Post by David G. BellPost by David Dyer-BennetPost by Ben YalowPost by David Dyer-BennetPost by Ben YalowPost by Keith F. LynchPost by Kevin StandleeThe other presentation at Interaction nominated for a Hugo Award,
"Lucas Back in Anger," ... cannot be downloaded in its entirity for
copyright reasons ...
How can it be a valid nominee if it's not generally available?
Because the voters, and the administrators, felt it met the requirements
3.3.7: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Any television program
or
Post by Ben YalowPost by David Dyer-BennetPost by Ben Yalowother production, with a complete running time of 90 minutes or less, in
any medium of dramatized science fiction, fantasy or related subjects that
has been publicly presented for the first time in its present dramatic
form during the previous calendar year.
It was (a) a production, (b) ran less than 90 minutes, (c) was a related
subject, and (d) was publicly presented in 2005.
Seems right to me.
Historically, "general available" means something rather different for
books than it does for movies (pre-VCR especially) and live
productions. Since live productions have clearly always been
eligible, presumably the meaning of "generally available" must be
specific to the category.
I wish I understood why people keep using the term "generally available"
when discussing eligibility in BDP-Short (which is where this work is
placed), or BDP-Long, which has the same rules as BDP-Short, except that
it refers to movies, and the work runs longer than 90 minutes.
"Generally available" is the term used in Fanzine and Semiprozine. It's
not used in BDP, which, as quoted above, refers to "publicly presented".
Oops! Well, in *my* case it's because I just picked up what others
were saying, and didn't check the actual wording of the rules.
Isn't there a general rule on eligibility which uses the concept? So
things like a premiere or a preview showing needn't set the eligibility
date? I think it's meant more for books but...
The rules on eligibility are pretty straightforward -- but there are lots
of picky details. Mostly, they're irrelevant, but sometimes they become
relevant.
<Warning -- this may get long,>
The basic rule is set out in 3.2.1
Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of
science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the
previous calendar year.
There one giant exception, which, to the best of my knowledge, has never
been invoked:
3.2.2: A work originally appearing in a language other than English shall
also be eligible for the year in which it is first issued in English
translation.
In addition, there are two ways that the Business Meeting can extend
eligibility. The original method, which still applies, is covered in
3.4:
Extended Eligibility. In the event that a potential Hugo Award nominee
receives extremely limited distribution in the year of its first
publication or presentation, its eligibility may be extended for an
additional year by a three fourths (3/4) vote of the intervening Business
Meeting of WSFS.
For a long time, this was the only method available. Once there began to
be significant numbers of Hugo-worthy works appearing outside the US,
people began to use a 3.4 extension broadly, with motions to extend
eligibility to all non-US works for a year based on limited distribution.
But people felt uncomfortable about that -- the rule had been put in to
deal with something like a Superman movie premiering in Australia, and so
starting the clock one year too soon. It seemed stretching it to
accomodate all the books published in the UK, especially when there are
more than enough UK members to put a book on the ballot if they chose.
And several thousand hardcovers seems hard to justify as "extremely
limited distribution".
So a new section was added:
3.2.3: The Business Meeting may by a 3/4 vote provide that works
originally published outside the United States of America and first
published in the United States of America in the current year shall also
be eligible for Hugo Awards given in the following year.
That doesn't force the Business Meeting to decide that the UK is
"extremely limited distribution", but still allows the meeting to
recognize that most of the nominators are American, and gives non-US books
time to be seen by the nominators. And that motion has been the one
adopted for the last several years, except this past year, since the
Business Meeting felt that since the majority of nominators were
Interaction members, rather than LA members (as of Jan, there were more
members of Interaction than there were of LA, and all members of both are
eligible to nominate), that it was unnecessary to deal with waiting for
stuff to appear in the US. And, looking at what was nominated, I think
the Business Meeting was correct in that decision.
There are a bunch of other general principles:
3.2.5: Publication date, or cover date in the case of a dated periodical,
takes precedence over copyright date.
This deals mostly with printed works, and defined when a work "appears".
3.2.6: Works appearing in a series are eligible as individual works, but
the series as a whole is not eligible. However, a work appearing in a
number of parts shall be eligible for the year of the final part.
This was originally designed mainly for novels serialized in magazines,
and to change the old rule that let a series like "Twilight Zone" get
nominated in BDP to one requiring that a specific episode be nominated --
which resulted in an all-Star Trek (5 different episodes) ballot a few
decades ago.
3.2.7: In the written fiction categories, an author may withdraw a
version of a work from consideration if the author feels that the version
is not representative of what that author wrote.
This is pretty obvious.
And, a final catchall to prevent double dipping, or game playing to pick a
better year:
3.2.4: A work shall not be eligible if in a prior year it received
sufficient nominations to appear on the final award ballot.
In a number of categories, there are additional clarifications of what is
meant by the "appearing" used in 3.2.1. Some categories, like the four
written fiction ones, don't have any additions.
Best Related Book, not surprisingly, requires "appearing for the first
time in book form during the previous calendar year".
BDP-Long and BDP-Short, as I mentioned before, say "publicly presented for
the first time in its present dramatic form...".
Best Semiprozine and Best Fanzine require a "generally available
non-professional publication" which put out at least four issues, of which
one appeared in the previous year.
Best Fanwriter requires publication in semiprozines, fanzines, or "in
generally available electronic media".
Best Fanartist requires work appearing in publication in semiprozines or
fanzines, or "through other public display".
So there is a general rule -- appearance starts the clock. Certain
categories require certain kinds of appearances, but that doesn't alter
the general rule. And the Business Meeting can fix things if the clock
seems to be triggered too early (a film premiere, as was suggested
earlier), so long as somebody notices, and brings it to the Business
Meeting's attention. Sometimes that doesn't happen -- Tim Powers lost a
likely Hugo nomination for _Declare_, which had appeared in a small press
edition that triggered his eligibility, and which nobody noticed and
brought up to the Business Meeting -- so the next year, when the work was
out from a major publisher, and got lots of nominations, it wasn't
eligible, which would have been fixed if somebody had brought up the
motion at the Business Meeting.
I hope this clarifies things a bit.
Post by David G. Bell--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Ben
--
Ben Yalow ***@panix.com
Not speaking for anybody
