Click here to vote in the final ballot of the HM Readers’ Poll
I have tabulated the early voting of 500 or so votes and have whittled down the results to the finalists listed here. I have an announcement at the beginning of the Readers’ Poll survey page, and I’ll say it again here:
Please let your vote be real. This is a Readers’ Poll for HM Magazine and not a forum for bands to ask fans to do their bidding. Every once in a while we hear of bands asking their fans to vote in the HM Magazine Readers’ Poll. I’ll share a story with you where I name names. (Why not?)
In the year 2000, a young rap rock band named Pillar asked their enthusiastic fans to support them by voting in the annual Readers’ Poll. They even came up with ballot entries on who to vote for in each category (pushing one of their friend’s bands in the “unsigned bands” category). We had online voting at this time and we jumped from 300 or 400 votes to 4,000 votes all of a sudden. Of course, this made Pillar winners in every single category that year.
I love the guys in Pillar, so let’s forget that I called them out by name here … and focus on the subject. I think this is unfair to do in a magazine readers’ poll. It all sounds innocent enough, and makes you (the fan doing the band’s bidding) feel like you’re supporting a band you like. After all, who doesn’t want to see their favorite band win a magazine’s readers’ poll? What’s unfair is that probably some of these people voted more than once (which is cheating in the spirit of the poll) and I bet you many of these voters were not readers of HM Magazine at the time, much less subscribers or owners of copies that they purchased somewhere.
What good is a vote in a magazine’s readers’ poll if the voters aren’t even readers? It’s biased, bent and betrays the real spirit and identity of a readers’ poll … don’t you think?
What did we do that year? We disqualified all of the Pillar votes in every single category except one — “Favorite New Band.” We figured we’d give them that much since they had gone to so much effort to stuff the ballots, so to speak.
I’ve seen it happen this year, so I am asking people to use the honor system. There’s a statement at the beginning that basically asks potential voters to disqualify themselves and not vote if they are not a reader of the magazine (someone who subscribes to HM or buys copies somewhere). We want to know who the favorite bands, musicians, songwriters are from the perspective of our magazine’s readers — not simply find out which bands asked their fans to vote.
We’ve also decided to give a $2 coupon off any item in our online store to those that vote. So, please vote with your conscience … and vote quick! I will close the poll at a random time in the very near future. These are the finalists, so these are your options. You must vote in each category in order for your ballot to count.
Thanks for your help. Have fun!
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