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Now that I’m back from Lunacon, I will be making the corrections to The List that need to happen. They’ll probably go in over the next day or so while I recover from excess con-going.

Yes, Lunacon was a blast. If they’ll have me back, I’ll be back next year.

I’ve had a couple of requests from people wishing to be removed from The List. I’ve also seen my facebook feed go all splodey with way more messages than I can catch up on (I was effectively incommunicado over the weekend, so there’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and half of today to try to figure out) and I gather there may be others who are unhappy about being on The List.

My policy is as follows:

I will not insult the people who purchased and read the works, and felt them to be award-worthy, by removing anyone’s name or work from The List. I will, however, update The List with an asterisk beside the name/work of those who contact me directly to indicate that they would prefer not to have their work purchased, read, liked, or nominated without the creator’s prior approval.

Readers and nominators may decide as they will.

Comments have now been disabled on all the recommendations posts. I’ll be going through them and collating results over the next week to 2 weeks, so stay tuned or check the Sad Puppies 4 page on Facebook for updates.

Apparently my post yesterday upset someone: this morning I had an automated please moderate email for my personal site (which is almost dead: apparently Mr Amazing couldn’t bring himself to post here even though this site gets a lot more action).

Since I’m on the backup box right now and the password for my personal site is the one that I forgot to add to the password database, rather than futz around trying to break into my own website, I’m going to quote the entire thing here.

Ms. Paulk,

you asked for “demands” to be sent directly to you, so I will comply:

It is my considered belief that Sad Puppies can help repair the divide within fandom by taking two actions:
1. make your SPIV recommendation list a real recommendation list, similar to others that are perceived as recommendation lists (as opposed to slates) by dropping your final stage of compiling a “top ten”.
2. make it clear that Sad Puppies are not aligned with Rabid Puppies.

You and other Sad Puppies have repeatedly claimed that your lists are recommendations (‘like what Scalzi does every year’).  However, they are not once you add that final stage of endorsement.  Drop that final stage and no reasonable person would consider it anything other than what you claim you want it to be.

You and other Sad Puppies have also claimed that SP and Rabid Puppies are not one and the same, yet we see plenty of commentary that strongly suggests otherwise.  A statement by the leaders of SP IV  to the contrary would go a long way.

Those are the two things that I believe would place Sad Puppies in a far better position in regards to acceptance within fandom as a whole.  Doing those two things would lend far greater credence to your other arguments vis-a-vis the field.

Steve

Apparently Steve has reading comprehension issues. I invite readers to consider what I posted yesterday, and compare it to Steve’s demands.

And, just so there is no doubt about any of this: Sarah, Amanda, and I will be doing exactly what I said we were doing in yesterday’s post. We will not accede to anyone’s demands. We will not prevent anyone from making recommendations. We will not associate ourselves with any other group and we will not dissociate ourselves from any other group. We are compiling a list of the works people think are the best in their class and eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards. Nothing more and nothing less.

That is all.

I’ve heard through the Internet (all right, Facebook) that someone who fancies himself a big shot in the field has “offered” to stop claiming Sad Puppies 4 is all things evil in return for a few “reasonable concessions” on our part.

Since the person in question hasn’t bothered to make this offer to me, Sarah Hoyt, or Amanda Green, Sad Puppy supporters can reasonably assume that the so-called offer is not actually genuine.

Just to remind folks:

Sarah Hoyt, Amanda Green, and I are the management of Sad Puppies 4. The direction I announced back in September has not changed: anyone who wishes to recommend any work they have read/seen/heard/etc. that is eligible for a Hugo award may add the work to the lists at this site. We made this decision before WorldCon in 2015, and we made it without reference to any other party.

We do not care what the creators’ politics are. We do not care what the posters’ politics are. We care that people who love science fiction and fantasy have a place to build an awesome list of recommended reading/viewing/listening/artwork for 2015. We care that lots of people become involved in the Hugo Award process. Nobody is excluded from Sad Puppies 4. Anybody can participate or not as they choose. The recommendations will not vanish. Every recommendation will be in the final list. There’s no “gatekeeping” going on here, and no litmus test for participation…unlike the ultimatums being “offered” to the Sad Puppies.

When the final list is announced, we’ll post the top 10 for each category, whatever those might be, and link to the full list. Nothing will be hidden or secret. Anyone who wants to will be able to reconstruct the list from the recommendations posted here (I don’t suggest anyone actually does this. It’s tedious and time-consuming and I really should have written an application to do the grunt work for me. Hindsight is ever perfect).

Finally, we will not be publicly dissociating or associating Sad Puppies 4 from/with anyone. Anyone can make recommendations and everyone’s recommendations will have exactly the same weight as everyone else’s. Nobody will be asked to nominate or vote in line with the list. That’s been the policy from the start, and it’s been what I’ve said from the start.

If the person claiming to have made an offer had actually contacted me, this is exactly what I would have told him with or without his so-called “Puppy moratorium”.

Kate

I just sent this email to the programming email for MidAmericon II. I shall keep folks updated on the results.

Director of Programming,

MidAmericon II

In view of the extraordinary levels of hostility and controversy surrounding the Sad Puppies campaigns and the 2015 Hugo Awards, I would like to offer to host one or more panels on the history and goals of the Sad Puppies campaigns.

As one of the organizers of Sad Puppies 4 and an attendee at MidAmericon II, I can offer a factual perspective that has been lacking in a number of circles, leading to a number of people making statements so ill-informed they bordered on actionable libel and slander.

My goal, as I have stated more than once, is to increase the reach and real prestige of the Hugo awards: with our beloved genre so widespread that large media-focused conventions draw crowds in excess of fifty-thousand, it is a travesty that the highest number of votes ever cast in a Hugo ballot is below six thousand.

I understand there are those who believe that the motives of the Sad Puppies supporters are to destroy the Hugo Awards. Nothing could be further from the truth: the Sad Puppies want to save the Hugo Awards from irrelevance – one only needs to look at the increase in nomination and final vote ballots cast in the past five year to realize that the Sad Puppies campaigns have massively increased income to the Hugo Awards (via Worldcon memberships) and public interest in these awards.

Regardless of one’s opinion of the views of any particular Sad Puppy supporter, it is entirely possible that without the infusion of interest and funds inspired by the Sad Puppy campaigns (whether from Puppy supporters or those dedicated to keeping the Sad Puppies from ‘destroying’ the awards) that the Hugo Awards could have ceased to exist as lack of interest reduced the voting population to single digits.

Regards,

Kate Paulk

Yes, I’ve just purchased my attending membership for Midamericon II At $185 it ain’t cheap, but this is going to be my big con for 2016.

The countdown begins…

I’ve made some updates to the site, including a theme change and a logo that – yes – has quirky spelling. The more I look at it, the more I like it – it melds “embiggening” and “beginning” in a way that fits what SP4 is all about.

People should be able to register now, and not have their comments sit until one of us has the time/energy/bandwidth (let’s just say life keeps happening to all of us and leave it there) to extract them from WP moderation jail.

Let us know if the new theme fails badly on any browsers or operating systems – I’ve been meaning to change for a while, but finding out that the original theme really didn’t play nicely with Linux (plus life slowing down for a little while) was enough to get me to change it.

All of them – I’d forgotten just how many Hugo categories there are!

We’ll have to approve your first comment, but after that, there shouldn’t be any problems.

The wonderful ArtRaccoon (aka Lee Madison) has once again offered Sad Puppy logo goodness, and with it Robert the Robo-Puppy joins Isaac, Ray, and Frank in the Campaign to End Puppy-Related Sadness.

Please be sure to credit him when you spread this around to other Puppy-friends.

And the no-text version for meme-y goodness:

Starting Thursday, September 3 more goodies to end Puppy-Related Sadness will start appearing here.