The 2021 Hugo Administration team came on board, at short notice, at the start of this year. We were committed to the words in the 12 January statement by the DisCon III chair, Bill Lawhorn: “The Hugo Awards exist to celebrate and honor all of the creators chosen by the Worldcon membership. We should have considered those creators’ needs and feelings through our policies and the messaging we used.”
It is clear that we have taken the process as far as we can, and that our input is no longer needed by the convention leadership. We are therefore resigning from DisCon III with immediate effect.
Kathy Bond, Hugo Administrator
Kat Jones, Hugo Finalist Liaison
Cassidy Riddlebarger, Hugo Administration team
Marguerite Smith, WSFS Deputy Division Head
Nicholas Whyte, WSFS Division Head
Thank you for pushing back against the people who think that Strong Man should Take Over and Give Orders — that is, just arbitrarily disqualify works “because they’re on a slate,” which is a criteria that leads to “Strong Man Decides Who Wins Because Reasons.”
I had people asking last year where the Special Emergency Rules for Changing The Rules Immediately were. I told them, “There are no such rules. Changes take two years at minimum, for good reasons.” This dismayed them. They wanted the rules changed immediately, preferably before that year’s Hugo ballot went to the voters, because Emergency, but certainly everything needed to be changed before the following Worldcon. It’s that sort of stampeding that is why the WSFS Constitution requires any changes to pass in two consecutive years.
I’ve said elsewhere that the impulse that makes people want a Strong Man to Fix the Hugos is the same thing that makes people vote for people like Donald Trump. They think a Strong Man will fix everything, and they don’t think the Strong Man will turn on them. Sad, really. It’s a rejection of democracy IMO.