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[Putnam]

That's what happens when you apply too much pressure to an LCD screen. Since I see dents on the screen, I guess that's what happened.

[Kagus]

Wrong isn't the right word.

No, you're right, wrong is the wrong word. That's what it does.

[Arx]

it's like giving a hugo award to book binding or somethin'.

Or to Wordpress, or maybe just a mainstream publisher.

"Congrats Gollancz, you got a Hugo for best related works! 'Cause you know, you published all those books by the same authors."

[Flying Dice]

Wrong isn't the right word. It's friggin' weird, though. For one, it's utterly unlike, as near as I can tell, literally everything else that's ever been awarded a hugo in that category. It's not really an individual work, it's very nature renders it basically impossible to complete, it's not so much any particular sort of content itself so much as a container for it... it's like giving a hugo award to book binding or somethin'. So on, so forth.

For two, at least by the wiki page on the category, it wasn't published or translated within the last calendar year (AO3's been around like a decade or so). Individual works within it were, but... still.

For three, it's not really anything specifically to do with sci-fi or fantasy, either. The stuff's heavily involved, sure, but it's not nearly as closely tied as most older/other winners seem to be. It's just a really odd choice.

It's not a bad thing, exactly (and it's not even remotely like I dislike AO3, even if I probably wouldn't mention it in polite company due to how much smut is on it and how extreme it can get*). Just weird. My reaction's varyingly intense confusion with a side of disappointment I probably won't be able to get the library I work at to mention it much or at all due to all the smut on it.

* I didn't check too hard on the other ones, but this might be the first hugo winner that qualifies as child porn in some countries

Yeah, that decision made me lose a lot of respect for the award. You could generally trust that something (or someone) that picked up a Hugo or Nebula was pretty good SF. Now apparently we're giving 'em out to websites for hosting shitty slashfics and wish fulfillment fics that aren't even in the correct genre.

And "some countries" is pretty generous, considering that there are book-canon Sansa Stark/Sandor Clegane ASOIAF fics on AO3. Lord knows there's probably worse, but I have zero interest in finding out how bad it gets.

Addendum: as a librarian, people won't care about the smut. Most romances, urban fiction, and westerns are smutty as hell. Not to mention the actual pornography in the stacks (which usually gets hidden away in the low-800s (DDC) nonfiction with miscellaneous other prose that doesn't get cataloged as fiction for one reason or another). I recall seeing one book in the stacks of a building I used to work at that was very plainly a collection of stories about people fucking dragons from the cover alone. Pop it open and it was indeed a collection of stories about people fucking dragons. There was another that had a collection of pornographic stories, stuff like a man discovering an extreme sub kink, a high school girl cheating on her boyfriend with his father, &c.

What people will care about is you knowing what fanfiction is (good or bad -- you may also set off some old 80s-gen nerd that won't stop talking to you about it).

[Frumple]

Also as a librarian, the degree of caring can vary based on where you are. Lots of people don't care about the smut right up until you actually mention it or do something like direct them into a pit that has toddlercon tag groups (i.e. AO3 ).

Where I'm at actually has had the patronage throw a fit about stuff that gets too blatant, and our director generally has us be fairly careful about what we put on the shelves vis a vis that sort of thing* (we have neither the funding nor the staff to deal with folks pitching regular shitfits, sadly). There is a fair amount of smut on the shelves, but meaningfully signal boosting it would probably catch us more flak than anyone involved feels like dealing with. Shrugging when a patron's browsing something like AO3 is one thing (drawn or video porn would be a different one; kids in library etc., etc.), putting the library's name behind it would be another.

... mind you, the exceptions can be fun. Director had us get a new copy of lady chatterley's lover fairly recently, part of some kind of all time whatever books. The trick was it had a classic genre label on it so we were pretty sure no one would read it even if it was displayed fairly openly :V

* Now, ILL or whatev' we give zero shits about. We wouldn't put straight up porn on the shelves but if there's another (in-state) library that has it, give us a buck to handle processing and postage and we'll get that porn in your hands.

All that said, Best Related Work specifically looks like it's always been kinda' weird. Hugo in other categories is probably still fine even if this decision has tanked your faith in the thing. It's pretty understandable in some ways how it got the nom and subsequent award (AO3 itself has a little twitter blurb where they asked folks there when they got the award that were involved with the site as users et al to stand and co-accept and like half the bloody auditorium stood up, including many of the people involved with other nominees), but... yeah.

[hector13]

It is 10.30 in the night-time, I have a fan blowing directly on me, and have done for the past 20 minutes, and I am sweating my balls off.

Summer can go fuck itself right in the eye socket IWANTTOSLEEPDAMMIT

[wierd]

That's what air conditioning is for.

Failing that, a cold shower can give temporary relief.

[hector13]

Air conditioning does not exist in either of the rooms I could feasibly get a good night’s rest in.

I will suffice with sleeping with the cats, and be awoken by one hours before I wanted to be, as the only room with AC contains felines, and lots of tiny bright lights because of all the telecom accoutrements I apparently need in order to bear my existence in a world that thinks Summer needs to happen.

Also, if there is one thing I cannot stand, it’s being wet in a hot room. The shower would be pleasant, the feeling of the water I failed to get off me warming up and not evaporating is hell, man. Even just wet hair. I am bemused how Olympic swimmers can do their thing then get their kit on and not look as though they’re in some torture device.

[Frumple]

Well... old tip. If you have the fan, get a decent sized bowl, fill it with ice and water, and stick it front of the fan. It can cool things down enough to nap, sometimes.

[wierd]

Air conditioning does not exist in either of the rooms I could feasibly get a good night’s rest in.

I will suffice with sleeping with the cats, and be awoken by one hours before I wanted to be, as the only room with AC contains felines, and lots of tiny bright lights because of all the telecom accoutrements I apparently need in order to bear my existence in a world that thinks Summer needs to happen.

Also, if there is one thing I cannot stand, it’s being wet in a hot room. The shower would be pleasant, the feeling of the water I failed to get off me warming up and not evaporating is hell, man. Even just wet hair. I am bemused how Olympic swimmers can do their thing then get their kit on and not look as though they’re in some torture device.

I said cold for a reason.  I was not being coy.  I mean freaking COLD. As in, icecubes.

[hector13]

I know, but however cold the water is, my body still heats it up when I’m done, and the room I want to sleep in is still stupidly warm for no goddamn reason :p

It’s a silly visceral thing. I don’t like putting any kind of lotion on either, because it is a loathsome sensation.

[Flying Dice]

-snip-

Oh yeah, definitely fair about regional variation, but IMO it's more that actively promoting would be more likely to catch that one patron that would make it An Issue. Since people like that are usually the sort that walk in, grab their reserves for the new Danielle Steel/Fern Michaels/James Patterson/&c. bestseller, self-check, and leave immediately, they don't tend to notice what's out there beyond the new books display.

I also wouldn't promote AO3 for a multitude of other reasons, but that's a whole different story from not promoting it because of the bad PR. Almost nobody where I live cares about SF/F beyond the gutter trash like Ready Player One anyways. Did manage to get someone into the Pern novels (and warned her away from the son's... "contributions"), but that's about it.

[Frumple]

We don't have self-check at any of the branches I'm working with

SF/F stuff definitely isn't among our major circulation genres, though, no. They move okay-ish for our libraries and we have a handful of patrons that request it, but it's way behind the (other) bestsellers et al, or just mystery/suspense, westerns, or christian fiction in general. _{though inflicting mccaffrey on someone is just mean, ahaha* also nevermind the son's contributions, probably don't direct them towards anything that isn't pern, too. Anne's just a bit behind Piers Anthony in how off some of their works get.}

*Though if it works, it works.

[Akura]

A problem which has been occurring for a very long time, one I've complained about dozens of times, and one that could very easily be solved by people taking less than half a second to actually pay attention to what they're doing, is apparently entirely my responsibility to correct. According to my boss, it's "unfair" to the people responsible* to have them double-check their work and correct any mistakes themselves because their workload, which is one-half to one-third less than my own, is too much for them.

[Naturegirl1999]

A problem which has been occurring for a very long time, one I've complained about dozens of times, and one that could very easily be solved by people taking less than half a second to actually pay attention to what they're doing, is apparently entirely my responsibility to correct. According to my boss, it's "unfair" to the people responsible* to have them double-check their work and correct any mistakes themselves because their workload, which is one-half to one-third less than my own, is too much for them.

Don’t tell your boss, but your boss sounds stupid