Suggestion Box

OK, folks,
We've had time to walk around in this new site for a few months. Now we need to tell Janis where we are bumping our heads and bruising our shins.
What changes need to be made here to make it more workable and interesting?

EDIT: PLEASE COMMENT
- if things are not on the list suggest them
- if you think things should move up, tell us

- restore the Mod tools

- GET THE CLUBS BACK TO FULL STATUS

- Add a comment section to the three complaint areas in mod tools so a mod can apprise the other mods of action pending such as waiting for response to email

- fix contest issues - let judges vote for poems they nominated - ? perhaps give senior members 1 or 2 more nominations - ? add criteria of longevity to gain senior member status (if they've been here THAT long ...)

- Fix the collaboration links on posted poems

- Reinstate the search tool for discussion forums.

- reinsert the "visited" count on poems

- a timestamp on the forum entries & a clock on the site showing PnQ time

- Add user name recovery to password recovery feature

- Add a 'J' reward for judging. Pink for once a judge, blue for twice, gold three and platinum 4 times or more.

- Fix poem count glitch (new members can post multiple poems but will either be credited for 0 or 1

- Provide for Club Managers to be able to transfer their powers to another when they leave a club. When a club manager quits & then comes back, allow her to regain her manager status. On the same note, if a club manager leaves without transferring powers, allow for a way that the mods can transfer these powers to a member selected by the club.

- Streamline the discussion forums to Poetry, General, Contests and Feedback. ALT: Merge forums: - all 4 under poetry talk merged into "Everything Poetry" (no one really looks for poems, and no one really utilizes poetry websites & contests" - "meet the community members" & "Members' Message forum" merged into "Members Forum" (the former isn't used much anymore" - "Love and Romance" & "Friendship" & "Fun and Humor" merged into "Light hearted talks"? (something along those lines)" - "Sadness & Depression" renamed to "Support forum" & "other" forum merged into members forum" (again not used much).

- "Previous" and "next" buttons to maneuver through a list of poems (such as your own poems, those of another, contest nominations, etc.)

- ability to download your entire profile, poems, PMs, list of friends & favorites, your topics, etc a'la facebook:

- Add security to the passwords on the database (they should be hashed, and then stored at the minimum). But allow access by mods (it should take two or more to do so) so we can respond to requests from returning members who have forgotten their passwords.

- Automatic warning to people who send out the same message to multiple members s/he has not contacted before (anti-spam).

- Change the login home page back to new activity from my favourites

- restore "newest-post-first" format for threads

- Add award for "most nominated wins" for the person(s) nominating a winning poem to give people more reason to be reading poetry as opposed to just posting it:

1 Nominated Win = Bronze “N” Award; 5? Nominated Wins = Silver; 20? Nominated Wins = Gold; 50? Nominated Wins = Platinum

- Add 'discard poem' and 'shortlist poem' tools for judges to help sort through the poems.

- Add an 'Are you sure you want to vote for this poem?' Message to help avoid accidental votes being cast by a weekly contest judge

- Get a notification if someone replies to your comment, your post, or praises your comment. (It makes your account feel more active and encourages participation. )

- Allow a judge to change his vote on a poem (both to correct mistakes & allow for editing improvements).

- implement a WYSIWYGE (what you see is what you get editor) i.e tinymce to allow poets to have more control over formatting of poem, or at the minimum allow whitespace as valid characters, the ability to bold and italicize words as a compromise (can use markdown for that) see https://simplemde.com/

- Set up a "notice button" when a new message arrives while you're on-line.

- Allow editing of Thread titles by mods and club thread titles by club manager.

- Ability to see who has marked which of your poems as their favorites.

- Make the Front Page Quotes display change up regularly. perhaps the most liked recent quotes

- Sign out automatically after a period of inactivity (~ 1/2 hour)

- Dim the mass Message after reading + get notification there is a mass message

- set up a Favorite Comments tab on the right by Favorite Poems

- Give the Mods some ability to create new icons recognizing poems &/or members - can require multiple mod approval.

- Allow the initial letter of a poem to be lower case

- A quote function on the forums would be nice.

The only thing I would like to see happen is making it possible to link collaboration poems, please and thank you.

Clubs again! Unless i am missing something?

I agree with Andrea. Not being able to collaborate 'officially' is a real step backwards, in my opinion.

Every time I get a PM from the mod account/site wide PM thinger, even after reading, it stays highlighted as though it's unread.

Surely not a major problem, but probably an easy fix? lol

Definitely agree with Andrea about collaborations and Jamie about getting clubs up and running properly.

I definitely agree with Andrea and also with the need for our clubs to be sorted out lol.

Other than that, personally I haven't seen anything too annoying or buggy.

Keep it coming folks

Loving the new PnQ.

Please reinstate the search tool for discussion forums. There are a few old favourite threads I like to go and visit. And/or reinstate the 'favourite' tool for discussion threads.

Add 'discard poem' and 'shortlist poem' tools for judges to help sort through the poems.

Get a notification if someone replies to your comment (or does this already happen?). Or even to your post. Or praises your comment. It makes your account feel more active and encourages participation.

Have Judge awards. (Award judges.)

I also used to like seeing the login home page have any new activity from my favourites come up. I often forget to look there now.

Streamline the discussion forum to Poetry, General, Contests and Feedback.

Awesome ideas, all. I'm on board.

Just realised you can still favourite threads by clicking Follow. Still discovering new features.

For the mobile version, I would really appreciate a timestamp on the forums. I use my cell phone more than my laptop to come on here, and I stay away from the forums because I have to go in and click on each thread to see if there's a new post.

Thorough restatement of the issues at the top.

PLEASE COMMENT
- if things are not on the list suggest them
- if you think things should move up, tell us

It is already on the list but I just want to add my two cents... so I'm just repeating it. Add the counter for how many times a poem has been visited.

Thanks

I think the list covers what I wanted to suggest. Thanks, Larry.

Under the quote button in front page always appear the same quotes. It never changes. One could see how boring it is to read the same quotes, no matter how good, on and on for more than , already, three month. Site looks like an abandoned barn in that section.
And I can not think of any reason: Is it because they are the highest liked quotes? It could not be the case, first because they got most of their likes while they were their - they are the first quotes (in some cases the only ones) everyone sees. - Second, the 20/30 next quotes, which are mostly from the same two writers, score a purview of “likes” from 25 to even 0. So, the reason could not be the amount of likes otherwise the likes number would be decreasing in the same ratio. Also if a zero could get there, why not any other quotes rating zero?
But if even the like scores were the case, keeping them there forever is meaningless, because it blocks the visitors and members, specially new ones, of seeing how interesting other member’s quotes are, never mind inclining discrimination against them, for who we are fooling, we all know what comes to the eyes is what counts.
In the end, if the quotes in front page is about highest liked, which is proved is less likely, they should, like the poetry section, be weekly, even biweekly or monthly replaced.

What are published on that section are I think the quotes that are most liked. Maybe change that part with latest quotes so we can read new quotes everyday.

Change the quotes Added to the list

How about a timed out thing where it logs you off instantly if you're not active for say 1/2 hour because many times I close the page but still I am active therefore people think I'm active and possibly when we do infact sign out sign us out straight away as often I've gone to contact someone albeit not important as they're still on to go back to their page and it says last visit 20 mins ago...

I feel I have the right to reply to this as I am one of those. I have to admit to being entirely in agreement. I've often thought having the same three quotes on the front page week in and week out demeans the site and other great authors in general. It's actually become rather embarrassing, lol. I think a 'popular recent quotes' (like the poems) would be best.

"It's actually become rather embarrassing"
I never doubted you would feel that way Ben, because I know how a gentleman thinks.
Also I have read your quotes; how good they are, this one would hardly rate average amongst them. ( f0r me)

Thanks Larry.

Good job, guys. I'm all for these suggestions!

I think the weekly contest needs an upgrade somewhat. I don't know if these can be done though.

Is there away to make it so that only one or two poems per person can be nominated? It makes my stomach a little unsettled when i see 4 or 5 poems by the same person nominsted each week. It would hopefully let others get a shine.

Also i suggest that we cut off nominations thursday night instead of saturday afternoon, it gives time for judges to actually read the poems nominated. I feel cutting it off saturday leaves it open to poems being unread. And votes frankly being wasted.

We're open to input on limiting noms, but any such decision by the members will require Janis to implement it.

Drawbacks: if two inferior poems by one member are quickly nominated, it could prevent a truly worthy one from consideration.
Also, there's no cap on total nominations, so good poems should be nominated even if several are by one artist
My own process is to run down the first four or five pages of new poems and choose the best. If I can't decide the nomination goes to the artist I know the least
********************
Re the cutoff: nominations cut off late Friday night. One change Janis made is that the judges cannot vote until after the cut off.

Sir Larry, I completely agree with what Jamie mentioned about the nomination of the poems, that we should only allow 2 poems of the same poet.

And Sir, the drawback you mentioned about doing that also seems right.
What if the poet right something extraordinary than his last two poems which are already nominated. In this case, his third one the extra ordinary one won't be nominate. This is the drawback. And we are glad you saw it.

Plus Sir, there is one more thing, first of all I am not in the favor of cutting the poems from the nomination list.

Cutting someone's poem from the list will only give discouragement to that poet and to that person who has nominated it. The person who nominated the poem will also think that the choice/taste is inferior.

Not everyone born as a poet, we all learn from our mistakes. All we need is a little encouragement and we get that when our poems get nominated.
And it's OK if we lose, if we don't win the contest, and it's OK if we see someone writes better than us. At least in this way, it encourages us to think better, write better, so that next time we become the contest winner.

Sir, give another thought about cutting off the poems even from the nomination list...

Sir, It's just a request to you...

After all you know better than any of us here..

Thank you for listening to us.

I'm not too keen on placing a limit on how many poems of author X can be nominated, Larry mentioned most of my reasons why. I'm not a big fan of telling people how to use their nomination votes (which is essentially what's being done, since they wouldn't be able to nominate a poem if two other poems by the same author were already nominated). Another thing I wanted to note was that, previously on the old site, one poem was allowed to be nominated by more than one person, and on the new site only one person can nominate a poem, and I think that was a beneficial change, there's a lot more poems being nominated now, the nomination page is pretty diverse, a lot of familiar poets and new poets alike. Every single poet that has the nominator status can vote for THREE UNIQUE POEMS a week, this times idk lets say 20 active members should net 60 unique poems being nominated for the weekly contest.

There were only 27 nominations this week:

Larry Chamberlin - 3 nominations
Scott Cole - 3 nominations
mossgirl19 - 3 nominations
myself - 3 nominations
deeplydesturbed - 3 nominations
brenda - 3 nominations
milly hayward - 2 nominations
beautiful tragedy - 1 nomination
maher - 1 nomination
maple tree - 1 nomination
cassie hughes - 1 nomination

There's quite a bit of people only nominating one poem, and others making use of all three votes, interesting to note all the nominations came from 11 people. If you want the nomination page to be 'less crowded' with poems by author X, then the best way to go about that is to be more active and nominate the poems that you think should be nominated. There's a lot of members capable of nominating, but don't for whatever reason. I think there's usually something like 30 poems nominated each week and it's usually less than 15 members doing the nominating. Like Larry mentioned, there's no hard cap on how many poems can be nominated, if you don't agree with a poem being nominated, then nominate a poem that you think is worthy. There's a panel of five judges, each with differing tastes in poetry, it shouldn't be far-fetched to think one of those judges will choose the poem you selected. Anyways, just my two cents.

and Lucifer, what Jamie and Larry meant by cutting off was the time to nominate, not the actual poems. I'm not exactly sure what time it is, but every week on Friday at 00:00 gmt (somewhere around that time), you can no longer nominate a poem for the weekly contest. This is to allow judges enough time to vote, and judges cannot vote until 14:00 GMT. This was introduced with the site makeover to ensure that judges have read through all the poems and have had adequate time to make their top three.

Thanks senyru.

Actually, I thought that cutting off would be like the poems no longer appeared in the nomination list anymore.

And if it's so it would really hurt at both ends: those who get nominated and those who nominated the poem.

I totally disagree with limiting the number of nomination from one poet to two or to any number too, even though I understand how annoying sometimes it could be for the other members. First, we must give the benefit of doubt (as Larry also mentioned) that the judges would look beyond any other consideration but the quality of each poem individually regardless. second any poet has his/her ups and downs and sometime goes to an inspirational spree and keep on creating wonderful works for a while and then stop, so, who is going to compensate him/her for the dry seasons fallows. So, it is very unfair that we disregard the individual greatness of each poem for any reason but the eminence of the vary poem. praising poem only for their individual goods would encourage the other members to raise the quality of the works instead of being annoyed with why others get more attention than they do. Because putting too much emphasis on any other consideration but the work itself is wrong, is vanity, it is promoting pride and reputation instead of literature. In extreme cases it is like blaming Shakespeare why he produced so many solid works and over shadowed other writers.
But if someone thinks that some members get more attention because they have more friends, they are members of particular clubs, they know how to sell their works better than others, by keep on complimenting everyone’s poem only to stage their own, only for the reason of good networking, or only because they are well established and their works are so familiar and cozy to others, yes, I agree there are degrees of problems here. But these problems would only be addressed by evolving the quality of our judging panels through individual and collective endorsements and encouragements. And by sincerely accepting that all the wining and nominating are not absolute and subject to so many human errors, and so many good works still go undetected in this site and any other sites in that matter.
In the end, my reason here is regardless to my own benefit, first because I do not behave the way to attract any attention but the quality of my work. Second, I am not in the list of those popular poets, most likely if even I could, because I shy away from it. So, anything I say here is not for the sake of my own. I am only defending what I think is right.

Well said, Frank.

I think Jamie has a point. If we limit two poems per poet in our nominations it would certainly mean more poems are nominated, from more writers. That is the only rationale behind the suggestion. We should not bring up whether the poem was inferior or good, as nomination is the judgment of the person nominating and of that we have no control.

Let us also not site anything here that will weaken the integrity of our weekly contests, such as suggesting that our judges may have the heart to skip reading some poems if they are nominated late and votes being wasted. Our judging panel, are diverse and to their preferences we have no control either. Everything Frank said has merit.

Also, I personally believe that giving feedback is important. Good or bad, this site is supposed to be a community where poets learn how their works are interpreted by other minds and hopefully gain wisdom from it. I love giving feedback and in many instances, my comments do not remain on the page...but is taken as inspiration to write more. We are here to grow as much as we are here to showcase what we have.

Poetry never dies, but the poets are parched. There is no vanity in giving and receiving feedback...no, I am not vain enough not to admit I like my works to receive feedback and be appreciated.

We can limit the nominations to two poem per poet, but how do we cope for the remaining slots if only a handful of people are posting their works every week?

You said: " I think Jamie has a point. If we limit two poems per poet in our nominations it would certainly mean more poems are nominated, from more writers. That is the only rationale behind the suggestion."

I see you point and the ration behind it. It make sense to certain extend, but my argument is: the amount of poems would not change, the amount of the poets who get nominated, would. And you are right it could be the means of encouragement for less popular poets ( such as me). But it also brings the quality of the works down, by discriminating against poems based on the number of the writes' other nominated works, not based on the quality of the work itself. If we disregard a good poem in that fashion, ( or for any other reason in that matter) it mean we consequently chose the one in some lesser qualification and limited ourselves that way. I even think voting on this matter ( of course this doesn't include discussion) is unfair because the definite majority is against those handful poets that are in a better shape of writing for any given period of time.

Well yes, the amount of poems will not change, just the amount of poets...I stand corrected. I said that he has a point, but I am not in total agreement with the idea because there are only a handful of poets who are active on the site given a period of time...and if these handful will be limited then we will have lesser nominations. I agree with your point...in a way it brings the quality of works down. A poet is never at fault if he/she writes five good pieces in one sitting.

;) :) I am glad we think alike and if we did not, I would still be glad because you are a good thinker and discussing with you is a good learning experience.

Totally agree

Craig

My two bits or more

1. seeing a pnq timer is a cracking idea.

2. Seeing how many people have read your poem is irrelevant. If someone likes it enough they will click like or tell you and if you make a type error by god will they tell you.

Kinda love it as it is,

who wants to know how many people have read their stuff and don't like it? By posting poems here you put your neck, heart and soul on the line so ya gotta be a little considerate towards that.

3. I don't think a judge should be able to change their vote. From what I've read of judges comments they are incredibly smart and as such I would imagine they would have an organisational system in place. Although I think the "are you sure you want to vote on this poem" idea was a good one.

Regards

Craig

Ooh can we get a voucher for a free big Mac if a poem is nominated? Nom nom

Sorry! Ish ;-)

The weekly contest is a fabulous bonus and encourages people who are highlighted to continue writing with confidence. However, writing to win fundamentally demeans the idea of poetry entirely. As clichéd as it sounds, poetry is about feeling, passion, depth, beauty, despair and even ugliness and if they are portrayed honestly - with genuine feeling - then they have real merit; much greater merit than the weekly competition brings them.
I have complete respect for our contest and have been a judge myself and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and equally, I am aware how lucky I am to be nominated regularly by people who like my work but this conversation itself is, in essence, the complete antithesis of what our passion should be about. None of us want to work tirelessly on overproduced and over-polished trite that only shines in the spotlights of the front page where, in fact, it may be just another sickly 'pop song' that means nothing but rides high in the charts anyway. Equally, there are some marvellous number 1s! So many poems I read that were never even nominated are truly wonderful - but not being nominated doesn't demean them at all. A rose is a rose by any other name, or some such...
My point: enjoy the weekly, enjoy the wins and hms, be grateful to all involved, but for heaven's sake...just write

^ uhmm that brought a topic to my mind... if anyone is interested... suggestion for a prompt:

write a poem about why is so important to win the weekly contest? Or win in general?

Write another one of why is important to lose or why isn't important?

And I miss the view counter.

For starters - I personally believe it's unfair to limit nominated poems to 2 per poet because what I see as fabulous might not be some elses cup of tea and what I see as terrible someone else might love it which is why judges read all poetry and I assume are limited to so many votes of their own which is only fair and no doubt why this judging term has been so diverse as the judges like us have their own taste.

Just as a taster one week I had possibly 3 or 4 poems nominated and none were chosen by the judges then another week I had one chosen and it received an HM so it goes to show (in my opinion) it's down to the judges in the end and I for one appreciate them giving up their time to read through all poems that are nominated.

Lastly, Mark I do usually use all votes up and I always make sure (more often than not) that I give one of mine to a newer member as some people here are set in their ways of nominating only people in their groups etc but last week I didn't nominate as I was away in Wales.

Everlasting I'm on it already and I can honestly say being able to post poetry and offload is always a winner for me

I think you have said it wisely, Ben...let us enjoy the weekly...let us write freely, nominate freely, according to our own taste and let us be happy in poetry :-)