What If? Attacks on Rocket Stack Rank

A furor erupted this week in SFF cyberspace about pronouns and how reviewer Greg Hullender of Rocket Stack Rank has made light of them. For anyone just tuning in, Rocket Stack Rank (RSR) is a review site run by Hullender and Eric Wong that provides brief reviews of stories eligible for the major SFF awards, including the Nebula, the Hugo, and presumably the Bram Stoker and other awards.

The site has received a lot of positive notice, and recently Hullender was tapped to serve on the Locus panel that feeds the major awards. In response, a group of SFF authors posted an open letter complaining about the pronoun issue and Hullender’s take on trans and non-binary characters in the reviews, also calling him a racist for good measure. Since I’m not trans or non-binary, I’m going to refrain from commenting on this. Everybody is entitled to their own feelings. However, I just wrote the last blog on virtue signaling, so I’m looking at this dust up through that lens.

Hullender promptly posted an apology to “all readers and authors we’ve harmed and offended.” This was judged unacceptable because he also wrote a response to the charges with evidence to demonstrate how they were questionable. Of course, it’s unsupportable to discriminate against people because of their race, gender or trans status, but what if this is actually about something else?

David Gerrold recently made some interesting comments at Amazing Stories. He basically says that members of the SFF community have to stand up and take sides in the progressive/conservative fight in order to save their reputations. This is troubling because it suggests you can’t just remain neutral. Instead, you have to take sides, and then to signal your virtue through word and action in order to be accepted in the community. So why are Hullender and Wong being attacked? Have they not done this properly?

The authors of the open letter think they’re insensitive racists. Hullender seems to think they‘re thoughtful progressives. So, are they posting discriminatory reviews, or are they just posting equal opportunity bad reviews for stories they don’t like?

Trans is the current cause célèbre. Is critiquing the stories not proper virtue signaling? What are members of the community expecting instead?

Investment in the Hugo Awards

Dang, my little traffic counter is tired—Vox Day linked to my last blog. I normally get an uptick when File770 links, but now we see who the real powerhouse is. Thanks to all who stopped by. It’s good to have discussion, although this one got a little off-track.

I read all the comments, here and also on these two respective sites. There are interesting responses. First, I gather that some people have a quite a personal investment in the Hugo Awards. The suggestion I made in the blog that DragonCon had looked at the Hugo controversy and would be in competition turned out more than one knight-errant to defend the Hugo Awards. Steve Davidson wrote a response supporting my position that the Dragon Awards are likely to change the flow of both money and promotion in ways that will undermine the Hugos.

The big question was about what I meant by “the Hugo process where works are winnowed through a narrow review and recommendation system and onto the ballot.” Although the Sad/Rabid Puppies have been severely trashed for their viewpoints, a faction of fandom has looked at their complaints critically and moved to analyze the awards process in response. If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll recall that I’ve featured statistical studies of the awards process for both the Hugos and the Nebulas during the last year. These show that prominent recommendation lists can be used to predict the nominees pretty accurately, and that the awards process is subject to bias. Other studies have shown the lists have limited sources, low diversity and a tendency for repeat appearances. The award winners for both the Hugos and the Nebulas are typically chosen by relatively small groups of individuals that lean to professional writers, editors and publishers. This is what I’m calling a “narrow” process.

I don’t know that you can ever eliminate these problems. People will always need a system to sift through what’s available. One of the main issues is how to work through the sheer number of SFF works published during the year, and another is the fierce competition to use the awards for their promotional value. I expect the Dragon Awards will have similar fairness issues. Plus, you can bet some people are already looking for ways to manipulate the results.