Posted on 02/05/2025 4:53:53 PM PST by Angelino97
This article explores cultural and design dimensions of non-governmental voting systems, focusing on science fiction and fantasy (SFF) literary awards voted for by fans, with a focus on the British Science Fiction Awards.
The design of such voting systems needs to juggle a range of goals, one of which is fairness with regard to gender — acknowledging that ‘fairness’ is not straightforward to define, particularly given such awards are embedded within broader gender inequalities.
Our analysis suggests that men have been more likely than women to vote for works by men, and also more likely to vote in ways that amplify the influence of men’s votes under an Alternative Vote System.
We suggest that SFF awards are cultural spaces which lend themselves to experimentation with new democratic forms, and briefly offer potential sources of inspiration. Just as SFF has aspired to be a space to think about the future of technology, gender, the environment, and many other issues, SFF award spaces could be spaces for thinking about the future of democracy.
We also offer recommendations to SFF awards designers and communities to address gender bias (emphasising reflective practices over technical solutions), and to continue to explore how aesthetic and cultural values and identities are constructed and negotiated within SFF award spaces, and beyond.
(Excerpt) Read more at vector-bsfa.com ...
All of these studies of gender and race are useless in the real world.
One of the saddest things about wokeism is the way it has completely and utterly ruined science fiction.
Slightly offtopic (despite my deserved reputation for indulging in that):
((Story I missed in 2015-—
The Hugo Awards have courted controversy before. In 2015, a right-wing voting bloc led by Brad R. Torgersen dominated the ballot after he complained that the Hugos had become “an affirmative action award” for “underrepresented minority or victim group” authors and characters.))
Science fiction Hugo Award for best of the year.
NPR story.
The Hugo Awards scandal has shaken the sci-fi community.
Last year’s ceremony was held in China, and now leaked emails show evidence of vote tampering and flags on potential nominees over political beliefs.
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10% of all ballots cast for the 2024 HUGO AWARDS ...
ComicsBeat
10-of-all-ballots-cast-for-the -Hugo-Award Disallowed.
Jul 23, 2024 — A swathe of ballots for the 2024 Hugo Awards – set to take place August 11 at Glasgow Worldcon, Scotland – have been deemed fraudulent and disallowed.
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Many votes were deemed fraudulent and subsequently were disqualified.
Many votes were made under “obvious fake names,” the Hugo Awards’ administrators said in a statement Monday, explaining that there was “a run of voters whose second names were identical except that the first letter was changed, in alphabetical order,” as well as a “run of voters whose names were translations of consecutive numbers.”
2023 controversy.
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Controversy ensued as it was revealed that Chinese-Canadian author Xiran Jay Zhao and Chinese-American author Rebecca F. Kuang received enough preliminary votes to be nominated for major categories, but were ruled “ineligible” by Hugo Awards officials without explanation.
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While Sanford welcomed the participation of new Chinese fans, other people were alarmed that many of the Chinese votes for Chengdu were written in the same handwriting and posted from the same mailing address.
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...an open letter “in protest of serious and ongoing human rights violations taking place in the Uyghur region of China.” Other authors were concerned about the Chinese Communist Party’s history of censoring LGBTQ content, as well as material that criticizes the party’s government.
These concerns planted the seeds for this year’s crisis, which reached a boiling point on January 20, 2024./
Recent forays into science fiction has been most disappointing . It is filled with alternative lifestyles, gender dysphoria and quite unattractive viewpoints for those of us with conservative Christian values. Makes me sad.
It seems to happen with every award that achieves notoriety. The reason for the award becomes displaced by the politicking and campaigning behind the scenes.
“Our analysis suggests that men have been more likely than women to vote for works by men...”
My analysis suggests that in general men tend to be better writers of sci-fi. And in general men have better taste than women when it comes to sci-fi. So this makes sense.
Freegards
Sort of a reflection of society in general. It's been 53 years since anybody stepped on the moon. Rock bottom was Obama telling NASA that the primary mission was to make muslims feel good about their contributions. Hopefully our society will get back to reality.
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