NEW EXCUSES FOR NOT POLLING

Personally, I expect that many readers who got fed
up with Evans and his agenda have likely already
discontinued their USCF memberships, and as a result are no
longer among those who would be surveyed. In view of this,
it is quite possible that Larry Parr's contention -- that
Evans would do very well in a new survey -- is on the money.
-- Greg Kennedy (Help Bot)

Greg Kennedy has come up with new reasons --
admittedly, original -- about why Larry Evans would
perform well in a survey.

First, the members who dislike Evans have
already discontinued their memberships, leaving a
preselected pool to poll. Poor Mr. Kennedy. And as
for why Evans scored well in surveys dating back to
the 1980s into the 1990s -- well, the members had not
yet resigned or they had already resigned? Pitiful stuff.

Secondly, Larry Evans might score well because
some reader somewhere likes Larry D. Evans, the
international master. He then confuses Larry D. Evans
with Larry Evans, who writes the high-profile Question
and Answer column. And as for all of those years when
Evans scored well without Larry D. Evans around -- ah,
well, one is not responsible for the vagaries of taste, etc.

The political class and its epigones have always
hated Larry Evans and Bobby Fischer because they were
so eminently successful in making chess bigger in the
United States.

Among the political class, the opposition to
surveying the readership is virtually total. What the
readership wants is not what counts. What the
political class wants is what counts.

Greg's attempt to justify ignoring the
readership is to ask ludicrous questions about
surveying them about spending tens of thousands
of dollars on redesigning Chess Life. If you do not
survey about dues, then why survey about writers?

That is the nub of the man's argument.

The distinction is the following: dues are one
of the discrete business decisons about keeping a
business going; surveys about writers involve
soliciting expressions of reader taste and desires
rather than knowledge.

The distinction is elementary.

The politicians do not want to poll readers
because they already know that Larry Evans would
rank highly. They hate him and they hate that fact.

HENCE NO SURVEY.