Where Are My Nutty Nuggets? I Want My Nuggy Nuggets!

"They told me there would be Nutty Nuggets!

The stated purpose of the slate administrators in Sad Puppy HQ (well, all except for Vox Day and Tom Kratman, who have stated they want to see the Hugo Awards destroyed), is for the Hugo Awards to  supposedly reflect the "will of the people" or something.  That the Hugo Awards should reflect the popularity of works, as based on sales figures.  Or on Amazon rankings, or something.

Sad Puppy Central seem to have given up on their first justification, that there was some Super Double-Sekret Social Justice Progressive Cabal that was blocking the Manly Man Rocket Adventure Stories that they Like So Well from making either the nomination lists or the winning slots.  Except for Freer, who, I guess, didn't get the memo.

This is because they actually swamped the nomination choices.  Now, this has got to be embarrassing, if you're all fired up to crow about having Proof, I tell you! Proof! That it's all a fraud and that we couldn't get on the ballot 'cause there is no way that we could succeed in gaming the system.  There's no way that simple a cheat can get us on the ballot....

Uhh, why does the ballot look like this?

The latest reason put forth for poor prior puppy performance in the ballot is that there has been this long-running con, where each year the convention committee for the WorldCon is purposely making it hard for people to find out how to nominate and vote!  Yeah, that's it!

Well, lets look at the websites for the past 4 world cons:

• 2011 - Renovation - 08/17/11 to 8/21/11 - Reno, Nevada
  From the front page on the convention website we find a link to the Memberships page.
  From the Memberships page we find a link to the "How to sign up" page
  On the "How to sign up" page we have descriptions of the membership types.  Lets look at Attending and Supporting:

  Attending:  "... This membership includes all voting rights in the World Science Fiction Society. This means that you get the right to nominate for the 2011 and 2012 Hugo Awards, and to vote on the 2011 Hugo Awards. You also may attend and participate in the WSFS Business Meeting, which is held at a Worldcon and makes the rules for the Hugo Awards and the selection of future Worldcons. ..."Supporting: " ... A Supporting Membership includes all of the rights and privileges of an attending membership except the right to attend Renovation. You get the Hugo Award and Site Selection voting rights, and will receive all generally distributed publications. This membership allows you to support the Worldcon and participate in it without actually attending the convention.   ..."  

• 2012 - Chicon 7 - 08/30/12 - 09/03/12 - Chicago, IL
  On  the "membership" tab at the top of  convention web site's main page is a link to the "Membership FAQ"   There, under "What does my membership include" we see:" ...  You can nominate and vote on the Hugo awards and attend the Hugo Awards ceremony, plus you can nominate for next year's Hugo awards as well. You can also vote for the site for the 2014 Worldcon. ..."
  Under the "How Do I Join" heading we have a link to the membership page, When we follow that link, under membership types we find:
  Attending: "... An Attending membership includes all publications, as well as voting and attending rights. ..."
  Supporting: "... A Supporting Membership includes all of the rights and privileges of an attending membership except the right to attend Chicon 7. ..."

• 2013 - LoneStarCon 3 - 08/29/13 - 09/02/13 - San Antonio,  TX
  On the main web page, about 2/3 down is a "quick link" to "Membership"
  There we find:
  Attending: An Attending Membership includes all publications, as well as voting and attending rights.
  Supporting: A Supporting Membership includes all of the rights and privileges of an attending membership except the right to attend LoneStarCon 3.Now this is not very informative, 'cause I want to know about the Hugo's.  But on the left sidebar we find an entry for Hugo Awards, where we find:
  

  "... Voting for the Hugo Awards takes place in two stages. The first stage, nomination, is open to anyone who had a Supporting or Attending membership in the previous, current, or following year's Worldcon as of January 31. For LoneStarCon 3, this meant members of Chicon 7 (the 2012 Worldcon), LoneStarCon 3 itself, and Loncon 3 (the 2014 Worldcon). During this stage, members can nominate any eligible work or person.
  
  The second stage of voting is the final ballot. This stage, which closed on July 31, 2013, is only open to members of the current Worldcon (i.e. LoneStarCon 3). In the final ballot, members choose among the five finalists in each category. ..."

• 2014 -  Loncon 3 - London, UK - 08/14/14 - 08/18/14
  Main web page  .  Now this website is more problematic.  There is no quick link that tells you what the rights are of memberships.  The info is there, but you need to use a convoluted route to find "All about membership and attendance at Loncon 3"  where we find that there is no description of what the voting rights are.  In fact the only mention of voting rights for either attending or supporting memberships on that page is this bit on supporting memberships "... but is for anybody else who wishes to receive all the publications and vote in the site selection ..." which is incorrect, unless Loncon 3 included the site selection fee in the supporting membership cost.

 Of these four years, only one, Loncon 3, never makes it easy to find out what is the membership classes that can vote for the Hugo.  To me, it looks like there's no conspiracy to make this information hard to find.  Looking over these websites, The only thing I see in common is that everybody makes their own websites, the USA ones seemed to copy a lot of administrivia text, and the site design for London, at least, was considered a real low priority item.  And that leads me to believe that the lack of coherent info about what comes with the membership is an oversight to the site design team:
   "Did you put in membership and voting stuff on the site?"
   "Giles is doing that part of the site."
   "Well, where is he?"
   "Oh, he's fishing in Scotland this week."
   "Well, have him check it when he gets back."
   "OK."

(I was actually going to look at the last six years worth of sites, but the site for Aussicon is now home to some sort of publishing clearinghouse(?) and the Canadian one is just a stub, showing the convention name and logo and the list of corporate sponsors.)

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But this also brings up another thing I keep seeing from the puppies about the WorldCon and the Hugos:  they keep claiming that they (the Hugo Awards) have been "broken" for years and they don't "mean anything" anymore, in either terms of a signifier of quality for the winners, or a survey of quality (for the nominated work)

And this brings in something that does get me ticked off:  if these non-followers of the Hugo awards don't like, and have *not* liked the Hugo award nominees/winners for the last 10 years, why the hell are they complaining about it *now?*

Let them make their own d*mn award, call it "Nutty Nuggets" or something.  They can curate, limit it to USAian writers and publishers, have the one foreign language exception Castilia put into the Charter or something and leave the rest of us the hell alone!

It's not like there's not enough prior art around to show them how it's done:  The Prometheus; the Tiptree; the Bram Stoker; The Sidewise; The Shirley Jackson Awards; The Lambda Literary Awards; The Locus Awards.

 Locus maintains a whole database of them - anybody can write to those awards administrators for advice on how to do selection and nominations. 


Hell, the Locus awards themselves are exactly what the Puppies claim they want - recognition by fandom and readers as a whole, an out-and-out popularity contest, not nominations and voting limited by membership in the WSFS rolls.  Why aren't the puppies having this to-do with *Locus?*

No, this is because the SP clique got its ego hurt.  Because they can't win an award they say they "don't care about" and because their own little Dr Evil didn't get the appreciation he wanted from the Making Light commetariat (or maybe because they didn't appreciate his sharks with laser beams?) and has been holding a grudge for a frikken decade.  Hell, even Fred Pohl and Sam Moskowitz stopped taking pot shots at each other in less time than that after the Great Exclusion Act.

Spiritual, Geek, Spiritual, Geek, How To Decide...

 There is a lot of vocal (phosphor-escent?) talk on the interwebs about how you cannot be both a scientist/thinker/rational or educated person if you are also a "person of faith."  Some is honest discussion, and some off it's simplistic insults, but a lot more of it reminds me of examples I've seen of on-line bullying.

This seems to derive from a false dichotomy similar to that described by C.P. Snow in "The Two Cultures,"  which described the perceived separation between science and the humanities. Really, being a geek and being spiritual do not have to be mutually exclusive.  There are many well-respected scientists, writers and fans who are people of faith, whether it be a variety of Christianity, being Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Santeria or any other flavor.

There is no inherent conflict between recognizing the excitement and wonder of a "big bang" and believing that a supreme being put it in motion.  There is no inherent conflict between a belief in a resurrected Christ and contemplating the beauty of crystals growing, being excited over the revelations held in the Earth's fossil record or the elegance of the dance of genetics. 

During mid-January I attended, and helped run, a science-fiction convention in Boston (ARISIA), with activities spread out over four days (Friday evening through Monday afternoon).  For those who don't attend, it's a broad-spectrum convention, with panels on SF/F literature, writing, "fannish" and lifestyle choices, along with films/anime/video, gaming, costuming (lots of costuming), a big dealer's room, a pretty good-sized (and pretty good) art show and a lot of schmoozing.   But one thing I realized I was missing when I attended these conventions, especially over the last few years, was being able to attend Sunday services.  It was something that simply had not been there.  And I wondered if I was the the only person who felt that, for them, an important part of one's life was being left unattended. So I decided to do something about it.

On Saturday and Sunday morning, at this year's ARISIA, I had the opportunity to reserve space for, and lead, a Morning Prayer service, part of the Daily Office.(*) This was the first year this convention has offered the prayer service to the attendees, simply because none asked it. Of course, for many of us who work as volunteers for these conventions, the only way we usually get to see any actual program items is if we manage to get ourselves put on the program.  So this was actually A Very Fannish Thing to do.

Because of a general failure in communications the prayer services did not make it into the program book, and I put out flyers In All The Usual Places to advertise. On Saturday morning, there were two worshipers, myself and one other (who had snagged a copy of the flyer when I had just printed them up, before I even got to put them out). On Sunday, there were six others, who had seen the flyers.

 Frankly, I was surprised that there was anybody there, thinking that the recognition of spiritual anchors was something lost, or not acknowledged in our secular times. I've since been told that some other conventions have services scheduled as a regular item, and that there is a much larger body of participants than I had imagined.  As someone who was raised Roman Catholic, however, to lead this worship, this active participation by a member of the lay congregation, which is such a central component of Episcopal worship, is a little frightening, with this personal, active, responsibility for worship that is ultimately our own.

I can only think that the turnout on Sunday shows that this is an unmet need in our community at conventions, and that it is something that should be offered going forward, and perhaps at other local conventions - there is no reason that the Anime-centered or hard-lit cons might not have the same need among their attendance.

And, yes, I am going to ask that it be included on the program track for next year's ARISIA as well.
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(*) The Daily Office is what Anglicans/Episcopalians have evolved from the Roman Catholic liturgy that established daily prayers at set times during the day (often called the Divine Office).  Readers of many fantasy (and some British mystery) novels may recognize the names of these prayers, usually in context of a monastic community, but not what they stood for.

 Modern Catholic usage celebrates seven  offices daily::
 - Matins ("of or belonging to the morning" - said just before dawn)
 - Lauds ("Praises" - said at/just after dawn)
 - Terce ("Third Hour" - mid-morning prayer, said at 9:00 AM)
 - Sext   (" Sixth hour" - Mid-day prayer, said at noon)
 - None ("Ninth hour" - Mid-afternoon prayer, said at 3:00 PM)
 - Vespers ("Evening prayer" -  Said at sunset)
 - Compline ("Complete [the day]" - Final prayer of the Office of the day, usually said just before bedtime)

The Anglican usage is more abbreviated, with the major emphasis on the Morning Prayer (which combines Matins and Lauds) and Evening Prayer (corresponding to Vespers).  The other two offices of the Anglican Daily Office are Prayer During The Day (combines Terce, Sext and None) and Night Prayer (Compline).

With the busy schedule our industrialized world imposes, most people don't have the time to celebrate the Prayer During The Day and people are usually so distracted or tired they miss  Night Prayer.  All of the Offices, however, can be said in solitary or in company, and many Episcopal churches offer daily Morning and Evening prayer.

 (The form of the Morning Prayer I used for these services was from the Iona Abbey Worship Book, which was compiled by the Iona Community in 2000.)