I do not share Neil Gaiman's astonishment (I had personally pegged this as the most likely scenario), but everything about this really sucks.
However, the part of the report that actually made me gasp out loud was this one:
"One interesting aspect of the āvalidationā spreadsheet is it appears to show a number of Chinese works that may have been removed from the final ballot. For example, in the Best Novel category, four Chinese novels are listed including We Live in Nanjing by Tianrui Shuofu. None of these novels made the final ballot.
In both Diane Laceyās apology letter and an interview, she said some of these Chinese works were removed due to 'collusion in a Chinese publication that had published a nominations list, a slate as it were, and so those ballots were identified and eliminated.'"
In her letter, she states:
"We were told there was collusion in a Chinese publication that had published a nominations list, a slate as it were, and so those ballots were identified and eliminated, exactly as many have speculated."
This is astonishing, and alarming. For context:
Slating (politically-motivated slating, no less) has been a problem with the Hugos before. In fact, it formed the basis for a high profile (relatively) recent scandal. HOWEVER, the result of that scandal was formal changes in how votes are calculated.
To my knowledge, there is ZERO basis for "eliminating" slate ballots under the rules. Again, these are the rules that were created specifically with concerns about slating in mind.
The idea of a bunch of North American/British administrators either initiating or signing off on the elimination of ballots by Chinese fans because of alleged slating suggests that those administrators hold Chinese fans, and works by Chinese creators, to different standards (and grant them much less respect) than they do to English speaking fans.
Unlike the English-language works and writers that were at least given the respect of being marked as disqualified, we would not have know about the disqualifications without the whistleblower. It's still not clear whether all works removed this way have been identified. This is disgusting, and the administrators should immediately release (in a form and language accessible to those Chinese Fans and creators) the full list of names of the works, along with a further explanation.
Additional burning questions:
"We were told" - by who? Why was this person/people considered credible? What proof did they show?
"there was collusion in a Chinese publication that had published a nominations list" - "collusion" is a very specific and loaded word! What *exactly* do is meant by that? What more did they do than publish a nomination list? And what the fuck is wrong with publishing a nomination list?
"those ballots were identified" - by who? And how? What vetting was done to ensure that they were the result of "collusion," (and again, what the fuck does "collusion" mean in this context)?
"and eliminated" - were the entire ballots thrown out? Or just works on those ballots which someone engaged in "collusion"?
I cannot emphasize enough, given the context, and given the lack of answers to the above questions, right now it sure as fuck looks like a bunch of North American/British administrators heard that Chinese publications were promoting recommendation lists, a thing that is not only objectively allowed under the rules but seems normal and fine, and decided this meant Those Deceitful Chinese Fake-Fans Must Be Cheating, and so threw out a bunch of ballots of Chinese fans - fans who, by the way *paid for the privilege of submitting their votes* - without bothering to even tell those fans and creators.
If this is not what happened, and there is a reasonable and good explanation, fans (again, especially Chinese fans) have a right to know.
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