Hugos Vs Puppies IV: Wrath of the Rabid

Mere minutes after the nominations were announced, John Scalzi said that the Puppies were attempting to lead a parade that was already in motion, by nominating works of obvious quality that probably would have been nominated anyway.  George R. R. Martin made a similar observation:

    The Rabids used a new tactic this year. They nominated legitimate, quality works in addition to the dross. Works by writers like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, Alastair Reynolds,…Andy Weir, and several others. Some of these writers are apolitical (like Weir) while others are known to oppose everything that VD stands for (Gaiman, Stephenson, King).

This is a tacit admission that the Puppies are doing exactly what they claim to be doing–nominating “legitimate, quality works” based on “excellence in actual science fiction and fantasy,” regardless of the political stance of the nominated writer.

And while the bulk of the nominations are obviously for deserving works–Stephen King received his first nomination for over thirty years–several of them are…unique.

Two
Best Related Work nominations, however, are generally being overlooked
in the furor over My Little Ponies (and Chuck Tingle’s gay dinosaur
erotica in space), and those are much more problematic.  “The Story of
Moira Greyland” outs fantasy writer Marion Zimmer Bradley for abuse and
molestation, and “Safe Space as Rape Room” by Daniel Eness raises some
very uncomfortable questions about science fiction fandom.

Uncomfortable questions indeed. Questions which pedophandom is desperate to avoid asking, or being answered.

I find it fascinating that every single step along the way, SF-SJWs are always convinced that this time, surely this one more time, they will be able to stop me from pursuing my objectives. The Reverend 3.0 considers the growing movement to permaban the Puppies from participation in the Hugo Awards.

In a way, the Puppy Revolt could end up making things easier on the Controllers, because it gives them an excuse to seize control under the cover of protecting everyone from the Puppies. Not that this will stop the slow death of traditional publishing, but whatever.

Now, Vox wants us to believe he can use the proposed PermaBan rule against the Kickers. That remains to be seen, but the man has an excellent track record on these things.

I’m torn on whether or not Vox can pull that off. My gut tells me that this is at least partially a bluff, but I have no evidence and it runs counter to Vox’s pattern of saying what he will do and then doing it. But the gut will say what it says, regardless of reason.

Predictions Time:

-The Powers That Be will move forward with PermaBanning, and will implement it if they think they can get away with it.

-If PermaBanning is implemented, the Hugo base will go along with it.

-If Vox can flip PermaBanning on the PTB, I will give my gut a very stern talking-to.

These people must spend all their time posing, posturing, and bluffing, because every time I do what I tell them I am going to do, they’re astonished. Although it is amusing that they’re already abandoning hope in EPH, which they were certain was the answer last year.

Of course, I told them as much, in fact, I made it clear that I welcome the passage of EPH, as its implementation will mark the start of the second stage of the Pink SF-Blue SF cultural war. But an open ban would take us to the third stage even faster.

That being said, one has to credit Rev 3.0 for being correct in the essentials:

First, we can all appreciate how much of a brilliant predictor I am. Second, we can examine that perennial question: is Vox Day a legitimate threat or a paper tiger? I have said (over and over again) that he is a legitimate threat. The Establishment has said (over and over again) that he is a “toddler.” You be the judge.

Betting against the SJW Narrative is usually the safe bet. And then, of course, there is this:

If the 2016 Hugos are the Year of the Gay Space Raptor (ie, the
biggest talking point and what people remember it for), Vox knows what
he’s doing.

The Secret Masters of Fandom are retreating to what appears to be the science fiction community’s one and only tactic even before they see the effects of their first round of rules changes. From a Facebook discussion:

Kevin Standlee
A factor regarding invoking the convention Code of Conduct against Griefers (I’m looking at Christopher J Garcia and Sean Wallace in particular) and disqualifying their ballots and revoking their memberships that only came to me this morning:

The current Worldcon in Kansas City does have the right to regulate its own membership. They could, if they so choose, decide to revoke the memberships of individuals for just about any reasons unless it was prohibited by law. So in theory they could revoke the memberships of individual members who they believed were violating their Code of Conduct by the way they cast their Hugo Award nominating ballots.

However, what about the members of the Spokane and Helsinki Worldcons? All of their members as of January 31, 2016 were also eligible to nominate. Kansas City is obliged to honor those nominations as part of the WSFS Constitution, which is the “contract” under which MidAmeriCon II was granted the right to hold the 2016 Worldcon. MAC2 does not have jurisdiction over the memberships of the 2015 and 2017 Worldcons. They don’t have the right to revoke the memberships of members of either of those two conventions. If, as seems likely to me, most of the Griefers are coasting along on the memberships they bought to Sasquan, MAC2 doesn’t seem to me to have the right to ignore those persons’ votes — not unless they could somehow get the legal remnant of the 2015 Worldcon committee to revoke those persons’ memberships.

Yes, I know I’m being legalistic. That’s what I do. Throwing out the rule of law just because you don’t like how some people voted is IMO giving the Griefers exactly what they want — a plausible legal excuse to hammer the Hugo Awards and Worldcon with. They’re trying to goad us into an extra-legal response.

David Dyer-Bennet
Lacking the Arisians to identify and certify a reliable supply of “philosopher kings”, I think rule of law is our best choice, however annoying some of the intermediate steps may be.

Christopher J Garcia
It’s not about the votes – it’s about the use of the Hugos as a platform for a hate group..

Kevin Standlee
You’d need to withdraw the nominating rights from the previous/subsequent years’ members in order to give a single legal entity (the current Worldcon) the right to revoke the memberships (and thus not count the ballots) of the people you consider unworthy of voting, for whatever reason, including being part of what you’ve decided is a hate group.

Christopher J Garcia
It’s not about the voting. It’s allowing members of a hate group (and the Rabid Puppies qualify as such under the SPLC, ADL, and FBI definitions) to opperate within the awards. We are implicitly accepting their presence by not acting to remove them.

Kevin Standlee
No. You are only a member of WSFS for the current “Worldcon Year,” which runs from end of Worldcon to end of Worldcon. There are, however, residual rights that attach to past and future Worldcons of which you may be a member.

Kevin Standlee
I don’t dispute that there is a de facto hate group acting here. What I’m saying is that while an individual Worldcon may choose to revoke the memberships of its members for any non-prohibited-by-law reason, they cannot IMO legally revoke. Incidentally, one of the “residual rights” is to inspect the accounts of the Worldcon of which you were a member. The “sunshine clause” is rarely invoked, but it is in there.

Christopher Carson
It’s not about the votes, it’s not about the nominations — so you’re mad at an abstract concept?

Michael Lee
I could make the case that the code of conduct applies to all participants in an activity of a particular convention, and that the nomination phase is an activity not of three conventions, but of one particular convention, so that individual convention’s code of conduct would apply. And it is the responsibility of an individual convention to administer the Hugo Awards.

Kevin Standlee
Michael Lee I can see your point; however, I can also see that if I were a member of the previous Worldcon who had my vote tossed by the current Worldcon, I would have standing to sue to the current Worldcon for failing to abide by the terms of their contract (the WSFS Constitution).

Kevin Standlee
Codes of conduct aren’t mentioned in the WSFS Constitution, so it’s unclear just how much any one convention’s CoC can have jurisdiction over another convention’s members. In particular, look at this section of the WSFS Constitution:

Section 1.6: Authority. Authority and responsibility for all matters concerning the Worldcon, except those reserved herein to WSFS, shall rest with the Worldcon Committee, which shall act in its own name and not in that of WSFS. And that seems to me to give a Worldcon to regulate its own members, but not any other convention’s members.

Linda Deneroff
I thought well prior to 2012 the WSFS Constitution permitted the prior year’s worldcon members to nominate, but back before computers it was nearly impossible to make it practical or viable.

Kevin Standlee
Prior years’ members have been eligible to nominate since 1989. The subsequent year’s members were only extended the nominating privilege effective in 2012 (ratified in 2011).

Christopher Hensley
Which is why I am a little miffed at Sasquan. They actually had the power to do it, but they did not.

Linda Deneroff
20-20 hindsight is wonderful.

Christopher Hensley
To be fair, they are doing exactly what they said they would do since the nominating period opened last year.

Aaron Kashtan
Wouldn’t it be better to create a rule that the current Worldcon can, at its discretion, reject any Hugo nominee that threatens to bring the Hugos or Worldcon into disrepute? Like the rule that caused the rejection of the name Boaty McBoatface? I’m sure this idea has been suggested before.

Kevin Standlee
Such a rule would be legal, but it does not currently exist. And beware of rules that can be turned against you. However, if you want help crafting such a rule, contact me directly and I’ll help you write it. Convincing two consecutive WSFS Business Meetings to vote for it would be your problem.

Richard Man
 I think any NEW rule, would not help for 2016 (and of course not 2015) due to the ratification requirements. I think the WSFS charter founders are pretty crafty in makes things fairly democratic, within the limits of the charters. They just never expected influential arseholes.

Christopher Carson
Pretty sure fandom has never been short of “influential arseholes”.

Richard Man
… but ones that screw up the Hugos two years in a year ;-P?

Kevin Standlee
WSFS rules are designed with an assumption that people will act in good faith.

I’ve repeatedly said that WSFS operates much like the USA did for the first twenty years after it declared independence. The manifest flaws of the Articles of Confederation led to the adoption of the current much-stronger Constitution of 1787. But it took several years for that to happen, too, and the challenges facing the young USA were a lot worse than a bunch of bad actors trolling a literary award.

Dave O’Neill
I don’t think anybody expected any of the individual arseholes to actually have followers.

Kevin Standlee
True. And most of the individuals within Worldcon-attending fandom have been prepared to play within the _spirit_ of the rules as well as its letter. Heck, there were a couple of “puppy” sympathizers at the 2015 WSFS Business Meeting.

Dave O’Neill
I can assure you that his motion would have failed. There was no way it was going through. But yes, I recall him well. I also recall all the people of the opinion that this was a ‘one off’ and we shouldn’t do anything as they’ll get bored.

Kevin Standlee
That was only the second time that I’ve seen Adjourn moved in its debatable form in any situation other than routinely at the end of a day or of the session. The first time was when I made it myself many years ago (L.A. con III, as I recall) because I thought the people present didn’t want to go in to the nitty-gritty of a complex report I was presenting and wanted to put it off until the next day. I was wrong.

Mike Glyer
This kind of tortured logic undermines the much needed benefits of Codes of Conduct. Beware.

Christopher Hensley
The move away from a pure legalistic approach represents a major shift in the community over the last few years.

Kevin Standlee
Understood about the beware. Any committee wanting to invoke their Code of Conduct in this situation would have to consider balancing the harm done to itself by Griefers against the potential harm of dealing with a lawsuit from them.

Christopher Hensley
I also worry about the opposite. That they will try to nominate a work that while protected by the absolute speech protections inherent in US will run afoul libel or hate crime laws outside of it. If nothing else it would kill the packet, or require saying “we refuse to distribute this”. Possibly even cause problems with advertising the finalists. A certain title which make accusations about John Scalzi come to mind.

Kevin Standlee
Funny thing, that. Imagine such a case next year, in which Finnish and EU law applies. IMO, the committee would be totally justified in disqualifying such a work, because local law always trumps the WSFS Constitution.

Mike Glyer
It’s reasonable to anticipate that they will keep moving down the continuum, finding more transgressive works to nominate. They would do it anyway, and if EPH is effective in limiting their impact, would want to devote the slots they get to items that …

Kevin Standlee
Me, too, and it was one of the reasons I didn’t like trying to invoke it as a legitimate reason to disqualify nominations, members, or finalists.

Christopher Hensley
There are two questions in my mind. One are their actions, which are clearly an ongoing campaign of harassment. The other is the works themselves. It should be a much higher bar on that but not an impossible one. What happens when they nominate non-fiction works which promote violence against LGBT persons, racial minorities or Muslims?

Dave O’Neill
Surely the administrators have some wiggle room in those situations? If not then there does need to be a disrepute clause brought in.

Kevin Standlee
I don’t really see much room for maneuver by the Administrators. Every individual natural person is eligible to become a member by existing rules.

Dave O’Neill
I was thinking more if somebody nominated a hardcore porn SF parody or similar? Rather than dealing with members – I was under the impression the administrators had the final word in eligibility?

Christopher Hensley
Tingle’s stuff is more performance art then porn parody. He has a following that loves his over the top antics and hopelessly positive message. But yes, Tingle is absolutely backfiring on Day. He’ll say it was his plan all along but it is stealing his spotlight.

Dave O’Neill
well, I wasn’t actually thinking of Tingle then as, yes, it’s part of a gag. I was thinking more of a “Game of Boners” type stuff.

Mem Morman
What’s a “Griefer”?

Kevin Standlee
The people wanting to destroy the Hugo Awards by nominating a slate that includes a fair number of obviously awful things. In effect, the Rabid Puppies.

Dave O’Neill
Somebody who deliberately tries to spoil things for other players.

Dave O’Neill
Although I really think the Chuck Tingle thing is going to backfire spectacularly on Ted.

Christopher Hensley
“Griefing” originally a video gaming term referring to players who kill their own teammates in multiplayer.

Kevin Standlee
I like how it can be easily mistaken as Grifters, which seems appropriate to me given their Sooper Genius Evil Overlord.

Alfred Kruse
“And so it begins…”

Covert J Beach
I would consider canceling memberships based on nominations for the Hugo to be the Nuclear Option. I think this becomes a slippery slope to the point where the Cure will be worse than the Disease. This idea is another version of Strong Administrator, and should be invoked as a last resort and only in desperation. In theory bad ideas should be trampled in the free marketplace of ideas. The Griefers as you refer to them have found a mechanical way to make the marketplace less free (by packing the limited number of nominations.) Even if we can agree that this group needs to be dealt with, there comes the future time where someone with a hot button gets to make a well intentioned call that blows up in the convention’s face. The solution is to free up the marketplace of ideas. EPH+6/4 or Semi-final voting do this.

What I find so interesting about the SJW-SF reaction is that they simply never stop to question their basic assumptions or the effectiveness of their tactics. This all started when Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, appropos of a single syndicated op/ed column about Susan Estrich’s attack on Michael Kinsley, broached the possibility excluding me from the Nebula jury back in 2005. Then Patrick Nielsen Hayden and John Scalzi joined forces to force the SFWA Board to exclude me in 2013 by threatening to quit, after which the Hugo voters did their best to exclude me in 2014.

How has that worked out for them?

The SJWs in science fiction couldn’t imagine that we would take over the 2015 nominations. They were highly confident that we couldn’t dominate the nominations this year. And I have no doubt that they are absolutely certain we can’t possibly take over the Business Meeting.

Want to bet the Hugo Awards on that?

Go ahead, Secret Masters, make a special rule aimed at me and the Rabid Puppies a legitimate tactic at my disposal if you dare. This is your fair warning.

I always find it amusing how the media is always quick to point out that NK Jemisin is black, but they never seem to mention the fact that I am an American Indian. Perhaps I need to publicly exhibit more scalps. They also never get around to mentioning why I was criticizing the ignorant, half-savage Jemisin, which is because she is a) a low-IQ cretin, b) a liar, and, c) had repeatedly attacked me sans provocation or even knowledge of who she was.

Rabid Puppies leader Vox Day, a self-described libertarian, has criticized best-selling science fiction writer N.K. Jemisin, who is black, as  an “ignorant half-savage,” writing, “Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence to be found anywhere on the planet that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one without significant external support from those white males.”

George R.R. Martin has criticized both the puppies’ agenda and their aesthetic. “When the Hugo ballot came out last year, it was not just a right-wing ballot, it was a bad ballot,” he told the Guardian prior to Tuesday’s finalist announcement.

The Rabid Puppies, the more extreme of the two groups, this year created a slate of potential nominees that they urged Hugo voters to nominate. Out of 81 recommendations on that slate, 64 ended up shortlisted.

Day, who calls himself “Supreme Dark Lord, Evil Legion of Evil,” wasted no time in gloating. A news release sent by Day reads in part: “‘I’m not even remotely surprised to learn that the Rabid Puppies did so well,’ said Vox Day, as he mopped his brow with the flayed skin of an SJW after an arduous night of celebrating his fourth and fifth nominations.”

That being said, full props to Mr. Schaub, who did his research, provided a grammatically correct quote about Jemisin instead of a cherry-picked sentence fragment, and actually quoted the Bloggerblaster.

He’s not on our side, obviously, and yet it’s a much better article than most. The only thing he really got wrong is the idea that I expected Chuck Tingle’s nomination to outrage my critics. I don’t give a quantum of a damn what my critics thought about it. Some things are worth doing simply because they are amusing.

I should also point out that I don’t call myself “Supreme Dark Lord”. That is merely how I am acknowledged by the Evil Legion of Evil, and, of course, the Vile Faceless Minions.

Meanwhile, George RR Martin completely fails to realize that he is already playing my game as he contemplates the 2016 Hugo Awards:

The big winners were the Rabid Puppies, whose choices completely
dominated the list. The Rabids had nominees in every category, I
believe, and in a few categories they had ALL the
nominees…. The Rabids used a new tactic this year. They nominated
legitimate, quality works in addition to the dross. Works by writers
like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, Alastair Reynolds
(Reynolds went public well before the nominations asking NOT to be
slated, but they slated him anyway), Andy Weir, and several others. Some
of these writers are apolitical (like Weir), while others are known to
oppose everything that VD stands for (Gaiman, Stephenson, King). One has
to think they were deliberately targeted.

In some of
the online comments I’ve seen, these writers are being called “shields.”
I’ve even read some people calling for them to withdraw, simply because
they were on VD’s list.

Withdrawing is the LAST thing they should do.

I
urge them all to stand their ground. They wrote good books, stories,
graphic novels, they did NOT take part in any slate. In some cases they
were largely unaware of all this. In other cases they explicitly
denounced the slates ahead of time (Reynolds, again). Punishing them…
demanding they turn down this honor… simply because VD listed them is
insane.

Marko Kloos and Annie Bellet did the right
thing by withdrawing last year. Their was an ethical and courageous act;
I applauded them then and I applaud them now. But this is a different
year and a different situation. Given the well-known political views of
some of these writers, it seems plain to me that VD and the Rabids
picked them deliberately, in hopes they would withdraw, or would be
voted under No Award. They would probably have put Scalzi (VD’s best
bro) on the ballot too, but he outsmarted them and withdrew before they
could.

I am rather hoping that several of them win.
Based on quality alone, some deserve to. Sure, VD will claim that as a
victory, but as last year proves, he claims everything as a victory.
We’ll know the truth. The only real victory for him would be having any
of these fine writers pull out. Let’s not play his game.

It’s
always amusing to see people like Rape Rape, who has no idea
whatsoever  about my motivations, my strategies, or my objectives,
trying to declare what my victory conditions are, and how it is impossible for me to reach them.

I desperately want to win Hugos. I don’t care about the Hugos. I want to destroy the Hugos. It pains me to have to point out that they obviously can’t all be correct.

Allum Bohkari counts up the categories:

This year, the Sad and Rabid Puppies have done it again. Ten out of fifteen Hugo Award categories have been completely dominated by Puppy-endorsed nominees — double what the campaigns achieved in 2015. The Puppies have also secured three out of five nominations for Best Novel, three out of four nominations for Best Short-Form Dramatic Presentation, and three out of five nominations for Best Long-Form Editor.

In total, the Rabid Puppies swept six categories on their own, while a combination of Sad & Rabid puppy nominations swept a further four.

Some of the Rabid Puppies nominations this year — such as a My Little Pony episode for Best Short-Form Dramatic Presentation and a porn parody in Best Short Story — seem clearly intended as troll options, a demonstration of the Puppies’ power to exert their will on the awards.

That seems unlikely, considering that we have been repeatedly, and reliably, informed that the Puppies are irrelevant. I think the only convincing explanation is that no one can reasonably deny the literary merit of future science fiction classics such as “Space Raptor Butt Invasion”.

This comment from Al was enough to make even a dark lord smile:

What is weird about all this as that in the entire spectrum of the culture wars a group of scifi nerds, fantasy geeks and video game enthusiasts are winning……they are actually taking ground back from the left and they aren’t stopping for sh$t…these guys take scalps, burn their enemies bodies, and p!ss on their ashes and move on to the next target of total annihilation..they are unmerciful and brutal………beautiful…many people on the right should take notice…this is a case study in winning and what winning is……something the right sorely needs to learn….

Join the pack. We’ll teach you how to howl.