Talk:Kathryn Cramer

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Wikipedian An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Kathryn Cramer, has edited Wikipedia as
Pleasantville (talk · contribs).
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[edit] Archives

Archive 1 though May 2007


[edit] Degrees

Educational description is incorrect as written: "She is a graduate of Columbia University, with BA degrees in mathematics and American Studies." The BA is in mathematics; a masters degree is in American Studies. Cutting "BA" would fix the problem. --Pleasantville 13:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Hugo Rules?

Is User:SWATJester interested in a discussion of Hugo Award rules or does he dispute that Locus is an authority on them, especially in the Semiprozine category? Does he claim any knowledge in ths subject area? My impression from User:SWATJester's talk page is that he claims no special knowledge in this subject matter and further is unfamiliar with the source cited.

Does he dispute Locus's claim that Charles N. Brown has been nominted for the Hugo 41 times? I suspect not.

Why then the revert? --Pleasantville 01:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC) aka Kathryn Cramer

I do not object that Locus is an authority. I object that the link is being misquoted. LOCUS was nominated for the hugo. Not Charles N. Brown. ⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 01:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I should further note that one does not need to be a subject matter expert to edit anything on Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone can edit. ⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 01:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Sure, anyone can edit an article. That doesn't mean that the person doing the editing is right. If you want to be credible, it might help for you to explain how you know more about the Hugo Awards than the other people who have involved themselves in the discussion. Kevin Standlee 23:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The quote you delete is from Locus citing Charles N. Brown as having 41 Hugo nominations. Do you have any idea what for? (Semiprozine.) Certainly anyone can edit, but you are an admin and so you aren't just anyone, and you are interning for WM . . .

Locus, as cited, gives credit to individuals listed on the ballot. Do you have another source? --Pleasantville 02:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

My admin status does not entitle me to special privileges. I'm operating as an editor here. Nothing more. ⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 02:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

From the Locus page:

SEMIPROZINE

 # Ansible, David Langford, ed. 
 # Interzone, David Pringle & Andy Cox, eds. 
 # Locus, Charles N. Brown, ed. 
 # The New York Review of Science Fiction, Kathryn Cramer, David G. Hartwell & Kevin J. Maroney, eds. 
 # The Third Alternative, Andy Cox, ed.

It nominates the SEMIPROZINE NAME, and then the editor's name. Not the editor. This is clear and unambiguous. You were not nominated, your magazine was. Wikipedia is not a tool for your advertisement. ⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 02:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Has Charlie Brown ever won a Hugo, or not? (You are walking over the precipice of much hilarity if you answer NOT.) --Pleasantville 02:13, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't care whether Charles N. Brown has ever won a Hugo. He's never won one for SEMIPROZINE, but Locus has, several times over. You know why? Because he is a person. Not a magazine. Common sense would dictate that. The magazine that he edits has won, just as yours has been nominated (and not won).⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 02:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I rest my case. *shakes head* --Pleasantville 02:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Please stop the attempts to gain advertisement for yourself, and the strawman arguments.. It's clear that Hugo semiprozine awards are given to the zine, not to the editor. An editor is not a zine. It says so on Locus' website as I quoted above, it says so on worldcon.org without so much as even the name of the editor, it says it on Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine, it says so on AwardWeb with the editors name listed in parenthesis, and in the written rules available here, it does not mention at all that the editor is given the award: it lists the criteria for the 'zine. This is ridiculous, common sense tells you that a person cannot be a magazine. Kathryn Cramer, you have a direct conflict of interest in this.⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 02:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if there's a conflict of interest in this case, because she's right. And, if you've actually looked at the current official list of Hugo Award winners, you'll have seen that the editors of publications are listed with the publications that they edited. Kevin Standlee 23:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It is not clear. So novelists never win awards, only their novels? --Pleasantville 03:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Depends on the award. Novelists certainly win "best writer". But they do not win "Best new novel". But once again, this is what's called a strawman fallacy. This is a Hugo award, not a novel. ⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 03:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
What is this "Best Writer" Hugo Award of which you speak? When did it get added to the WSFS Constitution? I know that you don't think anyone needs to show any authority to have any credibility, but I'm Chairman of this year's World Science Fiction Society Business meeting, and was a Hugo Award administrator three times (1993, 1994, 2002), and probably know just a little bit more about the Hugo Awards than you are likely to know. Kevin Standlee 23:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I suppose I should be deighted to learn that I am not a serial Hugo loser and that Charlie Brown hasn't beat the pants off of us for many years running. But I should confess that this is really a first: No one has ever told me before that I wasn't a Hugo nominee. I'll tell the committee, since they are under the mistaken impression I'm nominated and need to appoint someone to accept in case I win. We've appointed Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who is going to the ceremony in Yokohama, and whom we had previously asked to accept on our behalf. --Pleasantville 03:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Sarcasm is unbecoming. You are not nominated for it. Your magazine is. No matter how much you attempt to obfuscate it with strawman arguments, that is the case. You are not a magazine, and physically cannot be, otherwise you would not be typing here. You are a human being. The difference is 100% clear. The Hugo award rules state it. The above cited sites state it. You have a conflict of interest, and the advertising needs to stop.⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 04:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Denny: What exactly is your interpretation of Hugo rules supposed to inspire in me? What you seem to be looking for is a Catholic style confession that I have been simply misrepreensting my several decades long understanding of rules you have only just encountered. However, I am entirely serious: no one except you has ever represented to me that the magazine and NOT the editors listed on the ballot is the nominee. No one. Ever. There is a reason that people's names are listed on the ballot. They are not ornamental. Why are you pushing this point with out external references? It would seem to me that this would violate WP rules of civility. --Pleasantville 04:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

As you know from reading my user page, which you have made extensive reference to elsewhere, my name is not Denny, it's Dan. As a SF writer, I'm sure you are aware of William Shatner's role as Denny Crane. I'll pass it off as a momentary lapse in judgment. As for external references, do you have any that state the hugo award for semiprozine is awarded to a person? Any reliable sources? If you can find a reliable source that says "Awards for a written publication are awarded to the editor, not to the publication itself", that would satisfy this. But such a source does not exist, and it would be incumbent on you to find that. Verifiable, reliable sources, that are ACCURATELY representations. Your link to the Hugo site qualified as verifiable and accurate, the statement made was not an accurate representation of the material on that link.⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 05:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Who do you think gets the trophies? I have sitting right here in my house the Hugo Award for Emerald City, and it has the editor's name (Cheryl Morgan) engraved on it, and when she won it, they gave the trophy to her. (See photo.) I can even go take a photo of the plate on that trophy and post it if you don't believe me. When Locus hired additional editors and the magazine won subsequent Hugo Awards, they made multiple trophies and gave one to each of the magazine's editors. And the official WSFS site lists the editors along with their publications, just as will the new Hugo Awards site that WSFS is currently building and will announce shortly. WSFS says that these people won Hugo Awards, and they're the organization presenting them. You can't interpret rules in a vacuum. Kevin Standlee 23:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Swat, you are pouring vitriol into this discussion in an unseemly manner. Technically, your statement is correct: as you say, the nominations and awards are given to the magazines; but the custom in the field is to discuss the awards in terms of the editors. Thus, Locus (along with Ansible, the de facto publication of record for the field), talks of wins and losses for Charles Brown rather than for the zine itself. This is not a matter of advertisement and self-aggrandizement, it is a matter of ordinary usage in the field. (By the way, presuming an intimate familiarity with every morsel of Star Trek trivia is a none-too-subtle insult to a writer and editor of actual text science fiction.) --Orange Mike 13:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm missing the "morsel of star trek trivia" part....Boston Legal is a primetime flagship series. Shatner and James Spader are both emmy award winners, and headline the series. Michael J. Fox, and Christian Clemmnson (sic) both won emmys for their roles on the show. Shatner and Candice Bergen were both nominated for emmys on the show. If that was taken as an insult to SF community members, I apologize, that was not the case. I automatically assume that primetime TV shows are familiar to most people, but in some cases that is not true; if this is one of those, I apologize.⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 20:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Many science fiction readers are indifferent, or actively hostile, to what passes for science fiction on television. To assume that because an actor once starred in a science fiction TV show that therefore SF readers will know or care about what parts he plays or played, conflates being a reader of speculative fiction, the literature of ideas, with being a get-a-life fanboy: a frequent mistake among those who disdain equally SF in all forms. That being said, I will cheerfully accept the proferred explanation that you meant no insult; heaven knows it's an irrelevancy, but SF readers tend to get a bit defensive (see Vonnegut on urinals). --Orange Mike 00:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
That being said, as you note, my statement is correct, and I feel that it is quite a conflict of interest for either MarkBernstein or Pleasantville to be making that change, which makes it appear that the awards were won by Cramer, due to their involvements with the zine.
I have no conflict of interest. Pleasantville worked for me, for a time, many years ago, I published her fine hypertext in the '90s, and I meet her at conferences now and then. I subscribe to the NYRSF, as I subscribe to Cooks, Harpers, and The New Yorker. OrangeMike's compromise, in any case, satisfies you concern; "It has been nominated twelve times for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine under her co-editorship." As there is no dispute remaining, perhaps we can go home and get back to business? MarkBernstein 21:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Dan, I apologize for calling you Denny, but I honestly though you'd had the good sense to append your real name to your user name. --Pleasantville 13:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Apology accepted. ⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 20:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
What Orangemike said regarding "ordinary usage in the field." Kevin Standlee
What Pleasantville said about whether Charles Brown won a Hugo for SemiProzine, and what Swatjester's denial of it means. Such a statement is only true in a sense so superficial that by uttering it, he demonstrates a complete ignorance of what he is talking about. It is like someone writing articles claiming that World War I was caused by the assassination of the Archduke, or that dollars are not issued by the U. S. Government (on the basis that they are issued by Federal banks), or that either GWB or the GOP won the 2004 prez election but not both. It looks like something so apparent that it could be proved mathematically, but the first thing anyone learns about the subject is that things don't actually work that way. CNB won the SPmz Hugo, Locus won the SPmz Hugo, and the two statements are synonymous in the language as she is spoke. (Disclaimer: I have worked on Worldcons and voted on Hugo awards, but I'm pretty sure I never heard of any Denny Crane. I'm pretty sure Shatner has won a Hogu or two, even if the winner was listed as a novel.) –Dan Hoeytalk 01:01, 14 September 2007 (UTC)