На 1 август в пощата си Кал wrote:За всеки, който си мисли, че нашите НФН са имали проблеми: елате да
видите резултатите от Хюготата. Започвайки с Best Related Work... :///
И така:
В Discord сървъра на CoNZealand Кал wrote:Anyone here who voted for the Hugos and wants to discuss them from a more critical perspective?
Particularly the Best Related Work category?
Looking at the winner (a very short speech) vs. the other nominations (four full-length books and a documentary), I started wondering what people vote for. A work's impact? Its content? Or something else? And to what extent are they familiar with the other nominations before doing their final choice?
(That last question was prompted by an observation that both JMS's autobiography and The Lady from the Black Lagoon (and even Joanna Russ) seem to fall in the same ballpark as Ng's speech, content-wise.)
silvaubrey wrote:I need some more thinking about this, but I think we as a fandom need that boost from Jeanette Ng's win. I mean, even the hosting fiasco itself has shown that we still have a long way to go. I did vote for JMS's book 1st, but I can see the benefit of the current winner.
Just today I watched an excruciating panel with a female POC panelist got talked down by a white male panelist- the chat room was really angry - so yeah....I am for it.
Кал wrote:I've always believed that we should support the work and effort of others--especially when they're trying to set injustices straight or shed light on less visible aspects of our world. When I look at the six nominations, I see a vast disparity in the amount of work involved. Actually, my first reaction was, "So ... now we reward scandal over effort? Like, uh, the rest of the Internet?" That's why I'd really like to hear more people's reasoning. (This morning, I mentioned on the panel on Buldingromans and growing up in YA novels that part of growing up is learning to challenge your own beliefs. The situation with the Best Related Work votes has challenged some of my deepest beliefs. I'd like to learn from it, and perhaps even grow up. I hope it can do the same for other people, too.)
And Becoming Superman is a particularly poignant example of a life devoted to setting things straight. Just think about Sense8.
Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:For me, it is not just the effort, but the impact. After all, if we look back on this time in 20 years (or in 5), will we see the speech as a catalyst in recognising and actually changing some of the more harmful or exclusionary behaviours in our community? I think so.
I suppose much of it comes down to how each voter defines "Best" for themselves. Most personally resonant? Most effort in? The thing that is most likely to still be referred to 20 years down the line?
Кал wrote:How much weight do you put on impact vs. how much on effort? I don't believe it's just effort myself. My problem with Ng's speech is that (if I remember correctly) it took all of five minutes to write. Whenever we reward that, why should anyone even strive to do the work?
Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:Unless we get to a point where 5-minute works (and I think writing a speech actually takes much more than the time of delivery) are consistently winning, I'm not overly concerned about people choosing to stop working on longer things.
Mike C wrote:I wouldn't accept the '5 minutes to write' argument - those 5 minutes were the product of many years of practice and refining her craft
Louise Hughes (UK) wrote:The last few years have seen We Have Always Fought and Archive of Our Own winning, and I saw Ng's speech as part of that trend. It was about the field now rather than about looking back. Best Related Work is a difficult category to define, so we end up having to define it ourselves every year.
Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:People will still create around what they love, whether that's books or speeches or archives.
Mike C wrote:I think the difficulty in defining "Best Related Work" is part of its value - we need a category which is fluid and dynamic
Кал wrote:Thank you for answering some of my questions above. I think this one still remains unanswered: To what extent are voters familiar with the other nominations before doing their final choice?
Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:That I suspect comes down to the voter
How many voters actually read all of the nominees in Best Series?
As in, all entries in each series?
Louise Hughes (UK) wrote:I will admit to not reading everything in the category because I focussed on fiction. But then, my personal definition of the category comes down to what the works are and represent rather than their contents specifically. Which...may just be an excuse for not having the time.
Кал wrote:I think that's precisely where my problem lies. Many of the other works in the Best Related Work represent the same issues--only in greater depth and breadth.
JMS goes as far as to expose the Nazist streak that has forever marred the family he grew up in, and what it cost everyone around him.
Which is really funny when you put it side by side with Ng's speech.
Кал wrote:@Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) I didn't, and I didn't vote in that category. But I'm curious to hear your particular answers: how about you yourselves?
Louise Hughes (UK) wrote:I voted for Ng.
I didn't vote for Best Series because I didn't get to all the works. In every other category I voted in, I read all the works.
However, without the need to vote, they probably wouldn't have even crossed my path. I saw the speech live and it had impact in the field I interact with.
So suppose it goes back to the wider effect of the work, as it did with We Have Always Fought and Archive of Our Own.
Кал wrote:At any rate, I highly recommend
Becoming Superman: it's the most fictiony non-fiction--in terms of liveliness and sheer enjoyment--I've ever read, save for David Zindell's
Splendor. (Oh, and it's full of terrible things happening--but not breaking one's spirit.) Now that the deed is done
, we can at least honor the rest.
Jan van't Ent wrote:I'm also into the more popular categories and don't read much non-fiction. In fact I never read all the works in a category I vote on. If I didn't get to read/see something, I don't vote for it. Simple.
I tend to see the Hugo Awards as a popularity contest, thus the easily obtainable works have the best chance of getting to me. And Ng's speech was pretty unavoidably clearly rememberable too.
Кал wrote:Which brings me to my other quandary: What makes a particular thing popular? If it's us people/audiences--are we happy to go for the easy choices? What kind of world does that lead to? (I'm asking these questions as someone who helped run the Bulgarian national awards for speculative fiction 3 years in a row; and I've banged my head against similar situations and questions for at least 20 years.)
Because in a popularity contest, a scandal should always prevail over a more subdued entry, right?
Jan van't Ent wrote:That isn't new. Not sure how to change it in a world that is going with social media popularity. I can only do what feels fair to me.
If you look at the internet, most people want most everything for free. Admittedly even in the fiction categories I've only read the short stories because of the free Hugo bundle.
I dunno that a scandal should always prevail. But yes, it does attract attention.
Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:I'm not sure it would. If a scandal makes people feel bad, it might attract attention but repulse voters (of course, it would probably also repulse nominators).
But publicity and familiarity certainly help, and I suspect that many voters this year were present at the speech last year or heard about it soon thereafter.
It's also to do with distribution - if the people to whom the speech appealed were only interested by the speech, they probably all voted for it. If the interests in the other items were more spread out across multiple works, it would have correspondingly spread out the voting.
Which, if I'm reading the stats right, is about what happened.
Tommy Persson wrote:Why should "impact" matter? That is not something I consider when deciding the best work.
Кал wrote:@Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) Doesn't that even out during the later stages of the ballot counting? I mean, if a lot of people voted for any of the longer works in higher positions than the speech, wouldn't their votes eventually surpass the speech?
Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:@Tommy Persson If we look at "Best of" lists, it is often the longest-standing items, i.e. those that have had the greatest impact and are still remembered X months or years later. Some people may choose to use similar criteria when voting on a single year's awards.
Obviously, every voter is entitled to use their own criteria, but this may be where some of the disconnect is happening.
khrister wrote:If I'm reading the stats right, 150 people voted either only Ng or Ng first and No Award second. It's a lot easier and faster to consume than the books, that's probably part of the reason. (Personally I had JMS first and Ng second, both were worthy winners in my mind).
Кал wrote:@Tommy Persson What do you consider when you vote? (I myself consider personal impact: how much the work affected me as a person. Plus the effort involved, the stylistic qualities, the content--especially in shedding new light on unfamiliar subjects or adding new perspectives--and a few other things.)
Tommy Persson wrote:How well written it is, how good the arguments are, how interesting it is, how well it works as a "related work", and so on. With impact I did not mean impact on yourself, I meant impact on the world.
Louise Hughes (UK) wrote:It's impossible to say however, whether anyone watched the speech specifically for voting, or if we all voted because we remembered it and it's impact.
Jan van't Ent wrote:@Kalin M. Nenov problem is that most people don't read all the works in non-fiction category (same as they don't read all the magazines and works that have been edited in a year) and then only vote for the few they know about; if everyone just voted their favourite as #1, and the Ng speech #2, it wins.
Кал wrote:Yeah, that may explain things.
But voting "No Award" in a category where we have NOT considered all the nominations is a particularly disappointing choice. What are we telling the creators of those works?
Jan van't Ent wrote:That you care for that one vote very, very much, perhaps?
But that's an emotional response; the voting mechanism can handle that if it's only a few.
Кал wrote:Is that how the Hugo system really works? I thought your second, third, etc. choices didn't affect the chances of your first choice.
Tommy Persson wrote:Ayn Rand's writing have had a lot of impact on the world, does that mean people would have voted her work as "best"? I really do not get it? Badly written work can have a lot of impact.
Jan van't Ent wrote:@Kalin M. Nenov Not quite. That depends on how everybody else votes. After the first round the item with least number of votes disappears, possibly taking away your #1 vote, leaving your #2 vote on top.
Кал wrote:Well,that was close to my point. When your first choice is gone anyway, why would it matter to you about your next choices?
The way I see a "No Award," it says: I've seen those other nominations, and they aren't good enough for me.
Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:If I love choice A, hate choice B, and am ambivalent about C and D, I will rank appropriately. In that situation, I only really like one, but I care about the results of the others.
khrister wrote:This year I didn't No Award anything. I haven't since the puppies, I believe.
Кал wrote:I No Awarded a lot, because there were a lot of nominations I didn't like enough.
But I always made sure to give each a fair chance first.
Jan van't Ent wrote:Like I said, it's an emotional issue. If you feel enough for just the one thing, and wouldn't like the award to go tot anyone else, you could do it. It isn't really fair...
Other's may have done that too. Perhaps they simply hate non-fiction?
khrister wrote:Only 20 people put No Award at the top.
And 11 had Ng first and then No Award.
Кал wrote:As long as they've tried reading/watching those nominations first, I'm totally okay.
My point above was, if we No Award a nomination we haven't even tried, we send a very disheartening message to the nominee. "We didn't bother to look at you, but we don't like you anyway."
Jan van't Ent wrote:Can be interpreted as 31 people care enough about the awards to vote, but want to go on without this specific award; 11 voting for Ng because they cared about her outcry.
Louise Hughes (UK) wrote:Some people No Award for categorisation reasons, so they may have been saying "these other works are good but we don't think that's what this category should be".
I can't remember if I've ever No Award-ed for "no accessible and functional version of these works has been provided for me to consider", but I've thought about it when given a three chapter, watermarked pdf for a work I can't yet legally purchase.
Кал wrote:Haha, I used all of my willpower NOT to do that. Even when converting the PDFs on my smartphone app....
Joking aside, at least those nominees tried to give us something.
...
plainjane wrote:Кал wrote:is that (if I remember correctly) it took all of five minutes to write
I can do some things very quickly, but it took me years of lived experience to get to that point. I am reminded of the probably apocryphal story of Picasso and the sketch of a dove
Кал wrote:Hi Jeannette! Nice to meet you.
I did not mean to attack your work personally; I was raising a question about the reasons we voters vote for a particular nomination. Also, I'm sure that every nominee in that category has taken a lifetime of lived experience to get to the point of writing/filming what they did.
plainjane wrote:Thanks, I'm not Jeannette - I'm saying I personally can do some things quickly that others can't do as quickly. Similarly I don't discount Jo Walton's Farthing because she wrote it very quickly, or reward another book because it took a very long time
Кал wrote:Ah, sorry about the confusion.
So what do you personally look for in the nominations you vote for? And how many of them do you consider before making your final choice?
That got no response.
Martin Pyne wrote:Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:How many voters actually read all of the nominees in Best Series?
I actually did this but it was only possible because I had a decent head start going in - I finished on July 16, I think.
Marguerite (CNZ WSFS, Glasgow) wrote:Which is totally wonderful. I don't mean to imply that nobody manages to read them all, just that it's one of the categories that fewer people will have a fully-informed background on due to the sheer time / money involved in reading so many books.
Morgan Hazelwood wrote:I won't vote in a category unless I've read/watched all of the items. Or at least the majority of a series
Rebecca wrote:I also voted Becoming Superman #1 (and Arwen Curry's doc #2) but after the hosting fiasco, I was happy Ng won
BlazingSaddle wrote:For the record I'm fine with Ng's win. It wasn't my first choice but between the Retro win and GRRM going on and on about Campbell it felt sort of cathartic
Douglas Spencer wrote:The win for Ng is the perfect counterpoint to all that other nonsense.
This is what happens if you let everybody vote -- and, therefore, this is exactly what ought to happen.
What a disappointing year it would be if all my first choices won. What a shortage of new-things-to-learn that would represent.
Tommy Persson wrote:Well, if you only vote if you have read all works in the category it does not matter who wins. I only vote if I at least have started reading all works (related works) and for the top four a I always read everything before voting.
...
Irina wrote:Late to the party but I vote for things I've at least started to read/watch. If I haven't seen it at all I simply leave it off the ballot (meaning that in both dramatic categories there was only one thing on my ballot; one of them won).
Not on the ballot = I missed it, it didn't interest me but there's probably nothing wrong with it (dystopian/postapoc, milSF and horror go here) and/or it wasn't provided in a format I could access (netgalley links go here)
No Award = I'm offended that the things below this line exist (Puppies go here, I haven't voted No Award since Helsinki)
Kai Wodicka wrote:One thing I haven't seen anyone mention in the context of Ng's speech is the bravery it took. There is real, genuine effort in - as a new author - standing up in front of your primary audience and saying words that you believe they will find offensive to their traditions.
Holly Becker wrote:I also only vote in categories where I've read most entries, which meant that since my life kinda exploded this spring I only voted on Novella (since I'd read most of the entries already) and Short Story (could read them all at the end of the nomination period).
Кал wrote:@Kai Wodicka Above, I gave the example of JMS exposing the Nazi secret in his own family. There're a LOT of other brave things in that autobiography
Kai Wodicka wrote:I never said there weren't. All I said was that I didn't see that particular thing brought up in the discussion. If it was, and I missed it, I apologize.
KJB wrote:Douglas Spencer wrote:The win for Ng is the perfect counterpoint to all that other nonsense.
Though I'd have rather not had the other nonsense. Ng's speech was true and important, but I think renaming the award should have been sufficient acknowledgement - if the toastmaster had actually
used the Astounding name.
Stefan B wrote:Hi I don't vote in a category if I didn't have at last tried everything in a category. No awards is for thinks I really don't want to win. I used it 4 times this year(2 winners) and I voted in everything except the editors. Yes I did only read a excerpt in most Series. I thought this was fair.
My reason for no awards: I found this boring (perhaps the harshed), I couldn't get in this series, and I read an expert and had not a bit of stuff in it that made me continue, the last was a bit complicated.
The last was I know the writing on this was good, but the ending left me completely numb. I can't care for the main character anymore and I will never pick up the continuation.
... And then the conversation drifted away.
За сметка на това голяма част от победителите в новозеландските фантастични награди Sir Julius Vogel Awards бяха фантастични. Като цяло – в пъти по-мой тип от „световните“ лауреати.
Изводи?