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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ole a. imsen (from livejournal.com)

I'll give a try at re-writing rule 3.2.8, or rather adding to it.

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.

From:

kevin-standlee.livejournal.com

You're on the right track, but I suspect that you'd not get either version past the Business Meeting, since they'd find ways to poke holes in it and since it would defeat the known legislative intent of the BDP split. Save yourself effort and don't try to ban "two parters" from Short Form. I know for a fact that the legislative intent of the current rule is that "two part" episodes belong in Short Form and "three part" episodes and "mini series" belong in Long Form. So concentrate on making things that fit that.

Let me see if I can format your proposal into the proper redlining form:

Moved, to Amend Section 3.3.8 of the WSFS Constitution to prohibit multi-part televised dramatic works from the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category if they are longer than 90 minutes, by adding words as shown:

3.3.8: 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. 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.

While you're at it, you should try striking out the 20% gray zone in the constitution as well, since you obviously don't believe in it. And be prepared to explain what you're going to do to absolutely determine the running length of a work, which would become critical for works that are right around 90 minutes. You may think it's simple; it's not. In fact, the main reason for that gray zone is that it's very difficult to determine running time (or word count) absolutely.

In short, you have a concrete proposal, but it has more holes in it that a block of Swiss cheese. (For example, there's a technical argument that you're amending Short Form but are referring to Long Form, so maybe it should be a general rule rather than written into a single rule. Except that you want to keep the words near the Short Form definition because you only want to look at rules in isolation, not in context.) This isn't likely to be obvious to you because you've not been through the wars on this, so I'm prepared to cut you some slack, but I warned you that it wouldn't be easy.

Your biggest problem with passing this, however, isn't technical: it's substantive. I can assure you that based on years of legislative history, WSFS doesn't want to kick "two part" episodes, even those that are slightly longer than 90 minutes, out of short form. You know how I know this? Because this isn't the first time that a >90-minute "two-parter" has been nominated in Short Form, and there's not been a squawk about it. The last time the issue was visited was when a theatrical motion picture of 87 minutes running length was nominated in Short Form when many (including me) think it should have been in Long Form, and we worked to add language to make it more likely that future similar films would be there.

From:

ole a. imsen (from livejournal.com)

Well, I have actually given some thought to the problem you state above. Unfortunately the solution is pretty drastic, namely altering the dramatic presentation categories. Instead of long form, have Dramatic Presentation -single presentation. I.e. any work that is not part of a series. (I can see the problem with this, as the Harry Potter films would be ineligible. And also it would make it hard for a short fil, but then again they could be a third dramatic presentation category.) And Dramatic presentation -serial presentation, a category that would include all TV series whether it was a single story arc or individual story episodes.
I realise that would not be ideal either, but I think it would be better. You would for instance have only one nomination for Doctor Who, and perhaps open up for series that are not deemed good enough on single episodes, but are better as a whole.

From:

kevin-standlee.livejournal.com

You aren't the first person to propose such drastic changes, but I'll warn you that trying to re-split BDP is unlikely to have enough votes to even get considered, let alone passed. (The Business Meeting can and does kill proposals without debate if 2/3 of the people there don't even want to talk about it by the process known as Objection to Consideration.)

Trying to split things by series/standalone has other problems. What if a movie comes out and wins a Standalone Hugo, and then they announce that the sequel is under production. Do we go back and strip the Hugo from the first movie because it's no longer standalone?

Dramatic Presentation was originally given to entire series — go look at the history — but in the 1960s the members decided that they wanted to award individual stories, not series as a whole.

Keep thinking about it. You'll probably find that fixing one problem creates another. Remember my warning about toothpaste tubes.