The History of the UK Diplomacy Zine Poll (1973-88)by Stephen AgarPart 1 - 1973-1980
Love it, hate it, ignore it, there's no
getting away from the fact the annual Diplomacy Zine Poll is one of
the oldest hobby institutions and after over 21 years it still has
the capacity to fill more than it's fair share of column inches in
Diplomacy zines, even though in recent years Mark Boyle's Zine of
the Year Poll has attracted more voters, albeit mainly from the
soccer games side of the hobby. As the results of the 22nd Zine Poll
will be announced in time for the next issue of Spring Offensive,
here is the story of the previous 21. From Small Beginnings... (1973 - 1977) In Mad Policy No.23 (26 November 1973)
Richard Walkerdine mused on two recently announced Polls, namely the
Ethil the Frog Player Poll (to find the "best" player) and the
Hannibal Variant Poll (to find the most popular variant - won by
Abstraction with Youngstown second and Atlantica third). "So I
thought, with these two polls underway why not go for the hat-trick?
Seems like the only aspect of Dippy not being covered is the zines
themselves, so I hereby announce the first WALKERDINE ZINE POLL."
Richard's Poll was only open to people who saw at least five
different British Diplomacy zines (RJW excluded Albion on the
grounds that it was really a wargaming zine) and they had to vote
for the five best. Richard awarded points 5-4-3-2-1 and then added
up the totals (which means that the first Zine Poll was run on a
positional system, not average votes). The deadline was set for 31
December 1973. At the time this Poll was received in much the same
spirit as the Ethil the Frog and Hannibal Polls - i.e. with weary
resignation. When the results appeared in Mad Policy 25 (14 January
1974) only 14 people had voted (but bear in mind they all had to see
5 or more zines) and the top three zines were Ethil the Frog (471/2
points), Mad Policy (44 points) and Dolchstoß (421/2 points).Of
course it is open to question how valid this result was given only
14 out of 300 odd active Diplomacy players voted (which Richard
considered a good turnout - he was expecting 9 or 10) and given that
all but one of the voters received Mad Policy. In all 14 zines
received votes (and 6 others received no votes at all). Publishers
were allowed to vote for their own zine. Richard decided to repeat the exercise a few
months later, announcing what was by now called the Second Mad
Policy Zine Poll in Mad Policy 29 (16 April 1974) with a deadline
for votes of 24 May. However, in order to broaden the appeal of the
Poll eligibility to vote was widened to anyone who saw two or more
British Diplomacy zines and voting was merely a matter of giving
every zine you saw a mark out of ten. The winner was assessed by
calculating the average vote for each zine. This time publishers
were not allowed to vote for their own zine. The results of this
second Poll were announced in Mad Policy 31 (2 June 1974) and
Richard's first comment was "what a fantastic turnout!" as this time
34 people had voted for a total of 26 zines. Yet again Mad Policy
was the bridesmaid and not the bride, coming second to Dolchstoß
with Orion third. On the votes cast Ethil the Frog would have been
third, but Richard ruled it ineligible as it had just folded, while
the Belgian zine Moeshoeshoe was also ruled out for not being
British (it would have come 12th). One startling fact is that the
average voter received 12.47 zines - quite a lot. Whilst the Mad Policy Zine Poll remained
with Walkerdine until 1977 the rules remained the same. The 3rd Poll
was announced in Mad Policy 39 (13 January 1975) and the result ( a
victory for Dolchstoß over Mad Policy again) was announced in Mad
Policy 41 (10 March 1975). The third poll attracted 54 voters (20 of
whom didn't receive Mad Policy) and listed 29 zines (excluding
foreign zines and folds). Of the 26 zines in the second poll only
eight months earlier, nine had folded, being replaced with 12 new
zines (the highest newcomer at 5th place was Hyperion from Geoff
Challinger, which folded after only X issues). RJW's Fourth MP Zine Poll wasn't announced
until Mad Policy 53 (8 March 1976) with the results being published
in MP 55 (3 May 1976). The rise in the number of voters continued
(69 this time, who saw on average 11.26 zines each) and the winner
was Chimaera from 1901 a.a.t. and Mad Policy in third. Chimaera's
victory represented a real break with tradition as Chimaera had a
more liberal attitude to running non-Diplomacy games which appalled
the Diplomacy purists such as Sharp (Dolchstoß itself slipping badly
to 10th). This time RJW included folded zines, European zines (Bumm)
and even sub-zines in the results provided the zine carried "at
least one game of postal Diplomacy or a Diplomacy variant.". In all
33 zines were included (excluding subzines) though a zine had to
receive a t least 3 votes to be included. By the time Richard announced the Fifth Poll
in Mad Policy 65 (23 February 1977) he had decided on expanded
eligibility criteria - namely every zine musty carry "at least one
game of Diplomacy, a Diplomacy variant, or a game closely related to
Diplomacy, or is principally concerned with discussion or data
concerning the postal Diplomacy hobby." By now the Poll was really
starting to take off with 111 voters (seeing on average 11.3 zines
each) and the clear winner for the second year running was Chimaera.
37 zines were voted for, the highest new entry being Pete Swanson's
Rats live on no evil staR which came in at no.5. In Mad Policy 69
Richard revisited the Zine Poll data by publishing the vote
distribution for the top 10 zines - this seemed to show that
Dolchstoß had at least 6 grudge votes and if these were removed
Sharp would have been second rather than fourth. Also RJW published
some publishers only results in which 1901 a.a.t. won from Dolchstoß
second, Mad Policy third, Rats fourth and the overall winner
Chimaera down to fifth. Richard announced the fold of Mad Policy in
issue 71 (8 August 1977), the final issue being No.73 which was
published on 9 October 1977. At that time no mention was made of who
would run the Poll (or even if it would continue), but as Richard
had passed over his work as Boardman Number Custodian and editor of
The Finishing Touch to Mick Bullock the subsequent announcement in
New Statsman No.3 (January 1978) that Mick would run the Poll seemed
to make sense. Just Exactly Who Did Win The Zine Poll?
(1978 - 1980) Some remember Mick Bullock's period in
charge of the Zine Poll with a misty eye - Mick was a hardened hobby
statistician and after he had got to grips of the Zine Poll it would
never be the same again. Mick announced the "6th Annual UK Postal
Diplomacy Magazine Poll" (the Mad Policy Zine Poll no longer) and
decided to stick to RJW's old formula (or so he said), but excluding
sub-zines and non-UK zines. Voters had to see two or more Diplomacy
magazines and publishers could still not vote for their own zines.
When the results appeared in New Statsman No.4, three months later,
I doubt very much if the hobby was prepared for what Mick had in
store for everyone... In essence Mick applied three different
systems to the 151 votes cast (each voter saw on average 7.58 zines)
and came up with three different sets of result which, combined with
two "publishers only" sets of results came to no less than 5
different rankings. This was the beginning of the slide into the
mathematical monster that the Poll has now become. Let Mick explain
why he abandoned the traditional average vote system in his own
words: Before I could even start to present the
results I had to answer a question. What does the Poll do? Okay, we
know it swells magazine editors' heads and provides good filler
material for their publications, but what does it achieve? What does
it mean? How do people interpret it? How should people interpret it?
Well, clearly it is meant to rank magazines, from best to worst (or
least-best). But what do we mean by best? There would seem to be two
interpretations which we can apply to the magazine which tops the
list: (a) it is the most popular magazine with its readers because
it averaged then highest score. Or, (b) it is the magazine which
appeals most to the hobby in general. (And just what the hobby is
these days, God knows.) Traditionally we have determined the winner,
and awarded it the accolade "best magazine", simply by calculating
the highest average score, as in (a). But I think that what people
really want to know is (b), which the highest average score doesn't
necessarily tell us. The highest average score magazine might be
some singular, esoteric publication which caters for, say, 5
fanatical "Milko" players (role-playing game about milkmen for
milksops....) who each award it 10 marks because it's the only
magazine which accommodates them. fair enough, this probably
wouldn't happen, to such an extreme. But it might! And it almost
certainly does to some degree. Mick's solution to this dilemma was to
champion two alternative ways of calculating the Zine Poll result.
His preferred method the Positional System which worked as follows.
There were 37 magazines eligible for inclusion, so each voters first
choice got 37 points, second choice got 36 points etc., with every
zine not on the voters list receiving one point less than the lowest
zine on the list. This minimises the effect of grudge votes and
overcomes the fact that people who receive fewer zines tend to award
higher average marks, but low circulation zines suffered to some
extent. As the Positional System was Mick's preferred method, I have
treated those results as definitive for the purposes of the attached
table. Mick's other innovation, which is with us to
this day. This compared the votes for each zine against every other
zine and awarded (for example) zine A a Plus vote if more people
preferred A to B and zine A a Minus vote if more people preferred C
to A. The result for each zine was the ration of Plus votes to Minus
votes. As Mick noted "Whether this is valid for ranking purposes I'm
not sure. I really can't see why not (in fact, it could be the
system...)..." Indeed, in essence it is the system in use today. The controversy aroused by Mick's different
sets of Zine Poll results was muted by the fact that Dolchstoß was
first no matter which set of results you used, while other editors
tended to favour the results which showed them in the best light.
Some editors did raise their eyebrows that Mick ruled New Statsman
eligible despite being a statistics zine, as NS came straight in at
No.5. The 1979 Zine Poll was announced in a flyer
dated 17 March 1979 which preceded New Statsman No.6 (April 1979)
with the results in New Statsman No.7 (April 1979). This time Mick
discussed the eligibility of zine in the following terms - "I must
stress that this is still a postal Diplomacy magazine poll - that
does not exclude magazines which carry other games, but in an
unbiased and objective a way as possible I would ask, if we are to
get anything like a 'meaningful' result, that a voter's votes
reflect the enjoyment he gets from a magazine within the postal
Diplomacy hobby, and not just the enjoyment he gets from playing
postal Snap (in the only postal Snap magazine) within the postal
Games hobby." Mick bowed to pressure an ruled NS ineligible this
time. Two innovations were Mick's insistence that to be eligible a
zine must have produced at least 5 issues at the deadline date and
to have produced an issue in the preceding 4 months. As before
folded zines were disqualified. After the criticism Mick had received over
using the Positional System the previous year, this time Mick went
one step further and declared there were no "official" results -
Mick just published the results on the basis of average votes, a
modified Positional system and from the preference matrix and
suggested that people took their own choice. According to a Poll
that Mick did along with the ballot forms there was 45% for the
Average Votes system, 35% for the Preference Matrix and 20% for the
Positional system. The furore this caused was to an extent mollified
by the fact that whichever way you looked at it Greatest Hits was
the winner. It is worth noting that 1979 was the first year that the
number of people voting in the Zine Poll had decreased, down from
151 to 133. Mick's explanation for this was that neither Dolchstoß
or Ethil the Frog, two of the highest circulation zine in the
country, had been published during the voting period and hence had
not publicised the Poll. Each voter saw on average 9.44 zines. The 1980 Zine Poll saw a massive drop in the
number of voters from 133 in 1979 to a mere 69. In the space of two
years the number of voters had dropped by more than 50%. The main
reason was the fact that the 1980 Poll was announced by a flyer a
mere 5 weeks before the deadline and therefore most zines didn't get
a chance to publicise it at all. The number of active zines was also
folding - only 26 zines qualified for the Poll, with no less than 5
zines folding in the couple of months before the Poll. Although Mick
made no innovations in terms of eligibility this time, he did go as
far as to suggest that the results produced by the Apportioned
Points Preference Matrix should be taken as definitive. The
Apportioned Points System was really quite clever - a matrix was
compiled showing how each zine fared against every other zine and
one point was awarded for each comparison which was divided between
the two zines in the ratio to the preferences expressed. OK, so all
this talk about different ways of calculating the Zine Poll results
was getting frightfully anal, but hell, publishers needed something
to put in their zines. As the first four zines under this new
Apportioned Point method were exactly the same as the first 4 under
the old fashioned Average Votes method, one could be forgiven for
wondering what the fuss was all about. Sadly issue 12 of New Statsman proved to be
the last with Mick announcing a fold soon after. As the various
statistician jobs were divided up among the hobby illuminati, one
job remained. Who would run the Zine Poll? Part 2 - 1981-1985
Did the Poll Grow Out of Control? Two serious candidates emerged to take over
the Zine Poll after the fold of New Statsman, John Marsden (who
wanted to include some non-Diplomacy zines) and Chris Tringham.
However, in NMR! No.13 Brian Creese suggested that Richard
Walkerdine was the most appropriate person, a consensus emerged, so
back to RJW it went. Richard announced the "1981 Walkerdine Zine
Poll" in issue 2 of O Tempora! O Mores! a mini zine he'd started
nine months earlier just to needle Steve Doubleday when he
re-launched Gallimaufry. The eligibility criteria were a zine must
carry at least one game of regular Diplomacy ("because this is
supposed to be a Poll of Dippyzines...") and have published two
issues in the first five month of 1981. As before voters needed to
see at least two zines to be able to vote. The results were
calculated on the basis of a preference matrix, with average votes
being calculated as well for reference only. By giving publishers
21/2 months notice Richard did manage to revive the Polls fortunes,
pushing the number of voters back over the 100 mark. Greatest Hits
won for the 3rd year running, an achievement which has never been
equalled. At least that was the official result - a week before the
real results were due out the likes of Richard Gooch, John Dodds &
Co. managed to circulate a fake issue 3 of O Tempora! O Mores! which
claimed that A Voice in the Wilderness had won the Zine Poll, which
was stretching people's credulity just a bit. The following year, for the "1982 Zine
Poll", Richard decided that to qualify a zine should receive votes
from at least 8% of those voting and have published at least 2
issues in the first half of 1982. European zines weren't excluded,
but none overcame the 8% hurdle. Zines without Diplomacy (e.g.
Hopscotch were excluded) and the clear winner was John Marsden's
Ode. The biggest surprise wasn't so much the Zine Poll results as
the way they were announced, as Richard had decided to put the
results in Mad Policy No.74 (26 July 1982) and resume his publishing
career. Old publishers never die, they merely take a break. In Mad Policy No.82 (28 March 1983) Richard
Walkerdine announced a radical change in the eligibility criteria
for the Zine Poll which was to cause so much controversy over the
next three years. "Last year I expanded the old 'one game of
Diplomacy' rule to include stats-zines and the like, and this year
I want to go a good bit further. Despite what Tamlyn may think I
have no interest in promoting any sort of 'purist Diplomacy' image,
for the Poll or for anything else. I've never disagreed that 50& or
so of 'The Hobby' has little to do with Diplomacy these days, and
the Poll ought to reflect this.... this year I'm hoping to include
zines that don't run Diplomacy but run En Garde, Soccerboss etc. as
well as the stats-zines and genzines..." So, the Poll was now open
to everyone, Diplomacy or not, UK or not. The seeds of quite a
bitter dispute had been planted. The results of the "Zine Poll 1983" were
published in Mad Policy No.87 (15 August 1983). The turnout was huge
- 224 voters compared with 101 the year before - no doubt partly
explained by the fact that the Poll had been opened up - and no less
than 115 different zines were voted for! The result (calculated
according to the Preference Matrix) was a clear victory for Greatest
Hits (Pete's fourth victory in five years!). The impact of the
non-Diplomacy zines wasn't felt much due to the use of the
Preference Matrix - the highest sports zine was 25th and none of the
European zines made the 8% qualifying limit (so Richard published
separate Sports Zines and European Zines results as well). All this
was to change in 1984. In Mad Policy No.93 RJW floated the idea of
using Average Votes instead of the Preference Matrix (because so
many zines were being voted for that it was just too complicated).
In MP No.94 (19 March 1984) this change was confirmed when the Poll
was announced. The change in the zines eligible introduced the
previous year, combined with using the Average Votes method and 258
voters was to radically alter the Poll results which were published
in Mad Policy No.99 (6 August 1984). The winner was Alan Parr's
Hopscotch which didn't run Diplomacy at all. In 4th place was the
German zine Die Poppel-Revue which although it only managed 22 votes
(just one vote more than the minimum) had a high vote from its
German subscriber base. Mach Die Spuhl which also only had 22 votes
came 9th. The success of the German zines was due to the fact that
36 votes were received from West Germany. William Whyte offered to
calculate the Preference matrix results for Richard and the clear
winner was NMR! one of the UK's top Diplomacy zines with Hopscotch
third. Die Poppel-Revue was =35th! Many were not pleased with the way the Zine
Poll was progressing. Chris Tringham's views were, if anything,
understated. In Megalomania No.46 he said: "Basically, the problem
is this: many years ago there were a few people playing Diplomacy in
a few small zines. All the zines were mimeo (or even spirit
duplicated), all appeared quite frequently, and each ran a few games
and had a bit of chat. the Zine Poll was a fair comparison between
14 zines, and each voter had to pick his top five. Up till three or
four years ago the number of zines continued to increase, as did the
variety of the games run and the differences in style, but the Zine
Poll remained a reasonable comparison between the zines. Since then,
various well-meaning attempts have been made to widen the scope of
the Poll (it used to be Diplomacy zines which had published at least
5 issues in the UK) thus increasing the number of zines and the
number of voters. Unfortunately this makes the Poll almost
meaningless. How am I supposed to decide between a 3-weekly free FRP
chatzine, a monthly multi-games fanzine that runs a huge number of
games, and a five to six-weekly Diplomacy zine? All are, in their
own way, enjoyable, but in very different ways." In Ode No.59 John Marsden (who you may
remember offered to take over the Poll back in 1981 on a platform of
including multi-games zines such as Hopscotch) announced a new Ode
Diplomacy Poll confined to zines running at least two games of
Diplomacy! He quoted Tringham with approval and said "...This it
seems to me is the crux of the matter. There are simply too many
zines eligible that are not really comparable, so that people voting
for them are not voting for the same things or in the same way. Now,
in saying that... I am not denying Richard's right to run his Poll
in precisely the way he wants. It is the Mad Policy Zine Poll, and
long may it continue." After only 14 votes were received, this was
later explained away two issues later as a spoof (winner Dolchstoß,
from Boojum). John Wilman probably spoke for the majority
when he pleaded in Watch Your Back No.73 "I can't help hankering
back to the days of the UK Diplomacy Zine Poll, as it was when I
first encountered it. A poll of British Diplomacy zines with a
half-way decent system of producing results. RJW's Poll is now so
far removed from the original idea that there is room for its
re-introduction. Any takers?" RJW was sensitive to all this criticism, so
he proposed going back to a Positional System (as had been used in
the first Zine Poll) and by Mick Bullock (to widespread condemnation
in 1978). Hence when the 1985 Zine Poll was launched in Mad Policy
No.106 (8 April 1985) Richard solicited votes for at least two but
no more than 10 zines. First place on a voter's ballot would get 10
points, 2nd place 9 points etc. Winner would be the zine with the
most points. As before, non-Diplomacy zines and European zines were
included. It had to be admitted that this system did favour the
bigger circulation zines and when Mad Policy No.110 was published
(12 August 1985) after 248 votes had been cast the winner was... Mad
Policy. Yes, after eight attempts, RJW had finally done it - he had
managed to create a system which allowed MP to win the Zine Poll! As
the 8% criteria was abandoned (all zines receiving votes from 5
people were included) no less than 85 zines featured in the official
listing (though thanks to the new system the highest foreign zine
was 27th). Of the non-Diplomacy zines, Hopscotch was 4th and
Rostherne Games Review was 16th. All in all 143 zines received votes
of some sort with no less than 83 voters from continental Europe. As you would expect, there was quite a bit
of comment in the Hobby over the new way of calculating the results
and the fact that RJW had won it at last. As Peter Doubleday put it
in Thing No.39: "RJW has been running the Poll for eleven
years on and off.. and this is the first time he has won it. It
would be churlish, therefore, to claim that he would not have won it
this year had it not been for the system which he devised, but even
churls must stand up for the truth, so I shall claim just this. I
believe that this is the stupidest and most pathetically inaccurate
system that one could possibly apply... Many people have said that
the ranking system favours large circulation zines. I shall go
further and say that it favours Mad Policy and the zines read by the
subscribers to Mad Policy, which are often, but not always, the
large circulation zines. Now, it would be perfectly possible to
define the Hobby as those zines read by subscribers to Mad Policy,
in which case this is a legitimate zine poll, albeit slightly
Richardocentric even then..." In the following issue of Thing John Piggott
revealed his interest in running the Poll, which prompted Pete
Doubleday to announce his Zine Poll Organiser's Poll (but he was
taking the piss). The results were announced in Thing No.41 -
Piggott won, but there were only 7 voters one of which was Piggott. Mad Policy No.113 proved to be a turning
point. In that issue John Piggott wrote to Richard in the following
terms: "I personally think there are good reasons
why the Poll should be run by other than a zine editor and why you
in particular should pass it on: (a) Hobby members in general are
nice people and will tend to discriminate in favour of the chap
running the Poll if his zine is eligible; (b) Readers of said zine
are in any case more likely to vote than others (that's why MP
always receives the greatest number of votes in the Poll despite not
having the largest circulation) and so the electorate itself is not
a fair sample. These two factors will always give the zine
running the Poll an advantage over its competitors. this is true
whatever method is used to calculate the results. This year's
formula which used total votes cast rather than averages, simple
exacerbated the problem. In addition there is now a third argument
specific to you: (c) After a decade of trying, you have at last won
your own Poll. Well, congratulations. Silly joking aside, it would
be a great shame if a zine the standard of MP failed to win the Zine
Poll at some stage during its run. but where will you go from here?
Broadway? For the first time, you can't set yourself a target of
doing better in next year's Poll. A graceful retirement now might
save a great deal of recriminations later... Well, as I said, it's
your decision, so off you go and decide. It only remains for me to
say what changes I'd like to see made for next year. First, and most importantly, voters should
once again be asked to rank all the zines they receive and the main
results should be calculated by means of a preference matrix. And
since it's clear that a preference matrix for 150 zines would test
the patience of a saint, let alone a Walkerdine, the criteria for
eligibility needs to be tightened up a lot: Out with the Soccerdross
zines for a start; as far as I'm concerned the name of our Hobby is
postal Diplomacy and the zines that don't run it are in a different
hobby... I would also want to see the European zines excluded. Like
it or not, connections between the continental zines and the UK
hobby are pretty tenuous... Finally, as in previous years, zines
should have to be mentioned by a significant proportion of voters in
order to feature in the final results." To which Richard replied: "The Zine Poll is
my invention, my responsibility and will continue to be run by me
for as long as I find it convenient to do so. Arguments such as
yours will sway me not a jot (and the gibberish of Pete Doubleday
even less so) because any thought of handing it on would come solely
from realising that I no longer have the time needed to run the
thing properly. However, as it happens, the Poll is a lot of work in
a short space of time, and with a monthly zine to run it's very
difficult to fit it all in. So a new home would be very welcome. As
you've asked for it nicely, you've got it. And the best of luck... So RJW relinquished the Zine Poll to John
Piggott. Next time in Part Three... The Backlash (1986-1988). Part 3 - 1986-1988
The Backlash John Piggott was a controversial Pollster.
The letters pages of Mad Policy carried several denouncements of
Richard Walkerdine's choice for the succession. Take this example
from Len George: "In championing Diplomacy only, Mr Piggott is being
divisive in a hobby which I, at least, love. Do you really approve
of this throw-back to a past era of a lesser hobby?... I think the
narrow-minded throw-back is better ignored and must ask myself why
you have favoured him. Perhaps your interest in hobby politics is
the answer. What better way could there be to ensure the popularity
and glory of Walkerdine as Zine Poll organiser than to arrange for
him to be compared with an eminently unsuitable successor?" Or how
about this gem from Chris Wright: "If John renames his poll the
'Diplomacy Zine Poll' [which he did] then that would be a fairly
accurate description of what it was about, though perhaps the 'Bigot
Poll' would be better." After a long and pointless debate about the
finer points of including European zines, Irish zines, European
zines edited by British nationals, previous Zine Poll winners who
don't run (a) Diplomacy or (b) any games at all, Piggott finally
announced the 1986 Zine Poll criteria in July - basically you had to
see 2 or more zines and to be eligible a zine had to be based in the
British Isles and have published two adjudication of Diplomacy or a
Diplomacy variant in the previous year. Bohemian Rhapsody,
Diversions, Hopscotch, Rostherne Game Review and Take That You
Fiend! were also specifically included at Piggott's discretion
despite not satisfying the above criteria. In essence, what Piggott
had done was to also include zines with a substantial cross-over to
the main postal Diplomacy hobby - a practice which continues to this
day. The results of the 1986 Zine Poll were
carried in Ethil the Frog No.96 which was published in November
1986. 194 people voted (with very few Europeans indeed) and the
result was a narrow win for Home of the Brave over Dolchstoß. John
Piggott took the opportunity the results booklet gave him to respond
to the furore caused by his narrowing of the focus of the Poll in
the following terms: "Few people quarrelled with my decision to
restrict our own Poll to British zines. By and large they accepted
my argument that language and distance barriers mean that a
composite poll is unsatisfactory, and Jaap [Jacob's] new European
Poll is a logical development... By contrast, judging by the howls
of anguish which greeted my decision to remove non-Diplomacy zines
from the Poll, you'd have thought I was assassinating Bob Geldof.
However, the evidence was clear: comparatively few of the 'postal
games' folk bothered to vote at all last year even when their
favourite zines were eligible, and while the obvious response would
be for these people to establish their own poll I wasn't at all
surprised when it didn't happen. I guess they dislike each other as
much as they dislike us. There were several proposals for rival,
'all-zines' polls, but the people who floated them were generally
the sort who can't be trusted to fulfil the commitments they already
have, let alone make a success of new ones, and in the end it all
turned out to be a load of hot air." In that last respect, Piggott was hopelessly
wrong. Less than 10 years later and the Zine of the Year Poll is now
clearly ahead of the Zine Poll when it comes to the number of voters
it attracts - however, the main focus of the ZotY Poll is clearly
football games, and Diplomacy zines don't really get a look in.
That's why in the Diplomacy hobby the impact of the ZotY Poll has
been very limited. 1987 saw the high water mark of the Zine
Poll with 339 votes, though the results were to a small degree
discredited by what was revealed later. The winner was War & Peace
with Zeeby second and Cut & Thrust third. Piggott's well known
antagonism towards non-Diplomacy zines encroaching on the
established Diplomacy hobby institutions brought even more
antagonism in 1987. Piggott's case was simple: "Historically, the Zine Poll has always been
limited to the postal Diplomacy hobby, apart from a few aberrant
years in the early 1980's when Richard Walkerdine took a more
eclectic view of things. Although he has never said so publicly, I
believe that even Walkerdine felt that a change was needed after
1985; the Poll had become hopelessly unwieldy and most of the
results that year were frankly farcical... I have consistently
asserted since then that 'Postal Diplomacy' is a separate hobby,
distinct from the wider 'Postal Games' which many others favour.
Personally I have never seen the slightest connection between (for
example) Soccerboss-type zines and Dungeons and Dragons-type zines,
and I prefer to view the world of 'Postal games' as a conglomeration
of separate hobbies, each with its own traditions and conventions.
We overlap, of course." "Criticisms of my stance usually take two
forms. First, that I have 'banned' certain zines. If this means
anything at all, it must mean that I am preventing the zines in
question from being published, and that is nonsense. As for
excluding a zine from my Poll (which is what these illiterate
characters really mean), the rules are clear; if an editor wants his
zine included in the postal Diplomacy poll, he has to run postal
Diplomacy. Simple as that. Secondly, I am often accused of having
'disenfranchised' various people. If by this they mean that I won't
allow people who don't see Diplomacy zines to vote in the Postal
Diplomacy Poll, then I cheerfully plead guilty!" For what it's worth, in essence I agree with
Piggott. The world is big enough for more than one Poll. However,
whenever people who should know better start criticising zines like
Spring Offensive as being too insular and not welcoming enough to
the football zines, perhaps they should remember the antics of the
likes of Mark Boyle back in 1987. Many of the sports zines had
decided to run a single game of Diplomacy just to qualify for the
Diplomacy Zine Poll and John had even received many ballots which
had identical votes "Scorpio 10; Vienna 2; Dolchstoß 1, Mad Policy
1" but he had included them anyway. Very odd, but all was to be
revealed when Mark Boyle wrote to Piggott after the 1987 Zine Poll
results were announced: "As I warned you, the backlash for your ban
on non-Diplomacy zines has now happened. It couldn't happen on
[your] first poll, but in this one the banned sports zines were now
eligible, and they took it out on those who sought to ban them. In
Scorpio 15 / Eggbert's Zine I issued my clarion call to the sports
zines: 'Vote high for our clique and give low marks to the zines
trying to exclude us from the other parts of the postal gaming
hobby'. A number of zines photocopied what I said and distributed it
to their readers. Editors whose zines were banned were very rabid;
they even specified targets: Dolchstoß, Mad Policy and Vienna.
Why?" First, Dolchstoß has your subzine in it, and
besides Richard Sharp is blamed for being the original agent
provocateur behind the whole nasty proceedings. Mad Policy was
obvious. Richard Walkerdine handed over the Poll to you - after
you'd said you'd do this and that. Despite the chorus of 'No, no,
not Piggott' and the umpteen other contenders, Richard gave the job
to you. Think about it from the position of the people who knew
their zines would be banned, or from the people like me who knew it
would render them unable to vote. So, this year RJW suffered the
backlash. 13% gave him less than 5 points; nine voters gave him
between 1.0 and 1.9. Vienna was the most striking: 20% gave it under
5, and 12 voters gave it between 1.0 and 1.9. Although Vienna wasn't
antagonistic towards the soccer zines and sports zines, it did
nothing to help them either, and it was heavily associated with the
Old Hard Core. Hence it produced a group of folks determined to
ensure that it did badly. But just look at the zines banned last
year!... most dramatic of all was Scorpio. First try, and it entered
at number 7, with only 9% of the electorate voting for it. It just
happened to be the zine in which the clarion call for 'revenge' was
made." "So what does all this prove? It proves that
the sports zine hobby won't stand for this nonsense. This is just
the first year. What about the next, when even more sports zines
will be eligible, and the next? The whole Poll could just turn into
an excuse for inter-clique squabbling. I've proved that such a thing
can happen, agreed? What happens when the extremists in the
not-so-nice soccer clique get hold of this? Len George, Ian Lee and
the rest of their cronies could really damage it in the future - as
if a spanner hasn't been put in the works already!" Richard Sharps reaction to all this was
that "it was inevitable that Dolchstoß would suffer from the
traumas of '87, and the slide to 10th place in the Zine Poll,
equalling the worst position ever, was no great surprise. Once
again, though, I can't help noting that the number of current
Dolchstoß readers who voted was exactly equal to the number that
rated Dolchstoß average or better: it would be nice to think that
the other 20+ votes came from people who were confusing Dolchstoß
with something else, or just don't like zines beginning with
'D'..." The 1988 Diplomacy Zine Poll saw numbers
down to 235 and a win for Realpolitik from Zeeby (always the
bridesmaid...). Piggott attributed the fall in votes to the fact
that the vote rigging scandal the previous year had discouraged
people from voting, especially since John no longer allowed editors
to forward ballot papers (to minimise organised block voting). On the launch of the Zine of the Year Poll
in 1988, Piggott was dismissive as usual. In reviewing 1988 Piggott
notes "Finally, there was a distinctly unwelcome development when
one Kevin Lloyd launched his astounding scheme to discover the "Zine
of the Year". Lloyd, readers may recall, was one of the wreckers who
tried unsuccessfully to sabotage the 1987 Zine Poll. Terrorism
having failed, he resorted to guile with his own poll - 'at last, a
poll for the whole hobby,' he barfed to anyone who'd listen. In
actual fact of course, the Zine of the Year Poll attempted to cover
no less than four different hobbies, and was an abject failure in
every single one. The total number of voters amounted to just 21 per
hobby. In addition he used a discredited methodology and deduced
unsound conclusions from his results. Poor Lloyd. Poor, foolish
Lloyd." In the end the future of the ZotY Poll has
turned out quite rosy- it went through several formulations and
since Mark Boyle took it over it has gone from strength to strength
- though some of his tactics are questionable (but what would you
expect). One way Mark has helped achieve a high number of voters is
by putting back the Poll deadline to give him time to persuade more
people to vote (even though if it means that a different zine wins)
and he has also been known to send out SAEs to people who haven't
voted to boost the numbers further. At the end of the day, the
relative success of the ZotY Poll has to a large extent proved
Piggott right - it is in effect the Sports Zine Poll that Piggott
always claimed someone should run, the ballots cast from outside the
sports hobby having the same sort of marginal effect as the sports
votes did on the Diplomacy Zine Poll in the 1980s. The only
difference is that it fails to call itself the Sports Zine of the
Year Poll, even though that is what it really is. As it happened the 1998 Zine Poll was to be
Piggott's last. John's contribution to the postal Diplomacy hobby
has always come and gone in spurts and he just never got around to
organising the Poll in 1989. By the time of MidCon in November 1989
it was clear that Piggott wasn't going to do anything, so a group of
people at MidCon agreed that Iain Bowen should do so. This was
greeted with general support, though Brian Creese did voice some
objection to the coup in NMR! 109: "a faceless, and nameless, cabal
appears to have decided that Iain Bowen should run the poll along
with his own zine and Mission from God. No doubt it seemed a
sensible decision to these people - whoever they are - at the
time."
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