The Voting System

I'm rather against the whole voting system.
Honestly, why do we have to judge poetry by number? "I rated you a five" blah, blah, blah. The whole situation comes off as rude if you give anything below a three. And voters leave comments saying, "I won't vote, cause I don't want to bring your rating down." How is that honest? How is that judging?

It's absurd.
If the intent is to find the poems that really and truly are the best, then every person should be REQUIRED to vote. I can understand not leaving a comment due to lack of time or something. But picking and choosing when to vote or not, based only on how much you liked the poem? That just skews the data, in my opinion.

I don't know. I think it underscores the rest of us to keep this system intact.

I would love to see some mods look into this and resolve it affectively so we don't just end up complaining about it until who knows when with absolutely no results. Really now, is anyone incredibly happy with the voting system?
Bah. I hate it.

If the site could be coded so that people who wanted to slap a number value on a poem had to leave a comment of decent length which justified their rating, I'm sure that would make more sense.

Then, the ratings that cause issues, like anything below a 3, would have a small paragraph explaining why as opposed to a cold hard number which really does nothng to help people write better or understand, well anything.

When you look at it like that, what actual help does a number value give to writers, it becomes a strange thing to have at all.

I agree, scrap it, or at least make it linked to comments.

The other thing, which is linked to the above post, is that even if people try to be fair about their number votes, I think it takes a really well educated mind, with an extensive knowledge of writing to apply, accurately a numbered value on something as subjective and personal as a poem. I'm a decent writer, and I'm not half daft and I'd feel uncomfortable with placing a number next to a poem unless I knew everything about it.

how many people on here actually study the poems they read? Very few to be sure. For the most part they read them once, make a snap judgement, probably based on how much they understood and then choose a number.

not good.

Kevin my dear nice to see you around.

I agree that the voting system is aweful. Janis has talked about getting rid of the votes before; however, the majority of the members wanted to keep it.

I personally do not care about the votes... the votes will not help me grow. It is the comments that help me out on many levels.

~~Sher

I for one dislike the voting system, because it is used as a vehicle of popularity and recognition within the site.

Its quite sad actually, given the amount of times people use the votes, to reflect their own feeling towards the person who wrote the poem, rather than the poem itself.

But hey this is merely a microchosm of society, if you want your literature read, then you must do something grand to have it read.

Consider yourself seconded, Tasteless.

I hate the voting system, it used to be good, but now it's not. guys vote and comment a girl just so they can chat with them in there PM area. it is rather stupid, and girls comment and vote hoping if they do that someone will just leave a comment or vote. it is becoming political crap. and i think poetry and politics should be seperate. i am a person who loves polotics, but hate people who don't like what i like so i stay away from that. Down with the voting system!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree with Sheri Lyn, I prefer the commenting on whether someone likes my poem and not the 5/5 ratings