Comments on: More thoughts on The Hugos

By: John P.

John P. — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 21:58:00 +0000

Personally, I’m not sure that any awards are worth the paper they are printed on. The fact that something has won an award has never made me think “Oh, I’ll have some of that, it must be good.”

It’s not just music or literature, a lot if industry awards are based on the votes of a very narrow electorate which means that they are pretty much worthless. Round these parts we always joke that the signs saying “Bury’s World Famous Award Winning Market” should have the subtitle “as voted for by Bury Market Traders Association”

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 09:07:08 +0000

That’s only because they’ve exploited a weakness in the voting system – they represent something like 10-15% of the actual voters.

See my other post on voting systems.

By: PhoenicianRomans

PhoenicianRomans — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 01:28:47 +0000

The relevant question therefore is how large does a minority have to be before they can set a match to the thing. As far as I can tell, “two or three hundred” appears to be the answer demonstrated this year.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 06:56:03 +0000

Probably true that there are some people who just want to watch the whole thing burn, and there’s no point trying to make any accomodation with that camp. But I think they’re a minority.

By: PhoenicianRomans

PhoenicianRomans — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 01:35:15 +0000

“The broader SF world needs to find a constructive way forward which doesnâ€™t involve excluding significant sections of SFâ€™s readership.”

“Finding a way forward” assumes that all parties have an interest in a constructive solution to problems. If, for example, there is a significant group that want to see the Hugos burn down to the ground for the lolz, or another significant group that would rather blow the Hugos up than give up an informal gatekeeping veto, then there’s no way to “find a way forward” that doesn’t involve exclusion or neutering their power to affect the situation.