[maire]

This article answers one of the questions I had about this year's Hugo awards.

R. F. Kuang's Babel was on many other lists of top book of the year. I was surprised that it did not even on the nomination list. Now I find out that it was pre-emptively removed from the nomination list before the vote!

I am not a big fan of Babel (and posted my issues on Goodreads) but I do want the vote to be fair.

[maire]

I just looked at the votes - and Babel would not have won in any case. It was ranked #7 when it was disqualified.

Netflix's Sandman was also disqualified. On Bluesky Neil Gaiman said he was never told why it was disqualified. He also said he was one of four disqualified authors.

The lesson learned is do not have a world-wide vote in a country with censorship.

[ianburrell]

People are talking about them miscounting nomination votes to eliminate Babel. It is very strange that the #3 position would lose to #7. Like there would have to been no ballots that ranked Babel in lower position. The only thing makes sense is that they disqualified it early and stopped counting votes.

[maire]

Although Babel was removed during the final vote count, here is what the interim vote count looked like. It looks like it would not even be on the short list.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25245686/h...

[ianburrell]

People have been pointing out the numbers are bogus [1]. Notice that huge drop in votes between #7 and #8, that doesn't happen with normal voting. It can happen with slate voting but this would have to be pretty extreme. Also, the weird votes are only for some awards like novel.

I don't know what the score means, but notice that for Babel it starts lower and never changes, while the others increase presumably from lower ranks being added to score. I think the only way Babel happens if there were no ballots who put it lower only top position. It is also suspicious that it goes out at the seventh position, just losing out to the lowest slate.

Also, why would they the disqualify it if it had been eliminated. It makes sense to disqualify at the beginning or end of nomination. Also, there is no final vote count, there is nomination count and the final vote. It was removed before the final vote.

1: https://alpennia.com/blog/comparison-hugo-nomination-distrib...

[maire]

That looks like a compelling argument.