Oh great, so "we" can vote for "our most favourite art and the work that means most to us in the fandom", as long as "others" agree with it.
Great concept. Mh...I personally think romantic and drama films are quite boring, is it possible to exclude them from the academy awards? I also fear they might hurt the reputation of full-action films.^^

No, I know this is a strange and nor really serious comparison. But well, my opinion: I'm sad to hear this. I can totally understand some people don't like certain things and damn, they're free to not like this, but I personally am sad to see such changes, not only on the UMA, but also on conventions and all. *sigh*

Well, I will not recommend or vote anything I guess, I'll continue to support stuff I like by either donations or simply by buying it. Let's hope the best for us all, whatever "the best" will be.

Greetings,
RealZero

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I think it is partly because of the conventions that this has become such a big issue. Thanks to the introduction of convention delegates as directors (which I believe began around February 2007), the vast majority of ALAA members now serve two masters. Naturally they do not wish to bring controversial material to the forefront of their respective events. This would be true wherever the awards were held; though oddly the option of holding them purely online seems not to have been considered.

I don't want to undermine the real feeling of concern shared by many fandom members about the mere possibility of granting awards to such works; and honestly, I'm not surprised at the decision. It is rational given the interests of the members and the events they represent. I am, however, disappointed the way it was made - in secret - and that it was the only thing ALAA bothered to change.

Perhaps I'm being unfair - after all, this is just a small part of a few people's lives. But when I see groups like fursuittourney (Fandom's Favorite Fursuit Fracas) evolving when the UMA seem to be stuck in last century's awards model, I feel like I have to speak out. Excluding certain works may save the awards from scandal, but it will not save them from continued obscurity and increasing irrelevance.

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Well, as has been established over on Flayrah, who really follows these anyway? 270 people voted and picked the winner. Small fur cons have that as their attendance. FC's going on this weekend and is likely to have ten times as many.

How many books have an "Ursa Major Award Winner" seal? Does such a thing even exist? How many people buy books based on whether they won an Ursa Major award?

Ultimately, it's just another move by a group that no one really cares about for an award no one cares about.

The rules as written basically mean Kyell Gold's new novel (coming out this year), would not be allowed. HEAT also would be banned.

The fact that it seems like just us three talking to this point shows how vividly pointless these awards are.

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Go read my comment to tonyfox, below.

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Read, and disagree.

Kyell Gold's character in Waterways is a minor.

His character in Shadow of the Father may be construed to be one too.

Your rules are reactionary, not proactive. You should have said "no cub porn."

Now if you let a coming of age high school story in, you're going to appear soft and like you're playing favorites. Either way, it's ignoring the fact that it's a significant part of the fandom now.

People will bitch , no matter what. All you've done by being vague is hurt the legitimacy of your award.

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"Anyone may nominate and vote for candidates for the Awards. These Awards are decided by the fans, not by a committee."

This is presently a lie. Or at the very least, most certainly an untruth. The fact that the fans nominated something many found objectionable, and the awards allowed the nomination, >that< established legitimacy in your stated goal of letting the fans decide.

This action undoes that. You're now an award that does not simply let the fans decide, you have put yourselves in the position of deciding what is and is not okay for the fans to express their appreciation of. If the majority of people who take the time and effort to get involved with your award are told "no, sorry, but we disagree" and aren't allowed to even nominate a work, >any< work, that legitimately falls under furry artwork, then you're not what you claim to be. You're not letting the fans decide, you are merely giving them options as deemed appropriate by you, or the conventions that will pressure you (whose benefits to your award that are lost by their cutting ties with you aren't readily apparent at all). Which is fine if that's what you choose to make this award into. But you should stop calling it what it used to be, and call it what you've chosen for it to become.

When people complain like this, bowing to their complaint does not help anything. And for an award that is supposed to promote literature as an art, in a fandom with so very few elements of recognition for authors, it really sucks to see you completely discard your legitimacy this way. I know this is an obvious one, but Romeo and Juliet, one of the great historical works of literature in our species' history, would not be eligible for your award now under the intended spirit of this rule change. Kinda decreases what that award is worth at that point.

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No, R&J would not be eligible this year because it's not furry, and wasn't written in 2009. If it were, since the primary focus is NOT on watching people screw, it would qualify. Again, go read this year's Recommended List and consider the fact that every single entry in a category that matches an Award category is eligible. Take a look at past winners. Every single winner of an Award is something that if it were written/drawn/whatever in 2009 would be eligible for an award. Including Kyell Gold's Pendant of Fortune, Best Novel for 2006 (and his Waterways in 2008), and a lot of other stuff people have been wailing would no longer be allowed.

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Official what to put into the awards discussion here.

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Official what to put into the awards discussion here.

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I'd love to hear some interpretation from the committee members regarding this disclaimer, and what publications that have been entered in the past would be considered problematic under its new regulations. Interesting step, though.

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We got flamed repeatedly because cub porn got nominated last year. Didn't see much to say about it since obviously it's up to the voters what gets actually voted in. Meant to ignore the whole thing pretty much other than identifying adult material in the Recommended List. But then we had some conventions announce that they were dropping connections with us because we hadn't. So it became necessary to say something, and as history tells us if we just said "no cub porn" someone would be bound to go out and find something worse (furry snuff films?) and then when it got bounced whine "but it's not cub porn" all over fandom. You know this. The vaguer approach means we only have to do this once.

For the record there has not been one winner of the Ursa Major Award that would be excluded by this disclaimer. Heck, there's only been one Recommended List entry that would've and that was last year's bugaboo. Go look at the archives on the website and you'll see that leaves a lot of room.

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Hmm. Was saying "OK, fine, we don't need you" considered as an option?

You run a competition for a mostly-online fandom, in which the works are published online or available for preview and ordering online. I'm betting most of the voting and nomination is done online as well. I think you can afford to lose a few potential venues, especially those who fear their own members are too unstable to vote for "the right thing".

Seriously, if Eurofurence or Further Confusion (the two most likely to object given past issues) were to decide to withdraw, I'd be OK with that. They picked the sensibilities of the external audience over the one which actually matters - and they've never hosted the UMAs, anyway. Maybe they could run their own. Variety is the spice of life.

As mentioned by Gene, support from individual convention doesn't really give you much beyond the occasional conbook ad. Perhaps they've done more behind the scenes, but if so, it sure hasn't been visible - apart from this. You're bringing them programming; they should be deferring to you, not vice versa.

Maybe you feel the involvement of conventions lends the UMAs a little legitimacy, but not as much as excluding material loses you. How many voters even know they participate beyond hosting the ceremony?

Even if no excluded work ever won an award (debatable, as noted above), the fact that any popular works can't get nominated damages the standing of the UMAs with current voters. Worse, the vague wording of your statement lends confusion to which works can be nominated in the future - let alone how to get your work nominated without getting yourself disqualified.

You think you've made your life easier, but you just gave yourself a whole new job: picking out what's "obscene, libelous, or otherwise detrimental", and defending that against everyone who disagrees one way or another.

I don't want to cheapen the hard work you and others have put into the Awards over the years. But let me make a prediction:
* Someone is going to run another furry awards. They will not be censored.
* They also won't - as I know some UMA members would dearly like - take only the bits you don't want, like the AVN Awards. Instead, they will take it all - perhaps separating it into adult and all-ages categories, perhaps not.
* They will take full advantage of the medium of the Internet, as several of last year's nominees did, to popularize and operate their awards.
* They will be significantly more successful than the Ursa Majors at attracting participation; almost certainly popular enough to justify their own event at a convention. This will probably be held at Anthrocon - the logical venue - thus providing a stable time period for the nomination and awards process.
* The Ursa Majors - a redundant relic of the last century's traditions - will fade away, eventually to be remembered only with a WikiFur entry.

Will this happen this year, or the next, or in five or ten years' time? I don't know. But you can be sure that whenever it does, those who start it - if I don't do so myself - will have my full support, because I can't back a popular award that censors their own nominations based on "what makes the fandom look good". If the UMA considers that to be its job, so be it, but I sure as hell don't.

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Anthrocon is unlikely to support any awards organization that does not have a policy similar to what the Ursa Major Awards has adopted. In the past couple of years, at a number of cons I've presented a panel called "The Best Furry Stuff" which highlights the Ursa Major Award winners and Recommended List entries, and solicits suggestions from the audience. This past year, one con refused to accept and schedule the panel until I assured the committee that it would not include any content that was not family-friendly.

A lot of furry fans seem to have lost perspective because of the insulation provided by the Internet and within conventions. This is currently exemplified by the fellow on Anthrocon's LiveJournal community who seems mystified why any convention would not enthusiastically program a strip show. Wouldn't a lot of fans love it? I'm sure they would, but conventions, as well as the UMAs, have to operate within and interface with the rest of the world. Frozen Oasis discovered this the hard way when their hotel cancelled their contract after getting a look at their publicity and learning exactly what they had planned.

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The mere presentation of awards for works nominated and voted on elsewhere hardly seems to fall under "objectionable content" - especially when compared to such programming as "Spazfox: Too Mature", "Jibba Live!", "Learn To Play Furoticon TCG" and, for that matter, the mature art auction and adult writing panels.

But if what you say is true, there may be no saving the UMAs. How can any award be viewed as legitimate if its very core - the choice of works made by the fans (or, in the case of a juried award, by the panel) - is subject to censorship by the venue in which it is held?

Frozen Oasis allegedly misrepresented their activities to the hotel. If you promise one thing and deliver another, there's almost bound to be disappointment somewhere down the road. Any "best" panel - or award - that excludes potentially objectionable works falling within its remit is doing much the same.

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There may be other awards in time, but if you think they will simply take up the old practices of the UMA - namely, not having a minimum quality control instance, not having a failsafe against campaigning, and simply going with the numbers - then you are mistaken. Future award organizations will be very aware of the public image, damaged so often by a vocal minority, and, within the fandom itself, the eroding "tolerance" toward the spotlight-hogging extreme fetishism that is driving the fandom into a corner that is not remotely in the interest of the majority.

If I'd predict something, it is that a new award will most likely be a juried award. It will have an open discussion forum for the public to talk about artistic merits and literary value, but the ultimate decision will be made by a core group of people (however this core is formed), and the value of that award will highly depend on the integrity and standing of the jury - their perceived ability to judge what is "the best".

Why? Because popularity awards are always in danger of being overrun by the loud and persistent few, by the fetish-obsessed, by fanboy groups. Well-known people with a certain fan base and a number of social network attachments will always hog the attention. And that is not what I'd call a process to select the "best".

A new award may want to try a different approach. That is, if there are people who even think that the fandom needs an award at all. The numbers of the UMA, after almost a decade of activity, suggest that the interest is not all that great.

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I'm all in favour of there being a juried award as well. I don't think the UMA should be turned into one, nor that it should pretend to be a popular award that represents furry fandom when subject to restrictions aimed against works that its organizers consider inconvenient to their interests.

The Hugo awards - on which the UMAs were modeled - have lasted for over fifty years. They have had many of their own controversies; for example, when Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form was given to a joke awards show acceptance speech featuring Gollum. But those running it have always understood that a popular award must trust in its members to ultimately do the right thing (as the Hugos note, those campaigning for nomination have often suffered a backlash in the final vote). I certainly trust the view of the public far more than I do a collection of unnamed committee members.

As for demand . . . when - after just three years - a fursuiting competition run by two or three people can get twice as many votes (610 vs. 270) as the UMA in their final round, along with 326 nominations in their single "class", they're obviously doing something right - or several things - that the UMA is not.

Note that this is a competition in which every entry gets voted on by everyone at least once, and in which winners proceeded through at least five votes. Heck, they just got over 100 people to vote on a change in their own rules. Oh, and did I mention that each of their votes is completely public and subject to discussion?

People care. That's why we're talking about it now. But the UMA has not embraced the new world we live in - partly, I feel, because it is based around the idea of running a classic awards ceremony at a convention. Everything else is secondary to that, and it shows - both in the way the award is run, and the response (and lack of response) that it gets from the fandom.

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What the UMA are, or want to be, is ultimately up to them; what I consider a failure of the UMA is the lack of clarification of their agenda. I have mentioned the conflict between quality and popularity, and the conflict between completely free votes vs. the multiplicator impact of fetish works being not only published but awarded. The UMA needs a higher awareness of the role of an award, and, I agree with you on that, the environment that award exists in.

I'm not sure that the Hugos, even if quoted by the UMA themselves, are actually a measure here. They have a higher vote base, thereby more effectively preventing campaigning; they also have less extreme fetish issues in science fiction itself. The base of works eligible is more moderate (with a peak here or there), so their problems are a bit different from the issues that the UMA's new rule addresses.

If I would run a juried award, anyway, I would want the voting members to be public, not unnamed, and the reasoning behind voting for an award be transparent (not unbiased or objective or impersonal, but transparent, so anybody can inform him/herself about the reasons for a vote).

As for that fursuit award, I haven't yet looked into it, but it is not quite the same to vote for a suit as vote for a book; there is that "first impression at a glance" thing that is impossible to get with literature; and fursuiting is currently a very core interest of the fandom, while literature is not (any more?) - so I'm not surprised they get the numbers.

But I agree that the UMA are not at the height of the times; the lack of any discussion on their website, the lack of the possibility of an in-depth review beyond links, and the slow update frequency do not quite create the community feeling so essential to nowadays' successful endeavors.

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It's absolutely true that it's easier to have an opinion on things when they're right there in front of you. But this is something the Ursas could do much better on as well. I made several suggestions in this area. They require effort, but it is effort that could be spread throughout the year for obvious potential candidates (leaving time free at the end to properly cover surprise nominations).

There is a risk that people may then make their choice based on the depiction of a work rather than having experienced the work for themselves. Ultimately, though, I suspect a lot of people do that anyway. At least if you provide one they are more likely to want to read/experience the underlying work - and even if they do not vote at all, it achieves the goal of educating people about good works within the fandom.

You raise an interesting point about literature. Certainly visual art is more of a draw. Still, I suspect if you got the word out enough, you'd find enough voters to balance things out. I feel it is partly because the UMA has been hesitant to adopt more categories that the less popular ones are so vulnerable to - as the UMA pejoratively puts it - "stacking" from those who really do care about winning (which ironically is something ALAA wants).

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Well, there are many things that could be improved in the UMA, but I guess that is a matter for another thread. My (rather irrelevant) pet peeve was that the UMA does not have a category for web art, while this is exactly the one aspect of furrydom I'm daily confronted with, and which makes for the majority of my weekly furry consumption - yet is deemed un-award-worthy for whatever reason. Although I have seen web art that puts the whole "published art" category to shame. Arbitrary decisions like the categorizing, or the inclusion of works not produced by the fandom itself, are clearly an issue.

You are right about experiencing the work - this should be a worthy goal, yet it raises another inequality between e.g. books (must be ordered, paid for, and read) vs. webstrips (can be linked for direct access and are mostly free). Moreover, the UMA cannot control whether people actually have experienced the work at all before they vote for it - like, say, fans of Kyell voting for his newest novel on base of his older works without having actually read the very work in question. (One of the things that perhaps can only be excluded by a juried award.)

But these are decisions that we must leave to the committee, and trust them to produce something useful in the end... even if the process that leads there seems to be quite painful.

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Go read my above post to tonyfox.

Edited at 2010-01-27 12:42 am (UTC)

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There needs to be more clarification on what is and isn't allowed, because the current wording is quite vague. It refers to "works of a predominantly sexual nature," which sounds to me as if it should exclude any adult works, but so far in the discussions I've seen, the focus has been almost exclusively on whether or not works include underage characters. As I interpret the current wording, it sounds as if, for example, "X" and "Heat" should not be nominated (assuming the policy is being enforced for 2009), as both are erotic publications that require an age statement to purchase, and I would expect that to meet the definition of "predominantly sexual." Yet last I checked, they're still on the Recommended List, underneath the new policy.

I also want to mention that the Anthropomorphic Dreams podcast really should not be categorized under "Miscellany." While a podcast category would certainly seem to be warranted, the Anthro Dreams podcast is a fiction podcast -- technically an audio magazine, not merely commentary or discussion -- and in my opinion its rightful place is among the other print and electronic-format magazines.

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It is perfectly fine with me if the UMA decide the exclusion of works on a case-by-case base. The anally retentive uber-definitions some people claim to be necessary are bullshit, driven by an essential doubt in the committee to judge acceptability and art, and the general whininess of furries who wail about their favorite fetish not getting an award.

I sincerely doubt that it is the purpose of the rule to exclude merely works with erotic content. Erotic does not necessarily mean "predominantly sexual". The Volle books for example have quite a few sex scenes, but in essence it is an adventure/politics story. Waterways may have an underage character, but if the story is essentially a coming-of-age tale (and not just lift-your-tail-let's-go), its narrative and literary merits may well outweigh the concern raised by formal criteria.

Heck, Nabokov's Lolita (featuring a sexual relationship with a girl that is 12(!) years old in the beginning) is counted among the classics of literature, despite the controversial topic. Would it be excluded from receiving awards? Sure, depending on the committee. Would that be justified? That's open to discussion.

Why the eff do we need checklists of criteria to determine eligibility, if the true purpose of the rule is mainly to put a stop to campaign-supported smut content (which may even be illegal in some state or country) hijacking an award category? The UMA are about the best in furry fandom, and a minimum instance of quality control is not just laudable, but obviously necessary with the unproportional rise of various fetishes within the fandom.

Erotic anthologies of novels may be caught by the rule, although I doubt it: an editor that is worth his salt will catch and exclude pure wanking material already. Have a look at Sofawolf's submission rules and guides, for example. Stories of the type "come in, let's fuck" are not really eligible for publication. (And I am not too keen on reading them, either.)

Yes, the rule may be used somewhat arbitrarily. You are free to enter an open discussion if you don't agree with an exclusion after the fact. But just remember, it is not in the UMA's interest to exclude things left and right, but it is very much in their interest not to support fetish or porn material that may end up as detrimental to the fandom (and I'm not just talking about outward appearance here).

I, for one, applaud the UMA committee for growing balls. It's a pity that happens so late in the game.

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We've spoken before about our differences on who should be deciding what "best" means, so I'll be brief.

The Ursa Major award website states clearly: "These Awards are decided by the fans, not by a committee." This is no longer true. It will not be true until the committee removes itself from deciding what can be considered as "excellence in the furry arts."

(Also, last I heard you were Eurofurence's delegate to the UMAs - aren't you just applauding yourself?)

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Yes, I quite remember that we disagree. We continue to disagree here, too, since you are arguing for a limitless popularity award, while I emphasize the idea of awarding "excellence in furry arts" (as mentioned on the very same website even farther up than your quote), which is not necessarily the most popular.

I wouldn't interpret "These Awards are decided by the fans, not by a committee" as meaning "This is a free-for-all fest where you can nominate any material, even illegal or heavily controversial stuff with little merits as long as you just vote in droves". In fact, even if the committee were to decide on the nominations themselves and limiting fan's participation to the final vote on a preset number of choices, it would be technically still be "decided by the fans" (and I spoke with people who would actually prefer that method, but that's another discussion altogether).

I would say that our conflicting view is no less than the essential conflict at the core of the UMA, who want to promote "the best" works at the same time as they want to leave the decision to the public, providing a popularity vote while advertising a quality statement. I predict that the UMA have a way to go in resolving that conflict (if possible at all), and that they need to discuss a complete agenda beyond the current statement.

And just for the record: I used to be the EF delegate, and I was indeed counseling towards a restriction like this. However, at that time I was argued against; I was not a delegate any more at the time the decision was actually made (months later); I never had a vote or a final say in the matter. Considering that the rule was not effected before the intervention of supporting conventions, and in fact a full year after the Softpaw nominations that started the discussion, I wouldn't even call it a victory; if it is, it's a Pyrrhic one that came with regrettable loss, not an applaudable win on my side.

I do support the ultimate decision, but I don't count it as something to be proud of (even as an advocate); a restriction should have been put into effect long ago, and it is somewhat sad that it became utterly necessary. If you think I now lean back with a smug grin and a satisfied feeling about the matter, you are mistaken. In matters like these, compromise is all you can reach; with so many diverse factions (of hugely different interest) in the fandom, a way of total freedom is not possible any more.

But that's society, neh?

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Compromise has value, where there is some meaningful benefit to each side. But there are also times not to compromise, but to walk away; and that is when you are compromising on your core values.

To steal a quote from here: "And when you compromise once, you'll find yourself in a situation where you'll have to do it time and time again in order to survive in the environment you've allowed yourself to tolerate."

I see the free, uncircumscribed choice of the furry population as part of the core value of the Ursa Majors. I do not think it can be compromised without fatally diminishing the value of the Awards - not just because of the works which will be excluded now, but those which will follow them.

We can agree that there is an essential conflict between what is popular, and what is considered "best for people to read" by a panel of experts. However, this change does nothing to resolve the situation - instead, it merely mires the committee in the business of picking nominees; a duty which it was never designed to be involved with, and for which its members are probably not best-suited to address.

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I am afraid we have to agree to disagree here. You have a very strong image of how the UMA are supposed to be, and I have a very strong image of how the UMA should not be. These standpoints are irreconcileable, so I guess discussion will not get us anywhere.

I concede that there are times where compromise is not in order and will lead down the road of too many friction points, but for me the one thing not to compromise with is something else altogether. I do not believe that the rule will result in many exclusions; I, for one, never spoke for the exclusion of all erotica, but just some fetish work meant for wanking purposes (while I was discussing the issue). If there are certain works excluded, and the fans of those choose to ignore the awards, then so be it.

Well, I can live with that. We both are free to try to establish a new award, if we're that dissatisfied with the status quo.

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For the record, I haven't expressed any opinion on whether I agree or disagree with the new policy. I'm just trying to get some official clarification on what it means in a practical sense. I write erotica myself (and was a contributor to both X and Heat), so I'm not interested in arguing about literary merits of erotic fiction.

Simply put, it doesn't matter how I or anyone else define "predominantly sexual," but it does matter how the people in charge of the UMAs define that phrase. There are a number of ways to interpret "predominantly sexual," and some interpretations are going to exclude more than others, so again, we need to hear something a little more concrete from the folks in charge than what we've heard so far.

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I see your point and interest. Since it has been said in this thread that no previous winner would fall under this rule, however, I assume that the rule will not affect erotica per se just because of its adult nature.

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Then they need to actually display the balls you applaud them for growing, and just say "no cub or zoo."

The way it is worded presently, yes, it >would< exclude by most peoples' definition, including the definitions of the people contributing to these works apparently, several works that are currently nominated and have won past awards.

You've repeated the sentiment that, essentially, since it's obvious that their intent is to only bar cub or zoo works, then everyone else needs to stop worrying because everyone else will still be accepted just as they were before.

If they want to say they are an award decided by the people, they have to let the people decide, or they are simply lying about what they are. If they want to be a juried award where a committee decides who people can vote on, hey awesome, that's their decision, but they need to acknowledge that's what this change makes them.

If they want to bar cub and zoo work, they can just say 'no cub, no zoo' and be done with it. Until of course, someone nominates a work where a character isn't quite 18 but nobody on the committee is squicked by it (like some past award winners as pointed out above), then they can just allow it and be hypocrites. Again, totally their decision.

As someone who makes quite a lot of cub porn, and was in one of last year's oh-so-controversial nominations, I personally have >zero< issue with them making whatever changes they want to make to how they run their awards, even if it means barring me entirely for any reason. What I object to, and what I think will be the primary objection from most people not cheering that the oogy cub porns was banned, is just the fact that as things stand right now, they're liars.

The UMA is not presently what it presents itself to be, and what it has been up to now. They need to be what they claim to be; an award chosen by the people, or advertise themselves appropriately as what they have chosen to be; an award where nominations have to first meet the approval of an unnamed committee chosen by unstated standards.

Either way, groovy, they run the show. It's their choice. If their choice is to leave things as they are, then their choice is to remain liars, knowingly and intentionally misrepresenting what they are to the people they're supposedly doing it for.

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-- Then they need to actually display the balls you applaud them for growing, and just say "no cub or zoo."

While the whole mess started with virtual child pornography (zoo did not come into the equation yet since there has never been a relevant work in the nominations or even the recommendations), these categories are not the only ones to consider. Rape or cannibalism (="vore") are also on the list of "hard pornography" (here at least) and might even cause legal trouble. Not to mention fetishes I normally wouldn't think of, or which haven't surfaced yet. It doesn't actually matter what fetish it is, the ones mentioned on the website are examples. There is no need for any follower of a special fetish to feel victimized or singled out.

Moreover, the judgment on admissable works is left to the committee, which might allow works falling into a fetish category if the artistic merits weigh strongly enough against the explicit content (and make it worth the inevitable controversy). The novel Lolita I mentioned above might serve as an outside-of-the-fandom example in the literature category.

-- The way it is worded presently, yes, it would exclude by most peoples' definition, including the definitions of the people contributing to these works apparently, several works that are currently nominated and have won past awards.

Sorry, but this is not true: The ALAA will exclude [...] any works it deems to be... There is no binding definition of what is going to be excluded or allowed, and for good reason. What is "cub", if it's no more but a drawing? What is "underage", if we're talking about people with animal traits and possibly shorter maturity cycles? What is "zoo", if the presumed animals can think and speak? It is, sadly, fairly easy to undermine any definition in a fantasy world. What, it's not an image of a 2-year old getting raped by a huge horse dick, it's a twenty thousand year old spirit who just happens to look like a 2-year old, and he's mightily enjoying himself, even if it looks as if he's screaming in pain! Duh.

-- You've repeated the sentiment that, essentially, since it's obvious that their intent is to only bar cub or zoo works [...]

Please quote correctly. I said, "I assume that the rule will not affect erotica per se just because of its adult nature". That is not the same.

Yes, I am aware of the arbitrariness included in the wording of the rule. What allows the committee to react to new fetishes, new obsessions, and (on the other side) the appearance of valuable contributions within a fetish category, also allows them to act on a whim and exclude anything that doesn't suit their tastes. We will have to trust them that they don't... and that is a huge leap of faith. I am sure this will rekindle the censorship discussion - and it is actually a good thing that it is discussed.

If the UMA voters would be an actual statistically valid sample of the fandom, as the committee probably wishes, there would not be a need for a rule - if the fandom in toto sees cub porn as central to the furry idea, and worthy of an award, then so be it. I would simply leave and never return.

But that is not the case. With the low number of votes needed to get an award, campaigning is easy, and the squeakiest wheel may be awarded, as is the nature of a popularity contest. At the same time, the UMA set themselves up as representatives of the fandom and ambassadors of quality works, and while I don't care a lot whether author X or artist Y is awarded, I do care when extreme and often (possibly) illegal fetishes get out-of-scale public recognition beyond their actual niche.

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Discussion that focuses on the validity of committee decisions in this area does not reflect that well on ALAA, so why would they encourage it? Do you think they are going to post a list of works that have been banned? Do they benefit from telling those promoting their work that they consider it unsuitable for the Awards? Or will they simply not include it if nominated? They have said they will do just that for the Recommended list.

Most likely, nobody outside the committee will ever know the works that have been removed from consideration. It is this censorship that provides the chilling effect preventing potentially worthwhile candidates from being nominated - why bother if it's just going to be excluded? - and offends those who feel a public vote should represent the public. Imagine what it would be like if elections were run like this! "You can vote for everyone, except for people like the Pirate Party or the NDP, only we won't even tell you that; they just won't show up on the ballot if they're nominated."

You dismiss a popular vote as subject to campaigning. If we accepted that it would be an excellent reason to dismiss the UMA entirely, as it is now likely to get even fewer nominees and votes. But I do not believe that. I think Softpaw got on the ballot fairly, by being a high-quality work in the area of anthropomorphism.

And I think that is what really scares people - that something like that is truly popular, and has enough skill and effort put into it to be worthy of consideration. Not just that it truly represents the interests of a portion of the fandom, but that it actually has the potential to be "the best", on quality grounds.

The fact is that the award did go (in both cases) to another work. How close the vote is, we may never know, because - unlike the award system on which it is based - the Ursas have never disclosed statistics. But it seems unfair to complain that the Awards are meant to recognize quality and then turn around and say you need popularity beyond "a niche" to be considered - that you don't properly "represent" the fandom. That's not how a decision based on quality works.

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They have said they will do just that for the Recommended list.

Not being able to find an exact reference for this, I'd like to replace that with "they appear to have done just that for the Recommended list".

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-- Discussion that focuses on the validity of committee decisions in this area does not reflect that well on ALAA, so why would they encourage it? Do you think they are going to post a list of works that have been banned? Do they benefit from telling those promoting their work that they consider it unsuitable for the Awards? Or will they simply not include it if nominated? They have said they will do just that for the Recommended list.

Since I'm no longer on the committee, I can't tell what they want to do, but the pragmatic and open way would be something like this:

• There is no list of "banned" works up front - no one can in all seriousness go through everything there is and judge it.
• If someone recommends or nominates a work that will fall under the ruling, the decision should indeed be made open and put on a list, with at least a short reasoning.
• This prevents works to be repeatedly nominated and/or recommended, and provides a point of reference.
• Keeping the banned works secret would be stupid and pointless, since the recommending person would know that it has been ignored.
• It might happen that a work gets removed after being recommended, when it wasn't possible to scrutinize it beforehand, e.g. for commercial works that must be obtained first.
• If someone outside the committee finds a work objectionable, then he can make a proposal to remove it, and the committee should respond (either way - by making a decision about it).

-- Most likely, nobody outside the committee will ever know the works that have been removed from consideration. It is this censorship that provides the chilling effect preventing potentially worthwhile candidates from being nominated [...]

I absolutely agree with you. It is the responsibility of the UMA committee to make their decision public, because otherwise we'd have a secret cabal, which is in no one's interest. I would also opt for a publication of the actual numbers in the nominations and the voting.

Actually, it is the open discussion that may make this interesting in the first place. It is well within the rights of the UMA to limit the range of awardable works, but it is their duty to make the process transparent. I, for one, would be interested in more discussion in general, about all kinds of stuff, quality and new works and translations and categories and, yes, fetishes and their impact.

But there is a certain consumerist mentality prevalent in the fandom. Not sure whether this is due to an absence of a wide-range discussion platform or vice versa, or due to a lack of communicative and discussion skills in fans... but it is difficult to find a thread anywhere that does not degenerate into name-calling / trolling, white-knighting / fawning, or irrelevancies.

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Heh. Well, I've seen this and this so far. The former poster used to be an FA admin and has 7000 accounts watching him.

There's a fair bit of antagonism, and the general tone is quite predictable but a few good points mixed in (slightly paraphrased):

*"They say they're acting on behalf of the good of the community, speaking for all of us, and deciding what is best for everyone, despite the fact that 'the community' (the percentage of it even looking at their awards program) decided that they wanted this material to be nominated for an award"
*"[I agree with the UMA because] if I have to be labeled as a weirdo by being a furry, I'd rather be labeled as just that [rather than a pedophile, even though I don't think cub porn is pedophilia; I fear others will]"
*"One of [the Nebula nominees was] a post-apocalyptic story about talking animals that includes an underage feral human boy having sex with a female wolf. It won 'best sci fi short story'. How is that not furry/'of a sexual nature'? Mainstream sci-fi is already doing this stuff. Ursa Major needs to chill out and recognize quality."
*"Why do we celebrate specifically furry stuff at all?" - Answer: "Because furry writers get no credit" - Response: "Their work qualifies for other awards if they're good."

Just thought I'd drop them here, as journal posts have a way of disappearing sometimes.

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Lots of mindless expletives there [in the linked threads]. I'm not even starting to discuss on that level. There may be some arguments there (most of them already mentioned here, though), but all in all, there is so much butthurtness that I won't even try to analyze it.

Most of it sounds like little children who have a toy been taken away, and then both bawl about it and claim they don't care at all. They don't even try to reason, they just unpack their big clubs and wallow in the mutual affirmation. I'm sorry, but I won't bother to reply there.

The argument (paraphrased) that "the public thinks we're all dogfucking perverts no matter what we do" and the statement that Wolfblade wouldn't even tell people that he's furry unless "they understand" just corroborate the sorry state of the fandom.

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"I'm not even starting to discuss on that level" followed immediately by tossing out "butthurtness."

Then following "I won't even try to analyze it" with "they don't even try to reason."

Thanks, then, for not bothering to grace the discussion with your obviously more informed and enlightened presence.

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-- You dismiss a popular vote as subject to campaigning. If we accepted that it would be an excellent reason to dismiss the UMA entirely

If you say "dismiss", do you assume that the UMA has never fallen prey to campaigning? Or, since that is the great example, the Hugos? In the other thread, the mess with Hubbard and Sciento... oh, let's not go there. Campaigning is a very real issue in popular votes, and it gets to be a problem if the overall numbers of voters are small. If I can call up my circle of friends and get my works nominated and awarded by them, is this not an impact on the validity of the awards? If an author has more friends on his writer's LJ than there are total votes in the UMA, is this just about being popular and therefore in line with the idea of the awards, or is it already a distortion of the results? (I do not mean these questions to be rhetorical.)

Indeed, the popularity vote and the campaigning are main issues in my critique of the UMA, together with the claim of supporting quality (without actually having any standards). They decided to want a popular award, which leads to certain issues, which lead to this critique. That does not mean that the UMA are completely meaningless, but let's face it, the issues are there.

-- [Softpaw] And I think that is what really scares people - that something like that is truly popular

Yes. It scares the heck out of me that any concrete fetish work may not just occupy a niche, but permeate the fandom. Even more so with fetishes that are, in outside society, utterly reviled and even prohibited. I am well aware that the fandom is highly sexualized, and that everyone has a fetish to some degree. I know I have mine. But awarding extreme fetish works means to give them legitimation and public recognition, to the point of them being seen as representative of the fandom in the outside world. Granted, the UMA don't have that kind of "footprint", other than, say, CSI... but that should not incite them to just ignore the question.

If the fetishes actually have taken over - I know sex in general has long since replaced graphic storytelling and species characterization as core ideas - then the critics are right: furry in itself has become a fetish. Who, now, would want to sign up for that?

-- But it seems unfair to complain that the Awards are meant to recognize quality and then turn around and say you need popularity beyond "a niche" to be considered - that you don't properly "represent" the fandom. That's not how a decision based on quality works.

Careful: These are two different discussions. One: whether quality (juried award) or popularity shall decide the outcome. Two: whether certain works are deemed acceptable or unacceptable for their content. These questions are orthogonal.

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My point was more that you appeared to argue that the popularity of such works was the sole reason for them being nominated. I felt they would not be popular if they were not any good, and that they had a shot at meeting the UMA's definition of excellence regardless of their popularity.

whether quality (juried award) or popularity shall decide the outcome

I think you give too little credit to the ability of a public vote to determine "quality".

I based my votes on the quality of each work, not on its popularity. When it came time to vote, I did not feel Softpaw to be the best work on the ballot, therefore I did not give it the number one vote. I did include a vote for it, because I felt it would have been worthy of winning the award - just not as much as another work (which also didn't win :-).

The point of being a "popular" award is that the award is chosen by the people as a whole (the populace), as opposed to a jury. It is from these people that it gains its legitimacy. That is why it loses legitimacy when you take the choices of some people out.

In both cases, a group is being asked to choose the best candidate based on their evaluation of the quality of the work. The difference is who you are asking. It is quite different from a vote "on popularity".

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Hmm, if everyone would nominate and judge on base of quality, and everyone would understand at least part of a common set of quality criteria, and everyone would give the works in question sufficient thought, then that would indeed be a public jury. If people vote on base of an author's name, or the cover, or just the question whether or not the work features their own sexual orientation or fetish or species or whatever, then that would be votes that do not reflect quality. If people vote because the author is a friend of them...

Now, I can't say why people vote and how many thought they put into a vote, so perhaps I am indeed giving them too little credit. But changing the concept of the UMA was not the question anyway.

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Official what to put into the awards discussion here.

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Bingo. Lolita was quite on my mind when the UMA committee was discussing how to phrase the policy. Just as Maus was able to examine the horrors of the Holocaust using anthropomorphic characters, someday someone may examine the horrors of pedophilia using anthropomorphic characters. A policy specifically excluding works with pre-pubescent characters in sexual situations would exclude that, too.

How to define the difference? That's where phrases like "predominantly" and "it deems" come in. Kyell Gold's stories exemplify the distinction well -- they're primarily about maturing and relationships, which include sexual activity. Porn works (cub or otherwise) primarily serve only to excite and titillate. If something looks borderline, it has to be evaluated on its own merits and within its own context.

We didn't want to get too specific and be trapped by our own rules, as we were last year when Softpaw rallied enough support to get on the ballot. If other publishers had been as proactive, they would have swamped Softpaw out of contention. Yes, we're working to increase awareness and participation, but we heard from a lot more people complaining about Softpaw's nomination than from people supporting us for following our own rules and keeping Softpaw on the ballot. It's apparent that the fans of Softpaw's material are a minuscule part of furry fandom, granted undue attention because of a circumstantial quirk. The policy gives us the ability to make sure such quirks aren't repeated.

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Official what to put into the awards discussion here.

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Now that everybody has sufficiently castigated the committee for not being any more able to precisely define porn vs erotica than anybody else in history... Come on over here and discuss what you do or do not want in the frippin' Awards.

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