My last word on the Puppies
Aug. 31st, 2015 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerThis will, quite definitely, be the last time I post on the Puppies.
On their terms, they won, this year.
They were going to claim victory, whatever happened. If their slates had swept the boards, they would have claimed it proved "we" (the lefty conspiracy Elders of Fandom clique) were wrong. If "No Award" had done so, they would have claimed it proved "we" had a stranglehold on the Hugo voting. Anything in between, such as what actually happened, would have just gone to prove one or both of these claims. Larry Correia has in fact posted to say "I told you so," which he would have done whatever happened.
It was really a very skilfully orchestrated plan. But it couldn't have succeeded without us. By responding, by pushing back, we achieved the real objective, which was to make a bunch of relatively unknown, relatively minor writers, some of whom are in some degree obnoxious, known worldwide, not only in the sf field but outside it as well. Thanks to us, millions of people who barely notice sf now know we have a Theodore Beale, and also a Benjanun Sriduangkaew. Yay us.
Let's do better next year. The Puppies will go on, under their new leader Sarah Hoyt; they've said so. Let's not play. Let them say and do what they want. Let their threats be lost in silence, and their fighting words blow away on the wind. Don't quote them, don't link to their posts, don't argue back, don't even pick a side. They'll claim victory whatever we do, as they did this year. Next year, let them be that last kid in the empty playground, screaming at the blank walls "Quitters! Quitters! You're all a bunch of quitters! I won!! I WON!!!"
Anything else is just helping them.
I'm not saying "ignore them and they'll go away," because that never works. I'm saying "ignore them and they'll find it harder to do what they want." Which is to make a big fat noise and get people to pay attention to them. If we don't contribute to the noise, they'll have to do it all themselves. I think that's about the best we can hope for.
This year, we played into their hands, and they got what they wanted. Let's not do it again.
On their terms, they won, this year.
They were going to claim victory, whatever happened. If their slates had swept the boards, they would have claimed it proved "we" (the lefty conspiracy Elders of Fandom clique) were wrong. If "No Award" had done so, they would have claimed it proved "we" had a stranglehold on the Hugo voting. Anything in between, such as what actually happened, would have just gone to prove one or both of these claims. Larry Correia has in fact posted to say "I told you so," which he would have done whatever happened.
It was really a very skilfully orchestrated plan. But it couldn't have succeeded without us. By responding, by pushing back, we achieved the real objective, which was to make a bunch of relatively unknown, relatively minor writers, some of whom are in some degree obnoxious, known worldwide, not only in the sf field but outside it as well. Thanks to us, millions of people who barely notice sf now know we have a Theodore Beale, and also a Benjanun Sriduangkaew. Yay us.
Let's do better next year. The Puppies will go on, under their new leader Sarah Hoyt; they've said so. Let's not play. Let them say and do what they want. Let their threats be lost in silence, and their fighting words blow away on the wind. Don't quote them, don't link to their posts, don't argue back, don't even pick a side. They'll claim victory whatever we do, as they did this year. Next year, let them be that last kid in the empty playground, screaming at the blank walls "Quitters! Quitters! You're all a bunch of quitters! I won!! I WON!!!"
Anything else is just helping them.
I'm not saying "ignore them and they'll go away," because that never works. I'm saying "ignore them and they'll find it harder to do what they want." Which is to make a big fat noise and get people to pay attention to them. If we don't contribute to the noise, they'll have to do it all themselves. I think that's about the best we can hope for.
This year, we played into their hands, and they got what they wanted. Let's not do it again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-08-31 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-31 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-31 01:00 pm (UTC)The Puppies were always going to win in their own minds. They would either have taken Hugos (from actually deserving candidates; I say this as someone who read their submissions in the packet provided by the con, and will never get that time back), or they were going to be the poor, persecuted victims of the SJWs who wanted to give Hugos to boxchecking candidates.
However, in the eyes of wider fandom, and that portion of nonfandom that actually saw the results, they and their actions were thoroughly repudiated. More, they spurred action that will change the nominating process (two proposals, E Pluribus Hugo and 4/6, both passed, and together they will greatly dampen the power of a small but concentrated bloc vote such as the Puppies). More yet, that disease TB/VD was shown to be the emotional three-year-old that he is, and his cooperation with and recruitment of GamerGate and other red pillers played horribly in the mainstream.
The Sads, under new designated leader Kate Paulk, claim that they're not running a slate next year. We'll see; here's a quote found at file770.com as reported on FB by David Gerrold:
"For starters the word slate is not going to appear anywhere. For second [Cross talk] I am not doing a slate, I am doing a list of the most popular works in all of the various categories as submitted by people who read on any of the various blogs that will have me. And I’m going to post ultimately the top ten of each, with links to the full list of everything that everybody wanted to see nominated, and I’m going to be saying “hey if you really want to see your favorite authors nominated your best bet is to pick something of theirs from the most popular in the list as opposed to the least popular”. That is going to be what it is. I don’t care who ends up on that list. I don’t care if David Gerrold ends up being the top of the list somewhere. That’s not the point, the point is that I want to see the voting numbers both for nomination and for actual voting go up above 5,000 up above 10,000, because the more people who are involved and who are voting the harder it is for any faction including puppies to manipulate the results."
It'd be nice to believe them. I don't, especially, but am willing to give them the room to prove me wrong about "no slates".
Meanwhile, they lost in the eyes of everyone who matters, which is everyone who's not a Puppy.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-31 02:10 pm (UTC)From this article (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/08/30/mutiny_at_the_hugo_awards_127934.html), the following:
"The next Puppy campaign to bring in more rebel voters for 2016 is going to be led by Hoyt, Green, and Australian fantasy author Kate Paulk. Says Hoyt on her blog, 'We’re here, we’re not giving up and we’re prepared to fight like girls. May G-d have mercy on their souls.'"
It would be nice to think the rest of the world is going to see it our way, but I don't. Complacency is not an option. And now, having broken every commitment I made in the post above, I am going to shut up and urge you and everyone else to do likewise on this subject. No more free bandwidth for these people.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-16 09:24 pm (UTC)