The Hugo Awards

[Ambient_Malice]

It has everything to do with a small group of bigots who are outraged that those EVIL RIGHT WINGERS might be able to sway the Hugos vote using perfectly legal means. The venom I've seen thrown at people for even ASSOCIATING with the so-called "neofascists" behind Sad Puppies reveals that science fiction communities have a serious political prejudice problem.

Can you give examples? Because I've read through GRRM, MRK, and Scalzi's stuff and I am really not seeing the bigotry in the articles or in the comments. Also, I think the true anger is directed at the Rabid Puppies/ Vox Day more than at Brad and company (I have for instance seen Mary peaceably posting on one of their blogs (Brad's maybe?)

Sad and Rabid Puppies were conflated for the most part. (Rabid Puppies, IMO, is more deserving of criticism because it comes across as being far more political in nature than Sad Puppies.) A lot of the less than pleasant stuff occurred on social media. Just madness. To their credit, most actual writers kept their heads down and didn't get involved in the hysteria. But the various articles that appeared which falsely implied Sad Puppies were a backlash against last year's "diverse" nominees had comments sections riddled with anger and bile. You had that Entertainment Weekly article that was rewritten after they realised they'd monumentally screwed up by presenting Sad Puppies as a slate of white, male, conservative writers - when in fact it consists of men and women from across the political spectrum.

Accusations over awards being biased isn't new. It happens everywhere. In my view, both sides of the "Hugos have a bias problem" dispute make very valid points. But the sheer hatred towards "wrong" politics from certain parts of the science fiction community is not healthy. There's that bizarre overlap with GamerGate where supporters of Sad Puppies are accused of being white men who hate women and various minorities regardless of the facts. Authors who were on the slate were accused of being "right wing\bigoted\reactionaries\MRAs\sexists\homophobic\etc".

There is something very wrong when someone can say, "X is right wing," and people around them are extremely distressed. The people upset over Hugos turning into a vote war--a very valid complaint--were drowned out by people screaming about how anyone who supports SP or allows SP to nominate them is an enemy of diversity and a... GASP, right winger. For whatever reason, it was GamerGate all over again.

It's galling when people who pretend to believe in diversity and inclusion and all that jazz turn around and make it VERY clear that they don't believe in diversity and inclusion if it includes people they don't like. The Sad Puppies did not push anyone out. They presented a very diverse slate. Their slate was arguably more diverse than previous nominees. Yet they are painted as exclusionary bigots simply because they are a symbol of a certain political group. That is pure prejudice.

 

[TDA WP]

Not that anyone should be shocked, but there has been some efforts to edit the Wikipedia articles associated with these nominations in a way that targets those involved. The most frequent activity has been on Vox Day's article with editors routinely looking to insert misrepresented material about his views on women:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=655621742&oldid=655528136

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=655883573&oldid=655862638

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=656067198&oldid=656032403

This is in addition to the usual vandalism and defamatory edits by IP users that are so common on the site:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=656032248&oldid=655909091

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Beale&diff=655909089&oldid=655885056

John C. Wright, one of the nominees, has also had some vandalism and attacks on his bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_C._Wright_%28author%29&diff=655753317&oldid=653795260

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_C._Wright_%28author%29&diff=656173285&oldid=656063382

The other major battleground at the moment is the page for the Hugo Award itself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hugo_Award&offset=20150501000000&limit=500&action=history&tagfilter=

One editor, an admin, apparently responded to the desire to exclude an inflammatory article by Arthur Chu in The Daily Beast attempting to cast the campaign as right wing by seeking to remove a citation to The National Review under the guise of BLP, that conveniently removed [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hugo_Award&diff=656137621&oldid=656121477] mentioned of the slate's diversity. Many of the same issues that affected the GamerGate article on Wikipedia are popping up here, though it is relatively subdued for now. Should it be deemed worthy of its own article then one can expect it to get much more toxic.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

I've noted in the past that Vox Day is an arsehole. But he hasn't, IMO, ACTUALLY advocated the truly horrible shit attributed to him. In particular, his supposed support for honor killings and acid attacks on women and such. From my research, any such statements have been rhetorical thought experiments designed to illustrate how he doesn't believe these things, but logically, or so he thinks, his opponents must for whatever reason.

He also may possibly be prejudiced against black people. I'm undecided simply because there's only really one incident I know of.

 

[Silvanus]

Long story short, an award for sci-fi/fantasy authors was basically being controlled by a small group keeping the nominations within certain political lines [...]

[...] list of authors selected based on how good their writing was, not how important to social justice their story was, as in the previous few years. The same people complaining about this year's group were happy to do the same thing with their social justice authors the last few years.

I'm inclined to agree with him. All these people complaining about the Hugo's being "rigged" all of a sudden had no problem when it was rigged for the past 5 years, except now it's no longer being rigged in an ideology they favour [...]

A number here seem to have accepted at face-value the claim that the Hugos were previously judged regardless of quality, or even "rigged"-- or, if that wasn't accepted at face-value, then nobody's presented anything to substantiate it.

Is there any compelling reason to think that's the case? I'm not inclined to place trust in the word of individuals like Beale and Day. Show me something aside from hearsay.

 

[EvilRoy]

Long story short, an award for sci-fi/fantasy authors was basically being controlled by a small group keeping the nominations within certain political lines [...]

[...] list of authors selected based on how good their writing was, not how important to social justice their story was, as in the previous few years. The same people complaining about this year's group were happy to do the same thing with their social justice authors the last few years.

I'm inclined to agree with him. All these people complaining about the Hugo's being "rigged" all of a sudden had no problem when it was rigged for the past 5 years, except now it's no longer being rigged in an ideology they favour [...]

A number here seem to have accepted at face-value the claim that the Hugos were previously judged regardless of quality, or even "rigged"-- or, if that wasn't accepted at face-value, then nobody's presented anything to substantiate it.

Is there any compelling reason to think that's the case? I'm not inclined to place trust in the word of individuals like Beale and Day. Show me something aside from hearsay.

My understanding is that there wasn't so much that the awards were "rigged", but there was a very small cross section of people with agreeing politics that gave enough of a shit to actually do nominations for the awards. The people nominated apparently largely agreed with the politics of the nominators because dur, and since all the nominations were of that group, all the winners were of that group.

On to the scene jumps this other group with their nominations that agree or don't agree with whatever politics depending on who you believe, because seriously there are only so many hours in a day and I am just fresh out of fucks to give. I barely keep up with my friends political affiliations, you could not afford to pay me to follow those of authors of all things. So I don't know if this group is doing the same thing for the other side or not. Doesn't matter.

What does matter is now there are two competing groups of people actually nominating, which is at least interesting because this is probably the most exciting the Hugos have been in years. So ultimately, its less about rigging and more about group one being offended by the accusations of group two, a large number of people being nominated who haven't really been nominated before, and actual competition on voting - which is probably the best thing that has happened to the Hugos in years. I'm not one of those "awards are for losers" assholes, but its hard to believe that a Hugo means anything when like six dudes have been responsible for 90% of the nominations and voting in years.

 

[Silvanus]

My understanding is that there wasn't so much that the awards were "rigged", but there was a very small cross section of people with agreeing politics that gave enough of a shit to actually do nominations for the awards. The people nominated apparently largely agreed with the politics of the nominators because dur, and since all the nominations were of that group, all the winners were of that group.

Still, is there actually any reason to believe these books were judged without reference to quality? All we have is the hearsay of (extremely dubious) individuals.

What does matter is now there are two competing groups of people actually nominating, which is at least interesting because this is probably the most exciting the Hugos have been in years. So ultimately, its less about rigging and more about group one being offended by the accusations of group two, a large number of people being nominated who haven't really been nominated before, and actual competition on voting - which is probably the best thing that has happened to the Hugos in years. I'm not one of those "awards are for losers" assholes, but its hard to believe that a Hugo means anything when like six dudes have been responsible for 90% of the nominations and voting in years.

A wider voter-base would be nice, if it occurred in any other context. In this case, I'm inclined to believe GRRM, that this has had a detrimental impact.

This has polarised the show on ideology. I see no reason to believe content was judged without reference to quality before; I have quite a bit of reason to believe that's the case now, since the accusation was heavily politically charged (but unsubstantiated).


EDIT: On a side-note, and spoken generally, the notion that "good" or classic sci-fi/ Fantasy has typically been free of strong political/social themes seems bizarrely ignorant to me. To discount strongly political work in Science Fiction, one would have to discount Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clark, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick-- some of the greatest contributors ever. To discount it in Fantasy, you would have to discount Tolkein, which is enough said.

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

@EvilRoy
That's one perspective. Here's another from GRRM:

Of course, there were also recommended reading lists. That wasn't campaigning, not strictly, but certain lists could have huge influence on the final ballot. The annual LOCUS Recommended Reading List, compiled by Charles Brown and his staff and reviewers, was the most influential. If your book or story made that list... well, it did not guarantee you a place on the ballot, but it sure improved your chances. NESFA (the New England fan club) had an annual list as well, and LASFS might have done the same, not sure. And of course the Nebulas, which came before the Hugos, carried a lot of weight too. Win a Nebula, and the chances were good that you'd be a Hugo nominee as well. Again, no guarantee, some years the shortlists diverged sharply... but more often than not, there was a lot of overlap.

So there were always these factors in play. Cliques, I can hear the Sad Puppies saying. Yeah, maybe. Thing is, they were COMPETING cliques. The NESFA list and the Nebula list were not the same, and the LOCUS list... the LOCUS list was always very long. Five spots on the Hugo ballot, and LOCUS would recommend twenty books, or thirty... sometimes more, when they started putting SF and fantasy in separate categories.

Bottom line, lots of people influenced the Hugos (or tried to), but no one ever successfully controlled the Hugos.

The Sad Puppies did not invent Hugo campaigning, by any means. But they escalated it, just as that magazine/publisher partnership did way back when. They turned it up to eleven. Their slate was more effective that anyone could ever have dreamed, so effective that they drowned out pretty much all the other voices. They ran the best organized, most focused, and most effective awards campaign in the history of our genre, and showed everyone else how it's done.

The lesson will be learned. The Sad Puppies have already announced that they intend to do it again next year. Which means that other factions in fandom will have to do it as well. Just as happened with the "let me tell you about my eligible works," the rest of the field is going to need to field slates of their own in self-defense.

I don't look forward to that. It cheapens the Hugos. Will future winners actually be the best books or stories? Or only the books and stories that ran the best campaigns?

Can all the king's horses and all the king's men put the Hugos back together again?

From my outsider perspective, the puppies viewed the Hugos through the lens of the Left-Right divide. The Left was in and the Right was out. So they created the competition, the second group. But the reason why they swept nominations is because there was NOT a Left voting bloc- the votes at the nomination stage are super spread out. But I'm afraid this whole Puppy thing is going to turn the voting into a two party system. Perception will become reality and what they feared existed, but did not, will come to pass. The self-fulfilled prophecy.

They claim entertaining stories are not getting nominated, but entertaining to whom? For instance Wheel of Time was nominated last year, which is not at all the sort of artsy-fartsy novels that Hoyt is complaining about.

@Ambient
Do you really see nothing at all wrong with the content of the quote from Vox Day that I posted? Or his entire article that I linked?

 

[EvilRoy]

My understanding is that there wasn't so much that the awards were "rigged", but there was a very small cross section of people with agreeing politics that gave enough of a shit to actually do nominations for the awards. The people nominated apparently largely agreed with the politics of the nominators because dur, and since all the nominations were of that group, all the winners were of that group.

Still, is there actually any reason to believe these books were judged without reference to quality? All we have is the hearsay of (extremely dubious) individuals.

The only way to really tell is to go back through the lists of all the authors that have won and been nominated and check for patterns in political affiliations. I'm way too lazy for this (per my previous post), and anyway my point wasn't that something nefarious was/was not done, but more that what is being referred to as rigging isn't really and this is ultimately unsurprising anyway.

People are too damn lazy to nominate so the same relatively small group of people do the nominations over and over. This is par for the course as far as publicly nominated awards go. Could it be nefarious and/or politically motivated? Sure. Or it could be the same boring people making the same boring nominations over and over.

What does matter is now there are two competing groups of people actually nominating, which is at least interesting because this is probably the most exciting the Hugos have been in years. So ultimately, its less about rigging and more about group one being offended by the accusations of group two, a large number of people being nominated who haven't really been nominated before, and actual competition on voting - which is probably the best thing that has happened to the Hugos in years. I'm not one of those "awards are for losers" assholes, but its hard to believe that a Hugo means anything when like six dudes have been responsible for 90% of the nominations and voting in years.

A wider voter-base would be nice, if it occurred in any other context. In this case, I'm inclined to believe GRRM, that this has had a detrimental impact.

This has polarised the show on ideology. I see no reason to believe content was judged without reference to quality before; I have quite a bit of reason to believe that's the case now, since the accusation was heavily politically charged (but unsubstantiated).

Stating whether a book was judged on quality or not is always hard to say because people have such shit taste (kidding), but it will be the same problem this year anyway because some books were on both nomination slates. Long term though, the nominations THIS year have been polarised based on ideology and possibly totally ruined. NEXT year the more average less partisan individuals might get their shit together and start nominating like motherfuckers just to make sure those accusations can't be used against their favorites.

Its happened a few times that I've seen, where somebody was on the other teams list and they weren't sure what that said about the author. So what do you do? Actually nominate and vote. Best defense against someone you like being labelled as something you don't like is to nominate them first and harder. And then nominate a bunch of other people to make sure you don't get accused of the same thing. Beyond everything else, there is always the "no" vote. If all the options you see on the ballet are not of a quality deserving of your support, you can vote no and if enough people vote no there will be no award. So its not like people undeserving of awards may just get them by default.

EDIT: On a side-note, and spoken generally, the notion that "good" or classic sci-fi/ Fantasy has typically been free of strong political/social themes seems bizarrely ignorant to me. To discount strongly political work in Science Fiction, one would have to discount Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clark, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick-- some of the greatest contributors ever. To discount it in Fantasy, you would have to discount Tolkein, which is enough said.

I'm not much for the argument that books should/should not have political leanings, but the accusation that one political leaning is getting all the awards, or that some people never get nominations because they believe as they do does bother me. I have no proof or reason to believe this has majorly effected the awards, or at least I'm too lazy to try to find any, but I do know the most straightforward way to be certain it isn't the case is to grab the whole system and shake it as hard as I can.

I see this being that shaking - yes this year may be a bad one for awards and maybe the next few will be, but this will either incite people to take interest and action where previously they were complacent, or clearly reveal the system as a whole to be outdated or worthless.

 

[Silvanus]

The only way to really tell is to go back through the lists of all the authors that have won and been nominated and check for patterns in political affiliations. I'm way too lazy for this (per my previous post), and anyway my point wasn't that something nefarious was/was not done, but more that what is being referred to as rigging isn't really and this is ultimately unsurprising anyway.

People are too damn lazy to nominate so the same relatively small group of people do the nominations over and over. This is par for the course as far as publicly nominated awards go. Could it be nefarious and/or politically motivated? Sure. Or it could be the same boring people making the same boring nominations over and over.

Fair dues.

Stating whether a book was judged on quality or not is always hard to say because people have such shit taste (kidding), but it will be the same problem this year anyway because some books were on both nomination slates. Long term though, the nominations THIS year have been polarised based on ideology and possibly totally ruined. NEXT year the more average less partisan individuals might get their shit together and start nominating like motherfuckers just to make sure those accusations can't be used against their favorites.

Its happened a few times that I've seen, where somebody was on the other teams list and they weren't sure what that said about the author. So what do you do? Actually nominate and vote. Best defense against someone you like being labelled as something you don't like is to nominate them first and harder. And then nominate a bunch of other people to make sure you don't get accused of the same thing. Beyond everything else, there is always the "no" vote. If all the options you see on the ballet are not of a quality deserving of your support, you can vote no and if enough people vote no there will be no award. So its not like people undeserving of awards may just get them by default.

That's true, but an individual voting (by quality) can't match a large number of people mobilised to vote in a certain direction, as has been done here. Perhaps, as you say, it'll sort itself out in future years, but I can't honestly see the taint going away quickly, since it's gained national attention, entrenched some, and alienated others.

I'm not much for the argument that books should/should not have political leanings, but the accusation that one political leaning is getting all the awards, or that some people never get nominations because they believe as they do does bother me. I have no proof or reason to believe this has majorly effected the awards, or at least I'm too lazy to try to find any, but I do know the most straightforward way to be certain it isn't the case is to grab the whole system and shake it as hard as I can.

I see this being that shaking - yes this year may be a bad one for awards and maybe the next few will be, but this will either incite people to take interest and action where previously they were complacent, or clearly reveal the system as a whole to be outdated or worthless.

Whether there's been an ideological bias in previous years or not, there will now be a significant number of people voting on that basis. That seems to me far worse. Even if we believe that Beale and Day chose purely on quality, they have argued very much in political terms, they'll be mobilising those who want to vote to stick two fingers up at the (probably fictitious) left-wing institution.

Whether a problem existed or not, this has created one worse.

 

[faefrost]

A number here seem to have accepted at face-value the claim that the Hugos were previously judged regardless of quality, or even "rigged"-- or, if that wasn't accepted at face-value, then nobody's presented anything to substantiate it.

Is there any compelling reason to think that's the case? I'm not inclined to place trust in the word of individuals like Beale and Day. Show me something aside from hearsay.

How about a reasonable analysis of the data from a neutral third party that seems to imply at a minimum that the Hugo's awarded in recent years seem to have sharply deviated from what the actual readership feels is good or worthy? Granted there is a lot in this data that can be taken a number of ways. But it is a fascinating and worthwhile read.

http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/

I fear that "Nathaniel" will probably suffer the same fate as the guy who did those real and impartial twitter analytics of #GG. What were those again? Oh yes Death threats, Dox'ing and Real Life Rape and Murder threats directed against his wife and family. Gee I wonder who could have sent death and rape threats to the guy who used math to prove that Gamergate wasn't harassing or threatening anybody on twitter?

 

[EvilRoy]

That's true, but an individual voting (by quality) can't match a large number of people mobilised to vote in a certain direction, as has been done here. Perhaps, as you say, it'll sort itself out in future years, but I can't honestly see the taint going away quickly, since it's gained national attention, entrenched some, and alienated others.

Whether there's been an ideological bias in previous years or not, there will now be a significant number of people voting on that basis. That seems to me far worse. Even if we believe that Beale and Day chose purely on quality, they have argued very much in political terms, they'll be mobilising those who want to vote to stick two fingers up at the (probably fictitious) left-wing institution.

Whether a problem existed or not, this has created one worse.

Well, I suppose the first thing I would mention is that although the Hugos are important, they are important to only a really small community. The people that write these books, and worldcon basically. Not to disparage the overall meaning of the award, but to say that if this has really caused polarization, entrenchment, and gads of political votes, then it isn't likely to last long. Pundits and wagon jumpers will get bored and shift to the next issue in a few short years time if that, and the issue should fade reasonably quickly.

Unless there was already a political division and entrenchment in the awards to begin with. Which leads into one of my previous points. One of the possibilities for this shake up is to prove that the awards have become obsolete or useless, and visible lasting entrenchment would be proof of that. If after all the looky-lous have moved on to other hot buttons there is still an issue with political partisanship, then it probably always existed - just in a form that wasn't readily visible.

 

[Silvanus]

How about a reasonable analysis of the data from a neutral third party that seems to imply at a minimum that the Hugo's awarded in recent years seem to have sharply deviated from what the actual readership feels is good or worthy? Granted there is a lot in this data that can be taken a number of ways. But it is a fascinating and worthwhile read.

http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/

I've read the whole thing now-- pretty interesting data-- but there's nothing there to support the notion that past Hugo nominees were selected on ideology rather than merit.

The closest thing is a discrepancy between popular opinion and nomination, which, of course, is a thousand miles away from the same thing. The Hugos are not meant to reward popularity.

 

[faefrost]

How about a reasonable analysis of the data from a neutral third party that seems to imply at a minimum that the Hugo's awarded in recent years seem to have sharply deviated from what the actual readership feels is good or worthy? Granted there is a lot in this data that can be taken a number of ways. But it is a fascinating and worthwhile read.

http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/

I've read the whole thing now-- pretty interesting data-- but there's nothing there to support the notion that past Hugo nominees were selected on ideology rather than merit.

The closest thing is a discrepancy between popular opinion and nomination, which, of course, is a thousand miles away from the same thing. The Hugos are not meant to reward popularity.

But they kind of are. They are supposed to be the premier award given by the fans. They are structured to be more "Peoples Choice Awards" then "Oscars". When you start seeing that big a drift between popular opinion and actual award a case can be made for a pretty harsh disconnect somewhere. (and when you see "If you were a Dinosaur My Love" winning it kind of cements it.)

 

[Silvanus]

Well, I suppose the first thing I would mention is that although the Hugos are important, they are important to only a really small community. The people that write these books, and worldcon basically. Not to disparage the overall meaning of the award, but to say that if this has really caused polarization, entrenchment, and gads of political votes, then it isn't likely to last long. Pundits and wagon jumpers will get bored and shift to the next issue in a few short years time if that, and the issue should fade reasonably quickly.

Unless there was already a political division and entrenchment in the awards to begin with. Which leads into one of my previous points. One of the possibilities for this shake up is to prove that the awards have become obsolete or useless, and visible lasting entrenchment would be proof of that. If after all the looky-lous have moved on to other hot buttons there is still an issue with political partisanship, then it probably always existed - just in a form that wasn't readily visible.

If it blows over, that's fine, though potentially valid results may be lost in the current show and the next few years, and the awards of prior candidates may have been unjustly tarnished, and reputations damaged. Still, at least it'll blow over in that scenario.

In the case of visible, lasting entrenchment, though, I don't see how it demonstrates that ideology ruled the last five years. This in itself is a highly politically-charged event, due to how the Puppies chose to cast it.

But they kind of are. They are supposed to be the premier award given by the fans. They are structured to be more "Peoples Choice Awards" then "Oscars". When you start seeing that big a drift between popular opinion and actual award a case can be made for a pretty harsh disconnect somewhere. (and when you see "If you were a Dinosaur My Love" winning it kind of cements it.)

Those who will take the time (and significant money) to vote are going to be far more invested than your average Goodreads voter, which I suspect is the point.

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

Well, I certainly hope Nathaniel does not receive death threat, etc because there is no reason for that, ever. His initial venn diagrams are interesting, but I have a very large problem with his analysis using Goodreads ratings as a basis for popularity. For one as it is less than 10 years old, which means all the ratings in past are not concurrent ratings, but retrospective, which tends to have its own set of biases- the same phenomenon can be seen with imdb's ratings. Furthermore, the ratings of concurrent books tend to be battlegrounds of particularly if something becomes popular for the 'wrong reasons' suddenly there are 5 star vs 1 star wars. And then there is an interesting phenomenon of those that feel they are outsiders (and both Brad and Larry have consistently demonstrated an outsider perspective), tend to become highly mobilized on the internet (witness the last two American elections- one would think that Ron Paul ruled the internet.) The point being that something like ratings may demonstrate popularity- or the result of a small, but highly motivated fanbase out to prove the mainstream is wrong (or whatever.)

For instance, I am a great fan of many works, but I have never felt the need to rate any of those books on Goodreads. (I personally find the stars meaningless- I usually choose the reviews that have the longest text in the hopes of reading something more interesting than "I didn't like it." Goodreads might be AN indicator of popularity, but it is rather self-selecting and I find it difficult to use it as an indicator of popularity that you would want to use to prove that the Hugo nominees is out of step with sff fandom.

(and when you see "If you were a Dinosaur My Love" winning it kind of cements it.)

That is the one example people keep using. But what are the other books that ought not to have won because they lacked merit? Or is this the one outlier that is getting everyone riled up.

 

[EvilRoy]

If it blows over, that's fine, though potentially valid results may be lost in the current show and the next few years, and the awards of prior candidates may have been unjustly tarnished, and reputations damaged. Still, at least it'll blow over in that scenario.

In the case of visible, lasting entrenchment, though, I don't see how it demonstrates that ideology ruled the last five years. This in itself is a highly politically-charged event, due to how the Puppies chose to cast it.
.

Basically my thought is that you can only have a war with at least two sides. If a group shows up with heavy politicization we would only ever even hear about it if someone decides to fight them on it. In this case we automatically got the fight, because as you said the new group (is it weird that I can't bring myself to type the name? it sounds so stupid to me...) claimed that they were the ones showing up to fight the first group.

But eventually, the people who showed up to fight because they heard there was a fight are going to get bored and leave. Around the same time the news services shut up, typically. Once they do, the only people left fighting are the people who were always part of the Hugos - and if there are enough to actually swing votes one way or the other, then chances are it means that ideology has played a role in the past. Before the fights took place under wraps - not because of nefarious schemes, but because people were voting politically on their own and one side just had more people - but now the genie is out of the bottle, so the fights will be public or not at all from now on because each side now knows the other exists.