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Atres Artes, v. 1, issue 3, 1946
Page 23
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Fantasy Article THIS THING CALLED OPINION by Joe Kennedy It has long been a practice in fandom to hold a poll every once in a while for the purpose of determining such bits of valuable information as, who's the top prozine artists or what author wrote the best stfantasy book of all time, and so on. Polls have been popular in fandom a good many years, perhaps originating in the days when Gernsback sponsored tabulations of fan opinion. In the warly '46's polls enjoyed a new prominence, as conducted by Art Widner in particular and a few other fans in general. Even more recently, Gerry de la Ree's "Beowulf" polls have carried on the torch for Widner, in the matter of picking favorite fans, authors, prozines, fanzines, artists, and stories. All these polls have received a reasonable successful response from fandom, and the publication of their results has never failed to stimulate fan interest and comment. Now don't tell anybody, but the practice of padding poll ballots with such questions as who's the top prozine artist, or what author wrote the best stfantasy book of all time, and so on is just a hang-over manifestation of tradition. In other words (shh-h-h!) the active fans are mainly interested in one thing: the top fans! If you're an active fan -- and you probably are, or else chances are that you'd be reading this are slight -- you should be able to answer from experience one simple question: when the final results of a poll are published, what part do you look at first? The authors? Nope. The artists? Nope. There's rarely any change in the artists section of the poll. Finlay-Lawrence-Bok, in that order. The top prozine? Of course not, we all know that the only decent prozine on the stands is the one with the most conservative format -- Fantastic Adventures. (irony) Ah, no, gentle readers, active fans are egotistical bounders. As soon as the results of a poll appear -- presto! They invariably run their eyes along the page to the place where it says in capitol letter, FAN POLL RESULTS. Breathlessly, they scan the column to the places where their names are listed. Not infrequently, their names are often missing from the listings, due to a slight oversight on the part of the voters, or the incompetence of the post office in not delivering those six faked ballots before the deadline. The art of stuffing the ballot box is an ancient and honorable profession, too complicated to be explained here. In the old days when Widner's polls permitted anyone whosoever to send in a ballot, the fine art of jacking up one's own standing among the top fans must have been considerably less difficult process than it is today. I should know; it took me half the night to counterfeit a bunch of phoney ballots for the last Beowulf poll. ---- In the future polls will be changed. Mark my words, the poll ballots of the future will list only places for the fifty top fans to be filled in. The considerate poll taker will also include a dozen or so extra ballots to make it easier for ambitious fen to vote for themselves in duplicate. Inasmuch as fan opinion is a vague, indefinite, and ambiguous thing, the whole thing doesn't matter much. And if you don't succeed very well in somebody else's poll, you can always conduct one of your own. ------------------------------------ 00000000000000000000 ------------------------------------ So that's how it's done, eh Joe! Seriously though, this article was written about 6 months before the last Beowulf poll, which put Joe and his fanzine, Vampire, decisively on top of the heap. the ed. ------------------------------------ 00000000000000000000 ------------------------------------ -- Page 23 --
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Fantasy Article THIS THING CALLED OPINION by Joe Kennedy It has long been a practice in fandom to hold a poll every once in a while for the purpose of determining such bits of valuable information as, who's the top prozine artists or what author wrote the best stfantasy book of all time, and so on. Polls have been popular in fandom a good many years, perhaps originating in the days when Gernsback sponsored tabulations of fan opinion. In the warly '46's polls enjoyed a new prominence, as conducted by Art Widner in particular and a few other fans in general. Even more recently, Gerry de la Ree's "Beowulf" polls have carried on the torch for Widner, in the matter of picking favorite fans, authors, prozines, fanzines, artists, and stories. All these polls have received a reasonable successful response from fandom, and the publication of their results has never failed to stimulate fan interest and comment. Now don't tell anybody, but the practice of padding poll ballots with such questions as who's the top prozine artist, or what author wrote the best stfantasy book of all time, and so on is just a hang-over manifestation of tradition. In other words (shh-h-h!) the active fans are mainly interested in one thing: the top fans! If you're an active fan -- and you probably are, or else chances are that you'd be reading this are slight -- you should be able to answer from experience one simple question: when the final results of a poll are published, what part do you look at first? The authors? Nope. The artists? Nope. There's rarely any change in the artists section of the poll. Finlay-Lawrence-Bok, in that order. The top prozine? Of course not, we all know that the only decent prozine on the stands is the one with the most conservative format -- Fantastic Adventures. (irony) Ah, no, gentle readers, active fans are egotistical bounders. As soon as the results of a poll appear -- presto! They invariably run their eyes along the page to the place where it says in capitol letter, FAN POLL RESULTS. Breathlessly, they scan the column to the places where their names are listed. Not infrequently, their names are often missing from the listings, due to a slight oversight on the part of the voters, or the incompetence of the post office in not delivering those six faked ballots before the deadline. The art of stuffing the ballot box is an ancient and honorable profession, too complicated to be explained here. In the old days when Widner's polls permitted anyone whosoever to send in a ballot, the fine art of jacking up one's own standing among the top fans must have been considerably less difficult process than it is today. I should know; it took me half the night to counterfeit a bunch of phoney ballots for the last Beowulf poll. ---- In the future polls will be changed. Mark my words, the poll ballots of the future will list only places for the fifty top fans to be filled in. The considerate poll taker will also include a dozen or so extra ballots to make it easier for ambitious fen to vote for themselves in duplicate. Inasmuch as fan opinion is a vague, indefinite, and ambiguous thing, the whole thing doesn't matter much. And if you don't succeed very well in somebody else's poll, you can always conduct one of your own. ------------------------------------ 00000000000000000000 ------------------------------------ So that's how it's done, eh Joe! Seriously though, this article was written about 6 months before the last Beowulf poll, which put Joe and his fanzine, Vampire, decisively on top of the heap. the ed. ------------------------------------ 00000000000000000000 ------------------------------------ -- Page 23 --
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