>With the Sci-Fi Channel website reporting that the 1999 Hugo award for *Best
>Dramatic Presentation* went to "The Truman Show" do you feel this was a
>rebuke
>of B5's fifth and final season (which many are saying has lead to a dramatic
>softening of support for your sci-fi franchise)?
>

Not at all (and I still don't consider it a franchise; how can it be a
franchise if it's not continuing?).

What I was told by those involved is that SiL did not air in Australia during
or before the voting period; it did not, in fact, finally air until after the
WorldCon itself was over by three days. And the majority of folks coming to
WorldCon were, of course, Australians. So they didn't *see* the episode to
vote for it.

I would not expect, or want, anyone to vote for the episode sight-unseen. To
do so means you've missed the point of the show.

Truman Show (a damned good movie and well worth the award, btw) was written by
a New Zealander, and directed by an Australian, so was the next logical choice.


Once I knew that SiL wasn't going to air until after the Hugos, I pretty much
knew it wouldn't get the Hugo. (As it was, according to the site with all the
official numbers, SiL did get more raw numbers of votes than any other
nominee, but due to the Australian balloting system, which uses a weighted
scale, TS got the actual award.)

And I note that the question is phrased in your usual negative fashion, and
frankly, I heard from many folks who said that S5 was their favorite season,
and there's a great editorial in Frontier (the main SF magazine in Australia
and a fine publication) that sang the praises of S5 as necessary and right.



jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com

My prior message was cut off before I finished...wonky computer today....

To finish:

>That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
>speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
>of the shows run.

To repeat...if someone else says they like it, then that's their opinion, but
when you say something, it's the facts, right? That's what you're saying here.

Please give me the facts and figures to back this up, because it ain't what I
hear at conventions, and it ain't reflected in the only -- ONLY -- objective
form of reportage on B5's history: the P5 poll.

In the P5 poll, in which 2,403 people voted on episodes over the 5 year history
of B5, the rankings are as follows, by season:

PILOT: 6.32
S1: 7.52
S2: 8.11
S3: 8.38
S4: 8.58
S5: 8.35

With a standard deviation of .61, which means that the S5 rating could be as
high as 9. The .23 difference between S4 and S5 is statistically insignificant
on every conceivable level, and even without that, the pilot, S1 and S2 ALL
rated below S5 in the poll and it's essentially identical to S3.

I've shown my homework, now you show yours. Some people take it as read,
because THEY didn't like it, that everybody else feels the same way (and I've
heard from a LOT of people who very much liked S5 but just got tired of being
shouted down by a few fanatics and stopped posting). Again, the facts do NOT
bear out your -- and I emphasize this word -- OPINION. Sorry, but you do not
have the key to unvarnished truth, only to your opinion, which is flatly and
provably WRONG.

So the facts definitely contradict you, as they tend to so often in your posts,
from your claim through a "friend" that Harlan drinks, to this, to not knowing
or understanding how the Hugo system works before criticizing it...it's a
definite pattern on your part.


jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com

>Also, from what I understand, you have arranged for episode screenings at
>conventions in the past ... was there any reason why no screening of *SiL*
>was
>setup for the convention prior to voting?

Because the voting is done long before the convention, by mail. Clearly you do
not have any clear idea on the process.

>That is their opinion and that is fine, however, the fact is that, honestly
>speaking, season five IS generally hailed as the weakest and least satisfying
>of the shows run.

So if somebody else says something, that's their opinion, but if you say it,
it's a fact, is that it?
jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com

>> There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Yes,
>> but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>> the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>> people then season two and so on and so forth).

I'm sorry it's taken me this long to reply to this, but every time I see the
quote preceding, I fall down laughing and I get bumped offline.

Talking about errors in logic...once again, Von Bruno, you demonstrate your
own, in the most glaring way imaginable. It's the ultimate topper to your
preceding inaccuracies. This one is so massive and expansive that it's just
breathtaking.

Do you know *anything* about polling or public opinion measurement? Before you
answer, let me save you the time: no. I do. I have a degree in clinical
psychology and a second degree in sociology, and as part of that had to take
any number of specialized courses in polling and public opinion measurement.

And here's where your logic falls down utterly. Let me requote the above:

>> There are three kind of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Yes,
>> but there is an error in the logic JMS. You have more viewers towards
>> the end of the poll then you did at the begining. (Season 1 had fewer
>> people then season two and so on and so forth).

The more people you have in a poll, THE MORE ACCURATE IT IS. The fewer people,
the less accurate. That utterly incontestable fact is at the core of every
poll ever taken. That's why they usually show you the raw numbers ("In a poll
of two thousand people, ten percent thought Mars was not a planet but a candy
bar").

So the very element you claim made it LESS accurate in fact made it
statistically MORE accurate.

Just once, could you try to actually *know* something about what we're
discussing here? Do just a *little* homework from time to time? Because right
now, you're 0 for 5 on basic facts, just in the last round.

And by the way, this is probably the last time I'm going to respond to you. I
can't lose that much work time laughing anymore.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com

>You can get some data out of it, but it's simply not an "utterly
>uncontestable fact" that a greater sample size confers more accuracy
>on a self-selected survey.

What I was responding to was the statement that more responses made a survey
*less* accurate. Surely you're not saying that that's the case? And yes, a
larger sampling universe *does* make a survey more accurate within that
preselected universe. As long as the sampling within that universe is random
-- and there's a wide range of diversity withih that preselected universe --
the survey is accurate.

For instance, phone surveys preselect anyone who has a phone. At one point,
there were still not a lot of phones in common use in the hinterlands, but that
doesn't disqualify the poll. A street corner poll preselects those who happen
to be walking by the street corner.

Now, if you're going to preselect for some particular specific variable -- all
asians, for instance, or only people under 25 -- then you start to skew the
data and thus the results, making it inapplicable to the greater, non-sampled
universe.

Point is, insisting that more numbers make a sample *less* accurate -- as VB
was doing -- is utterly and totally inaccurate.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com