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From the The Guardian.
Introducing the Sad Puppies...
"The shortlists for the long-running American genre awards, won in the past by names from Kurt Vonnegut to Ursula K Le Guin and voted for by fans, were announced this weekend to uproar in the science fiction community, after it emerged that the line-up corresponded closely with the slates of titles backed by certain conservative writers. The self-styled "Sad Puppies" campaigners had set out to combat what orchestrator and writer Brad Torgersen had criticised as the Hugos' tendency to reward "literary" and "ideological" works.
Today's Hugos, Torgersen has blogged, "have lost cachet, because at the same time SF/F has exploded popularly – with larger-than-life, exciting, entertaining franchises and products – the voting body of 'fandom' have tended to go in the opposite direction: niche, academic, overtly to the Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun".
Twenty years ago, he writes, "if you saw a lovely spaceship on a book cover, with a gorgeous planet in the background, you could be pretty sure you were going to get a rousing space adventure featuring starships and distant, amazing worlds". Nowadays, he claims, the same jacket is likely to be a story "merely about racial prejudice and exploitation, with interplanetary or interstellar trappings".
And here we have the Rabid Puppies definitely not mentioning GamerGate:
Another group of allied rightwing campaigners, dubbing themselves the Rabid Puppies and led by Vox Day, real name Theodore Beale, have also added their voices to the block-voting campaign against what Day called "the left-wing control freaks who have subjected science fiction to ideological control for two decades and are now attempting to do the same thing in the game industry".
And finally a bit of Martin:
"Call it block voting. Call it ballot stuffing. Call it gaming the system. There's truth to all of those characterisations. You can't call it cheating, though. It was all within the rules. But many things can be legal, and still bad ... and this is one of those, from where I sit. I think the Sad Puppies have broken the Hugo awards, and I am not sure they can ever be repaired," he wrote.
"If the Sad Puppies wanted to start their own award ... for Best Conservative SF, or Best Space Opera, or Best Military SF, or Best Old-Fashioned SF the Way It Used to Be ... whatever it is they are actually looking for ... hey, I don't think anyone would have any objections to that. I certainly wouldn't. More power to them," he added. "But that's not what they are doing here, it seems to me. Instead they seem to want to take the Hugos and turn them into their own awards."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:43PM
Its about ethics in scifi journalism.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:22PM
It's about ethics in journalism, period.
When you start following journalists and reading their twitter feeds, seeing who they're connected to, who and what they're promoting it's quite clear they're push specific politics and narratives. They care about clicks and pandering to their audiences, not the truth. They will omit facts and out right lie to push their own views and drum up outrage. I see comments all the time on Slashdot and Soylent where people know there's just something not right with a specific article. People can tell when things don't add up. They might not know what it is, but they know there's something.
The problem is the only information we have to go on is that of the people accused of acting in unethical ways, who are also the people that are suppose to be calling that behavior out.
"Kotaku investigated Kotaku and found Kotaku isn't responsible for any wrong doings Kotaku is accused of" - Kotaku
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:25PM
> It's about ethics in journalism, period.
Wooosh!
> "Kotaku investigated Kotaku and found Kotaku isn't responsible for any wrong doings Kotaku is accused of" - Kotaku
No. "Kotaku investigated Kotaku and here is what we found which we think is no big deal." And they weren't a big deal.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:43PM
There's no "Woosh" the meme didn't go over my head, I completely understand the mockery and that people that use it are hypocrites and small people who are more bigoted than any accusations leveled at anyone that just wanted to talk about how journalists are using their privilege to push their personal views / friends / products without disclosures.
It also seems rather obvious journalists accused of wrong doings are going to play the "we think it isn't a big deal" card. OF COURSE it's not a big deal to them otherwise they wouldn't have used their positions for personal advantage in the first place. All the media had to do was, "Yeah, sorry we messed up. We'll try harder to disclose personal relationships and professional connections in the future", instead they went with, "DIE YOU SHITLORD SCUM!! HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE US OF ACTING IN AN UNETHICAL WAY!! MISOGYNIST! RAPIST! SEXISTS!! STOP PUSHING WOMEN OUT OF THE INDUSTRY!! BOYCOTT THIS FEMALE DEV FOR NOT AGREEING WITH US!! GAMERS AREN'T OUR AUDIENCE!!"
Yeah, that worked out real well for them
Several sites have updated ethical policies, some of the worst offending journalist were let go, or shuffled to other publications, GameJournoPro was exposed, blacklisting has been uncovered, journalists and IGF judges invested in companies they voted to win IGF awards have been exposed. It's been quite a ride. ^_^
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:14AM
I thought $PRODUCT journalism was all about accepting money from publishers of the very products being reviewed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:00PM
It's about #GG-style entitlement.