Their phones were overwhelmed because those phone calls were made by actual readers who opened their paper to find their favorite strips gone. The paper can then be sure they are truly hearing from subscribers. When a paper runs an internet poll or asks for internet feedback and does not set up any ID system for that poll such as zip code verification for geographic proximity to the paper, they don’t know who they are hearing from.

I had a lengthy discussion with the web guy from our local paper about how they set up internet voting. The only polling safeguards they put into place are to limit the number of votes for each IP address to one vote per hour. He said they pretty much assume that such polls reflect an accurate pulse of their readership. He did say that for political topics the paper had a much more sophisticated system to prevent ballot box stuffing because they want their results to be as accurate as possible. When I asked him why all the polls weren’t as secure as the political ones he said it was too much of a hassle.

My earlier point is backed up by the fact that, for whatever reason, the data the paper used to make their decision to drop these two strips was totally flawed and they had to back track.

And Kevin, I agree with you. I’m just not ready to say good bye to Peanuts. But maybe you’re right, and that’s what the collections are for. Blondie, however, I could say good bye to right now LOL.

I can’t believe they actually believed that Get Fuzzy and Pearls were unpopular! Those are two of the best new strips out there and they both have huge, vocal followings.

Imagine how many viewers viewed “web ads” while they were commenting on this “silly” poll.

The newspapers need to take the “energy” used to do these silly “polls” and do someting else that generates the same strong reaction (only positive) that these silly “polls” generate.

If one is going to conduct a marketing poll in any industry, it should be correctly and scientifically in order to correctly assess the results of the survey. These comics polls are beyond stupid, as are the editors who conduct them.