Down voting and consequences?

Alright, i was rating the poems of one of my friends and they put out 4 bad poems in a row, so instead of voting wrongly by automatically giving them a 5 on each I voted as their poems seemed to me and I got a message saying if I continue voting bad numbers for them then i'd be penalized or whatever

how lame is that? i'm sorry if I have a tendency to tell the truth it's a flaw

"It seems that you are trying to down-vote this member! Your votes have been removed and your behavior has been logged. If you continue down-voting, your account(s) will be suspended."

So what should I do? lie? you can read their recent poems for yourself, they aren't that great. I mena i'd hope someone rated me bad if I came up with a terrible poem or two, which i'd have to say I have alot, atleast in my opinion

I seriously think we should just get RID of the voting system. it doesn't do any good.

The guy did put a comment, i know, because the person he was down voting is my sister. you are looking at it as if the person actually looks at the coments and fixes them. She won't listen, if my number is low on a poem, i re-read and fix the problem, if someone tells me its bad, i just call them a jerk. so my opinion is that we get rid of the voting system, and if someone does get down voted who cares, only people with no life cares about the numbers.
Signed Gracefully
Poetry Knight

How about just not bother rating the poems and just comment them instead?

1. she's a friend so I DO read all her stuff and I DO comment on all her stuff

2. she has some good work but she gets caught up in throwing poems out that are not well planned or executed

3. even if we do have downvoters for every one downvoter there are atleast ten true voters so downvoting matters little and I think it should be abolished

I vote for the quality of each poem because it affest ME when people vote on my poems, i'm constantly at war with myself over how I might make my poems better and how I might raise my rank even though I prefer people to comment on my peoples

So basically don't vote or lie because you're not removing the down voting system

seems cruel and wrong but it's not like I can do anything about it

I can kind of agree to the abolishment of the voting.
But honestly, I don't think this site should change it.
I know the site is based on poetry and people are going to be people, you cannot please everyone. Next you're going to get posts of
"this person didn't leave enough words in a comment"
I would just propose stop trying to be a people pleaser.
I don't mean that out of disrespect. So don't take that out of context.

This is true, and no problem.
You could be pretty funny by getting rid of the rating numbers 1 and 2. But that's only my sense of humor.
Or you could just have a button that says "I like this poem"
And "I don't like this poem"

I like that last idea

but seriously, i don't go through this person's poems and put 1's and 2's on all of them, she'll post a poem and i'll put my honest opinion, she and another person always put fives on each others poetry so they have higher rates than they deserve, I say get rid of the voting system all together, people may moan and cry about it but it gets rid of a big hassle

That is a very good point

My favourite poem is my lowest rated and some Im not happy with are rated highly. In the end who really cares.

I believe the bulk of poems on this site are pretty poor. My poems are confusing to others because in a way I used poetry as a way of destressing and coping. My poems are part of me and as such mean alot to me.

People do down vote, and people up vote there friends. Who in there right mind is going to leave a comment saying a particular poem is poor when they will only attract a low score in revenge.

End the end be proud of your own poems and enjoy others work and forget about the scoring system.

Their are many flaws with voting. with annoying down voters. but you just gotta live thru it and if their poems suck you should write down a few ways to make it better. comments are the way to go. :)

David

Truth is some times we want someone to tell us that the poem was horrible. Too many people vote because they feel they have to give the other person confidence. Unfortunately, there are some that vote just to bring down the rating. I think that's unfair, but you have to take the good with the bad. If people vote your poem out of jealousy or to bring down the rating, you can always delete it.

I disagree with the people who say we should stop the vote rating of poems but totally agree that the voter should comment before voting if it is going to be a low vote so the poet benefits from the comments and he gets to see who it was who voted him down and has a chance to reply if he thinks it is necessary or he requires further information. It can't be that difficult to arrange that the server software takes it in when this occurs and if the comment isn't completed his vote does not register, is this a possibility? was the original software a bought package or did the site owner write it himself or has he a person who can do this ? Ray Smallshaw

Amanda thanks for your prompt comments and I agree that something needs to be done about the scoring system but we do not want our voters to be afraid of being honest as the fact that we do not all like the same poetry and so we vote accordingly. I therefore think it is probably best that we leave the system as it is and moderators like yourself do such a wonderful job that should suffice. I agree most scoring systems of this type can be manipulated by the vindictive, that is why I still think the poet should have the right to reply.

The problem a mix of human nature and a poorly designed voting system

Firstly who has been insulted and not taken offense... ok Jesus, mohammad and budda you can put your hands down but every one else its just human nature to want to get even. Therefore downvoting

Likewise if we were being honest most poems would get 3s there would be a few 4s and 2s and the occasional 1 and 5. But this site has a scoring system that allows anything and everything. You need to limit the praise to mean that only the best get major rewards and limit the critism to comments that are constructive

So instead of coming up with same rhetoric, fix the problem, Id rather hear your solutions than your whining