kevin_standlee

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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?

Current Mood: sad
Current Location: Fremont, California

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From:

ole a. imsen (from livejournal.com)

I'll quote the Hugo rules, as they appear online.

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?

From:

kevin-standlee.livejournal.com

There's no mention in these rules of accepting nominees that are ineligigible when nominated.

Actually, there is. Section 3.8 of the WSFS Constitution has rules regarding the tallying of nominations, including what to do when someone nominates in the "wrong" category.

I might be wrong as you say, but by the rules available, I am right.

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.

From:

kevin-standlee.livejournal.com

My point being there should be a definition of short form that includes, or excludes, long arc television series. What is short form?

In effect, any dramatic work less than 108 minutes long that the voters consider "short," generally including any "two part" or shorter television episode, but not including shorter theatrical motion pictures, and also including other shorter dramatic works not easily characterized as either television shows or theatrical motion pictures.

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).

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.

Or will nominations of single episodes be counted?

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.

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?

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.

From:

ole a. imsen (from livejournal.com)

"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."

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.

From:

kevin-standlee.livejournal.com

And you are reading the rules out of context and ignoring the rest of the WSFS Constitution, including the section that explicitly allows administrators to count nominations in what you would consider the "wrong" category.

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.