The Hugo Awards are the premier award in Science Fiction and Fantasy which is determined by fans (specifically, the attendees and supporting members of the annual Worldcon.) These have been awarded occasionally since the thirties, and annually since the mid-fifties. By the sixties, the award had matured and standardized its categories, e.g., Best Novel, Best Dramatic Presentation, and Best Fanzine. These last two categories have become particularly interesting of late.
In 2009, the Hugo Nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation was awarded to METAtropolis, which was notable since it was an audiobook without a previous paper version. The Worldcon committee institutionalized this de facto decision by the fans and added language to several categories specifying that, as of the 2010 ballot, "equivalent works in other media" were eligable.
Among these newly enhanced categories was the award for Best Fanzine. The question was raised from several quarters, "Can a podcast be a fanzine?" In particular, StarShipSofa was put forth as an example, likely because it resembles the familiar print (and, lately, PDF) fanzines in all but media.
StarShipSofa has been through several iterations, sometimes concurrently, but for the past few years has settled into an audio-magazine format. They publish reprints from some of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and even Horror's best writers along with some first-run stories, editorials, reviews, and fact articles. It's everything that the genre magazines and the more ambitious fanzines are, only in a purely audio format. So, is it a Fanzine, according to the Hugo rules? Or is it a Dramatic Presentation? Nobody seems entirely sure.
StarShipSofa doesn't pay for the works featured (the stories from the professional authors are usually reprints of previously published works) and the narrating, fact articles, etc. are fan-produced. Editor/Producer Tony Smith assembles and hosts the results in his spare time. That sounds like a fanzine.
The narration of the stories is one of its strong points, and varies from a fairly standard reading to a quite dramatic rendition complete with sound effects. That at least approaches a Dramatic Presentation.
A discussion ensued on livejournal where parties intimately familiar with the rules and traditions of Worldcon failed to come to a conclusive answer. The only way to know for sure would be for StarShipSofa to be nominated in a category and see what the Awards Committee rules.
The StarShipSofa fan community has rallied around the concept of the 'Sofa as a fanzine and has been championing it for nomination this year, in order to force the issue. See in particular Matthew Sanborn Smith and The English Assassin for advocacy and linkage.
However this plays out, the nomination process and announcements for the Hugos is going to be one of the more interesting ones in recent years.
(Disclaimer, I've had two stories published in StarShipSofa, although not in the past, potentially eligible, year.)
PLEASE NOTE:
This article originally stated that METAtropolis was a Hugo winner. In fact, it was only a nominee, and we've noted that in the text above. In addition, there were several technical errors, which Kevin Standlee, Chairman of the Hugo Awards Marketing Committe brought to our attention. (Thank you, Kevin!) He states:
1. There is no single "Worldcon Committee." You imply that there is a single central committee -- a Board of Directors, maybe -- that makes all decisions about the Hugo Awards. There is not. Every Worldcon is organized by an independent committee, not legally or financially connected to any other committee. The committee organizing any particular Worldcon cannot change the Hugo Award rules in the way you imply.
2. Changes to the Hugo Award rules are not made by some "committee." They are made by the members of the Worldcon. Every member of the Worldcon can attend the Business Meeting (held at stated times during each Worldcon), and propose, debate, and vote upon changes to the WSFS rules, which include the rules for the Hugo Award. It's not some faceless, distant committee. It's the members of Worldcon making the rules themselves by direct democracy.
3. The change to which you refer regarding "equivalent in other media," was not something made up on the spot that year in direct reaction to the specific nomination of METAtropolis. In order to prevent temporary majorities or transitory passions from overwhelming the process, any change the the WSFS Constitution must be ratified by two consecutive Worldcons. Therefore, the change ratified in Montreal in 2009 was actually first proposed the previous year in Denver and had been under discussion for some time before that. It's part of a longer-term process of making it explicit that medium of release of a work is not the defining characteristic of that work except in specifically limited cases.
Mr. Standlee goes on to explain:
As I've said elsewhere, the reason we don't know for sure on many matters is that Administrators (I've been one myself, three times) generally refuse to make hypothetical rulings, just like the US court system won't issue rulings without a case. If a work doesn't get sufficient nominations to be considered as a nominee, there's no reason for the Administrator to make a ruling. Continuing the judicial analogy, the voters (nominators) are a jury, and the Administrator is the judge. If the nominators were to give SSS enough nominations, the Administrator this year would be obliged to take official notice and decide whether the wording in the Constitution permits the work to be on the ballot; otherwise, there is no reason for the Administrator to say anything at all.
| neorandomizer New day 23 hours ago |
| neorandomizer wife seems to have took a step forward today but a half of a step back so her condition is about the same. It's damn hot here! 1 day ago |
| neorandomizer Already 95 deg in Vegas and it's not 10 yet. Off I go to see wife hope she has some improvement. 1 day ago |
| Republibot 3.0 I'm really sorry to hear that. She's in our prayers. 2 days ago |
| neorandomizer @Republibot 3.0 The wife is still in icu and seems to be just treading water. 2 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 Yeah? What's up? 3 days ago |
| neorandomizer All things being equal I can go for a cosmic reboot. 3 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 but he has no other genre credits." It seemed like a cool idea to me. 4 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 If we were interviewing James "Scotty" Doohan, we'd say say "He played on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Space Academy, 4 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 The concept was, "Hey, let's pretend Trek didn't exist, and just cover the rest of the genre." 4 days ago |
| jkirton2 Gonna take a few minutes to look around. 5 days ago |
| jkirton2 @Republibot 2.0 Will do 5 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 » Jake Was Here "Jake Was Here" has been a member of our little blog family for exactly one year and three hours. THREE HOURS! 5 days ago |
| Republibot 2.0 @jkirton2 Welcome, John--- make yourself at home! 5 days ago |
| jkirton2 Reading Republibot for the FIRST time online! Yeah, go figure! 5 days ago |
Comments
30 January 2009
11 hours 38 min
Thanks, again. I honestly love your bullet-pointed responses, Kevin. You seem like exactly the sort of person I want dealing with the nitty-gritty on these matters.
5 March 2010
20 weeks 6 days
Yes, I know that some organizations do that. WSFS has by tradition taken the judicial route for various reasons. They include:
1. The very act of issuing a preemptive ruling can be interpreted as giving a particular nominee additional publicity, thus questioning the neutrality of the Administrator.
2. Most works about which people ask for preemptive rulings are highly unlikely to get sufficient nominations to make the ballot anyway, and are therefore a waste of the Administrator's time.
3. Preemptive rulings on oddball cases will almost certainly lead to controversy and arguments in advance of the convention, and since most of them aren't likely to make a difference (point 2), why make trouble unnecessarily.
4. Administrators are usually very likely to defer to the will of the voters unless they see a clear and obvious technical violation (wrong year, wrong length). Therefore, the question of whether something even should be considered in the category is left to the voters as much as possible, under the principle of vox populi, vox dei ("the voice of the people is the voice of God.")
5. In the more than twenty years that I've been following the Hugo Awards and WSFS business, most of the times that an Administrator makes a ruling outside of the relatively narrow length or date areas, the WSFS Business Meeting turns around and legislatively overturns the precedent. ("You did it once; we won't let you do it again.") Consequently, most Administrators get to be a little gun-shy.
30 January 2009
11 hours 38 min
Thanks for the clarifications, Kevin. Part of that was me trying to simplify the story, and part of that was my misunderstanding of others' simplifications (or my misunderstanding of the non-simplifications of things like the WSFS Constitution.)
The METAtropolis nomination/winning confusion was entirely my own, however. Not sure how I managed that one.
There are plenty of organizations that give preemptive rulings on things like eligibility, though. (I'm not saying I prefer one to the other, just noting that it's a distinction with a difference.)
5 March 2010
20 weeks 6 days
In 2009, the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation was awarded to METAtropolis....
No, it was not. First, there are two BDP categories: one for long form works and one for shorter works. Second, METAtropolis was nominated for BDP Long Form but did not win. The winner was WALL-E. See the Hugo Awards web site for the results of the 2009 Hugo Awards.
The Worldcon committee institutionalized this de facto decision by the fans and added language to several categories...
1. There is no single "Worldcon Committee." You imply that there is a single central committee -- a Board of Directors, maybe -- that makes all decisions about the Hugo Awards. There is not. Every Worldcon is organized by an independent committee, not legally or financially connected to any other committee. The committee organizing any particular Worldcon cannot change the Hugo Award rules in the way you imply.
2. Changes to the Hugo Award rules are not made by some "committee." They are made by the members of the Worldcon. Every member of the Worldcon can attend the Business Meeting (held at stated times during each Worldcon), and propose, debate, and vote upon changes to the WSFS rules, which include the rules for the Hugo Award. It's not some faceless, distant committee. It's the members of Worldcon making the rules themselves by direct democracy.
3. The change to which you refer regarding "equivalent in other media," was not something made up on the spot that year in direct reaction to the specific nomination of METAtropolis. In order to prevent temporary majorities or transitory passions from overwhelming the process, any change the the WSFS Constitution must be ratified by two consecutive Worldcons. Therefore, the change ratified in Montreal in 2009 was actually first proposed the previous year in Denver and had been under discussion for some time before that. It's part of a longer-term process of making it explicit that medium of release of a work is not the defining characteristic of that work except in specifically limited cases.
The only way to know for sure would be for StarShipSofa to be nominated in a category and see what the Awards Committee rules.
That's true of just about anything, particularly something out of the ordinary. And in this case, there is an Awards Committee, although that's not what it is called. The proper name is Hugo Awards Administration Subcommittee, and it's defined in section 3.12 of the WSFS Constitution. Note that the Hugo Award Administration Subcommittee doesn't pick winners; it rules on eligibility matters and manages the voting.
As I've said elsewhere, the reason we don't know for sure on many matters is that Administrators (I've been one myself, three times) generally refuse to make hypothetical rulings, just like the US court system won't issue rulings without a case. If a work doesn't get sufficient nominations to be considered as a nominee, there's no reason for the Administrator to make a ruling. Continuing the judicial analogy, the voters (nominators) are a jury, and the Administrator is the judge. If the nominators were to give SSS enough nominations, the Administrator this year would be obliged to take official notice and decide whether the wording in the Constitution permits the work to be on the ballot; otherwise, there is no reason for the Administrator to say anything at all.