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Magazine Survey

gordonrutter

gordonrutter

Within reason
Staff member
Joined
Aug 3, 2001
Messages
7,228
FORTEAN TIMES READER SURVEY 2021
We want to keep FT relevant to readers’ interests, so please help us to improve the magazine by taking this quick survey that will provide us with a clearer picture of what you’d like to see in FT’s pages. All we’d ask you to do is to copy and paste the questions below into an email, give a response in CAPS next to each item and, if you’d like to, add your own comments at the end. Then, send the email (subject:survey) back to us at:
[email protected]
One lucky name out of the hat will receive a parcel of FT goodies!
Thanks in advance for your help!
***THE SURVEY***
1: Please indicate whether you would like to see
LESS
ABOUT THE SAME
MORE
for each of the following sections. Please give your response in CAPS beside each item.
***STRANGE DAYS NEWS***
General weird news
Extra Extra (bizarre headlines)
Mythconceptions
Necrolog (obituaries)
Sidelines
***STRANGE DAYS COLUMNS***
Alien Zoo
Archaeology
Classical Corner
Conspirasphere
Fairies, Folklore & Forteana
Ghostwatch
Science
Strange Continent
UFO files (Flying Sorcery/UFO casebook)
***FEATURE ATRICLES***
Full-length feature articles
Forum (shorter articles)
***SERIES***
Blasts from the Past
Building a Fortean Library
Fortean Traveller
Peculiar Postcards
Strange Statesmen
***REVIEWS***
Non-fiction book reviews
Fiction book reviews
Comics/Graphic novel reviews
Exhibition reviews
Film/DVD/TV reviews
Podcast reviews
Game reviews
Haunted Generation
***REGULAR SECTIONS***
Letters
It Happened to Me
Phenomenomix
Cartoons
Strange Deaths
2: Is there anything not currently in FT that you would like to see?
3: Do you have any other comments?
Now simply copy and paste the survey into an email (subject: survey) and send to: [email protected]
THANK YOU!
 
Thanks for posting the survey, Gordon.

If people could take five minutes and do this it would be really helpful – it's been a good while since we asked for any structured feedback, so this is a good opportunity for us to have a think about where we're going with FT and for you to help guide that process.

Cheers,

D
 
I’m wondering if you need to get rid of any of the sections. You could, instead, adopt a looser potluck approach instead of having a complete roster every month. This would allow for a more in-depth approach to main features as well as satisfying those who miss a regular contribution who will know it will return in a future issue.
I think the FT has become a little too rigid in format and the increasing thin gruel in one area is at the expense of fuller, more detailed articles elsewhere.
 
Hi Gordon.

I do always read my FT from cover to cover and, to be honest, wouldn't change any existing content, so please count this as a ABOUT THE SAME vote for every section.

The only thing I would like to see added would be a fun caption contest. You could print a suitable Fortean photo and invite readers to submit a witty caption, with say the top 5 being printed maybe two issues hence and the selected winner getting a FT mug or something.
 
Sadly, we don't have a stash of Omaxes (not even used ones), so can't offer this as prizes. How about a signed Hunt Emerson poster?

We've been told on the Fortean Times Appreciation Facebook group that this is no way to run a survey. In our defence, we know nothing about running surveys – so please take part in the survey if you can spare five minutes. As well as helping provide valuable feedback you'll make us feel less useless.
 
I keep going with a subscription as I've mostly done since about 1995 depending on my financial circumstances. I'm well off these days so keep going.

These days particularly in the last 10 years have been poor. I usually don't receive about 3 copies a year, but don't complain as it's FT and we are under a misguided impression that we need to keep it going, sort of Dad's Army like, It's the thing to do. Gordon R gets upset if I have a go.

The articles are usually about 5 out of 10. Occasionally you'll get one that blows your mind, around twice a year or so. There was a cat one recently, (I'd not received a copy for about 3 months which is usual around christmas), which was lazy and boring for anyone with a passing interest in felines.

Most of it I'm not even fussed about reading it which would have been insane 20 0r 30 years ago. As most of the news/articles are old when I get it.

The whole thing is horribly tired.

I get it wasn't the magazine's fault when they jettisoned the forum. Clearly the stupidest thing to do in the internet age which they should have built on it.

I rarely read most of the magazine.

.
 
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gordonrutter said:
FORTEAN TIMES READER SURVEY 2021
We want to keep FT relevant to readers’ interests, so please help us to improve the magazine by taking this quick survey that will provide us with a clearer picture of what you’d like to see in FT’s pages. All we’d ask you to do is to copy and paste the questions below into an email, give a response in CAPS next to each item and, if you’d like to, add your own comments at the end. Then, send the email (subject:survey) back to us at:
[email protected]
One lucky name out of the hat will receive a parcel of FT goodies!
Thanks in advance for your help!
***THE SURVEY***
1: Please indicate whether you would like to see
LESS
ABOUT THE SAME
MORE
for each of the following sections. Please give your response in CAPS beside each item.
***STRANGE DAYS NEWS***
General weird news
Extra Extra (bizarre headlines)
Mythconceptions
Necrolog (obituaries)
Sidelines
***STRANGE DAYS COLUMNS***
Alien Zoo
Archaeology
Classical Corner
Conspirasphere
Fairies, Folklore & Forteana
Ghostwatch
Science
Strange Continent
UFO files (Flying Sorcery/UFO casebook)
***FEATURE ATRICLES***
Full-length feature articles
Forum (shorter articles)
***SERIES***
Blasts from the Past
Building a Fortean Library
Fortean Traveller
Peculiar Postcards
Strange Statesmen
***REVIEWS***
Non-fiction book reviews
Fiction book reviews
Comics/Graphic novel reviews
Exhibition reviews
Film/DVD/TV reviews
Podcast reviews
Game reviews
Haunted Generation
***REGULAR SECTIONS***
Letters
It Happened to Me
Phenomenomix
Cartoons
Strange Deaths
2: Is there anything not currently in FT that you would like to see?
3: Do you have any other comments?
Now simply copy and paste the survey into an email (subject: survey) and send to: [email protected]
THANK YOU!
Click to expand...

I can't find the survey link?
 
Coastaljames said:
There isn't one. Survey Monkey anyone? Rather than some kind of copying and pasting emailing malarkey.
Click to expand...

For the record ... The die is already cast ... It's been reported that the old school email-based survey instructions are already baked into the next FT issue and can't be withdrawn from publication.
 
Personally I love the magazine as it is. Yes, I may personally have very little interest in UFOs or cryptozoology, but I wouldn't want all the articles to go just because of me. I can always read up in more detail in the things I am interested in online. But I like a wide variety of stuff in the mag so that I can find out what I am interested in so that I KNOW to go and look it up in more detail elsewhere.
 
Lost the will to live trying to do the survey.

FT is the only magazine I subscribe to and is the only one worth purchasing regularly imo. The quality of writing is so high compared to the inane drivel of most media these days that it's a relief and a pleasure to read. I never read any of the UFO stuff as it's of no interest to me and I rarely have time to read the whole of the rest of the magazine yet I still find it excellent value for money. Love the horror stuff, letters, reviews, in depth features, hauntology, psychology. Would like to see more: reader contribution, things like the feature on the pixie hunter bloke on YouTube, in depth features on old and new Fortean themed TV series, films and books. Less cats.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
It's so easy a monkey could do it.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/
Click to expand...

Sadly the free version is a bit limited.

However- it is now online as an automated Google Forms based one. They're keeping it open for a few more weeks (end March / early April), so if you have yet to respond, please take a couple of minutes. They - and we - really would appreciate it.

(link removed as survey now closed - Stu)
 
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With all the items available, it's hard to not reply ABOUT THE SAME for most of them, except for areas of personal interest and pet peeves.

A large part of the appeal of the magazine is not knowing what you might find reading it. It would be bad to exclude sections and their potential.
 
I suspect that the results of the survey items will all be 2 on a scale of 1 to 3. Things I don't like, other people do. I think it depends on age, interest and location. It's hard to please everyone. Also, some of the subject areas/columns are either good (useful/entertaining) or bad (boring/awful) depending on the person who is writing about them.
 
Update: Thanks to Stu Neville's helpfulness and mad skillz, we now have a new, improved survey format.
Survey Monkey's free option proved too limited, and we can't afford to purchase one of their plans, but Stu has conjured up this Google Forms poll; it will be much easier for us to collate the results.

If you haven't already responded via the original bits-of-string-and-tin-cans method of the copy-and-paste version, please could you take five minutes or so to complete the survey here:

(link removed as survey now closed - Stu)

Thanks!
 
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Stupid me already faffed about copying an pasting it into an email before I saw the survey monkey.
Done and sent !!
 
I've sent mine. I appreciate being asked. The cost of the magazine is enough that I have occasionally had to drop my subscription as an economy, so I need to justify to myself that it is worth the money.

The trouble with any such survey is it tends to attract criticism of the bits we don't like rather than praise for the bits we do.

The things I find most off putting are the occasional political/party political asides by some contributors, references to old feuds in the "Fortean community", and what sometimes feels like an elitist assumption that anyone reading the magazine will already know all the "canonical cases".

I much prefer articles about the source material: Fortean events and phenomena rather than articles written in a "knowing way": reports and analysis rather than commentary and opinion.

Classical Corner would be so much better if it were not written in that "stream of consciousness" style.

Good magazine, though, and its arrival on my doormat is a highlight of the month.
 
I'm just doing mine now. Curious as to how we could see 'More' in the Necrolog, isn't that just willing more fortean people to die? What if nobody of interest or import dies for a long time? Do we have to send out assassination parties if everyone votes for More?
 
I’m with catseye with this I think the magazine is okay as it is. Hmm mebbe how about classic Cromer instead of the usual thing.It will keep swifty off the streets and out of trouble. And more of it happened to me
 
I also LOVE IHTM but think that the forum may be more the place for that sort of thing. The danger with printing too many IHTM style stories is that people start to get publication-crazy and start...umm...shall we say 'embellishing' in order to get their story into a magazine? For examples see every woman's magazine story entitled 'I Caught My Husband With My Lover's Transsexual Twin' or similar.
 
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