Lela Buis comments on the new Dragon Awards:
I see today that DragonCon has announced they will give out awards in 2016. This is kind of a biggie. DragonCon is a huge convention, with an annual on-site attendance of about 70,000 people. The press release says the awards will be based on nominations and votes from all fans, not just attendees or members, through an open system. They’re apparently going to run this off their Website where voters can register to vote.
Contrast this attendance figure with WorldCon that gives out the Hugo Awards. Wikipedia lists 4,644 attendees and 10,350 who bought memberships to vote the 2015 Hugo Awards, which was a record for numbers. With DragonCon moving into the awards game, I’m thinking the Hugo’s are officially undermined. The Puppy scandal has not only disrupted the voting system, but it seems to have led to an inspection of the Hugo process where works are winnowed through a narrow review and recommendation system and onto the ballot.
While most people aren’t going to swallow the Puppies’ complaints of a vast conspiracy whole, their grievances do seem to have resulted in concerns about the fairness of the process. WorldCon has scrambled to provide additional controls, but it could be that their credibility is already shot.
Yes, indeed, I think the Hugo Awards might have just taken a few hits over the last decade or two. In any event, I’m sure the science fiction fandom community is every bit as delighted about people taking their advice and setting up a new and alternative award as they were about people taking John Scalzi’s advice to nominate and vote for the Hugo Awards.
I am registered to vote in the Dragon Awards and I would encourage you to do so as well. I’ll post my recommendations here the week after the Hugo shortlist is announced, in the event that any of you might happen to be curious about them.
The funniest thing is the way a self-appointed Hugo Defender immediately popped up to white-knight for Worldcon in the comments at Lela’s site. That, more than anything, tells you how fandom actually feels about the new competition.
You wrote: “…it seems to have led to an inspection of the Hugo process where works are winnowed through a narrow review and recommendation system and onto the ballot.”
What does that mean? The Hugo Awards are nominated by the thousands of members of the World Science Fiction Society. How is that a “narrow review and recommendation system?”
Whatever does it mean, Mr. Standlee asks, even as the rules are changed to protect the perceived interests of the Tor Books cabal.