I would argue it has been (and still is) a credible award because it is generally quite open about its policies. The choice to host the awards in Chengdu was not the act of some shadowy cabal, but a simple result of easily exploited policy. Charles Stross writes about it at length[0], but the simple gist is that it only costs $50 to vote on where the next year's awards are hosted, and there was a successful campaign to get SF fans in Chengdu to vote for their city.
Hopefully, as it has done in the past, the Hugos will update policy in a way that mitigates this sort of thing in the future. I don't see an easy solution, but I wish them the best.
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I would argue it has been (and still is) a credible award because it is generally quite open about its policies. The choice to host the awards in Chengdu was not the act of some shadowy cabal, but a simple result of easily exploited policy. Charles Stross writes about it at length[0], but the simple gist is that it only costs $50 to vote on where the next year's awards are hosted, and there was a successful campaign to get SF fans in Chengdu to vote for their city.
Hopefully, as it has done in the past, the Hugos will update policy in a way that mitigates this sort of thing in the future. I don't see an easy solution, but I wish them the best.
[0]: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/01/worldcon...