Sacrosanct
Legend
So, about 55% of voters feel Tolkien is definitively influential in D&D, the source for the most important aspects of D&D or even that there could be no D&D as we know it without his work. An additional 35% feel Tolkien is more influential than other scifi authors.
90% acknowledge D&D's intellectual debt to Tolkien.
I’ve been without internet for a few days so I haven’t been able to respond, but your conclusion is flawed because the poll answers don’t capture people’s opinion accurately. For example, at least two of us voted moderately, but have expressly stated that he wasn’t more influential than many other authors like Howard or Anderson.
Secondly, you’re stating a conclusion as fact based on a poll of opinion. That is, just because someone voted “a lot”, doesn’t mean there is in fact an intellectual debt to Tolkien. People can be mistaken. And they are, because we have many posts of people attributing to Tolkien things he didn’t create simply because said person is not familiar with folklore or other works from other authors like Anderson where we can see a stronger influence. And we know for a fact that the claim of D&D never being made without Tolkien is not true.
If you say 90% of people acknowledge Tolkien’s influence on D&D, then that sounds pretty reasonable. But a term like “intellectual debt”. That’s weird phrasing, and a bit strong. So no, 90% do not think he was more influential than every other author.