The Hugo Awards Kerfuffle...

[Nerds_feather]

I'd read that novel.

Though literalized metaphors tend to work better in short fiction than in novels.

 

[Dave]

Chrons is encrypted with modern cryptography but has this page includes other resources which are not secure. What the other resources are I'm sure Brian can tell us

We'll never tell you!! Never, ever!!

Brian will know, but I strongly suspect it is the Media (image) gallery. It doesn't mean they are unsafe to view. And yes, there are third party things including the Blogs.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Images are commonly flagged as non-secure items on secured webpages.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Actually the site doesn't really need HTTPS at all. Extra expense and overhead. Only one section is moderately secret and HTTPS is totally insecure at public wiFi point if the WiFi point owner runs a man-in-middle attack. Basically for anything important at public WiFi now you need to use a VPN to a trusted server to access Internet.

Perhaps though Brian is going to sell stuff? Or it's due to Google's snake oil based "ranking". They claim they will "penalise" non-HTTPS. Google are just plain evil and too powerful. There is no good reason at all for most web sites to be using HTTPS except for financial stuff.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Or it's due to Google's snake oil based "ranking".

Exactly this - Google have said that https is now a favoured ranking signal on Google Search. I've always tried to keep as search friendly as possible - that's why these forums grew faster than any of the previously established - and originally much bigger - SFF forums out there.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

that's why these forums grew faster than any of the previously established

Or else it's nothing to do with any SEO, and simply good content is added every day. It's the best system.

Also your excellent moderation and organisation.

Besides Google don't be truthy about how and what they do.

https is now a favoured ranking signal on Google Search

Yes, I know they said that. But the REAL favoured ranking is that you pump / pimp their adverts and services. I won't change anything on any of my websites on Google's say so.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Or else it's nothing to do with any SEO, and simply good content is added every day. It's the best system.

No, it was definitely the SEO.

A simple example - Google never used to be able to properly index forums. Seriously - sessions IDs used to stop Google flat, because Google couldn't tell if session IDs appended to a URL meant that it was different content or not. And that problem affected pretty much all forum software platforms. So in 2003 I moved chronicles to the beta version of vbulletin 3 - which specifically killed session IDs for search bots. Running the beta before gold release gave us an eight month advantage over every other forum - all of our threads discoverable, and ranking, on Google, when other forums could only rank for their main page, and maybe a couple of categories.

Google has never been able to tell if content is good - it uses a mathematical algorithm to try and determine value, nothing more.

 

[Dave]

Google has never been able to tell if content is good - it uses a mathematical algorithm to try and determine value, nothing more.

Now, I understand why those spammers copy huge chunks from our posts that make no sense. To a Googlebot it probably looks fine.

Meanwhile... Are the Hugo Awards as relevant and up to date as SFFChronicles is?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Google has never been able to tell if content is good

I agree.
They just decide on basis that it's fresh and unique, not what it means.

Now, I understand why those spammers copy huge chunks from our posts that make no sense. To a Googlebot it probably looks fine

They are now comparing pages and reduce rank of copies. But you are right, spam sites do it simply to add content.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

http://grrm.livejournal.com/423221.html New development.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

hegemononormalist

I really hope that's a real word and if not, it should be!
I'm late to this party in that I've just stumbled across this issue. Urgh. I hope if nothing else happens, this means that those members and supporting members who go to Worldcon actually exercise their nominations next year. I've been twice and am as guilty of not nominating as anyone else (firstly through ignorance and secondly through slightly less ignorance) but if the block votes are high enough, even higher "voter engagement" (it's Election season in the UK) may not prevent this sort of thing.

Perhaps they'll have to change the voting to just actual members rather than supporting? But that's penalising a lot of people, thanks to it's wandering nature. It's very disappointing that real world based intolerance has leapt into a genre which has actively tried to get away from the real world.

 

[JaimeRetief]

Personally I have never seen the Hugos, Nebulas, or any other literary award for that matter, as important in any way.
Fan groups have colluded to take the Hugo for their favourite writers and books on a number of occasions.
I doubt that this will change, or that the Hugo, which is on the face of it voted on by a very small group of people, usually in North America, in fact with the advent of sites that permit ratings and reviews, like Amazon and Goodreads, and with specialized web forums the "winner of award X" on the book cover has become less and less relevant.

However I am more worried of the extreme, "my side is right, and I will not compromise or go half way" points of view and blatant repetition of hollow propaganda that I have seen displayed by many of the participants in this whole discussion, this includes all sides in the debate.

Perhaps if the Hugos have degenerated into just another reason for social media political wars they should be retired.

 

[Hex]

Sorry to resurrect the thread, but today's fracas with Brad Torgerson being really, well, not very smart and John Scalzi tromping all over him looks straightforward: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/05/04/id-rather-like-men-than-to-be-a-sad-puppy/

But maybe Brad Torgerson was speaking to the puppies, few of whom seem to have moved on from the 1950s.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Sorry to resurrect the thread, but today's fracas with Brad Torgerson being really, well, not very smart and John Scalzi tromping all over him looks straightforward: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/05/04/id-rather-like-men-than-to-be-a-sad-puppy/

But maybe Brad Torgerson was speaking to the puppies, few of whom seem to have moved on from the 1950s.

Facepalm.

 

[Hex]

It was surprisingly stupid.

 

[Ursa major]

Stupid, yes.

Surprising...?

 

[Hex]

I thought he was meant to be the moderate one. Relatively.

 

[Toby Frost]

I actually didn't expect the argument to descend to the point where Scalzi could legitimately say "Well, your face is like a big poo!" but it's pretty much got there.

 

[JaimeRetief]

Does anyone actually have a link to the entire discussion where Scalzi was allegedly insulted?

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Does anyone actually have a link to the entire discussion where Scalzi was allegedly insulted?

Scalzi took a screen cap of the post that contained the "insult", to whit, implying he's gay. There's no direct link to the original as apparently Brad's either hidden his Twitter account or deleted it.