<story><title>Science fiction authors were excluded from awards for fear of offending China</title><url>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/science-fiction-authors-excluded-hugo-awards-china-rcna139134</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>Glad to see this, but then I have to wonder why the organization decided to have the event in China in the first place?</text></item><item><author>themacguffinman</author><text>This time it didn&amp;#x27;t seem to work out well for the organizers. The organization behind the Hugo Awards &amp;quot;Worldcon Intellectual Property&amp;quot; announced resignations and censures in response to this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Dave McCarty has resigned as a Director of W.I.P.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Kevin Standlee has resigned as Chair of the W.I.P. Board of Directors (BoD).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Dave McCarty – censured for his public comments that have led to harm of the goodwill and value of our marks and for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Chen Shi – censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Kevin Standlee – reprimanded for public comments that mistakenly led people to believe that we are not servicing our marks.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Ben Yalow – censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wsfs.org&amp;#x2F;2024&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;31&amp;#x2F;announcements-from-worldcon-intellectual-property&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wsfs.org&amp;#x2F;2024&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;31&amp;#x2F;announcements-from-worldcon-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>svl</author><text>As others have said, between competing bids for who&amp;#x27;d host Worldcon in 2023, China got the most votes (from registered fans at an earlier Worldcon).&lt;p&gt;However, there was also controversy about this, as a very large number of those votes lacked an address (a minimal safety feature to give some indication that votes belong to distinct people). The responsible committee decided not to count them, but was overruled. If it wasn&amp;#x27;t for that, Chengdu wouldn&amp;#x27;t have won the bid.</text></comment>
<story><title>Science fiction authors were excluded from awards for fear of offending China</title><url>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/science-fiction-authors-excluded-hugo-awards-china-rcna139134</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>Glad to see this, but then I have to wonder why the organization decided to have the event in China in the first place?</text></item><item><author>themacguffinman</author><text>This time it didn&amp;#x27;t seem to work out well for the organizers. The organization behind the Hugo Awards &amp;quot;Worldcon Intellectual Property&amp;quot; announced resignations and censures in response to this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Dave McCarty has resigned as a Director of W.I.P.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Kevin Standlee has resigned as Chair of the W.I.P. Board of Directors (BoD).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Dave McCarty – censured for his public comments that have led to harm of the goodwill and value of our marks and for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Chen Shi – censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Kevin Standlee – reprimanded for public comments that mistakenly led people to believe that we are not servicing our marks.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Ben Yalow – censured for actions of the Hugo Administration Committee of the Chengdu Worldcon that he presided over.&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wsfs.org&amp;#x2F;2024&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;31&amp;#x2F;announcements-from-worldcon-intellectual-property&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wsfs.org&amp;#x2F;2024&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;31&amp;#x2F;announcements-from-worldcon-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zhdc1</author><text>There was a good discussion on Reddit about it. I don’t have the link but it should be easy to find.&lt;p&gt;Annual meetings are apparently organized by local groups who lobby&amp;#x2F;compete with one another. China has a very large SciFi readership and the group from Chengdu was very active when it came to lobbying and gathering votes. It wasn’t until later that people started to realize this may not have been the best decision, e.g. with visa applications and so on.&lt;p&gt;As far as the actual scandal, there’s also discussion about whether there was any actual government intervention or if this was mainly the result of self-sensorship.</text></comment>