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Post by CharlesX on Mar 15, 2022 16:33:50 GMT
This poll asks the country we post from, with the intent of determining how popular FF is in main Europe, the size of the US audience, and whether FF may have a big following somewhere else, as well. I'm not going to list the over 100 countries in the world, but please bear with the wording and don't be offended if your own country, 'big' or 'small', isn't listed. My own preference\bias for inclusions has been countries closest to England, UK (because that is where FF started), and the more well-known, economically competitive countries. It is a slightly personal question, so I'm keeping the results secret until the poll is over. Results close on March 31 9 p.m. Btw please, please don't feel this is about showing off the strength of our English following or anything remotely like that, our family emigrated from Poland just on my grandparents side.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Mar 15, 2022 17:18:28 GMT
As the second person to vote (massively biasing the results) I'll just point out that the numbers that will end up voting in this poll are so low that I'm afraid it will tell us nothing about the relative popularity of FF around the world.
I can comment that FF's popularity in Japan surprised me when I arrived in 1991 -- after all, Warlock magazine persisted here up to issue 70 or so. But that was the 90s. I don't think FF has had any following whatsoever in Japan for over 20 years.
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Post by CharlesX on Mar 15, 2022 17:33:20 GMT
As the second person to vote (massively biasing the results) I'll just point out that the numbers that will end up voting in this poll are so low that I'm afraid it will tell us nothing about the relative popularity of FF around the world. I can comment that FF's popularity in Japan surprised me when I arrived in 1991 -- after all, Warlock magazine persisted here up to issue 70 or so. But that was the 90s. I don't think FF has had any following whatsoever in Japan for over 20 years. I am concerned this might be a failed poll, but my theory is people who might not be from England might vote because they are non-English (fe). We don't know ahead of polling whether we will be pleasantly surprised. That's why I've made the results secret and given a long deadline. Surprises happen all the time, in polls as in elsewhere .
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Post by sleepyscholar on Mar 16, 2022 7:50:41 GMT
Obviously I wasn't suggesting it would be a failure -- I mean, I voted myself -- just warning that it fits more into the 'bit of fun' category rather than the 'tells us something accurate about FF' category. It's like the popularity polls for books here: they don't really reflect the views of all readers too well. Those who are here are by definition more active fans than the majority of readers, and active fans can often have tastes skewed in slightly different directions (slightly more likely to tolerate seawater, for example?).
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,744
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Mar 16, 2022 16:13:32 GMT
Alternatively, ask the 4.6k members on the Facebook FF group instead?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Mar 16, 2022 16:37:21 GMT
My guess is that Any Other is going to include a significant Antipodean contingent, nontably champskees and indeed this forum's admin. It will be interesting to see anyway.
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Post by dragonwarrior8 on Mar 16, 2022 16:44:12 GMT
My guess is that Any Other is going to include a significant Antipodean contingent, nontably champskees and indeed this forum's admin. It will be interesting to see anyway. Does anybody know what happened to champskees in any case? I haven't seen him on here in a long time.
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Post by schlendrian on Mar 16, 2022 16:50:16 GMT
Sorry, this is seriously OT, but as the parts of the UK are so neatly listed and I just have no knowledge of the subject - what would a person from Gibraltar select?
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Post by CharlesX on Mar 16, 2022 19:52:05 GMT
Alternatively, ask the 4.6k members on the Facebook FF group instead? I am both borderline technophobe (in spite of my presence here) and among those not into Facebook, although asking there would undoubtedly make some sense. My impression is while FF has had a big impact in countries other than the UK, many, in most cases the majority, of FF has not had a print translation.
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Post by CharlesX on Mar 16, 2022 19:59:57 GMT
Sorry, this is seriously OT, but as the parts of the UK are so neatly listed and I just have no knowledge of the subject - what would a person from Gibraltar select? Same as someone from the Falkland Islands, The Isles Of Wight, Guernsey and Jersey, The Sicily Isles, The Pitcairn Islands - either "Europe but none of the above" or "Any Other". For example, Canada is a sovereign country, so Canada would be "Any Other". Possibly it was interesting of me to prioritise the smaller UK countries over Australia but prior to reading these comments I had absolutely no idea FF had a following there. My first thought was they'd think it was for poms, and the recent arguable decline in quality has strengthened such criticism.
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Post by stevendoig on Mar 17, 2022 6:30:05 GMT
Scotland is a country, not a region.
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Post by CharlesX on Mar 17, 2022 7:26:03 GMT
Scotland is a country, not a region. As are Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland (and indeed England). Post corrected.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Mar 17, 2022 10:46:44 GMT
Scotland is a country, not a region. As are Wales, Ireland and Northern IrelandDepends who you ask there of course. I think "cross-border community" is the current politically sensitive but rather meaningless term for us 😉
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Post by schlendrian on Mar 17, 2022 22:40:08 GMT
So, if the parts of the UK are called countries, what's the term for the whole?
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Mar 17, 2022 23:03:58 GMT
So, if the parts of the UK are called countries, what's the term for the whole? According to Wikipedia, the UK is a sovereign country made up of four constituent countries.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Mar 18, 2022 1:30:21 GMT
Sorry, this is seriously OT, but as the parts of the UK are so neatly listed and I just have no knowledge of the subject - what would a person from Gibraltar select? Same as someone from the Falkland Islands, The Isles Of Wight, Guernsey and Jersey, The Sicily Isles, The Pitcairn Islands - either "Europe but none of the above" or "Any Other". For example, Canada is a sovereign country, so Canada would be "Any Other". Possibly it was interesting of me to prioritise the smaller UK countries over Australia but prior to reading these comments I had absolutely no idea FF had a following there. My first thought was they'd think it was for poms, and the recent arguable decline in quality has strengthened such criticism. On a point of pedantry: the Isle of Wight is officially part of England. We just don't mention it very often as having a region that's been wholly surrendered to the undead is hardly something to be proud of.
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Post by schlendrian on Mar 18, 2022 7:01:37 GMT
So, if the parts of the UK are called countries, what's the term for the whole? According to Wikipedia, the UK is a sovereign country made up of four constituent countries. Ok, thanks. I just thought there would be independant terms for the matter, like states and country in the US or Land and Staat in German speaking countries.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Mar 20, 2022 3:26:58 GMT
According to Wikipedia, the UK is a sovereign country made up of four constituent countries. Ok, thanks. I just thought there would be independant terms for the matter, like states and country in the US or Land and Staat in German speaking countries. 'Country' is a very vague word in English. It can mean the same as 'region' (Brontë country, for example). I think the words 'nation' and 'state' are a bit more technical. I'm curious what you mean by 'states and country' in the US, though. My feeling that 'country' is as vague in the US as it is in the UK ('Lovecraft Country' for example). You weren't thinking of 'county', were you? This is precise in the UK and US, though different in specifics -- a little like 県 ken/xian in Japan/China: same kanji, but different size and administrative structure. This is memory (someone can check up if they like), but I believe that England etc are nations, while the UK is a nation state, or something like that.
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Post by schlendrian on Mar 20, 2022 16:05:06 GMT
Ok, thanks. I just thought there would be independant terms for the matter, like states and country in the US or Land and Staat in German speaking countries. 'Country' is a very vague word in English. It can mean the same as 'region' (Brontë country, for example). I think the words 'nation' and 'state' are a bit more technical. I'm curious what you mean by 'states and country' in the US, though. My feeling that 'country' is as vague in the US as it is in the UK ('Lovecraft Country' for example). You weren't thinking of 'county', were you? This is precise in the UK and US, though different in specifics -- a little like 県 ken/xian in Japan/China: same kanji, but different size and administrative structure. This is memory (someone can check up if they like), but I believe that England etc are nations, while the UK is a nation state, or something like that. I am aware that the term "country" can have many meanings (same with "Land" in German), but I'm going with the meaning it has when you're asked to list f.e. "all the countries bordering France" in a School setting, which is also the intention of the term "country" in the original poll, and that term usually isn't vague. The US is a country, it's constituent parts are it's different States, Austria is a Staat, it's constituent parts are it's different Länder. Those are well defined terms, often even defined in the constitution, and when stevendoig brought up that Scotland is a country I was surprised of the fact and wanted to know the corresponding terms for the UK.
It seems that isn't so well defined, but the definition kieran found, that country is used for the UK as well as it's parts and "sovereign" or "constituent" prefixed if the difference matters, seems reasonable.
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Post by misomiso on Mar 21, 2022 19:22:03 GMT
Will we see the results soon? ty
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Post by CharlesX on Mar 21, 2022 20:03:51 GMT
Will we see the results soon? ty We will see the results 31st March 9 P.M. I feel like in a future version of this poll I 'couldah wouldah shouldah' have included separate categories for Canada and Australia, but I didn't choose to at the time, and feel fine with it as a first show. As someone pointed out if I were being serious I would have asked the FF Facebook page, but OTOH I'm not into Facebook.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Mar 22, 2022 7:02:07 GMT
Will we see the results soon? ty We will see the results 31st March 9 P.M. I feel like in a future version of this poll I 'couldah wouldah shouldah' have included separate categories for Canada and Australia, but I didn't choose to at the time, and feel fine with it as a first show. As someone pointed out if I were being serious I would have asked the FF Facebook page, but OTOH I'm not into Facebook.
My 'like' of the previous post was just a gut reaction to 'I'm not into Facebook'...
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Post by CharlesX on Mar 31, 2022 20:09:09 GMT
Not surprisingly, a majority, two-thirds it might seem just going by this poll, are posting from England (of course, it's just a poll, and it shouldn't be taken to heart). I don't know if people from Canada, Austra!ia, Indonesia, Egypt etc. were put off by my Anglocentric\Eurocentric categories, but we have some following outside Europe, I might have expected some more, but more than one suggests market penetration. I'm so happy we got such a big response, and we have to do this again later in the year with more categories. Thanks loads for all the voting participants and constructive comments. Slightly surprised no one from the USA seems to have been interested in this poll (even though I created this poll expecting fewer than 5 people to respond at all) pretty sure we have at least one or two Americans on site, regardless of these results.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Mar 31, 2022 21:02:27 GMT
An English language forum is always going to skew results towards English-speaking countries, but that can't really be helped and thanks for running the poll.
What can be drawn from the results? Not a lot, since the sample was so small, but the thing that stands out for me is the lack of a single American. Perhaps this reinforces the idea that the FF books never broke into the American market as well as say, Lone Wolf, where I think you'd find a lot more American fans.
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