Survivor Contest Poetry Scoring Cap

[JUDO]

I don't think it's fair. Here is my lengthy tirade on the "Survivor Discussion" thread:

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The Poetry Cap - Right now, after eight poems, Lit by way of this contest does not encourage me to write more poems.

The contest is fun, yes, but it was created to encourage writers who like such contests to write more.

When I saw this limitation to poetry last year, I said to myself, "Yeah, Lit is all about stories and poems are not stories (Well, actually most of mine are), and since it takes a shorter amount of time to write them (at least, for me it does, but this is not the case for everyone), then counting points for all poems would put the story-only writers at a disadvantage.

This year, I do not agree with this logic.

First of all, some of the stories submitted take less time than some of the poetry to write. You know what I'm talking about, especially those of you who wrote their first poems last year as a result of this contest.

I mean, we don't want this contest to be only about counting up points, we want the stories to get better and by that, for us to improve as writers.

So, as a result, my first suggestion is to change the scoring so that every poem written during the year of the contest counts!

Now, you might be saying to yourself, "That's not fair! Poems are short. Poems are easy. Anyone can write a friggin' poem in about two seconds!"

Fine, fine, I understand this line of thinking. It's just as true of many stories, however, but that aside, let's encourage the poets who spend a lot of time writing poetry to get compensated for the poetry they write.

Last year, I wrote about one hundred poems. I have a suggestion on how to score these for the contest that I think is fair; especially to those writers here who only write poetry. Remember, their max possible score for our contest is 24 right now (Non-Erotic, Erotic, and Illustrated) with the current caps.

Suggested New Scoring Method for Poetry Submissions: The first poem in a category is worth 1 point. Each successive poem in the same category is worth one-third point. In this manner, someone writer a poem a day would end the year with 122 points. A fine score, but not necessarily a winner. What did you end up with last year, Chicklet? 171 or so? And afterall with such an effort, a poem a day is a lot of work.

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If you wish to voice your support or arguments against or suggest another course of action, please follow this link to the "Survivor Discussion" thread.

Thanks.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Tell us about this. I'm feeling too lazy to look it up. Can we join in the contest at any time? How does it work for each category?

 

[KillerMuffin]

The poetry cap is there because poetry is simply too easy to throw out there. There's no caveat about writing well, just that it exist.

I could write 500 haiku in a weekend and whip the socks off of people who are legitimately trying to win the contest in the manner in which it was intended. That intention was to fill all of the categories, not fluff out the poetry lists with junk.

Poetry, while the most difficult thing to write well, is the easiest thing to write badly and you know it. You also know that there are people out there who are only interested in winning by any means necessary. And Lit has no editorial standards for poetry. Hell, I could take one of the longer stories in my hard drive, chop it into pieces, and have 1000 poems. I win.

The reason there's no cap on stories is because at a minimum of 750 words a pop, you just don't churn them out. Good, bad or indifferent. Not to mention there is some editorial standards applied to stories.

 

[JUDO]

Poetic Editorial Standards - What are they?

Originally posted by Killermuffin -
...there are people out there who are only interested in winning by any means necessary. And Lit has no editorial standards for poetry.

*sigh* Semi-good point. Afterall, since length is the only imposed editorial standard on stories, perhaps that might be the same measure imposed on poems, but considering the potential for unethical behaviour, maybe more could be done.

I say it's up to us, the Poetry Community, to come up with a suggested list of "Editorial Standards" for poetry in such a contest.

Besides the above length considerations, here's a stab:

1) Poems must be presented an accepted poetic form (if free verse a form? and if so, how could it be judged worthy on a daily basis?)

2) Should the works presented for the contests not include all forms of poetry? Perhaps form and outside of form (free verse, for example) other considers might weigh heavier, like:

- subject
- theme
- use of rhyme, metaphor, etc.

A difficult task, obviously, or someone would have done it by now. Perhaps the community together can try to draft acceptable editorial standards for the contest.

Can we?


- Judo

PS - Of course, we could just cop out and leave it up to the Moderators to flush away any and all unethical submissions. Do they do that now with drivel labled as a story that happens to be over 750 words submitted to the contest?