This wasn’t an article; it was propaganda. Before writing this sycophantic nonsense, did you spend any time doing actual research into the people involved in the Sad Puppies campaigns? No, don’t bother to respond. It’s quite obvious you didn’t. Otherwise, you would’ve written a very different article that would in no way flatter anyone involved with the Hugos since then.

The pseudonym’s garbage was meant as another “poke in the eye”.

There’s no comparison to be had between an effective activist and an a-hole.

Ginger:

I replied in such a disrespectful manner because I have been a member of the sf fandom community for 49 years and reading your article, which pepetuates myths, has falsehoods concerning the Hugo Awards and was just too painful to read or ignore.

Having and expressing an opinion is fine but you set yourself for failure when you display a shocking lack of knowledge about the subject you choose to write about.

And what’s most disturbing is your statement that, “I won’t correct mistakes after the fact because that’s like pretending they didn’t happen (and if you stick your name on something on the Internet, it deserves to remain there) so I’m sure other people will see my mistake, but hopefully comments like this provide context and accountability regarding it.”

Uh, no, I cannot agree with that assessment. Chengdu DID NOT hold two consecutive World Science Fiction Conventions in 2022-2023, Chicago was the site in 2022. Ray Bradbury DID NOT win the first Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1953, the late Alfred Bester did for the Demolished Man. Leaving “facts” like that hanging online make you look uninformed, silly and not very serious about your subject.

Not citing sources to bolster your opinion, such as the report I wrote with Jason Sanford, just makes matters worse.

Correcting your mistakes and owning up to them shows that you can take responsibility for them and shows that you, and those reading it can learn as well.

If you are unwilling to follow these few basis tenets of journalism or essay writing, I will kindly suggest you stick to writing romance novels…

I suspect Nick is unaware that nominations for Hugos are drawn from the community – anyone who has a membership to the year’s WorldCon is eligible to submit nominations. Blind nominations are impossible given the mechanic of the awards.

It’s a mistake not to include corrections in your original piece.

You use things like footnotes, parenthesis and brackets. Add a date. Stick a note at the beginning of the article stating that there were numerous FACTUAL ERRORS in the original article that have now been corrected (either inline or in footnotes).

Not noting these facts up front only helps to perpetuate the errors.

Hi, Chris. Thank you for your comment. I made a couple of obvious mistakes in this article (like saying WorldCon had been held in Chengdu twice, when in fact it was merely the second time it had been held in Asia) and honestly, that’s an indictment of me trying to hastily cover what is actually a very complex and evolving issue.

In fact, I found your own report about it (which you wrote with Jason Sanford) a really phenomenal insight into the situation. I won’t correct mistakes after the fact because that’s like pretending they didn’t happen (and if you stick your name on something on the Internet, it deserves to remain there) so I’m sure other people will see my mistake, but hopefully comments like this provide context and accountability regarding it.

More so than that, however, I think the way I’d covered this topic was totally tone deaf to the wonderful authors who had legitimately won a Hugo award in 2023 – as if “it didn’t count.” The fact is, regardless of whether or not some authors were unfairly ineligible in 2023, or whether the voting for them had been nudged or influenced by voting blocks (like Chuck Tingle being a finalist in 2016 for “Space Raptor Butt Invasion”) they still write wonderful things that are worthy of recognition and respect.

The Hugo Awards are still the gold standard for writing science fiction and fantasy and what I wrote unfairly and callously detracted from that. It also makes me hypocritical. The other day, somebody was criticizing the fact that my 12-year-old took pride in reading a 6-book series of books about Boba Fett by saying “they’re only Star Wars books, they’re not REAL books” and I pointed out that the author, Terry Bisson, had won both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award (the Star Wars franchise doesn’t screw around when they ask authors to write for them.) If the awards have “lost their credibility” why am I still using them as an example of the best in science fiction writing.

I don’t normally write “news” articles, since my wheelhouse is more about advertising and marketing, and in future if I do, I’ll be more diligent about what I commit to the page. I thank you and respect you for your criticism and will do better in the future.