VOTING SYSTEM... Would love everyones input on this one

I have been going through the discussion boards and have seen tons of comments about the voting system.

I just want to open up one thread that is dedicated to sharing our views and general, pros and cons. I read somewhere that the voting system may be gotten rid of.

Before you explain your idea I think it would be good if you can just write "Keep," or "Abolish" (the voting system).

Example (as well as my actual opinion):

KEEP. I have found the voting system to work well FOR ME. This is because I have not been a victim of too much down voting. Is it really as common as people say??? Or are some of these poets just upset that they don’t get good scores and they think that they are better than they actually are?? I mean, I have personally not encountered too much of it myself.

The only problem I have found is when I am in one of the top spots in a genre and then people down vote me to knock me out.

Other than that, to be honest, rating does influence my decision to read peoples work. I also am not going to lie, I like getting good votes on my poems, and I think anyone who says that they don’t care is "fronting" to a certain extent, because everyone likes to be praised for their work.

The comments matter more, I will give you that, but the voting system is cool because it isn’t on alot of other poetry forums and what’s unique about this site is that we have one.

And for the people who "don’t care," well then they don’t need to pay attention to it, however I know that if I visit a poet’s page I don’t typically read many poems that are voted below 3s. I have found the voting system to be pretty accurate, but it’s just my personal experience.

In general I think the people on this forum have integrity, except for a few plagiarizers who really give the rest of us a bad name and make people not want to post their stuff, therefore I encourage people to do the right thing and vote constructively.

Thanks for taking the time to talk about this.

Abolish.

I agree with you Kaitlin, but the voting system doesn't really influence my decision to read work or not.
I have found that, whilst I say I write my poems as a release of my feelings, that when people mark them down I get quite annoyed. It's not the fact that they've voted them down, It's the fact they've not left a comment to justify their reasons.
I think people sometimes mark mine down to take me off the top spot and things, which I'm not bothered about so long as they tell me WHY they don't like my poems.
I don't know about anyone else, I like the voting system. Getting recognition for something as simple as my poetry, gives me some kind of comfort I suppose.

Bob, I take strong issue with you in saying that "we" have abused the system.

It is a very tiny percentage of people here who are abusing the voting system. And it is likewise an equally small percentage of people that are responsible for the other abuses that go on here. The effect they have is just far out of proportion to their number.

This is not a matter of collective guilt.

Well I do respect your opinions even when I disagree with you. I may have been way off the mark if, based on what you are saying, there is data in evidence of widespread voting abuse which only a few people are aware of. But if that is the case, then we can't really hold an informed discussion about this.

I think it would be great if the moderators would be willing to offer a break down.... Could anyone arrange that? I think that if we are to make fair arguments and really discuss this that the statistics would speak for themselves.
Love Kaitlin Kristina

i say keep, wats the big deal if the votes dont reflect ur work? if they dont y is everybody so worried? if ur voted/rating btheres u, u cant handle the jandal can u?

KEEP, definatly. i've said numerous times before my reasons for this, and if was got rid of, i don't believe i'd find the site as excellant as i have done for other a year now. it was one of the things that attracted me to this site rather than others, because we can vote. I LOVE VOTING FAIRLY. that's all i have to say.

peace x

KEEP. ditto to everything Kaitlin said-almost...i don't really go by that when reading at first-but if i do click a poem that has a low rating and i dislike it after the first stanza-then i guess the voting system was true...lol...well i really wana keep it because I like it.

unfortunately, no, the mods cannot do a break down of anything.... That would be something that only Janis or Dainz would have access to.

thats right...we only do anything with the forums....and my vote would be for abolish. I too believe it's just become a popularity contest for the most part..you vote someone a 5, they return the favor(not ALL but MANY times) out of a sense of 'owing us' or one poet is a particular favorite and gets 5s consistently with hardly a glimpse over the words of the poem..just my 2 cents...which is almost 4 pence in English pounds so... ;) ha .Michelle

I'm open, if i vote low, most of the time i give a reason, sometimes i don't have time but that's not just for low votes. i haven't actually had the much trouble with people repaying me either good or bad. i did before, but it seems to have eased.

i find the voting system rather good. i think if you don't like it, you should ignore it.

i read a poem if the title catches my eye, not what the vote says, the voting is to let the author know what the public think, so to speak, and to place poems on the home pages of each category. to get rid of the votes would be getting rid of a huge part of the site, and therefore plummeting the site into the kind of state of that allpoetry.com james daron starr went to, which i found a really bad site.

we don't want that.

peace to all you good folk x x x x

Just for the record I think (I may have before and not noticed) I really encountered my first harsh and blatant down vote! I guess I joined the club, lol.

Regardless there will be good with the bad; I mean every system is full of dysfunction and defection to a certain extent.

I also don’t vote other people 5's just because they give me a 5, however I don’t like to vote under a 3 even if I think they deserve it, so I tend to up-vote if anything. I guess that makes up for the down voters out there, but now when I don’t think it’s a 4 or a 5 I don’t vote at all. That’s how I deal...

Oh, and by the way Bob, I would give that at least a 3 ;) lol

Love Kaitlin Kristina

lol. Well as I said, I tend to up vote if anything! I mean, the way I see it the voting system is like this:

5: Very good (but I think that the 5's get used too much, I do this too)
4: Pretty nice, above average
3:Not bad but not impressive
2: You shouldn’t have posted that and risked the embarrassment lol
1: What were you on when you wrote and posted that?

Thats what I say when I vote lol.

So see, Bob, I gave that a 3 because the rhyming was good, but it wasnt anything earth shattering and impressive, however I also tend to vote on kind of a sliding scale and what the poet is capable of, so knowing your word it would be a 1 ;)

Yes, I did mean work. Thank you :).

Abolish...."voting" for a poem is a joke, I have stated many times before, how can someone rate your opinion or strong feelings on what you write about? You can tell basically what people think of your work by taking the time to comment..voting needs to go.

the voting system is fine i dnt get why you brought up this topic email me ur response bubbles_1989_9@hotmail.com

Actually the reason that I brought up the topic is because it is frequently brought up all the time, look through the various discussion boards and see for yourself. It is one of the most prevalent things talked about on this site.

Plus there are so many pointless other topics on here... why do you think that it shouldnt be brought up? You think we should keep it, thanks for your opinion. Now go comment on some other "pointless" post.

Im not meaning to bitchy, but obviously alot of people have issues with it. Read about it yourself.

Thank you

KEEP...i mean i love it that we can vote, and I like seeing the new votes I have and what people think and if they comment I like going and voting on their poems 2.

abolish

Keep - but the same as comments system...you write a comment you can see who wrote it - same with voting I think it would encourage more fair voting

KEEP

But maybe some changes should be made? I don't know how but in a way that maybe people who abused the system were unable to vote for a while, maybe?

Just a suggestion, x

KEEP lol dont take it away fix up any probs ppl hav with it