These Hugo Memes Never Get Old
Mar. 30th, 2013 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeWith the Hugo Award Nominations having been announced earlier today, I think it's time for me to point to my post from 2011 about Pernicious Hugo Memes. So far today, the one I've seen has to do with "popular" versus "good" as if the two were polar opposites.
Folks, the Hugo Awards are not the "awards by a tiny group of self-selected critics who have decided what Fine Art is." They are "the awards from the members of Worldcon who take the time to vote saying,'These are the things we like.'" And there were a record number of voters yet again this year, so clearly the enhanced franchise (the combined membership of the 2012-2014 Worldcons were eligible) and the increased attention the Awards have received is having an effect, as more and more people realize that the nominations are the place where the voters can have some of the biggest impact.
On the other hand, a big turnout and a very diffuse field can end up reducing the number of nominees, as we saw in Best Short Story, where once again there were only three nominees because the fourth and fifth-place works couldn't muster 5% of the votes cast in that category, the minimum required by the WSFS Constitution. I've already heard a suggestion that the 5% rule should be scrapped, but personally, I'm in favor of it, because if you have a distribution like 36, 28, 15, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, ..... those works in the "long tail" really don't belong on the ballot.
Folks, the Hugo Awards are not the "awards by a tiny group of self-selected critics who have decided what Fine Art is." They are "the awards from the members of Worldcon who take the time to vote saying,'These are the things we like.'" And there were a record number of voters yet again this year, so clearly the enhanced franchise (the combined membership of the 2012-2014 Worldcons were eligible) and the increased attention the Awards have received is having an effect, as more and more people realize that the nominations are the place where the voters can have some of the biggest impact.
On the other hand, a big turnout and a very diffuse field can end up reducing the number of nominees, as we saw in Best Short Story, where once again there were only three nominees because the fourth and fifth-place works couldn't muster 5% of the votes cast in that category, the minimum required by the WSFS Constitution. I've already heard a suggestion that the 5% rule should be scrapped, but personally, I'm in favor of it, because if you have a distribution like 36, 28, 15, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, ..... those works in the "long tail" really don't belong on the ballot.
