Guardian asks for your Person of the Year 2021

@YouCantTourniquetTheTaint - when the Guardian article first came out and people talked about voting for JKR, I wasn't too fussed about pointing out that it wasn't actually a vote.

But now that fake news stories are circulating that JKR won a poll and the Guardian pulled it (I know that started as a joke aimed at the Guardian but some are now thinking it's true), I feel we have to be pedantic. "Nomination" implies names being put forward for a vote, and I'm pointing out that was not something the Guardian ever said they were doing. You submitted your opinion on who you would have chosen for PotY (it could only be that because Time Magazine has already made the award).

[quote DadDadDad]**@KittenKong* , @YouCantTourniquetTheTaint - I still don't get why you are talking about nominations. There is no mention of a poll in their article - they had a form for submissions* of readers' views on the topic.

It says that "one of our journalists will be in touch before we publish", so I assume they are just going to write an article and quote a range of interesting responses. Of course, like many of you, I'm sceptical they will mention JKR, but perhaps they will go there to highlight the controversy...[/quote]
Submission or nomination it's a little pedantic and fastidious to pick on that. OK, I submitted my nomination of JK Rowling to the Guardian's person of the year. Is that more acceptable? Is that OK with you now?

www.corriere.it/cronache/donne-anno-2021/

Guess who is on the Italian newspaper " IL Corriere Della Sera" , women of the year list,
Jk Rowling and Kathleen Stock

Ok then a mention. Perhaps better as this then needs a narrative. I am sure people gave excellent reasons for nominating JKR. Will the Guardian feel comfortable repeating them given the strong views of some of their staff.

But, @Needmoresleep, you're still falling into the trap by talking about "if she won" - I don't think they were ever intending to have winner. They just want to write an interesting article with say half a dozen well-expressed comments on alternative names for Person of the Year in place of Elon Musk. I don't see a "Tell us" article ever being about them saying - "we had 700 submissions in favour of X, 600 for Y...".

DadDadDad I think you are right.

That said, other papers will be on the look out to poke fun at the Guardian so any funny business will have to be well hidden. It would be great if she won. And well deserved.

I suspect it’s more ‘well if you can lie and expect people to swallow it - we will declare the winner ourselves’

Yes, I think it's just premature Twitter-driven speculation.

@Needmoresleep - I think that article has built fake news around jokes and conspiracies on Twitter. I'd be happy to see JKR win a poll of Person of the Year, but the article is incorrect to say The Guardian were running such a poll. You can even click on the link they give, and see that the Guardian were simply asking readers to submit their comments about who they would choose for PotY and why.

I also don't know how that article can say "it swiftly became clear where the result was headed". Lots of JKR supporters said on Twitter etc that they would submit her name, but that doesn't tell us anything about what other names the Guardian were receiving.

At some point, the journalists were bound to close the submission form, so that they could write an article quoting some of the views, but I don't think you can read that as "Guardian pulling the poll" because they didn't like the result.

Maybe, Guardian will just pull the plug on the whole exercise or write an article and omit any mention of JKR - then we'll have something to complain about.

No idea what the source is. One of the media outlets available through Apple News. But sounds plausible and presumably the Times, Mail etc will enjoy the Guardian’s discomfiture.

wegotthiscovered.com/movies/j-k-rowling-tops-person-of-the-year-award-poll-and-its-quickly-closed/

Just to add, this Person of the Year article was just one of an ongoing series of "Tell us" articles that the Guardian Community Team run. www.theguardian.com/profile/guardian-community-team

Although, I will concede to the conspiracy theorists that they don't normally close the form to further submissions as they have done in the case of Person of the Year.

@KittenKong , @YouCantTourniquetTheTaint - I still don't get why you are talking about nominations. There is no mention of a poll in their article - they had a form for submissions of readers' views on the topic.

It says that "one of our journalists will be in touch before we publish", so I assume they are just going to write an article and quote a range of interesting responses. Of course, like many of you, I'm sceptical they will mention JKR, but perhaps they will go there to highlight the controversy...

They didn't announce when the nominations closed, and I think they regularly do that. I too put forward JKR. I wonder if they have the ovaries to announce that she got a lot of nominations. 🤔

“This form has been deactivated and is closed to any further submissions.” this is what you see when you click on the nomination form. It was there before - I saw it. It asked you who and why, and if you’d like to be quoted in the newspaper.

Why say it wasn’t a nomination?

I understand why people are tempted to see them deactivating the form as proof of the Ministry of Truth at work, but I don't think they were ever going to pick a "winner", just wanted fodder for an article. So imagine they will just ignore the people who've submitted Rowling. Which is a shame but entirely predictable.

I'm just hoping that the sheer volume of us might make them think, but suspect they'll just dismiss us as organised trolling. Nevermind that we are totally sincere.

There wasn’t a poll - it was an open vote. Which had now been taken down (not closed but taken down). That’s why people smell a rat.

Why are people tweeting about JKR getting the most votes / winning the poll? As far as I can see there was no poll. The Guardian were reflecting on Time Magazine's Person of the Year award and requested readers to talk about who they would choose for that award. (The form for submissions is now closed - the article is still there www.theguardian.com/media/2021/dec/15/tell-us-who-is-your-2021-person-of-the-year ).

So, I'm assuming they were planning to just edit together the most interesting suggestions with readers' comments on their choices, not have a "the winner is..." announcement. Of course, given they must have had a fair few JKR submissions, it will be interesting to see if they mention her at all.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking… not sure! twitter.com/lungbarrow1/status/1475738385033617414?s=21

I’ve been looking online but can’t see anything…

@RoyalCorgi I love that version. Please let it happen. Closely followed by an announcement from the Scottish Government that it's not going to pursue sex self-ID, and then the withdrawal of every public institution and every university from Stonewall's Workplace Equality Index. Happy 2022.

I someone on twitter says JKR won… could it be?

Assuming they're nominations rather than a vote as such, they presumably have to have a couple of days for staff to look at the nominations, have a conflab, choose one and runners up and then write the piece(s).