Interpreting Hugo Rules in a Vacuum

[kevin_standlee]

From Making Light, we have the story of a Wikipedia admin who is convinced that his out-of-left-field interpretation of the Hugo Award rules is more better than anyone who actually works in the field or writes those rules or maintains the official lists of winners.

Specifically, while technically a Hugo Award for one of the periodical categories is for the periodical work (Locus, Emerald City, Ansible, or in the case of Kathryn Cramer, The New York Review of Science Fiction) common usage (and common sense) refers to the editor or editors of that work as having been nominated or winning the Hugo Award. So, for instance, while the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine went to Emerald City, it's perfectly accurate and in keeping with accepted usage within the field to say that Cheryl Morgan won a Hugo Award.

Go read the discussion page on that article for this wiki-editor's somewhat askew opinion of how our awards work. I take it that by his definition, only the five "people" categories (Fan Writer, the two Artists, and the two Editors) are actually won by people. All of the rest are by works and the people responsible for those works aren't allowed to claim credit for them.

Edit, 23:10: Fixed the number and reference to "people" categories after johnnyeponymous pointed out my mistake.

Comments

[smofbbs.livejournal.com]

When a nominated work with two co-editors or two co-authors wins the Hugo award, do both editors or authors receive a statue at the ceremony? If so, that would be definitive evidence that the award is to the people who win.

[timill]

There is no rule; AFAIK custom and practice has been, at least recently, to provide one rocket per person.

BTW, Kevin, your edit needs re-editing :-)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Done. It was late and I was in a hurry. :)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

As timill said, recent custom and practice has been the provide one trophy per co-editor/co-author. This was not always the case, I understand, but in the 1950s and 1960s, I take it that the production costs of the Hugo Award trophies were a significant proportion of the total cost of running the Worldcon. Nowadays, those costs are nearly lost in the rounding, representing less than 1% of the cost of running the convention; therefore, we're less reluctant to build a couple of extras.

[timill]

See http://www.timill.co.uk/smofs/ch08.htm for the Discon (1963) balance sheet.

The "Hugos" line item is roughly $300 of the total $4000 budget (exc banquet tickets).