Are the Puppies all bark and no bite?

On March 30th I predicted that the Puppies would sweep the Hugo Award nominations. Since then my ongoing Hugo/Puppy commentary and analysis has received a good bit of traffic, with my website receiving more than 100,000 visitors over the last month.

All of which, ta da, allows me to rank the sites which sent the most visitors my way. While this isn't a scientific analysis of which genre sites have the most traffic (more on that in a moment), it does give a relative look at where people are reading about the Puppies' Hugo Award martyrdom operation, or at least those places which linked to my analysis.

Here are the top ten sites which sent traffic my way over the last month, along with their percentage of traffic.

1. Twitter: 25.32%
2. Google: 21.80%
3. Direct visitors to site: 20.70%
4. Facebook: 12.40%
5. Balloon-juice.com: 6.63%
6. Nielsenhayden.com: 5.62%
7. Voxday.blogspot.com: 2.54%
8. Electricliterature.com: 1.76%
9. Reddit.com: 1.64%
10. Metafilter.com: 1.59%

Again, this isn't a scientific analysis of the overall popularity of these different sites. For example, if someone's post focused specifically on one of my essays, that might send more traffic my way than a link buried in the bottom of a long post. In addition, I'm not the only one writing about the Hugo Awards, and many many many people and sites didn't link to my essays at all.

But one thing I draw from this is that most people who care about or know of the Hugo Awards are not involved in genre politics. The reason Google sent nearly 22% of all the traffic to my site over the last month is that, for several days in late March and early April, anyone who typed "sad puppies" or "sad puppies hugo" into Google saw my commentary as the first link. I suspect these were genre fans or members of the general public who knew about the Hugos, had heard that something called the Puppies swept the awards, and were searching for more information.

If this is a correct analysis, it suggests there's a massive group of people interested in the SF/F genre and the Hugos who didn't know about the Puppy campaigns beforehand.

I also find the traffic comparison between Nielsenhayden.com and Voxday.blogspot.com rather interesting. Over the last month both sites featured multiple posts with prominent links to my essays, yet one of them clearly sent more traffic my way. While people can draw their own conclusions from this, it makes me wonder if the reach of the Rabid Puppies ringleader has been overstated by everyone in the genre.

Yes, VD has a passionate group of followers who helped the Rabid Puppy slate become the true winners of this Hugo mess. But perhaps the actual number of his followers is rather small, at least when compared to other groups within the SF/F genre.

That doesn't mean he and his followers can't continue to game the Hugos — the award's nomination process, as recent events have proved, are very easily dominated by small, organized voting blocks.

But if my take on these numbers is correct, then it appears the Puppies are mostly all bark and no bite. Which give me hope that, in the long run, John Scalzi might be correct and the Puppies will turn out to be a "rear-guard action" with very little lasting influence in the SF/F genre.

Thank you to our genre's many volunteers (and please don't attack them)

One of the great things about science fiction and fantasy fandom are the volunteers. These are the people who organize conventions and run organizations like SFWA and write reviews and edit fanzines and record podcasts (and so much more).

These volunteers even organize Worldcon and manage the Hugo Awards in the face of, at least this year, considerable controversy and anger.

Make no mistake — the people running most everything in the SF/F genre are volunteers. Yes, there are a small number of professional editors and publishers in the genre, and a few big conventions like DragonCon and GenCon have full-time staff. But once you move past these exceptions to the rule you discover that our genre is mostly supported through the hard work of volunteers. Even if some of them are paid small amounts for their time, it's rarely enough to compensate for how much work they put in.

Our genre was built through the work of volunteers. Our genre is still supported through volunteers, who do what they do simply because of a love of science fiction and fantasy.

One of the most disgusting things I've seen since the launch of the Puppy campaigns is how people are attacking these genre volunteers. Some of these attacks are subtle, such as the Puppies saying Worldcon and the Hugo Awards don't represent the true fans (whatever that means). But if you're saying that, then you're also saying everyone who volunteers to make the Worldcon and the Hugo Awards happen aren't true SF/F fans.

Other attacks aren't subtle, such as the attempt to create insulting names to call our genre volunteers. Or saying you'll destroy the Hugo Awards, which amounts to an attempt to destroy the work of generations of Worldcon volunteers merely to accomplish your political goals.

I recently read a comment which sums up the pain many of these volunteers are feeling over having something they love turned into a political football. Chris Barkley, who is a long-time WorldCon volunteer and has worked on the Hugo Awards, recently wrote the following:

"As someone who has been deeply and personally involved with the Hugos Awards for the past 16 years, I find this...situation, extremely distressing. I, and many others involved with the Worldcon and the Business Meeting have worked VERY hard to make the award categories inclusive, fair, engaging and most importantly, relevant, in the 21st century. To see all of that jeopardized, by people who should know better, for all the wrong headed reasons, is something I never saw coming..."

Thanks to Chris for letting me quote him.

As I've written before, there have always been competing groups and political views in the SF/F genre. But never before have an organized group of people threatened to destroy the work of so many genre volunteers if they don't get their way. Never before have organized groups of people created new insults to disparage the very volunteers who support out genre.

I wish people would remember that volunteers are the heart and blood of our genre. I wish that, instead of creating new insults for these volunteers, people would remember that they didn't ask to be thrown into the middle of a political fight.

I can think of no more painful job right now in our genre than managing the Hugo Awards, yet there are volunteers doing just that. They're putting up with insults and anger and trying their best to keep the awards going — all without pay or much in the way of thanks.

So I want to say thank you to all our genre's volunteers. Without you, our genre wouldn't exist in anything like it's current form.

And if you call yourself a SF/F fan but don't understand this simple fact, then you need to learn more about what makes the science fiction and fantasy genre truly great.

State-of-the-art TV news technology, circa 1952

I'm still combing through my grandfather's old SF magazines. Here's a short article which caught my eye about the technology used to broadcast election results in November 1952.

The 1952 presidential contest between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson was the first election to see extensive use of TV coverage, with eventual winner Eisenhower famously using short TV ads to enhance his image. But the election was also significant in how the networks used then state-of-the-art technology to both cover the election and predict its outcome as results came in.

The short article below comes from the February 1953 issue of Startling Stories, and reports on how one the biggest challenges in broadcasting TV news of the election was in quickly developing film. It's also amusing that in 1952 the cutting-edge in computers were being built by the National Cash Register Company and the American Totalizer Company.

The article's copy is below. People can also download the article as a PDF scan.

Video-Technics by Pat Jones

On-the-Spot News

WE'RE NOT going in for any political rehashing. The elections are over, and for the most part, the fever has subsided. Some of the improvements in tv techniques which brought the election results quickly and accurately before the public will continue to make news.

To get the story, we talked to NBCs Charles H. Colledge. Newsman and engineer combined, "Joe" Colledge works son the theory that news, like ice cream, "is best when its a scoop."

In getting facts and figures rapidly to the public, two items struck us as being of special interest. One was the way statistics were handled, the other how human interest highlighted the evening.

Special computers were built by the National Cash Register Co. and the American Totalizer Co, each of which had the equivalent of 27 mechanical memories. Thus it was possible to flash up-to-the-minute results of the nations balloting.

The six unique tabulators broke down the results into states and electoral districts, popular and electoral votes, enabling commentators to analyze trends as fast as they developed.

To secure news scoops of human interest from out of the way sources, 16mm movie cameras were often useful. Having the advantage of complete mobility, only one major drawback had prevented their extensive use: the slowness of ordinary film developing processes.

In conjunction with professors from MIT and two NBC cameramen, Colledge conceived and constructed a radically new developing unit for preparing 16mm film.

Unlike other film developers used by networks (some of which occupy an entire room) the hot developer is contained in a box about half the size of a home refrigerator. Weighing 225 pounds, it is portable, and film can be developed en route from its source.

The unit can turn out 1,220 feet of negative film an hour. Only 67 feet pass over its flock of rollers at a given moment, taking roughly two minutes to develop one minutes worth of film. Though spray developers have been built which are faster, commercial immersion developers of this type are larger, and take almost six times as long to develop film.

The trick is the developing formula: it utilizes a 20 second developer, a 15 second shortstop (the bath between the developer and the hypo) and a 55 second fixing agent. Operating at room temperature (6580), a thermometer within the machine rigidly regulates its temperature. Plugged into an ordinary wall socket, it operates with or without running water. Film made this way can be aired in 15 minutes.

Having taken every conceivable feature into consideration, the unit was found to have one flaw: ordinary steel disintegrated in the solution. The roller chains in the experimental model had to be greased carefully to keep it in working order

Future models will eliminate the necessity for elbow grease in getting on-the-spot news Scoops to your tv screens.

On screaming "We're not VD!" while ignoring your relationship with VD

When I first wrote that the Puppy campaigns would sweep the Hugo Awards, I predicted a backlash. So I'm absolutely not surprised that, after said backlash, both Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen are distancing themselves from Vox Day's Rabid Puppies campaign and his threat to destroy the Hugo Awards.

What's interesting about Larry and Brad walking away from Vox Day is that without him it's likely the Puppy campaign would have failed. Nathaniel Givens has done a great job analyzing the Puppy numbers. The Venn Diagram at right is based on Givens' analysis and shows where each of the 20 Hugo finalists in the novel, novella, novelette, and short story categories came from (prior to stories being disqualified or removed by their authors).

As Givens said, "If you want to know where the finalists come from, it looks like Rabid Puppies can’t possibly be ignored. For someone like me who really supported the moderate, inclusive aims of Sad Puppies 3, this is a sobering realization."

Because of the evidence that Rabid Puppies actually won the Hugo nomination process, and because of the anger over what VD has previously said and done, Larry Correia is now saying "I'm not Vox Day." Brad Torgersen is also now insisting that Sad Puppies are not Rabid Puppies.

And for what that's worth, they're speaking the truth. They are not Vox Day.

But what they're not talking about is their relationship with Vox Day.

There's an old strategy at play here, one used to force people to do or give you what you want. Sometimes called good cop/bad cop, it involves one person appearing to be reasonable while the other person makes the threats — even though both people are seeking the same or similar outcomes.

Basically, you let someone else be the heavy. You let that person threaten to destroy everything others love unless you get your way. That way you don't have your fingerprints all over the nasty nasty bad stuff.

Chainsawsuit by Kris Straub has a great comic summarizing how this strategy works.

I don't need Larry and Brad or anyone else to say they're not Vox Day. I know that. Everyone knows VD is responsible for his own actions and statements.

But what many people suspect is that Larry and Brad worked with VD on all this. And based on the evidence, it's difficult to draw any other conclusion.

For example, Brad ran this year's Sad Puppies campaign and posted their voting slate on February 1. I can't tell you the exact time he posted the slate, but the first comment on the post appeared at 8:40 pm, followed quickly by many more.

Vox Day posted his Rabid Puppies ballot on February 2nd. Again, I don't know the exact time but the comments began coming in a little after 1 am. Depending on the time zone settings of these two sites, that means as little as a few hours separated the posting of the Sad and Rabid Puppies slates.

But hey, let's be generous and say an entire day separated the launch of their "separate" campaigns. If there was no coordination between the two campaigns that means in less than a day VD read all the stories on the Sad Puppies slate, decided which to discard and which to add to his own slate, and launched his campaign.

Oh, and he also found time to contact the artist who created the Sad Puppies logo and have that artist create a similar but different logo for the Rabid Puppies. (The artist is Lee Madison, who uses the name Artracoon on his art. He even set up a site to sell shirts with both Sad and Rabid Puppies logos.)

If it's possible to do all that in such a short time frame without coordinating the two campaigns, I'd love to hear how it was done.

Again, no one believes Larry and Brad are VD. But when people look at all this they see only one campaign, or two campaigns which appear to have worked together.

Until Brad and Larry address this issue, no one will believe that VD didn't work together with them on the Puppy campaigns. And because of that, it's not unreasonable for people to lump both these two campaigns into the same pile of crap.

Note: Post updated to include new Venn Diagram. Thanks to everyone who pointed out the issue with the original diagram.

How's that Puppy thing working out for you?

Today Annie Bellet withdrew her short story “Goodnight Stars” from the Hugo Award ballot and Marko Kloos did the same thing with his novel Lines of Departure. 

While Bellet and Kloos were on the slate of stories put forward by the Sad and Rabid Puppies campaigns, both decided that didn't want to be anyone's political ball.

I can totally understand that. Few people like being used by others to score political points.

And this news comes only two days after the novelette “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” by John C. Wright was pulled from the ballot for being previously published (and replaced with the novelette “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt).

On top of all that, the organizers of Sad Puppies are scrambling (and failing) to disassociate themselves from a certain person who ran the Rabid Puppies campaign.

I will still be reading all the Hugo Award nominees. But if this keeps going I may not have much reading to do.

So Puppies, how's that campaign of yours working out?