captainballs
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2004
- Messages
- 9,954
I found this on wikipedia after an extended follow the rabbit hole session, in Modern Library 100 Best Novels, a poll that was not done on the internet:
Compare that with the following paragraph, taken from Reader's List 100 Best Novels, which was an internet poll taken in 1999:
Look at that. Two of the world's most prolific verified trolls would be given a lot of undeserved credit for their posts in the literature forum if the internet had its way. This example made me laugh, I hope there are more.
Ulysses by James Joyce topped the list, followed by The Great Gatsby and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The most recent novel in the list is Ironweed (1983) by William Kennedy, and the oldest is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which was actually first published in 1899. Joseph Conrad has four novels on the list, the most of any author. William Faulkner, E. M. Forster, Henry James, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Evelyn Waugh each have three. There are ten other authors with two.
Compare that with the following paragraph, taken from Reader's List 100 Best Novels, which was an internet poll taken in 1999:
In an unscientific poll, over 200,000 self-selected voters [2] indicated four of the ten best novels of the 20th century were written by Ayn Rand. Pulp science fiction writer and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard had three novels in the top ten. The Reader's Poll has been used as an example of the unreliability of internet polls.
Look at that. Two of the world's most prolific verified trolls would be given a lot of undeserved credit for their posts in the literature forum if the internet had its way. This example made me laugh, I hope there are more.