Oy, the stupid is overwhelming

akirlu gets a bit stupid about John Scalzi being nominated for a fanwriting Hugo:

I have to admit, John Scalzi's presence on the fanwriter short list bothers me. Not because he's a pro. Not even because he has a big damn' microphone of his own, plus the enthusiasm of the Granddaddy of Faux-Libertarian Warbloggers. But because I've never seen any evidence that John Scalzi is actually a member of fandom.

And since we can't easily define fanwriting by content -- that's always been all over the place -- and can no longer define it by presence in fanzines, since blog content is and should be eligible -- then the only way I can see to delimit the fanwriter category is by establishing that the writer is, in fact, a member of fandom. Otherwise, presumably the entire blogiverse is eligible.

But surely this has all been hashed out long before, back when the internets were still ascii based? Online fannishness counts as much as offline fannishness and you can recognise fannishness even in a non-fannish context. Scalzi hangs out with fans, writes about science fiction in a fannish manner, is accepted enough by fans to be nominated for a Hugo and if he self identifies as a fan, he is one.

This is not rocket science.