[brewcrew]

Respondants were given a choice of "Excellent," "Good," "Fair," or "Poor."

"Fair" and "Poor" were considered negative answers.

Since when is "Fair" a negative?

[smadurski]

fair is negative when you want the results to be negative

[Dane]

Since when is "Fair" a negative?

Exactly.

I guess Mr. Zogby takes his umbrella with him when the weatherman predicts "fair" skys.

[steve86]

Fair traditionally is used more like the term mediocre, as in "medium quality or commonplace".

From definition of fair from dictionary.com:

"Moderately good; Acceptable or satisfactory; gave only a fair performance of the play; in fair health".

Fair often has about the same meaning as the phrase "damning with faint praise".

Certainly not an unqualified positive endorsement.