Is the prior that low or something?
Yes. Can you name a single fanfic that has ever won either prize for best novel? I can't. Keeping in mind that fanfics long predate the Internet, that many noted authors got started as fans or were published in fanzines (Charles Stross being the most recent example I can think of), etc. So Laplace's law gives us a starting point of single percents, and it only gets worse if we take into account nominations as well...
What should the world look like if HPMOR does have a chance of winning Best Novel?
Well, see above. Acceptable substitutes would include reviews and praise by the sort of people whose reviews & praise predict other nominees or winners - Brin is a good start, but we're talking novels that are discussed or reviewed in all the major SF organs and sell into the hundreds of thousands or millions, so the n should be into the dozens for starters.
The new discussion thread (part 15) is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 82. The previous thread passed 1000 comments as of the time of this writing, and so has long passed 500. Comment in the 13th thread until you read chapter 82.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: