A thank you

To whomever votes or decides the weekly poetry winners I'd like to say thank you for your vote of confidence.

Also kudos to Christa and Johnny Mac for two great poems that I would not have read were it not for the contest.

yes Kudos

Congrats tiger, its about time you get some well deserved recognition.

Great job, as always.

Well done, you deserve it

Out of interest who does run the contest?

You deserve it Bret - well done and just keep the fabulousness coming :o)

actually, we don't vote... we suggest poems and Dainz (and Janis when he returns) makes the final decision...

make sure Bret's poem is his please... seems like every other poem I've suggested (other than Bob's when his won) ended up being plagiarized.... maybe I will just hang up my elf hat...

I give you a personal guarantee that if any one of my poems is plagiarised then I'll be relinquishing the pen and going into the builder's trade.

I reckon the voting system for the compititions needs to be more open, instead of one person deciding. What do you guys think?

thanks for the encouragement, Bob. It is nice to know we are appreciated.

A panel is the most democratic way, but what would the criteria be for getting on such a panel. Being able to moderate a forum has little to do with poetry. Should there be qualifications or a panel election?

Panel for mods isn't democracy anyway...

Indeed, I was just commenting in a Monty Python's Holy Grail Manner that it should be an impartial thing over dictatorial.

Either way I am not arguing, just making conversation.

There are just so many poems... I think that just like there is a "complain," or "praise," button on the comments, there should be a "nominate" button on each poem, and at the end of every week Janis or Dainz can review the numbers and take that into consideration.

Then the elves can still look out for lesser known poets' work to keep it fair, and Janis or Dainz has the final say as to which is the creme de la creme of them all.

I'm not a huge fan of the nominate button idea, because it will without a doubt lead to small groups of people constantly nominating each other.

Though it may seem kinda secular, and ye gads i'm usually against such a thing, i think a select group of avid poetry readers whom we all know love the artform and regularly leave insightful well thought out comments on other peoples work, should, if they are nominated, decide who wins the poetry contest, with the mods and the admins still choosing the shortlist.

I hereby nominate Suicide Slut as the first compitition judge[ if she's willing]...her comments are usually more insightful than the poems of mine she comments on.