paging JMS
Aug. 31st, 2006 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacIn the days of Babylon 5, its proprietor, J. Michael Straczynski, was mildly infamous among Hugo administrators for an interesting habit. If more than one episode of the show received enough nominations to be a Hugo finalist, he would withdraw all but the episode he judged most popular. His reason was that he didn't want to risk losing the Hugo by competition with himself.
Several of us,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kevin_standlee in particular, tried to explain to him that the Hugo final ballot doesn't work that way, but JMS was insistent.
That's why I'd like to show him this year's Dramatic Presentation Short Form result. Three episodes of Dr. Who (actually four, but two were a two-parter and treated as one), one episode of Battlestar Galactica, and three miscellaneous others. On this theory, the three Doctors should have cancelled each other out. But that's not what happened.
BG had the plurality on the first count, but with only 25%. The three Doctors between them had 44%. And watch what happens on the fifth count when one of them gets eliminated. A whopping 72% of its voters choose one of the other two over any of the three other options, including dropping out. The effect is even greater when the other one is eliminated. Now united behind their favorite episode - without a creator having to guess which one that would be - the Whovians take the majority, and thus the Hugo.
Whatever you think of the relative merits of the two shows (I'd be in the BG camp myself), it's clear that BG could not have pulled ahead against all those Dr. Who episodes, and once they were whittled down to one, it still had the majority. Hugo finalists need not worry about competing with themselves.
Several of us,
kevin_standlee in particular, tried to explain to him that the Hugo final ballot doesn't work that way, but JMS was insistent.That's why I'd like to show him this year's Dramatic Presentation Short Form result. Three episodes of Dr. Who (actually four, but two were a two-parter and treated as one), one episode of Battlestar Galactica, and three miscellaneous others. On this theory, the three Doctors should have cancelled each other out. But that's not what happened.
Dr. Who: Empty Child/Doctor Dances 112 112 114 116 148 163 247 Battlestar Galatica: Pegasus 137 138 141 154 167 184 195 Dr. Who: Dalek 70 70 70 75 95 107 Jack-Jack Attack 67 68 72 85 89 Dr. Who: Father's Day 64 64 65 72 Prix Victor Hugo Awards 42 43 61 Lucas Back in Anger 34 34 No Award 29
BG had the plurality on the first count, but with only 25%. The three Doctors between them had 44%. And watch what happens on the fifth count when one of them gets eliminated. A whopping 72% of its voters choose one of the other two over any of the three other options, including dropping out. The effect is even greater when the other one is eliminated. Now united behind their favorite episode - without a creator having to guess which one that would be - the Whovians take the majority, and thus the Hugo.
Whatever you think of the relative merits of the two shows (I'd be in the BG camp myself), it's clear that BG could not have pulled ahead against all those Dr. Who episodes, and once they were whittled down to one, it still had the majority. Hugo finalists need not worry about competing with themselves.
