Now Here's a Stupid Concept -- Rant Warning
Saturday, April 10th, 2004 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniA couple days ago, the good folks at the Romantic SF website -- www.romanticsf.com -- put up a poll. (If you aren't a regular visitor to the Romantic SF website -- bookmark them. Wonderful resource. This is NOT a rant against their site, their community, or their polling software. Clear? Good.)
So, anyway, the poll. The poll asks the musical question: "Who is your favorite far-future military/-istic heroine from among this list? Creator name is in parentheses." The characters: Soz Valdoria, Cordelia Naismith, Miri Robertson, Paksennarion (deleted when it was pointed out that she's a fantasy heroine), Catherine Li, Jani Killian, Honor Harrington, Heris Serrano (brought in to pinch-hit for Paks). Cool poll. *Fun* poll, after weeks and weeks of bad news, personal and worldwide.
The Liaden interest mailing list(composed of fans of the Liaden novels written by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller) is poll/quiz mad, so I sent it in. There's a big overlap between our list and the LMB list, and one of the shared listees took it over there. Steve used the poll as an example in a wider discussion of Internet Polling: Threat or Menace?, in rec.arts.sf.composition. Kris Smith talked about the poll in her newsgroup on Sff.net; Elizabeth Moon talked about it in hers. The tone -- I want to be clear here -- was light. Anyone with a brain in their head *knew* that Cordelia was going to eat everybody's lunch, and -- wait for it -- IT WAS JUST AN INTERNET POLL.
Now comes the stupid part.
On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 01:30:00 GMT, in rec.arts.sf.announce
OFontecchi@aol.com wrote:
"An Intriguing Poll/Catherine Asaro needs you!"
The body of the posting includes details on the RomanticSF poll and is a plea for people to go vote for Sol Valdoria. More about this in a moment. But first --
Full disclosure here -- I am not a friend of Catherine Asaro (in fact, I'm not a friend of Oz Fontecchio). But, my heart went into overdrive when I saw that "needs you!" I mean, just in the last couple weeks the online SF community has seen in and around the Usual Hangouts "Charles Grant Needs You!" (and he REALLY does. Have ya'll heard about this? Charlie's desperately ill, he'll need to live on canned air for the rest of his life and neither he nor his wife have health insurance. There's a fresh-air fund set up. Go here: http://www.gilaqueen.us/ Give what you can. Thank you.) and we've had Kath Lawrence going missing and then found a suicide. I honestly, truly, TRULY did not need to see that "Needs You!"
OK, so a fan without a clue made a poor choice of words. It happens. Take a breath. But, wait, there's more!
Below is the entire text of Oz Fontecchio's public announcement to the SF universe:
>>Just noticed that Catherine Asaro, who was delightful as always in her appearance for the Philadelphia Fantastic on March 26th, is the subject of an intriguing poll being conducted on www.romanticsf.com. The poll is on the subject of who is the favorite military SF heroine of all time. Although the poll
contains a few options, the thing that stood out for me isthat Catherine's heroine, Soz Valdoria, trails Miri Robertson, the heroine created by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, by a margin of almost 2 to 1 at the moment. I thought fans of Catherine's work might like to know about the poll, which appears about half way down
the web page. Please give it a look and let your voice be heard!<<
Now, what's stupid about this message?
(1) the poll does not have as its subject Catherine Asaro; it has as its subject "your favorite far-future, military/istic heroine" *from the list provided*. Recall that there were seven names on the list.
(2) Mr. Fontecchio seems not at all concerned that Cordelia Naismith is leading the entire pack of characters a merry chase; he is in fact concerned that Sol Valdoria will not gain *second* place. I mean, honestly, if you're going to exhort people to turn out in droves to vote for a character, can't you at least have the gumption to push for first?
(3) There appears to be some confusion between character and creator in Mr. Fontecchio's mind. I suppose that's inescapable, really, given the various ways people read and process fiction, but irritating, anyway.
(4) I fear that Mr. Fontecchio may have done his favorite author a disservice in taking what was intended to be a little fannish fun and making it the equivalent to life-and-death.
End of Rant.
So, anyway, the poll. The poll asks the musical question: "Who is your favorite far-future military/-istic heroine from among this list? Creator name is in parentheses." The characters: Soz Valdoria, Cordelia Naismith, Miri Robertson, Paksennarion (deleted when it was pointed out that she's a fantasy heroine), Catherine Li, Jani Killian, Honor Harrington, Heris Serrano (brought in to pinch-hit for Paks). Cool poll. *Fun* poll, after weeks and weeks of bad news, personal and worldwide.
The Liaden interest mailing list(composed of fans of the Liaden novels written by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller) is poll/quiz mad, so I sent it in. There's a big overlap between our list and the LMB list, and one of the shared listees took it over there. Steve used the poll as an example in a wider discussion of Internet Polling: Threat or Menace?, in rec.arts.sf.composition. Kris Smith talked about the poll in her newsgroup on Sff.net; Elizabeth Moon talked about it in hers. The tone -- I want to be clear here -- was light. Anyone with a brain in their head *knew* that Cordelia was going to eat everybody's lunch, and -- wait for it -- IT WAS JUST AN INTERNET POLL.
Now comes the stupid part.
On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 01:30:00 GMT, in rec.arts.sf.announce
OFontecchi@aol.com wrote:
"An Intriguing Poll/Catherine Asaro needs you!"
The body of the posting includes details on the RomanticSF poll and is a plea for people to go vote for Sol Valdoria. More about this in a moment. But first --
Full disclosure here -- I am not a friend of Catherine Asaro (in fact, I'm not a friend of Oz Fontecchio). But, my heart went into overdrive when I saw that "needs you!" I mean, just in the last couple weeks the online SF community has seen in and around the Usual Hangouts "Charles Grant Needs You!" (and he REALLY does. Have ya'll heard about this? Charlie's desperately ill, he'll need to live on canned air for the rest of his life and neither he nor his wife have health insurance. There's a fresh-air fund set up. Go here: http://www.gilaqueen.us/ Give what you can. Thank you.) and we've had Kath Lawrence going missing and then found a suicide. I honestly, truly, TRULY did not need to see that "Needs You!"
OK, so a fan without a clue made a poor choice of words. It happens. Take a breath. But, wait, there's more!
Below is the entire text of Oz Fontecchio's public announcement to the SF universe:
>>Just noticed that Catherine Asaro, who was delightful as always in her appearance for the Philadelphia Fantastic on March 26th, is the subject of an intriguing poll being conducted on www.romanticsf.com. The poll is on the subject of who is the favorite military SF heroine of all time. Although the poll
contains a few options, the thing that stood out for me isthat Catherine's heroine, Soz Valdoria, trails Miri Robertson, the heroine created by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, by a margin of almost 2 to 1 at the moment. I thought fans of Catherine's work might like to know about the poll, which appears about half way down
the web page. Please give it a look and let your voice be heard!<<
Now, what's stupid about this message?
(1) the poll does not have as its subject Catherine Asaro; it has as its subject "your favorite far-future, military/istic heroine" *from the list provided*. Recall that there were seven names on the list.
(2) Mr. Fontecchio seems not at all concerned that Cordelia Naismith is leading the entire pack of characters a merry chase; he is in fact concerned that Sol Valdoria will not gain *second* place. I mean, honestly, if you're going to exhort people to turn out in droves to vote for a character, can't you at least have the gumption to push for first?
(3) There appears to be some confusion between character and creator in Mr. Fontecchio's mind. I suppose that's inescapable, really, given the various ways people read and process fiction, but irritating, anyway.
(4) I fear that Mr. Fontecchio may have done his favorite author a disservice in taking what was intended to be a little fannish fun and making it the equivalent to life-and-death.
End of Rant.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-10 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-10 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-10 10:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-10 02:09 pm (UTC)I know, like you need more books to read...
no subject
Date: 2004-04-10 10:08 pm (UTC)I keep trying to think of other characters to add to the list. I know someone suggested the lead from Tanya Huff's Valor series. Hmm.