Almost 25 years ago, the SR features section -- it was still called Empire Life then -- conducted a readers' poll regarding the comics page. Which strips should we discard? Which new ones should we add?

Lots of subscribers filled out ballots and mailed them in.

Others tabulated the votes. But I was asked to write a story summarizing the results.

One problem. The newspaper's editor decided to overrule the survey's findings.

I can't remember to what extent we had pledged to absolutely abide by the readers' voting. But suddenly the whole survey process was relegated to "advisory" status.

In another words, the balloting was all but ignored.

Not sure how I handled that in the summary. But it's not easy to type when you are holding your nose.

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