science fiction awards

Nebula Awards Rules Changed

Something about this isn't making sense to me.

SFWA has announced new rules for the Nebula Award. Among the most significant changes are the elimination of the “rolling eligibility” person and the elimination of the Nebula Jury’s addition of works to the final ballot (Science Fiction Awards Watch).

The rules change is fairly straight forward.  I like the rules change, as does:

One particularly interesting change is that:

someone who has at least sold one short story to a qualifying venue. A bigger voting pool might help remove embarrassments such as the total lack of nominees for this year’s Norton. However, Affiliate members (editors, agents, critics and other people who actually read a lot of books) are still barred from participating (Science Fiction Awards Watch).

You can read the rules here, but I am unsure about one thing.  In the eligibility section for works, it does not include the phrase, "in qualifying works/publishers."  I don't believe for a moment that the SFWA is droping their elite requirement, but I did find the lack of explicit snobbery to be odd.