"Question"

How come on the "request to read and vote" page, everyone get's mad even if they say they want you to be honest, And comment and tell them why you voted low?.
They want you to read and rate there poems, and they even say they want you to be toatally honest?. but then they get all mad about it later because "oh no my poem isin't rated 5/5 anymore?.

it just bugs me, Why don't they just post

you vote my poem 5/5 I vote you're poem 5/5,
if that's what they want, They should just post that,

But if you do that, You miss the whole point of poetry,
Writers improve themselfs by knowing there flaws, and fixing them as they go, to make it a learning experiance,

The only time I can understand someone getting mad is if someone votes low and does not tell the person why?

Is it in fear of them voteing low back at them?
Or are they just to lazy and ignorant to comment and tell them why?.

Help?

Well yeah I guess it is just post you're poems and anyone who likes them will get a good read out of them.
rateings shouldin't matter that much,

Thanks for the opinions

We all get irritated at the futility and abuse of the feedback and recognition systems. I mean, look at Poe. He got annoyed at a critic because he was told that his stories "lacked a moral". As the result of the belief that a moral is part of the basic definition of a story, he then went on to write "Never Bet The Devil Your Head: A Story With A Moral", which I particularly liked. Even unjustified negative feedback can spur on a writer in a different way, but just telling someone they're perfect all the time, when in truth no-one is, will just make them self-satisfied and overly content with the pieces they have currently.

Most people have a hard time taking criticism, and granted a few people are tactless when it comes to giving constructive criticism. I agree, most members treat this site like a popularity contest. And that does defeat one of the purposes of the site. I try to be honest in all my comments/criticisms, pointing out the strong as well as the weak points, in a manner which hopefully doesn't offend. But I have to be honest and I appreciate other members approaching my own work the same way. I remember when I was submitting and getting published in the literary magazines 10-12 years ago in my cover letters I would ask the editors/publishers to tell me what they DIDN'T like about my work rather than what they did (although I did like to hear the good comments as well,lol!). For although everyone likes favorable comments unless the criticism goes into at least a little depth, how can one improve one's work? And though the sentiment "I like this poem' or 'this is good' is too often the only comment made. Why do you like this poem? What about this poem do you like? The title? The rhyme? The fact that it don't rhyme? The meaning? The emotion? And what do you think is weak about the poem (notice I say 'weak' not 'wrong'-for a poem is the writer's creation so how can it be 'wrong'?)? The rhyme scheme is off? It doesn't flow smoothly? True poetry lovers are not only dedicated to writing poetry, but they must appreciate reading other's poetry as well, and have/learn a better and deeper understanding of poetry. And no matter how good or bad one may be, there is always room to improve.
Thus I would urge members that are serious about poetry to read a poem closer, to make the effort to understand the aspects of poetry more and to comment/criticize on both weak and strong points and more in depth and constructively when leaving feedback on someone's poem. We are all on here because we love poetry, at least I'd like to think that is the reason for most of us anyway.

Peace, Poetry & Power,

Gary Jurechka