https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel

I haven't seen any discussion of this previously! It sounds quite
intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
content. Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
is being reported correctly?

Chris

In article <l1du0rFoemqU1@mid.individual.net>,
Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
>https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>
>I haven't seen any discussion of this previously! It sounds quite
>intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
>content. Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
>is being reported correctly?

Short version: the full voting data was released and it is full of
bizarreness, from books being listed twice, sums not adding up, and
people being declared ineligible for no clear reason. The admins
responsible are either mum or in the case of Dave McCarty respond
with obfuscation. The Chinese concom does not reply to email. To sum:

1: Some weird, arguably sketchy stuff happened.
2: Nobody involved will explain what happened or why.
3: People are now theorizing at high speed.

There are many competing models to explain what happened, ranging from
"Officials declared certain people and works persona non grata,"
"Hugo admins took it upon themselves to drop people and works they
thought might displease officials" to "there was a giant cockup running the
numbers (there were definitely cut and paste errors) and nobody
wants to admit it", and many more. The truth could be any of the
explanations or a combination or something nobody has thought of.

Since the admins won't talk, we may never know what happened.

Oh! And since each WorldCon is its own soveriegn entity, there is
no higher organization that believes it has the power to intervene
when a WorldCon goes rogue and eithr subverts or screws up the
process. There's no legal mechanism (or at least nobody at the WSFS
believes there is) to overrun a clearly broken, possibly completely
fraudulent Hugo process.

There are million articles on this but this is an OK starting point.

https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/hugo-stats-where-are-we-today/

This isn't on the voters or the finalists. This is a problem with the
people administrating the award.

I should add this is not like the Puppy grumbling that there had to
be cheating or thumbs on the scales for the people who won to win.
They had no evidence. In this case data Changdu released literally do
not add up. Clearly something went horribly wrong and that as as
consequence I do not trust the results of the Chengdu Hugo.

On a scale of one to ten, where one is the Clams trying to get L Ron
a Hugo and the Puppy slates are a nine, this is about one hundred.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

In article <uosn6t$4bm$1@reader1.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>
>Short version: the full voting data was released and it is full of
>bizarreness, from books being listed twice, sums not adding up, and
>people being declared ineligible for no clear reason. The admins
>responsible are either mum or in the case of Dave McCarty respond
>with obfuscation.

Found the magic phrase McCarty used over and over:

"After reviewing the constitution and the rules we must follow, the
administration team determined those works/persons were not eligible."

But he refused to explain what rules those were.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 2024-01-25, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <l1du0rFoemqU1@mid.individual.net>,
> Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
>>https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>>
>>I haven't seen any discussion of this previously! It sounds quite
>>intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
>>content. Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
>>is being reported correctly?
>
> Short version: the full voting data was released and it is full of
> bizarreness, from books being listed twice, sums not adding up, and
> people being declared ineligible for no clear reason. The admins
> responsible are either mum or in the case of Dave McCarty respond
> with obfuscation. The Chinese concom does not reply to email. To sum:
>
> 1: Some weird, arguably sketchy stuff happened.
> 2: Nobody involved will explain what happened or why.
> 3: People are now theorizing at high speed.
>
> There are many competing models to explain what happened, ranging from
> "Officials declared certain people and works persona non grata,"
> "Hugo admins took it upon themselves to drop people and works they
> thought might displease officials" to "there was a giant cockup running the
> numbers (there were definitely cut and paste errors) and nobody
> wants to admit it", and many more. The truth could be any of the
> explanations or a combination or something nobody has thought of.
>
> Since the admins won't talk, we may never know what happened.
>
> Oh! And since each WorldCon is its own soveriegn entity, there is
> no higher organization that believes it has the power to intervene
> when a WorldCon goes rogue and eithr subverts or screws up the
> process. There's no legal mechanism (or at least nobody at the WSFS
> believes there is) to overrun a clearly broken, possibly completely
> fraudulent Hugo process.
>
> There are million articles on this but this is an OK starting point.
>
> https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/hugo-stats-where-are-we-today/
>
> This isn't on the voters or the finalists. This is a problem with the
> people administrating the award.
>
> I should add this is not like the Puppy grumbling that there had to
> be cheating or thumbs on the scales for the people who won to win.
> They had no evidence. In this case data Changdu released literally do
> not add up. Clearly something went horribly wrong and that as as
> consequence I do not trust the results of the Chengdu Hugo.
>
> On a scale of one to ten, where one is the Clams trying to get L Ron
> a Hugo and the Puppy slates are a nine, this is about one hundred.

Thanks for the added link (which includes links to other discussion).

It looks like there are two distinct problems which are perhaps being
linked together too much in the discussions.

1. Works with (and without in the case of Gaiman) Chinese connections
were declared ineligible without explanation. This is intolerable and
things need to be done to correct this in the future; I don't know what
can be done about 2023, probably nothing other than asterisks given the
unlikelihood of getting proper data.

2. Data voting anomalies. I'm less worried about that. I don't see
any problem with the unchanging value for _Babel_. It was declared
ineligible (see point 1) and therefore *should* be ignored and not
updated in the elimination rounds. The fact that not updating it
happened to numerically end up with it being eliminated in the final
round is just a confusing coincidence; not evidence of data manipulation.
It perhaps shouldn't have been included in the table but there are
arguments on both sides.

The odd pattern of voting is definitely concerning, but may have
reasonably innocent explanations. For instance, if somebody
influential in Chinese fandom a year ago said
"Let's make this the most popular WorldCon in history to show
our Chinese spirit. Please nominate your favorite books. Some of the
most popular books of the past year were ... (8-9 suggestions) ...
<other categories>"
we could get the anomalous behavior pointed out by Jones of 8-9 novels
standing out above all others. Chinese students do remarkable things
in support of their passions (and would read all 8-9 books) but are
perhaps too easily influenced by authority. Unfortunate, but not
intentional ballot stuffing and I don't see how to stop it.

Chris

James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>
>Oh! And since each WorldCon is its own soveriegn entity, there is
>no higher organization that believes it has the power to intervene
>when a WorldCon goes rogue and eithr subverts or screws up the
>process. There's no legal mechanism (or at least nobody at the WSFS
>believes there is) to overrun a clearly broken, possibly completely
>fraudulent Hugo process.

The Hugos are supposed to remain independent of the Worldcon itself. I am
in no way surprised that there was massive government influence in the
Worldcon because that is how China is and that is what was expected going
into the game. But interference into the Hugos was not expected and not
acceptable.
--scott

>
>There are million articles on this but this is an OK starting point.
>
>https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/hugo-stats-where-are-we-today/
>
>This isn't on the voters or the finalists. This is a problem with the
>people administrating the award.
>
>I should add this is not like the Puppy grumbling that there had to
>be cheating or thumbs on the scales for the people who won to win.
>They had no evidence. In this case data Changdu released literally do
>not add up. Clearly something went horribly wrong and that as as
>consequence I do not trust the results of the Chengdu Hugo.
>
>On a scale of one to ten, where one is the Clams trying to get L Ron
>a Hugo and the Puppy slates are a nine, this is about one hundred.
>--
>My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
>My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
>My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
>My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
>The odd pattern of voting is definitely concerning, but may have
>reasonably innocent explanations. For instance, if somebody
>influential in Chinese fandom a year ago said
> "Let's make this the most popular WorldCon in history to show
> our Chinese spirit. Please nominate your favorite books. Some of the
> most popular books of the past year were ... (8-9 suggestions) ...
> <other categories>"
>we could get the anomalous behavior pointed out by Jones of 8-9 novels
>standing out above all others. Chinese students do remarkable things
>in support of their passions (and would read all 8-9 books) but are
>perhaps too easily influenced by authority. Unfortunate, but not
>intentional ballot stuffing and I don't see how to stop it.

This is always to be expected, and it is why the final awards did not
surprise anyone. There will always be bloc voting and people campaigning
because in the end it is a popularity contest after all.

But disqualifications without explanation... that is really really bad news.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article <uotovv$irn$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>Oh! And since each WorldCon is its own soveriegn entity, there is
>>no higher organization that believes it has the power to intervene
>>when a WorldCon goes rogue and eithr subverts or screws up the
>>process. There's no legal mechanism (or at least nobody at the WSFS
>>believes there is) to overrun a clearly broken, possibly completely
>>fraudulent Hugo process.
>
>The Hugos are supposed to remain independent of the Worldcon itself. I am
>in no way surprised that there was massive government influence in the
>Worldcon because that is how China is and that is what was expected going
>into the game. But interference into the Hugos was not expected and not
>acceptable.

Government interference is one explanation but there are a bunch of
possible explanations. It may be best to steal a page from Illuminatus
and assume they are all true: functionaries interfered, people self-
censored, there was a monumental error counting ballots, the IRA
put LSD in the tea, the entire membership was consumed and replaced
by the Thing, and this is a side effect of Fairie leaking into
Changdu.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

In article <l1entrFsfcpU1@mid.individual.net>,
Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:

snip re The Pandamoanium

>Thanks for the added link (which includes links to other discussion).
>
>It looks like there are two distinct problems which are perhaps being
>linked together too much in the discussions.

Which reminds me: there may be no One True Explanation because maybe
more than one thing went wrong.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 2024-01-25, Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:
> Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
>>The odd pattern of voting is definitely concerning, but may have
>>reasonably innocent explanations. For instance, if somebody
>>influential in Chinese fandom a year ago said
>> "Let's make this the most popular WorldCon in history to show
>> our Chinese spirit. Please nominate your favorite books. Some of the
>> most popular books of the past year were ... (8-9 suggestions) ...
>> <other categories>"
>>we could get the anomalous behavior pointed out by Jones of 8-9 novels
>>standing out above all others. Chinese students do remarkable things
>>in support of their passions (and would read all 8-9 books) but are
>>perhaps too easily influenced by authority. Unfortunate, but not
>>intentional ballot stuffing and I don't see how to stop it.
>
> This is always to be expected, and it is why the final awards did not
> surprise anyone. There will always be bloc voting and people campaigning
> because in the end it is a popularity contest after all.
>
> But disqualifications without explanation... that is really really bad news.
> --scott

I agree the disqualifications is the big worry/story.

Yes, there will always be bloc voting and I see at least two examples of
that in the novel nominations. One of them should be expected and
even desired. There was clearly a Chinese-original-language bloc of novels
that were highly correlated with each other. But I would want to see that
in these circumstances. There should be Chinese readers who don't read
foreign language SF!

However, the bloc of 7 English-original-language novels that dominated
is still unexplained. It clearly has a cause; you don't get that sort
of drop-off after the 7 naturally. One thought: I read a lot of
fan-translated (copyright illegal) Chinese-original-language
webnovels. Is there an corresponding reverse flow happening? Are
these 7 novels the ones that happened to be translated illegally
and China doesn't want it publicly admitted to?

While I'm thinking of far-out pro-Chinese conspiracy theories: is it possible
that the earliest nomination ballots showed the Chinese-original-language
bloc of novels and some Chinese with power realized how badly that would
appear to foreigners if those were the top novels, and then organized the
push to the 7 English novels? If so, they badly over-did it (which I would
actually expect.)

I really can't think of any likely nefarious reason for the 7 bloc. All 7
were affected and pure ballot stuffing for a single novel would
presumably only affect 5 to get the single novel into the finalists.

On a different note, one reason to include the _Babel_ line in the
nomination elimination-round table, would be to show that nomination
ballot counting was not affected by all the later disqualifications
and may be believable. _Babel_ was not discriminated against and would
clearly have been a finalist if it had not been disqualified.

Chris

Over on bluesky, people report that Chinese fans are fuming about how the
Chengdu admins bungled the Hugos. The admin fuckups are seen as making
all of Chinese fandom look bad.

--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 25 Jan 2024 13:50:55 -0000, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

>James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>Oh! And since each WorldCon is its own soveriegn entity, there is
>>no higher organization that believes it has the power to intervene
>>when a WorldCon goes rogue and eithr subverts or screws up the
>>process. There's no legal mechanism (or at least nobody at the WSFS
>>believes there is) to overrun a clearly broken, possibly completely
>>fraudulent Hugo process.
>
>The Hugos are supposed to remain independent of the Worldcon itself. I am
>in no way surprised that there was massive government influence in the
>Worldcon because that is how China is and that is what was expected going
>into the game. But interference into the Hugos was not expected and not
>acceptable.

I hate to sound like a bitter old man, but what else do you expect
from a commie gummint?

And what do you think a fascist Trump gummint will be doing if Trump
wins and installs one?

Democracy and freedom are about more than just politics!
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>Over on bluesky, people report that Chinese fans are fuming about how the
>Chengdu admins bungled the Hugos. The admin fuckups are seen as making
>all of Chinese fandom look bad.

Yes, but this is not surprising. There has been an interesting gap between
the Chinese management and the Chinese fans throughout this whole process.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 1/25/2024 9:31 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>> Over on bluesky, people report that Chinese fans are fuming about how the
>> Chengdu admins bungled the Hugos. The admin fuckups are seen as making
>> all of Chinese fandom look bad.
>
> Yes, but this is not surprising. There has been an interesting gap between
> the Chinese management and the Chinese fans throughout this whole process.

Well, that kind of describes all of Chinese history. A disconnect
between the rulers/management and the population.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On 1/24/2024 8:06 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
> https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>
> I haven't seen any discussion of this previously! It sounds quite
> intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
> content. Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
> is being reported correctly?

I don't know why people are upset, it is just standard communism.
Surely they knew that would happen when they located the WorldCon in a
communist country.

Lynn

On 26/01/2024 12:38, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 1/24/2024 8:06 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
>> https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>>
>> I haven't seen any discussion of this previously!  It sounds quite
>> intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
>> content.  Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
>> is being reported correctly?
>
> I don't know why people are upset, it is just standard communism. Surely
> they knew that would happen when they located the WorldCon in a
> communist country.
>
It's simple statism, whether the state is Communist, Fascist,
Capitalist, an Empire, or whatever.

The peons are afraid of annoying the tools of the
President/Emperor/Chairman/Dictator/...

Cheers,
Gary B-)

In article <jgnb8k-t11.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au>,
Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote:
>On 26/01/2024 12:38, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> On 1/24/2024 8:06 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
>>>
>https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>>>
>>> I haven't seen any discussion of this previously!  It sounds quite
>>> intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
>>> content.  Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
>>> is being reported correctly?
>>
>> I don't know why people are upset, it is just standard communism. Surely
>> they knew that would happen when they located the WorldCon in a
>> communist country.
>>
>It's simple statism, whether the state is Communist, Fascist,
>Capitalist, an Empire, or whatever.
>
>The peons are afraid of annoying the tools of the
>President/Emperor/Chairman/Dictator/...
>
There is a theory that it's actually a giant cockup. They comprehensively
fucked up running the algorithm for EPH and not only put people in
twice (which we know happened) but left people off as well. And then
didn't want to admit error so they just said anyone who was left off
was not eligible.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 26/01/2024 15:22, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <jgnb8k-t11.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au>,
> Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote:
>> On 26/01/2024 12:38, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> On 1/24/2024 8:06 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
>>>>
>> https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>>>>
>>>> I haven't seen any discussion of this previously!  It sounds quite
>>>> intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
>>>> content.  Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
>>>> is being reported correctly?
>>>
>>> I don't know why people are upset, it is just standard communism. Surely
>>> they knew that would happen when they located the WorldCon in a
>>> communist country.
>>>
>> It's simple statism, whether the state is Communist, Fascist,
>> Capitalist, an Empire, or whatever.
>>
>> The peons are afraid of annoying the tools of the
>> President/Emperor/Chairman/Dictator/...
>>
> There is a theory that it's actually a giant cockup. They comprehensively
> fucked up running the algorithm for EPH and not only put people in
> twice (which we know happened) but left people off as well. And then
> didn't want to admit error so they just said anyone who was left off
> was not eligible.

That would make a lot of sense, incompetence combined with saving face,
I've seen it far too often when dealing with people from that geographic
area. (But the ones from the lesser east are worse.)

Cheers,
Gary B-)

In article <uov2eb$2hhqr$2@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 1/24/2024 8:06 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
>> https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>>
>> I haven't seen any discussion of this previously! It sounds quite
>> intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
>> content. Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
>> is being reported correctly?
>
>I don't know why people are upset, it is just standard communism.
>Surely they knew that would happen when they located the WorldCon in a
>communist country.

The Hugos are not the Worldcon. I expect government control over the
Worldcon if it is located in a place with an authoritarian government
like Uganda or China. But the Hugo process did not take place in China.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>There is a theory that it's actually a giant cockup. They comprehensively
>fucked up running the algorithm for EPH and not only put people in
>twice (which we know happened) but left people off as well. And then
>didn't want to admit error so they just said anyone who was left off
>was not eligible.

This is a very reasonable explanation but also one that reflects even
more poorly on the committee than that of government interference.

In the post-Puppies world many are looking very carefully at the voting
process and it is that much more important that it be completely open and
available for inspection.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article <up0jvu$bi9$1@panix2.panix.com>,
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>>There is a theory that it's actually a giant cockup. They comprehensively
>>fucked up running the algorithm for EPH and not only put people in
>>twice (which we know happened) but left people off as well. And then
>>didn't want to admit error so they just said anyone who was left off
>>was not eligible.
>
>This is a very reasonable explanation but also one that reflects even
>more poorly on the committee than that of government interference.
>
>In the post-Puppies world many are looking very carefully at the voting
>process and it is that much more important that it be completely open and
>available for inspection.
>--scott

At this point, Glasgow and Seattle would be well-advised to announce they
were going to steal a trick from the Academy Awards and have some trusted
neutral party vet the results.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 1/25/2024 8:38 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 1/24/2024 8:06 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
>> https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>>
>> I haven't seen any discussion of this previously!  It sounds quite
>> intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
>> content.  Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
>> is being reported correctly?
>
> I don't know why people are upset, it is just standard communism. Surely
> they knew that would happen when they located the WorldCon in a
> communist country.

Well, it depends on how we define "they".

To quote Kevin Standlee's ("current Chair of the legal entity that owns
the service marks of the World Science Fiction Society") summary
(https://kevin-standlee.dreamwidth.org/2296661.html) of the relevant
rules governing the World Science Fiction Society
(https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/):

1. Worldcon is not really a single convention. It’s an ongoing series of
one-shot events, each of which is run by a separate legal entity with
extremely weak oversight that mainly amounts to hoping that the
organizers follow the rules that they agreed to follow.

2. The World Science Fiction Society is not a corporation with a Board
of Directors that makes all of the decisions, specifically about where
Worldcons are held.

3. The site of Worldcon is determined by a vote of the members of the
Worldcon two years earlier. That is, the members of the 2021 Worldcon in
DC voted to select Chengdu. There was another bid on the ballot
(Winnipeg). There is no entity that evaluates subjectively the
suitability of a site. That is, no one entity can say, “That site is bad
because [reasons], so it’s not eligible.” The requirements to file a
Worldcon bid are technical in nature and the people administering the
election simply check off that the technical documents meet those
requirements.

4. In order to be able to vote on the site of the Worldcon two years
from now, you have to join the current Worldcon as at least a WSFS
(formerly called supporting) member, which costs around US$50 these
days, and then you also have to cast a vote in the election, putting up
what’s called an Advance WSFS Membership (again, around US$50), which
makes you a member of that two-year hence convention.

5. Several thousand people joined the 2021 Worldcon, mostly from China,
and voted (probably for Chengdu, but the choices of individual voters
are in a secret ballot), in the last few days before the voting deadline
in 2021. I do not mean to imply that only people from China voted for
Chengdu. Other non-Chinese members have said they voted for Chengdu.
There also were people who said they wouldn't vote because they didn't
want there to be a chance that their personal details (name, address,
contact information) could end up in a Chinese database.

6. The administration of the Hugo Awards is entirely in the hands of the
current Worldcon committee for that year, as others have noted. There is
no entity that is superior to the individual Worldcon committee.

On 1/24/2024 8:06 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
> https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
>
> I haven't seen any discussion of this previously! It sounds quite
> intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
> content. Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
> is being reported correctly?
>
> Chris

Charles Stross wrote his own version of this.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/01/worldcon-in-the-news.html

I need to read more of his books. He hangs out in reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1abo34l/worldcon_in_the_news/

Lynn

On 2024-01-25, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <l1entrFsfcpU1@mid.individual.net>,
> Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
>
> snip re The Pandamoanium
>
>>Thanks for the added link (which includes links to other discussion).
>>
>>It looks like there are two distinct problems which are perhaps being
>>linked together too much in the discussions.
>
> Which reminds me: there may be no One True Explanation because maybe
> more than one thing went wrong.

Yes, multiple things obviously went wrong. That's not surprising at
all; you get mistakes when responsibility gets spread out as much as
is was and you have one-time amateurs doing most of it. At the top
level you had:
1. The original World-Con bidders who probably had a reasonable understanding
of the associated Hugo Award procedures.
2. The commercially-connected Chinese sponsors who eventually mostly took
over. They may have understood conventions but they clearly did not
understand the Hugo responsibilities.
3. The English speaking experienced managers who came in late when it was
obvious there were massive problems. It's not clear how much authority
they eventually got.

At the lower levels they had nomination counting being done separately
in two languages, with undoubtedly multiple different Chinese
translations of English titles. They probably had the same "is this a
valid ballot" problems of ballots without full address identification
that they had when the Chinese bid was first voted on (people not being
willing to give all that info to the Chinese government.) So lots more
communication than normal was needed, with a changing top level that
couldn't establish the needed procedures and checking. All the
minor data inconsistencies are unfortunate but understandable.

The disqualifications are much more worrisome. That had to be
deliberate. It's possible it could have been a commercial manager
self-censoring an award they thought was just a local convention award
and then not admitting fault when they found out they were wrong. But
it could have been official Chinese party policy; we don't know.

Chris

Among the things Paul S Person wrote:
>
> Democracy and freedom are about more than just politics!

Ha! Thanks!

These totalitarians, why do they have to get into everything?!

--
-Jack

On Friday, January 26, 2024 at 4:22:12 AM UTC, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <jgnb8k-...@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au>,
> Gary R. Schmidt <grsc...@acm.org> wrote:
> >On 26/01/2024 12:38, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >> On 1/24/2024 8:06 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
> >>>
> >https://www.polygon.com/24049021/hugo-awards-controversy-china-censorship-babel
> >>>
> >>> I haven't seen any discussion of this previously! It sounds quite
> >>> intolerable - books being declared ineligible because of their Chinese
> >>> content. Is there confirmation that all of this actually occurred and
> >>> is being reported correctly?
> >>
> >> I don't know why people are upset, it is just standard communism. Surely
> >> they knew that would happen when they located the WorldCon in a
> >> communist country.
> >>
> >It's simple statism, whether the state is Communist, Fascist,
> >Capitalist, an Empire, or whatever.
> >
> >The peons are afraid of annoying the tools of the
> >President/Emperor/Chairman/Dictator/...
> >
> There is a theory that it's actually a giant cockup. They comprehensively
> fucked up running the algorithm for EPH and not only put people in
> twice (which we know happened) but left people off as well. And then
> didn't want to admit error so they just said anyone who was left off
> was not eligible.
> --
> My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
> My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
> My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
> My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
Cockup and political interference are not mutually exclusive. The Chinese and other communist parties have long had experience of finding that political appointees didn't actually know how to do their jobs - see for example the phrase "Red and Expert" explained at https://www.strategictranslation.org/glossary/red-and-expert