Last year, I made a stink about the change in Locus Magazine’s method of counting votes in their annual poll. In short, I was upset about their decision to start counting votes from subscribers twice and how this decision was made after the polls were closed. In my mind, this seriously damaged their credibility. Well, the results from the most recent poll have been published in their latest issue and their actions last year definitely had an impact. Here’s what they had to say:
"The 2009 Locus Poll got 662 valid ballots, down significantly from 1,012 last year. Usually we get more votes than either the Hugo nominations or Nebula voting, but we can’t make that claim this year since the 2009 Hugos got a whopping 799 nominating ballots. (They only had 483 in 2008.) Most ballots came online; only 47 came by mail, up a bit from 42 from last year. Locus subscribers dominated, with 357 voting, making up 54% of respondents; last year subscribers were only 38% of respondents, even though more of them (382) voted."
and…
"Conclusion: It’s a little disheartening to see the number of voters drop so much. We inadvertently alienated a lot of the online community last year when we decided to double subscriber points last year–particularly by doing it without notice–but we felt it was necessary to keep the LOCUS in the Locus Awards."
scbutler
Some apology.
caindog
I’m glad to see the Locus Awards lose what little relevance they had after pulling that moronic stunt last year.
Call it “obscurity through purity” then move on to topics of importance.
james_nicoll
May I link to this?
wyrmadmin
sure