Hugos V: E Paucibus Drama

[mormont]

There's a way to game any system, in my experience, if you really set your mind to it. The only thing you can do is make doing so more hassle than it's worth. Preferably without at the same time making the system off-putting to genuine nominators.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Mormont,

I don't care for EPH either but it has a lot of momentum right now. If it can be easily gqmed or has a structural flaw we need to know.

[SpaceChampion]

The only campaign I'd propose is one that said "Calm the fuck down.  Don't nominate a counter-slate.  Read widely and nominate the best of the year."

[mormont]

That's a general observation, Scot, not a criticism of EPH in particular.

 

I'm rather hoping the Puppies will largely have packed up and gone home by the time EPH takes effect. But if they haven't, further tweaking the system is likely to be less effective than just getting already-eligible people to nominate their favourite stuff. More democracy is always good.

[felice]

Okay, what happens then if E. plurbus Hugo is adopted at next years business meeting. It is designed to specifically prevent slate voting. Is there a way to game it?

 

No, there's no way to game it, but it only reduces the power of slate voting, it doesn't eliminate it. This year, even with EPH they would have taken three slots in short story (the third most popular non-puppy nomination got 48 nominations; just 150 puppies with their points divided by three would still outrank it). And if all the rabids who voted had nominated (which they may well do in future), they'd have taken all five slots even with EPH (only 381 rabids would be enough to beat Jackalope Wives with 76 nominations). Even if we managed to increase the number of non-puppies nominating by 50%, and had EPH, it wouldn't be enough to save even one short story slot from the puppies.

 

4/6 is unlikely to help either; if the sad and rabid slates consistently listed three different works each, or even if the rabids alone each picked four randomly from a list of six, the results are going to be unpleasant.

 

Next year is likely to be No Award in every category. There were at least 586 rabid voters, and they're all eligible to nominate next year without paying anything further. The chances of any single non-slate work getting that many nominations - even a novel, and even with a big increase in non-puppy participation - are remote. And the two years after that, even if EPH and 4/6 pass, are likely to be pretty bad (2 or 3 non-puppy options in a category if we're lucky). Basically, we're probably going to have at least four years of puppy-dominated Hugos, unless VD gets bored (which doesn't seem that likely) or his followers do (more likely, but I wouldn't count on it), more if the Business Meeting isn't open to more radical change in 2017.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Felice,

What about one nomination per catagory for everyone and the top 5 are the nominees?

[Hayyoth]

 

No, there's no way to game it, but it only reduces the power of slate voting, it doesn't eliminate it. This year, even with EPH they would have taken three slots in short story (the third most popular non-puppy nomination got 48 nominations; just 150 puppies with their points divided by three would still outrank it). And if all the rabids who voted had nominated (which they may well do in future), they'd have taken all five slots even with EPH (only 381 rabids would be enough to beat Jackalope Wives with 76 nominations). Even if we managed to increase the number of non-puppies nominating by 50%, and had EPH, it wouldn't be enough to save even one short story slot from the puppies.

 

4/6 is unlikely to help either; if the sad and rabid slates consistently listed three different works each, or even if the rabids alone each picked four randomly from a list of six, the results are going to be unpleasant.

 

Next year is likely to be No Award in every category. There were at least 586 rabid voters, and they're all eligible to nominate next year without paying anything further. The chances of any single non-slate work getting that many nominations - even a novel, and even with a big increase in non-puppy participation - are remote. And the two years after that, even if EPH and 4/6 pass, are likely to be pretty bad (2 or 3 non-puppy options in a category if we're lucky). Basically, we're probably going to have at least four years of puppy-dominated Hugos, unless VD gets bored (which doesn't seem that likely) or his followers do (more likely, but I wouldn't count on it), more if the Business Meeting isn't open to more radical change in 2017.

Yeah the assumption is that the puppies will get disheartened/bored and fuck off. Also that the anti puppies will grow in numbers and enthusiasm and nominate enough to drown out any voting slates. Neither seems likely to me. Eventually a committee will be needed or else the Hugos will become a chaotic joke.

[Maester Llama]

Speaking as someone who's been more convinced of the value of the Hugos as a result of the Puppies' attempt to destroy them and who's giving some pretty serious consideration to nominating / voting next year, for what little it's worth, such a 1/5 system would lose me very very quickly. I like the idea of being able to nominate a selection of strong work in a category rather than having to settle on just one, and I think being able to nominate a shortlist-worth reflects many readers' experiences of the field more accurately -- in that there's never only one worthy novel in a year, etc. If I understand them correctly the Gemmell Awards use a system like this, where everybody nominates one work, and I dislike this way of doing things so much that I don't bother voting in the Gemmells at all even though they are one-hundred percent free and take literally thirty seconds. Dumb, maybe, but I very much prefer the ability to nominate a number of works.

[felice]

What about one nomination per catagory for everyone and the top 5 are the nominees?

 
Good question. Complicates things for the puppies, but I don't think it would help that much. It hurts the non-slate works as well; 76 people nominated Jackalope Wives, but for how many was it their first choice? If forced to choose just one, some people would have gone for The Breath of War or The Truth About Owls or maybe something else that didn't even make the top 20 (there were a lot of those). If it would have gotten 50 nominations under 1/5 (a very generous estimate, I think) then it wouldn't take much more than 250 puppies each allocated a random work from their slate to take all the finalist slots.
 

Eventually a committee will be needed or else the Hugos will become a chaotic joke.

 

The problem with the nomination process is that it doesn't collect enough data on nominators' preferences. Out of hundreds of nominations, you get to endorse five, but can't say anything about 99% of them. A work might have been your sixth favourite, or it might be total dreck that shouldn't have been published let alone given an award; it's all the same to the tallying. But this can be fixed without a committee.

 

One idea that's occurred to me is being able to mark works as "Great", "Acceptable", or "Below No Award" (or "haven't read it, no opinion"). Votes for Acceptable would cancel out votes for Below, and the final score for each work would be sum(Great) minus sum(Uncancelled Below). Eg if a work gets 50 Great votes, 200 Acceptable votes, and 100 Below votes, its final score is 50 (all Belows are cancelled out); while if a work gets 50 Great votes, 100 Acceptable Votes, and 120 Below votes, its final score would be 30 (the Belows outnumber the Acceptables by 20). This is a new idea; there could well be issues with it I haven't considered.

 

If GAB took the place of the current nomination process, you could nominate up to 5 Greats, and any number of Acceptables or Belows. Running a slate would obviously attract a lot of Below votes. But that would be a lot of work for nominators and admins; it's asking nominators to enter and score basically every work they've read in every category. It would be more practical to have the GAB stage after nominations, to score some kind of longlist, eg the top 15 in each category, or everything nominated by more than 3% of nominators.

 

One other thing you could optionally do with GAB would be an "obscure work of genius" bonus. Eg give the final score for each work a bonus equal to the percent of Great votes it receives. So if 20 people vote Great, 5 vote Below, and nobody else has heard of it, its final score would be (20 - 5) + (20/25 * (20 - 5)) = 27. This would help works that aren't widely read but are highly acclaimed by those who have read them.

[Howdyphillip]

Here is a thought... Why don't they keep things the way they are, and if a slate is obviously nominated, throw out the slate bids?

[Darth Richard II]

Uh, cause then we would actually be doing what the puppies acuse us of.

[Howdyphillip]

Uh, cause then we would actually be doing what the puppies acuse us of.

First of all, so what? Why do I have to put any validity at all in what the puppies are saying? 

 

Secondly, If a person doesn't have their own opinion during the nominations then why would I care if that opinion isn't heard? 

 

Here is the thing. I am very interested in hearing the opinions of all people in the Sc-fi/Fantasy fandom as long as that opinion is their own. A slate ballot is one to further a political agenda for a mass. It is not fans speaking up for what work they enjoyed the most. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

HP,

There is nothing in the WSFS constitution barring the use of "slates". As such throwing out "slate nominees" is beyond the power of WSFS or the Hugo administrators. Further, it would encourage those who are using slates to nominate spoilers to get good books thrown off the ballot.

That's actually a risk even with EPH.

[Howdyphillip]

HP,

There is nothing in the WSFS constitution barring the use of "slates". As such throwing out "slate nominees" is beyond the power of WSFS or the Hugo administrators. Further, it would encourage those who are using slates to nominate spoilers to get good books thrown off the ballot.

That's actually a risk even with EPH.

What would be the problem in amending the constitution to include that? I am assuming that EPH would have to be an amendment as well. 

If slate nominations were eliminated, would there be the potential for enough of these guys to hang around for spoiler noms? I personally think that they would all just whine about how "unfair" it is and then go on to something else.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

HP,

Yes, even though EPH was adopted this year by the BM it must be readopted next year for it to become the rule for the Hugos.

If Slates are made a violation of the Hugo rules how do you propose to enforce the ban on Slates? EPH, even though I don't favor it, proposes to change the way votes are weighted to reduce the impact of slate balloting.

[felice]

Here is a thought... Why don't they keep things the way they are, and if a slate is obviously nominated, throw out the slate bids?

I wouldn't want to be on the panel making those judgements. And it would have to be a judgement call in each case; otherwise it would be very, very gameable (eg dozens of slates to get rid of everything popular the puppies don't like; and what about listing VD and Scalzi on the same slate?)
 

That's actually a risk even with EPH.

 

How?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Put popular works into a slate and have the puppies vote for them in a slate. EPH would discriminate on the works chosen it acts against slate voting regardless of what is nominated.

[felice]

Put popular works into a slate and have the puppies vote for them in a slate. EPH would discriminate on the works chosen it acts against slate voting regardless of what is nominated.

 

Nope, doesn't work that way. If 200 puppies add their slate nominations to 100 non-puppy genuine nominations, then under EPH the work will get 140 points instead of 100 points - ie, the puppies will help it win (the puppies add 200 points divided between 5 slate works, ie 40 points per work; the genuine nominators didn't nominate any of the other finalists, so their 100 points aren't divided). Without EPH, puppy support would give it 300 nominations instead of 100 nominations. So EPH makes the puppy support worth less, but it doesn't make it negative.

[SpaceChampion]

Nope, doesn't work that way. If 200 puppies add their slate nominations to 100 non-puppy genuine nominations, then under EPH the work will get 140 points instead of 100 points - ie, the puppies will help it win (the puppies add 200 points divided between 5 slate works, ie 40 points per work; the genuine nominators didn't nominate any of the other finalists, so their 100 points aren't divided). Without EPH, puppy support would give it 300 nominations instead of 100 nominations. So EPH makes the puppy support worth less, but it doesn't make it negative.

 

To game it, the puppies would have to pit two popular works against each other with a similar or the exact same number of nominations.  They'd never be able to guess how many non-puppy nominations those works would get, to coordinate an effective attack.

[mormont]

Next year is likely to be No Award in every category.

 
I doubt that very much. For one thing, I see no particular reason to assume that the number of Rabid Puppies nominating works is likely to go up as much as you think. It's hard to crunch the numbers, but Day himself got only 166 noms for Best Editor Long and 162 for Best Editor Short this year: the only novel nominee to appear solely on the Rabid slate got 196 noms. Other RP-only nominees got well under 200 nominations.
 
Yes, there were, in the end, many more votes that were likely to be Rabid supporters. But the notion that all of those people are going to nominate next year - that, in fact, the number of Rabid nominations will nearly treble - seems to me one that needs some justification beyond 'well, they're eligible'. They can nominate - but will they? I'd guess that a couple of hundred of them might, but that won't be enough to sweep the board.
 
I suspect that the tactic the Rabids will adopt instead is the more underhand one of slating people against their will. That would appeal to Beale's shit-stirring instincts. Either that or getting behind a single standard-bearer in each category, specially selected to piss the voters off. Then Beale can say 'it's not a slate, what are you complaining about? You just want to exclude us!' Gives him a rallying cry for the actual vote.