Thanks Dec 2011 - Feb 2012 Site Judges!

This term was half as long as previous terms, and boy oh boy, did it blow by fast or what!?
The level of commitment and degree of volunteer work displayed was SUBSTANTIAL.
3 months of reading through every week's nomination pages, 3 months of choosing and ranking the 3 best poems every single week, and 3 months of crafting thorough, analytical, intelligent anonymous weekly comments for winners, honorable mentions, and readers to admire and adore!

You gone n' done us proud, judges. Thank you, truly, for being awesome.

If you'd like to reveal yourselves so members can thank you properly, please do so in this thread ;)

YOU ROCK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcfqDPAy7zc

Hehehe...

Was a pleasure... (the first two weeks, lmao)
I learned to mask myself a little I guess?..
they were some poems that made go
"DEM GAIS" but if I wrote that then -.-t

Good luck new Judges...:)

Yane deserves a pinch of the cheeks for that darn song...LMAO

Loved the challenge and the honour,
Good luck to the new judges.

Thanks for the hard work and thoughtful comments, week after week!

Thanks for the dedication, judges! It's been a pleasure reading your thoughtful comments week after week.

Yeah guys, thank you so much. We've all sub judged a few times, and know how much work it is. I don't know how you do it every week! Thanks for the commitment, and the good communication. You're off the hook for a while, now!

Thank you judges for all the hard work you poured into the nominating and voting these last three months! :] You all did a amazing job!! :]

Woo hoo thank you to the amazing judges!!!

You guys were awesome. Thanks for your time and effort

x

Where's the weekly winners thread for this week?

I really enjoyed the awesome comments... You all did a wonderful job- Thank you Judges :-)

Thank you!

Thanks judges for the dedication and effort you put in every week! You are all awesome. Yay :)

Yaki? You were a judge? and yet you put yourself into exile? How did that work with the judging for the remainder of your time?

Hellon, not sure where the weekly winner's thread went. I hope Nana is ok.

Mods covered for Yaki the last 3 weeks.

Well that's interesting...mods have covered Yaki's spot in the past three weeks and in that time well....how many of you guys (mods) have won???

Judges, all of you were doing such an awesome job! Your dedication is praise worthy, you all di your best and showed your will for a better cooperation...working with you was awesome!

This week there were no sub judges, only 3 judges voted, was emergency.. so well done for sib, the judges were fond of your work for this week, i will be elaborating more in the weekly winners thread, i couldnt post it jjust yet, my laptop is broke, been signing in using my phone, im going out in an hour, ill pass by a nearby net cafe and post the thread !

3 judges, you're kidding me!

and TARA, you mean that you were a judge?

There are GUYS judging, who are they? I can feel from their comments.

Thanks judges for the effort, it is dearly appreciated. I can't even imagine how tough it would be to pick the best out of that pool of poems.

Yes, Abed, I was a judge, Is that such a shock? :P

A positive one..
I mean i could never trace your style in commenting, unlike othe
rs ... U did a gr8 job

Hellon, we rigged the contest, voted specifically for each other, and the 5 mods are the new 5 judges ;)
Wahahaha

Thanks again, judges! Good work!

Congratulations to the winners and other HM's!!!

Thank you for your lovely comment on my poem, it means a lot to me.

x

From a poet's POV, it was a really good experience judging this contest week after week. It gave me a better drive to thoroughly read the work of others. I found a lot of gems - we have some amazing artists in our community here on PnQ. I feel like being a judge here even helped me grow as a writer. I'm really glad that I got the chance to do this. :D

I guess I am the last one to uncloak. However much I hate to do this, I guess it is only appropriate for me to reveal myself. I found myself in the judges chair most unexpectedly, being very unworthy of such a task. But, then I tried my best to put my non-poetic analytic brain to perform the task assigned, to see how I fare in this kind of a new challenge, put to me by the nominators last November. Never did judging for poetry contest before, though I have done plenty of review and analyses elsewhere. So indeed, thank you all for giving me the privilege.

Foremost, my apologies for all those worthy poets/poetesses who put in their hard work and did not win during the time of my judging. I am happy to take the blame. At least I tried. Each week, I had many more than 5 that were on my top winners shortlist ( I am happy to disclose that in another thread if people would like to look at), and I was so disappointed that I could only pick 3. Hence, I found judging to be so unfair. I still wish for at least 5 winners each week.

Second, I have to congratulate all the nominees, winners and HM in the contest for their labor of love. You folks were all winners, in my eyes and I really enjoyed reading all of the 40-50 poems each week, despite the time it took out of my life (>6 hrs, each week). Often, I tried to put myself in your imagination to see what were you thinking when composing your art to fully appreciate your art, and that is really what slowed me down. Nevertheless, I think it was well worth it.

Lastly, if you would like to see all my judging comments posted together in one thread, to analyze/criticize my judging, and at the same time discuss/interpret your own work on that thread, I will be more than happy to do the extra labor. It will also double my incentive to go and post all my comments to your poem personally. (I will just charge you guys for the time I took to comment on your wonderful works at my professional rate...ha ha! just kidding). So if at least 5 people agree to critically analyze/interpret their own judged poems, against my comments, I will be happy to oblige. I will love to be educated and learn from your criticisms/discussions of your poem in that thread.
I will also encourage all judges who wish to learn from the feedback to do the same, if possible, so that future judges (as against writers) can learn to be better than us, when interpreting or misinterpreting someone else's art.

I figured out Yaki, Tara Kay and Lonely by their comments. Jordan you masked well, as did the other judge I think. No clue you were in it :)

Thanks guys for all your hard work!

Lol Jane haha

Lastly, if you would like to see all my judging comments posted together in one thread, to analyze/criticize my judging, and at the same time discuss/interpret your own work on that thread, I will be more than happy to do the extra labor

^^^

Yip...I'd like to see them....

I favorited all the weekly threads during my judging so I could have my comments...I was like..oh hell naw, aint no woman gon spend an hour writing comments for them to go lost.. X0x0

Its good to read comments etc about the weekly contest/judging /nominations etc -can be informative /educational for an ordinary member like me..............it.is a learning experience so its good for people to question the procedure in order to get some answers or clarification. There are people who are unhappy about it ......so let's be mindful of what they say (the ones who do ) and ensure that the contest is always FAIR and not rigged in any subtle way .

Agreed. But, it is equally important for the judges to be transparent in what they do to be respected and renominated again. Complete transparency, often eliminates any shadow of doubt from the minds of the readers, when they see what the judge saw. The aim of the thread is not going to be, "why I din't win" or "my poem was better than hers/his" but yet the judge voted otherwise. I know my limitations and where I will be criticized, but a healthy criticism up front is better than stabs in the back. Again this is completely voluntary, I am willing to do it, to learn myself, but it is not required or needed for any outgoing judge.

I think it would be interesting to see and think it is a wonderful idea you have.

I agree it is a very good thing for the judges to be transparent in their thought process for picking winners. Not why they didn't pick this poem or that one.

Perhaps it could help us in the way we should view a poem.