From: qvortrup@inf.ethz.ch (Michael Qvortrup)
Subject: Santa Claus poll - the summary (longish)
Organization: Dept. Informatik, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
Distribution: soc
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 16:14:39 GMT


OK, here it is - the long awaited result of the informal Santa Poll!
--------------------------------------------------------------------

I got some 38 replies. Most of them by e-mail, others culled from 
soc.culture.nordic itself. I also got some doubles - they have been
discarded ruthlessly :-).

I decided to break down the responses according to two criteria:

	a) origin of person replying
	b) place postulated as being Santa Claus' home

b) wasn't difficult (well, some people were perhaps a bit obscure :-)
a), on the other hand, tends a bit more towards guesswork on my side.
I tried to distinguish using the return address of the responder. Failing
that, I resorted to guessing based on name. Not exactly scientific, but
it *is* an informal poll! If I have stepped on anybody's toes, please
accept my humblest apologies in advance. In the table I lumped US and 
Canada together - for formatting reasons only!

OK, enough about that. Here is the table:
(I'll let it speak for itself while you are reading it. My comments
follow below.)


    \Origin of replier:
     \
Place:\ 1)	2)	3)	4)	5)	6)	7)	8)	9)|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------|----
a)    | 3		3		1	1	1	1	  | 10
      | 								  |
b)    | 				1				  | 1
      | 								  |
c)    | 2		1	1			11		1 | 16
      | 								  |
e)    | 				1	1			  | 2
      | 								  |
d1)   | 2								  | 2
      | 								  |
d2)   | 	1			1				  | 2
      | 								  |
d3)   | 		1						  | 1
      | 								  |
d4)   | 					3			  | 3
      | 								  |
d5)   | 			1					  | 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      | 7	1	5	2	4	5	12	1	1 | 38

                                   Table 1
                                   *******

Legend:

	a)  North Pole
	b)  Greenland
	c)  Finland (Rovaniemi, Korvatunturi)
	e)  Unspecified
	d1) US (Santa Monica/Santa Barbara, Santa Claus)
	d2) Turkiye (Antalya, Ephesus)
	d3) Sweden (Luppioberget)
	d4) Norway
	d5) The Bahamas

	1) USA/Canada
	2) Turkiye
	3) Sweden
	4) UK
	5) Denmark
	6) Norway
	7) Finland
	8) Australia
	9) Germany


Comments:
---------

It is quite clear that most people think Santa Claus lives in Finland, 
followed by the North Pole as a close second. It is also clear that
most of those people are Finns! Greenland got exactly 1 vote. The
order is:

	1) Finland				(16)
	2) North Pole				(10)
	3) Norway				(3)
	4) Unspecified, US, Turkiye		(2)
	5) Greenland, Sweden, The Bahamas	(1)

If the table is cleaned of lobbyists (Finns clamoring for Finland, 
Norwegians pushing Norway, the single Dane who wanted Greenland etc) 
and trick answers (Santa *, The Bahamas) the situation is a bit different.


    \Origin of replier:
     \
Place:\ 1)	2)	3)	4)	5)	6)	7)	8)	9)|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------|----
a)    | 3		3		1	1	1	1	  | 10
      | 								  |
b)    | 				0				  | 0
      | 								  |
c)    | 2		1	1			0		1 | 5
      | 								  |
e)    | 				1	1			  | 2
      | 								  |
d2)   | 	0			1				  | 1
      | 								  |
d3)   | 		0						  | 0
      | 								  |
d4)   | 					0			  | 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      | 5	0	4	1	3	2	1	1	1 | 18

                                   Table 2
                                   *******

The new order is:

	1) North Pole		(10)
	2) Finland		(5)
	3) Unspecified		(2)
	4) Turkiye		(1)

Finland still has strong support, although it has dropped to the second
place, but the favourite is now the North Pole. Greenland has dropped
completely out of the race.

Judging on those numbers I guess it is fair to say - in the light of
this poll - that outside Finland, people go for either the North Pole
or Finland. The open question in that case is then, where do send the
letters?


Final Comments:
---------------

Should I conduct this poll once more, I think I would rephrase the 
question as

	1) Where, according to the tradition you know, does
	   Santa Claus live? (Not his origin, but where he
	   lives *now*.)
	2) Where would you send a letter intended for Santa
	   Claus?

The phrasing of 1) should eliminate Turkiye as an answer. Turkiye is
of course, IMHO, the correct answer to the question about his origin
(Bishop, later Saint, Niklaus (sp?)). This is not quite the answer I
was looking for (would anybody tell their children to send a letter
to Turkiye to Santa Claus? If that is the case, then Turkiye is a 
correct answer). It should also eliminate trick answers like Santa *,
together with metaphysical answers, like "in children's hearts". Again, 
the latter answer is fairly correct, but not what I was looking for.

Question 2) should then serve to answer the issue *really* at hand:
who is to serve as Santa Claus' mail office, and subsequently profit
from the generated revenue.

Just a remark: please don't respond to the above! It is only random
ramblings about what I should have done differently, and I've seen quite 
enough of Santa Claus to last me until Christmas :-)


Greetings,
--Mike

PS: :-)

PPS: Thanks to everybody who answered the poll!
     I haven't included an acknowledgement list, but if it is
     wanted I may think about it.


-- 
#include <std-disclm.h>--"... and there is a small flaw in my character."---
Real Life: Michael Christian Heide Qvortrup      A Dane         ETH, Zuerich
e-mail   : qvortrup@inf.ethz.ch                  abroad         Switzerland
Institut fuer wissenschaftliches Rechnen  /  Inst. of Scientific Computation
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic