The new number one

[sophia jane]

This is a fascinating thread for me for several reasons. One, because I have rarely been on the top list and have within 24 hours, usually, been dropped off the top list by a low (most often 1) vote. This is true for every poem of mine that's been on the top list. It seems to me, then, that the poems that stay on the top list are the ones who have are least likely to experience trolling. Does that make the top list an accurate depiction of the best 100 poems? Absolutely not. I've gone through the list before and seen poems that to be honest, I thought were...to be very nice, not good. (okay I thought they were bad). Yes, that's rare, but it's happened. Do I think my poems deserve to be in the top 100- not necessarily. Though there have been times when I've thought one or two of mine were better than one or two that were on the top list.

That said there are two problems. One, as has been mentioned, is that so few of us actually get 20 votes. I have one poem with 20 votes, the first I put on lit, but it's never been and will never be on the top list. The other problem is, as you have said Lauren, that so many poems only receive 5 votes.
Why are we afraid to vote lower than a 5 if a poem deserves less? I admit I rarely vote at all if a poem deserves less than a 4. Perhaps, those who frequent the poetry forum and believe in the voting system, should make a commitment to vote, honestly, on every poem they read. Perhaps a standard should be created (what criteria should be met for a poem to get a 5, a 4, etc). Obviously a poem deserves a three if it is merely average, but how often do we let our votes reflect that.
I, for one, like the voting system because it's a way to gauge when my work has hit a nerve or has improved. The poems that are my worst work are also my lowest scored, so the system works, at least to a degree. I would be more than willing to commit to voting honestly on every poem I read if others were to do the same.

Damn. Who knew I had so much to say. Wonder if any of it made sense. I need coffee.

 

[sandspike]

Hi Pat

We have nothing in common. You write better than I. I like my stuff more.
You do have a cool AV and your last post was on the money.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Why are we afraid to vote lower than a 5 if a poem deserves less? I admit I rarely vote at all if a poem deserves less than a 4. Perhaps, those who frequent the poetry forum and believe in the voting system, should make a commitment to vote, honestly, on every poem they read. Perhaps a standard should be created (what criteria should be met for a poem to get a 5, a 4, etc). Obviously a poem deserves a three if it is merely average, but how often do we let our votes reflect that.

That's the whole thing right there. There are less votes than there used to have because people are afraid to vote less than perfect scores. Result: a fluff list.

The voting system is perfect as it is. 5=Excellent, 4=Good, 3=Average, 2=Mediocre, 1=Bad. The problem is that readers are afraid to call things by their names. Changing to a 1-to-10 system would make this even worse, if the overall attitude doesn't change with it. The fluff brigade would simply start debating if a poem would be Excellent (8), Super Excellent (9), or HyperMegaSuper Excellent!!! (10)

 

[sophia jane]

That's the whole thing right there. There are less votes than there used to have because people are afraid to vote less than perfect scores. Result: a fluff list.

The voting system is perfect as it is. 5=Excellent, 4=Good, 3=Average, 2=Mediocre, 1=Bad. The problem is that readers are afraid to call things by their names. Changing to a 1-to-10 system would make this even worse, if the overall attitude doesn't change with it. The fluff brigade would simply start debating if a poem would be Excellent (8), Super Excellent (9), or HyperMegaSuper Excellent!!! (10)

Right. I'm willing to do it, if others are. I freely admit that I rarely vote on the average (and just plain bad) poems. But there sure as hell have been plenty of poems that deserve less than 5's. My own included.

 

[PatCarrington]

what is needed more than anything is not a revamping of the voting system (unless it is eliminated totally, which would be very helpful).

it is for people to recognize that saying good things about a bad poem is not "encouragement" to write better, but simply encouragement to write more bad poetry.

to sit back and say nothing, or worse to praise publically or privately, a poem that you feels is not up to par may be the 'nice' thing to do, but it is in fact detrimental. it is nothing more than the enabling of bad behavior, so to speak, like handing out a lollipop to shut a screaming child up, or passing out high school diplomas like party napkins to children who can't read.

and i am as guilty as anyone, probably moreso.

i read countless threads here of mediocre poetry, watch it get praised and say nothing, when i should really post saying "that poem is terrible, in my opinion," and then back up my opinion with explanation.

in an effort to try to turn this community back to the path it used to walk, i might be willing to do that, and eat all the shitburgers that are tossed my way because of it, but i ain't goin that road alone. i don't have the time to continually comment on poems posted on threads, and i'm not fond of shitburgers.

as of now, i am far from convinced that is what this community desires, though i am totally convinced that is what it needs if it is to ever again be the viable poetry forum it used to be.

and i'm not sure it would achieve the desired purpose anyway.

but if i see a troop of other quality poets who are willing to tell the truth as they see it for once, instead of hiding behind the safety of silence, i'll gladly join in...unless i decide to put my walking shoes on too, which i am comtemplating.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I'm with you on all accounts, Pat. As far as I'm concerned, I could care less if that is what the "community" wants. It's what it needs - for a start - and it's what it is going to get.

 

[BooMerengue]

OK. I like it here. Tell me what to do to make it good here again.

No walking shoes, Pat. Thats just a cop out. Ange knows she and I are sisters no matter what. We've already weathered bad storms together and we will again. Eve doesn't know that I feel nearly as strong about her as I do Ange cuz we don't talk much. But it's true. Leaving something you hate is a good thing. But leaving something you love is not. Its better to fight for it, than walk away from it. And they both know that. So what if they are moving on to better things? That doesn't preclude leaving here.

I do vote on most poems I read. And I almost always vote a 4. I rarely see a poem that just knocks me flat, and when I do it's a 5. I seldom use the 1 cuz it just seems unnecessarily hateful. But I will now, along w/ an explanation, if it will help keep this forum alive.

You're right about so many leaving. But what I think is worse is the ones here who don't comment. Or vote. The last 3 or 4 poems I posted got few votes and no comments. I'm not gonna bitch about that cuz I don't always comment. (My computer time is severely limited and I type with index fingers only, so it's a tedious process.)

So tell me what to do and I'll try my best to do it.

In exchange, however, I'd like to ask a favor of whoever is a Moderator. If a thread is not positive and productive to this Forum, shut it down. If a post is argumentative in a disparaging or hateful way, delete it. When someone brings up "The Troll" or "The 1 Bomber" refer them to an already existing (but now locked!) thread on the subject and then drop it. I think thats the biggest reason so many leave. Theres been a glut of mean, sniping, whining threads here and it gets to people. Maybe thats a juvenile way to deal with the problem, but so what? It'll work. Folks will quit it.

Just my bit...

 

[bogusbrig]

There certainly needs some gritty intellectual imput from somewhere and it needs a few less sensitive souls who are willing to take justified criticism of their work without taking offence. I think there is also room for debate about poetic styles and poetry and the roll of poetry in general. The idea that personal expression is a defence for all sorts of rubbish is a nonsense if you take your writing seriously. There should be no reason why there can't be an intellectual ding dong about poetry and everybody remaining on good terms. I would welcome some hard edged input into the community and give as good as I get without fear of the whole thing deteriorating into a slanging match. We are all adults after all.

 

[BooMerengue]

(I have more time to compute today than I usually do; can anyone tell? lol)

I found the Top List. I was gonna smack my head and say something about dumb blondes, but truly I had forgotten about that list. I was on it once- for about 10 minutes. I didn't know what it was; Maria wrote me and told me.

You're right Lauren. Theres quite a few that don't belong there at all. And one or two that should have a permanent home there.

Thats the list you want us all to go through and vote? Am I gonna get banned from here if I vote one twice?

just askin...

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Thats the list you want us all to go through and vote? Am I gonna get banned from here if I vote one twice?

LOL - you can vote without fear. If you remember having voted on a poem before, don't vote a second time, or both may be deleted. It won't affect you, though.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

There certainly needs some gritty intellectual imput from somewhere and it needs a few less sensitive souls who are willing to take justified criticism of their work without taking offence. I think there is also room for debate about poetic styles and poetry and the roll of poetry in general. The idea that personal expression is a defence for all sorts of rubbish is a nonsense if you take your writing seriously. There should be no reason why there can't be an intellectual ding dong about poetry and everybody remaining on good terms. I would welcome some hard edged input into the community and give as good as I get without fear of the whole thing deteriorating into a slanging match. We are all adults after all.

Agreed.

 

[Rybka]

Lit. Vote Scale

I have posted my scale for voting before:

5 = a poem I wish I had written
4 = a better than average poem (for the poet if well known to me; for Literotica if not)
3 = average (for poet or site)
2 = below average (for poet or site) with few errors
1 = a “2” that is full of errors (spelling, grammatical, etc.)

Unfortunately I find fewer 5s than 1s.
I read most new poems every day and I vote on every one I read. I do not comment unless requested. Instead I send feedback about the poems I really like or to some poets whose work I think has promise, but might (IMO) be strengthened.

I no longer comment in public because I found that if I did not praise a poem unquestionably, I often got hit with a spate of “1 bombs” on my work. – That is one reason I stopped reviewing and pulled all my poems a year or so ago, and why I contemplated doing what Angie and WE are saying (again) that they are going to do. I too would leave Literotica if I knew of another site that allowed daily unqualified posting of poems and gave more honest and unbiased criticism.

With respect to vote counts, I don’t believe that I ever had one of the close to 200 poems I posted on Lit. get more than 15 votes. Maybe a dozen or so got to 10, and of course they got an instantaneous 1 from the hot list troll when they did. I probably averaged about six votes and two to three comments (after that feature was added) per poem.

Senna Jawa once did some statistical work on what makes a poem get more views (votes are due to friendship or vengeance more than to quality) and it is true that illustrated and audio poems will get more views. He also stated that the title greatly affects views. The closer the poem is to the beginning of the list the more hits it will get (i.e. “ + or –“, will get more views than “Plus or Minus”). Interestingly enough, some people start from the bottom of the list, so “Z Minus” will be read more often (after it gets off the New list) than “Minus Z”. To prevent people from taking advantage of this list placement advantage the powers of Lit. will often remove leading punctuation from a title or change “2 in Love” to “Two in Love”.

 

[flyguy69]

When I vote (which, now that I think about it, is very rarely!) I usually only vote 4's or 5's. The reason is not that I am patting friends' backs, but rather that I ignore many, many, many poems here. I am an unabashed fan: there are poets here who are quite good at their craft, and they are the ones I read. Only on my review day do I grit my teeth and read anything with genitalia in the title.

I applaud Lauren's and Pat's desires to legitimize the vote averages, but, bluntly, I am not willing to spend time slogging through the dross in order to vote it correctly.

Let people have their fan clubs. Let them delude themselves they are writing poetry. There is nothing to stop any of us from detailed exegesis of a poem we select for no other reason than that we know it is a good poem.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

When I vote (which, now that I think about it, is very rarely!) I usually only vote 4's or 5's. The reason is not that I am patting friends' backs, but rather that I ignore many, many, many poems here. I am an unabashed fan: there are poets here who are quite good at their craft, and they are the ones I read. Only on my review day do I grit my teeth and read anything with genitalia in the title.

I applaud Lauren's and Pat's desires to legitimize the vote averages, but, bluntly, I am not willing to spend time slogging through the dross in order to vote it correctly.

The challenge I issued before of going through the top-rated poetry list was just so that people would see to what things have come. I agree with Pat that the most helpful revamping to which the voting system could be subject would be to eliminate it altogether, and that's why I disabled voting on all my poems.

But on those poems that you do happen to read, is it to much to ask to vote fairly?

 

[flyguy69]

There certainly needs some gritty intellectual imput from somewhere and it needs a few less sensitive souls who are willing to take justified criticism of their work without taking offence. I think there is also room for debate about poetic styles and poetry and the roll of poetry in general. The idea that personal expression is a defence for all sorts of rubbish is a nonsense if you take your writing seriously. There should be no reason why there can't be an intellectual ding dong about poetry and everybody remaining on good terms. I would welcome some hard edged input into the community and give as good as I get without fear of the whole thing deteriorating into a slanging match. We are all adults after all.

I am a champion here for subverting threads to my own prurient ends
but agree, BB. And, frankly, there is nothing preventing this sort of discourse right now. If you have input, give it. If you want it, ask.

Folks that are only here for ego-strokes will quickly disappear.

 

[flyguy69]

The challenged I issued before of going through the top-rated poetry list was just so that people would see to what things have come. I agree with Pat that the most helpful revamping to which the voting system could be subject would be to eliminate it altogether, and that's why I disabled voting on all my poems.

But on those poems that you do happen to read, is it to much to ask to vote fairly?

Are you implying that I don't? I'm gonna get all huffy!

No, it is not too much to ask, but it introduces another unfairness: one poem about an aboriginal slut-girl gets downgraded because I happened to read it, while the rest of the tedious series remains unscathed.

(I've got to run some errands! Back later!)

 

[Liar]

I have posted my scale for voting before:

5 = a poem I wish I had written
4 = a better than average poem (for the poet if well known to me; for Literotica if not)
3 = average (for poet or site)
2 = below average (for poet or site) with few errors
1 = a “2” that is full of errors (spelling, grammatical, etc.)

I pretty much like this, except that I try hard to not let the poet rather than the poem decide anyhing. Meaning that a 4 is a 4 regardless if I'm familiar with the poet or not.

My only problem is that I rarely read and vote on all poems. Maybe once/week. Can't say why really...it just doesn't happen. And then that day has passed, and there are new poems to look on.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

No, it is not too much to ask, but it introduces another unfairness: one poem about an aboriginal slut-girl gets downgraded because I happened to read it, while the rest of the tedious series remains unscathed.

You gotta start somewhere...

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Anyway. That's enough talking for one day. Now, go write some poetry, people.

 

[wildsweetone]

keeping positive and useful...

You know what would be a cool idea...

What if, we started a thread here where we sign in and vote on each other's work. the catch is, if we vote, we are to state what we liked and disliked about the poem. Each and every poem we vote on we comment on. But, we do it in here, somehow.

Leave the standard Lit voting and commenting system alone. We can also vote and comment there if we so wish. But those of us wanting more discerning feedback should sign up and give and receive better feedback.

Any thoughts?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

That would be a cool idea, Wild. Maybe not every poem, but it should be easy to get something like that going for a group of poems, maybe like what they do on the SDC forum.

I'll start a thread once I have a little bit of time.

 

[CharleyH]

(review coming up)

Ahh, this looks like my kind of thread! I am looking forward to giving it some time and some thought.

 

[CharleyH]

As a strong and early advocate of critical thought, I would like to point a few things out.

I take issue with your assumption that the first 10 votes are from friends, whereas anything over 10 are legitimate, if it a fact of life, some have more friends than others and some are more active in soliciting. [/quote)

Well, there must be some kind of criteria, and while not 'all' first ten votes are from "friends" I would agree that the first ten votes are more than likely from people who love you, hate you or are at least familiar with you. There are many reads on poems, but hardly as many votes. Like qualifying anything, there has to be some sort of 'cap' that cou be suggestive of a reasonable 'score' if you will - just as 1000 opinions do a statistic sampling make. Of course 1000 votes on poetry would be a difficult thing to aceive.

Location has an impact on views and votes, things posted near the top get looked at first, if alot of things are posted, I am sure, things that are buried, get looked at less. If it is mentioned, it gets looked at more, and more votes.

Yes. Anything has an impact, but I disagree that simply because it is mentioned - it gets a read plus more votes, and this is my personal experience. I have as many votes on a poem that was mentioned as I do on a poem that was not mentioned. I also write poems under another name, and that alt gets just as many votes as I do, even though the alt never posts.

Illustrated, and Audio will get more views and votes, as they are always near the top and we are dealing with a rather simplistic audience here. I have no personal experiance in either, but I ask those that do if there is some truth in this.

Having done an audio ... hm ... well 1201, to tell you the truth I never look that often, but last time I did, it had as many votes as anything else I have ever written poetry-wise. Simplistic audience? It was a very tongue in cheek little ditty, and those who got the biting sarcasm were precious to me, and since I can only think of aybe one who did not, I would suggest that person liked my voice and didn't get the gist of it all.

Reviewers will get more views and votes, two reasons I suspect, people vote and and comment to draw attentionto their work (this is human nature) and Reviewers are seldom Not Mentioned. Again, I ask those that have reviewed and quit if this does not seem to be true.

Ya, I got bombed repeatedly, but then of course, I left honest comments mixed with good and bad on other poems that I did not mention those times when I reviewed. LOL

The real problems are too many "fans", the encoragement of "fans", the abject refusal to accept anything less than" this is so wonderful" from anybody that is not a "fan".

We are all fans of something or another, and in my experience of having fans (more from stories than poems ) they are fans precisely because they love the style. Angelina Jolie can make a crap movie, but it does not mean we give her performance less than a ten. Some of my 'fans' do vote on my poems, some don't, and some IM me and say "well, I didn't like this because ... but I still love it because .... Can a person have too many fans? Not until they become obsessive, I guess. I keep in touch with my fans, and if people write (short of I want to fuck you) I write back, and encourage feedback both good or ill, and I am lucky enough to ha a few fans who do just that. In fact, they get advanced copies these days ... and feel free to write me back and say what didn't do it for them. I usually listen - but not always.

As a fan of others, I do in fact usually try to tell them what I think of a poem, but I assess something more based on content than form.

Not to take away from Neo's place in the sun, but take a look at the top choice here, a picture of a good looking woman and a tree, well done, with a sediment that is easliy accessible, illustrated, by a reviewer, with a good fan base, who hasn't made many enemies with some poetic moments. What's not to like.

I fully intend to give my thoughts on the poem at hand, unless I don't get to it before a new one is up. I know of Neo, have had some contact, but will give Neo as much of my honest opinion as possible, just as I would with anyone fan of them or not. For certainly I do not think that some of the shit I, myself churn out is worth praise, and I know that not every person will have the same opinion of a poem I believe is my best.

I think in saying popular, you are in some way missing the point. I think it is much more in tune to the critical threads that you once posted, just in a 'one poem at a time way'. Nonetheless, some interesting points to ponder, 1201.

 

[wildsweetone]

course marking criteria deleted.

 

[Rybka]

Referring to my previous post on this thread:

I pretty much like this, except that I try hard to not let the poet rather than the poem decide anyhing. Meaning that a 4 is a 4 regardless if I'm familiar with the poet or not.
. . .

Liar, the only reason I differentiate between known and unknown poet, is that if I didn't then some poets (yourself included) would never get less than a 4 because their work is always (IMO) above the average quality found on the New Poems board. However, you will surely admit that not all of your poems are of equal quality. By voting a 3 on a poem of yours I am saying that it is not one of your best (again IMO). It is still very probably better than 50% of the poems posted that day. - Don't you want to know this? You aren't just out for uncritical adulation/praise I am certain.