hugo Award that you want to win is not a failure of process. Why is it so difficult for people to get it through their heads that not everyone thinks exactly the same way they do? Is it so important to you to consider yourself The Standard Person?
Yes, I wrote the post you are reffering to.
I think you are missing my point about the double episode of Doctor Who winning the Hugo. As far as can be found out online any double episode of a UK show is ineligible for a short form Hugo. The rule states that a nominee can be moved to another category of dramatic presentation if it is deemed that it should belong there. So according to the rule all nominations for The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang should have been discarded unless it was made in the long form category.
The problem I have with the award is that this have not been shown to be done. And if a Hugo nominee is declared valid in a committee that does not publicly report what it does, that is a huge problem.
My actual point in writing that post was showing that there is a "glitch" in the Hugo rules when it comes to double TV episodes. I assume that the Hugo rules didn't mean to exclude UK double episodes from the short for category, but it would be nice if this was actually defined in the rules.
To sum up, I tried to highlight something that is a part of the criticism that the Hugos are separate from the majority of SFF fans. And I think that the lack of response from Hugo fandom just shows how true that is.
If I had paid $50 to vote for the Hugos I would assume that the rules I found online were the ones to go by. And not some committee that works without being open about what they do.
A notice on the final ballot that a decision to not discard the votes for the double episode, and defining it as short form would have been enough. I didn't actually think I could change the Hugo rules by writing my post, but I hoped that by showing how the rules are flawed would at least make people think. And maybe even make a change to the rules so that it was made clear what the Hugos see as shorty form.
Re: Yes, I wrote the post you are reffering to.
Medium version: Many people want absolute, hard-edged, no-possible-variance rules. It's so much easier to think about things that way. But reality isn't hard-edged; it's fuzzy. So our rules are written with fuzz on the edges and we let the voters decide where edge cases belong whenever possible. They did so, and the administrator followed the voters' instructions, and that's why nobody complained except you.
Long version: The Hugo Administrators will report if they actually move a nominee from one category to another; that is, if the voters nominate it in one category but they move it to another. But they will generally not say anything if a work is nominated somewhere in the gray zone.
Because of the gray zone on dramatic presentation, Short Form works can be as long as 108 minutes, and Long Form works can be as short as 72 minutes. Yes, technically this means that the "Long Form" work could be shorter than the "Short Form" work, such as a two-part Doctor Who episode competing against a relatively short theatrical motion picture. That's okay. (And before you even start: trying to split the category by medium, such as television/motion pictures, ends up reducing the total field, since such a split eliminates all other media such as audio dramas, live plays and similar presentations such as dramatized slide shows, and yes, YouTube videos, all of which have been nominated in the past.)
Had the voters nominated the relevant episode in Long Form and the administrator moved it to Short Form, the administrators would have reported the move; however, since the voters decided that they think it's a short form work and it's legal for it to be in that category (being less that 108 minutes), the administrator left it alone.
This is completely legal, totally within existing precedent, follows the voters' preferences, and isn't a scandal or a controversy, except to you. The rules aren't flawed, except to you, because you've decided that if something is 89:59 long it's short form, absolutely and completely, and if it's 90:01, it's long form, totally and utterly, and There Shall Be No Divergence From Your Decisions. Well, no, not unless you're the Hugo Award Administrator, which you're unlikely to be, since Hugo Administrators are usually selected with a preference toward people who can see shades of gray. (I speak from experience here.)
There's a 20% gray zone between the two dramatic presentation categories for the same reason that there's a 20% gray zone between the four written fiction categories: works in the boundary region aren't cut and dried. The wording of dramatic presentation strongly suggests that television shows should be in short form unless they exceed 108 minutes (which gets them into "three-parter" or mini-series territory) and that theatrical motion pictures should be in Long Form unless they're shorter than 72 minutes (which makes them "short films" instead). The Administrators didn't do anything wrong; indeed, they followed all existing precedent and legislative history on this category. That that is why not one word was mentioned about this before the WSFS Business Meeting.
But you know, there is a method of redress if you're really convinced that there is some Great Catastrophe going on: Propose amendments to the WSFS Constitution that force administrators to behave the way you think they should behave. This is not unprecedented. The current wording of the Dramatic Presentation categories is the result of an amendment made when a borderline dramatic presentation was moved into Short Form when many (including me) thought it belonged in Long Form despite being only 87 minutes (or so) long. So if you feel strongly enough about it, submit a proposed change to next year's WSFS business meeting. It's not like there's some secret, select board of directors making the rules; every member of Worldcon can propose changes.
Re: Yes, I wrote the post you are reffering to.
3.2.10: The Worldcon Committee may relocate a dramatic presentation work into a more appropriate category if it feels that it is necessary, provided that the length of the work is within twenty percent (20%) of the new category boundary.
There's no mention in these rules of accepting nominees that are ineligigible when nominated. Reading the rules makes it seem that a UK double episode can only be moved to the short form category if it is correctly nominated in the long form category. I might be wrong as you say, but by the rules available, I am right.
My point being there should be a definition of short form that includes, or excludes, long arc television series. What is short form? Will the "Game of Thrones" series be categorised as one arc (,following the definition of story in the novel category that allows novels split into two to be counted as one story). Or will nominations of single episodes be counted? What about a three episode miniseries? It would be a little over two hours if it was US, where do the Hugos stand on that, short or long?
Counting Nominations
Only because you're reading the rules every woodenly, out of context, and with a pre-defined destination: You appear to want rules that make everything prohibited except for specifically permitted functions, whereas our rules are primarily written to allow anything not prohibited. But it's very fannish (and not in a good way) to try and treat rules as if they were a computer program, even though that's not possible in the real world.
DP: Long Vs Short
It's not just novels, but any multi-part work of any length, but yes, that's the rule that almost certainly will be applied. People griped about Blackout/All Clear being allowed onto the ballot as a single work. I wonder if they would have complained if it had instead been published a long serialized novel in the pages of one of the SF/F magazines?
But to answer your question, I expect Game of Thrones to be treated as one long work, because I can't see many people nominating it any other way.
If most of the voters nominated only single episodes, then I expect that the administrator would count those. But since this is highly unlikely, it hardly matters. Outliers aren't that important. Lots of strange stuff gets one or two nominations, and administrators don't bother ruling on cases that don't matter.
Assuming the episodes are "one hour," such as a three part episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to give a concrete example, then the total running time would exceed 108 minutes and therefore the only category in which it would be eligible would be Long Form. If a lot of people nominated it in Short Form, the administrator would (if possible) probably exercise the section 3.8 authority to move nominations to the other category.
This isn't really a difficult problem the way you seem to think there is, and there's even precedent: an entire season of Heroes was treated as one long multi-part story and thus nominated as a single long-form dramatic work. And the full run of Game of Thrones is obviously more than 108 minutes long, so it can't be short form. This isn't a difficult question, because it's not in the gray zone at all. (Nor is your hypothetical example.)
It's only when something in in the gray zone between 72 and 108 minutes where you have to make a judgment call, and the long-standing precedent, reinforced by many WSFS business meeting actions, is that you follow the voice of the voters unless it's impossible for you to do so. Anytime an administrator overrides the voters on anything other than a very clear technical issue (a work published in the wrong year, or clearly outside of the gray zone), the business meeting has stepped in and passed new rules that say, in effect, "You shouldn't have done that, and we're going to change the rules to make sure you can't do it again."
Okay, look, it would be possible to include thousands of additional words on the Hugo Awards ballot encapsulating the years of debate that went into adopting the current rules, but nobody would read it and it wouldn't do any good.
The reason I'm so exasperated is that you appear to be thinking that you've discovered something brand new that nobody in the history of the universe has ever noticed before, when in fact all you are doing is rehashing arguments that have been going on for more than a decade. I know they're new to you, but from the point of view of WSFS, they're pretty much settled law.
Re: DP: Long Vs Short
Again you are discarding my point that it is NOT law when the rules don't reflect it. I tried to highlight the discrepancy between the written rules and reality. Your point about the committee, from what you say, being able to set the written rules aside is just proof that the criticism of the Hugos as being "out of touch" is correct.
Re: DP: Long Vs Short
But you've picked out a few words and decided that's all there is, and of course you know better than anyone else, so none of the rest of the WSFS Constitution matters, nor does years of precedent. All that matters is that one sentence you found, nothing else.
I challenge you again to come up with something that cannot possibly be misinterpreted, especially by someone like you, who wants to find a misinterpretation.
What Is A Fan?
Be careful going down that path. You'll discover eventually that there are plenty of people ready to tell you that you're not a fan (nor am I) for any number of reasons. I'll quote a few if you want examples.
Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
And I stand by what I said about Hugo fandom being a separate thing from SFF fandom. Of course Hugo fandom is composed of SFF fans, but they are not exactly seeking out and interacting with other SFF fans, and I think (, I'll specify that this is my personal opinion, even though it is the opinion I see voiced by far more SFF fans than the number of voters for the Hugos,) that is a valid criticism of the Hugos. If you are a part of Hugo fandom and want the Hugos to be relevant to SFF fans generally, you should listen to them. By focusing on how "good" fans you are instead of answering my criticism of Hugo rules you are just proving that you are not a part of SFF fandom as it exist today, and that the criticism of the Hugos as being voted by a closed group is correct.
And I'll be even more precise when it comes to my opinion of Hugo fandom. I think they are dedicated SFF fans. But they are a smaller and smaller percentage of SFF fans, and it seems that they are refusing to accept that by their reactions to the much larger group of online SFF fans criticisms of their award as being irrelevant to what their opinion is.
So, can you give me an answer to as why the Hugo rules are not in synch with what is actualy nominated? I'll myself from a comment I did on my post: "I think that if you have rules, you should stick to them."
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
If you think you are the Voice of Fandom, then go out and set up your own awards to be decided by Real Fans and see how many people pay attention to you.
They are, but you don't realize it because you want to take things out of context to support your pre-defined conclusion. You're not allowed to take rules out of context (which you're doing by only looking at a few of them). You have to include the entire rules, and generally speaking precedents are going to influence how the administrators rule on things.
As I said earlier, it would be possible to include thousands of words of discussion on interpretation, history, and precedent with the ballot, but since nobody would read it, it is a waste of time and paper. WSFS isn't going to add thousands of words to the ballot to please one person who isn't even a member of the organization.
Writing constitutional rules is much more difficult than you think it is. I commonly use the toothpaste-tube analogy: The harder you squeeze, the messier it gets.
Why don't you try writing rules that don't amount to, "Do what I personally say, since I know better than everyone else, and nobody would ever question my judgment. Just submit every work to me and I'll tell you whether it's eligible or not." Since that's obviously silly, what we actually do is let every individual make his or her mind up about whether he or she thinks the work is eligible, and then only have the administrators get involved in clearly out-of-bounds situations.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
As I said in my earlier comment, you're welcome to go set up your own awards for Real Fans. Just don't call them "Hugo Awards" or give out rocket-shaped trophies. Who knows, maybe your Real Fandom Awards will be such a hit that nobody will ever pay any attention to the Hugo Awards ever again. But somehow I doubt that you'll go to the effort, since it's easier to complain that other people should change to suit you.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
I have nor said the Hugos should change, but I say that if they want to continue to be relevant they must.
And thank you for confirming that Hugo fans are a bunch of close minded elitists that are more worried about being important than being inclusive with your comments.
Saying I'm out of context by quoting the actual rules that someone who has paid $50 to vote has to go by is really idiotic. If you have a committee that can discard the rules you can just as well have that committe decide the winners and drop all pretence of it being a vote.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
You're so convinced that you know better than everyone else: how would you write the rule? Remember, you have to write it in such a way that NOBODY can misinterpret it, take it out of context, or twist it in a way that you never intended. You have to be perfect. Good luck.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Of course I wouldn't know that, since it is not part of either the Hugo rules or the Hugo facs (that I have checked).
And I have never said I know better than anyone, I am just highlighting a discrepancy between what can be found out about the Hugos by anyone looking online and what seems to be Hugo reality.
As for what is cnsidered long form and short form dramatic presentation, I don't see the problem in adding to the rules that a UK double episode (,that will always be over 90 mins as opposed to a US double episode that is always under 90 mins,) is defined as short form. And I do think that a TV series with a long arc should be defined in the Hugo rules as to which category it belongs to. -As an example, if the end of season five of Doctor Who was a three episode story, would that still be short form, or would it be defined as long form?
And back to the original post on my blog; couldn't the Hugo committe just have stated that The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang was accepted as short form? That would at least remove any problem I had with it winning.
And I have to also say that a rule will always be open to misinterpretation, but that does not excuse a written rule being at odds with reality.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Discussing generalities is easy. Writing rules is hard Write a rule. You've seen the WSFS Constitution. Now write a rule in the proper parliamentary form that codes the rules the way you think they should be written.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Secondly, what I'd like to see added to the rules is either a definition at the end of 3.2.8 that includes double episodes (or even triple) or that excludes them. Personally I'd also like a definition in the written rules of whether episodically presented stories are considered long form or short form. I used Game of Thrones as an example, and I think that is relevant for next year. Is it 10 short form presentations or one long form presentation?
I don't see the big problem in making this clear in the written rules. But I can see that there will have to be a discussion as to what is short or long form, and I would like that discussion to be held in public (online) and not being confined to just a meeting.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Any television program or other production, with a complete running time of 90 minutes or less, in any medium of dramatized science fiction, fantasy or related subjects that has been publicly presented for the first time in its present dramatic form during the previous calendar year.
Any story that is presented in episodes of under 90 minutes will be considered as short form, and belongs to this category.
Alternativly:
Two or more episodes of a TV show that are part of a story will be defined as long form if they exceed 90 minutes, and nominations of such story should be done in the long form category.
Tinkering With BDP
Re: Tinkering With BDP
Re: Tinkering With BDP
Re: Speaking For Fandom
I guess it would hurt to actually take note of my point that the Hugo rules are just guidelines, and that it is up to the committee to abide by them. But I guess being part of the "Hugo crowd" is more important to you than being part of the discussions that SFF fans want about them. I don't expect you to give me any more answers, because you have already made it clear that I'm not part of the people who matters as I only have the written Hugo rules to go by and is not part of any decision that is taken by a small group who doesn't think their decisions should be made public (aka the Hugo committee).
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Yes, you have the written Hugo rules to go by. And you're ignoring most of them. You're taking a single sentence of a long document without reading the rest of the document. I'm angry because you can't see that it's not possible to write rules so that every sentence is completely self contained and impossible to misinterpret.
I'm trying to answer your questions, but you're so convinced of the Deep Dark Conspiracies that you're ignoring my answers.
I've spent more than twenty years working with WSFS, trying to refine the rules, and it frustrates me when someone comes in, finds one sentence he dislikes, ignores the rest of the document, and decides that everything is broken.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
I have absolutely no problem with not agreeing with the Hugo rules, but I have a problem with what seems to be the Hugo committee not being obliged to follow the writtenm Hugo rules. Rule 3.3.8 seems to exclude the Doctor Who double episode, and the rules don't seem to accept ineligible nominees. Rule 3.2.10 seems to be only for moving eligible nominees to another category, not allowing an ineligible nominee on the final ballot. I might be missing something here, but not being on any committee I have only the written rules to go by, and I can't see why they should be twisted if they exist. From your explenation it seems that there should be only one rule: 1.1 The committe makes the rules, you are irrelevant and should shut up!
Re: Speaking For Fandom
What this means is that you, the voter, should nominate a work in the category you think it should fit. Within some specific restrictions, the administrator will attempt to count your vote. In practice, it means "If the voters think it's a short form dramatic work and it's less than 108 minutes long, leave it there."
This is not "the committee makes the rules" — if anything, it is "the committee follows what the voters tell us to do unless we're explicitly prohibited from doing so."
And this is why I'm so exasperated. You're accusing the Hugo Administrators (which I am not, although I was in the past -- 1993, 1994, and 2002) of ignoring the voters and just doing anything we please when in fact the Administrators bend over backwards to do what the voters want unless it's impossible for them to do so. (Say, when a work published in a prior year is nominated.)
This has been going on not just in dramatic presentation, but also in the four written-fiction categories, forever. I'm sure that if you dug through the hundreds of nominees in the past, you'd find a "short story" that was slightly more than 7500 words long or a novella that was slightly less than 15,000 words long, but in all cases the works were in the gray zone and were there because the voters said they should be there. Indeed, the last time an administrator explicitly moved a novellette to short story (explicitly allowed under the rules), there was a huge hue and cry over ignoring the will of the voters.
Basically, when the administrator does what the voters say they want done, there's rarely any controversy. What would have been controversial, and widely criticized, would have been disqualifying those "too long" Doctor Who episodes or moving them to Long Form. Instead of just one person insisting that there was an ineligible work on the ballot, there would be hundreds of people furious that the Administrator was ignoring the will of the electorate on what would be considered specious technical grounds.
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
Re: Speaking For Fandom
BDP: Short vs Long