Friday, February 22, 2008

More Picking on the Nebulas

Keith R.A. DeCandido dislikes this year's Best Script category for a different reason than I do: it contains a work which is actually ineligible.

C'mon, SFWA, admit it: you want to have a "Media Thing We Looooove" category but you didn't have the guts to say that, so you pretended that you're judging the scripts (which you mostly don't see) and not the finished product.

Admit to your geekiness. Own it. You'll be a better organization for it. Oh, and, while you're at it, get rid of the confusing and credibility-damaging "rolling eligibility" system too.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I have to disagree with you on the mostly don't see to an extent. I know of a couple of people who work to get files and relevant permissions so that scripts can be put online for members to see. They also work to get any additional scripts requested to the jury.
Does that mean they're reading them,? Some of them probably not-some of them probably are.

Andrew Wheeler said...

Nadine: Here's the problem as I see it.

If a SFWA member is nominating for a fiction category, it goes like this: member reads a great story or novel, nominates that story or novel.

If a SFWA member is nominating for Best Script, that member watches a TV show or movie, thinks "darn, that was good!", tries to get a copy of the script, possibly succeeds, possibly reads the script, and then nominates.

Nobody is reading a pile of scripts and nominating the best ones; SFWA members are seeing movies and TV shows and only then looking at the script. And that means they're basically deciding something is nomination-worthy based on the final product, not the script.

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