Poetry Threads

[PStrudel]

I don't know if this has been suggested before, but it's something that really bothers me.

In the poetry thread, instead of having a thread for each author, there is a thread for each poem.

While this makes it easy to see when new poems are posted, it also means that in two day's time, an author could completely lose their thread onto page five or six.

Wouldn't it just be easier to have a thread for each author, and then post into the subject line "Updated 11/6/06" when a new poem has been entered? This would make the forum a lot less cluttered, and would eliminate all these threads with only three responses, etc.

Plus, an author wouldn't lose their poems so quickly, and they wouldn't have to make a new thread for poems that have been re-written.

[mammamaia]

the reason that wouldn't work is that more than one poem would then be in each thread and the comments for each would get all mixed up...

what we'd have to do for it to work, would be to have a 'forum' for each poet, within which they could then post a separate thread for each work... and that, of course, would make the site even more unwieldy than some think it is now...

the base problem is that so many want to post their poems that we have to go back one or more pages to see if ours got any responses... which is why i so seldom post my work any more...

what makes it even worse is when a well-meaning member goes back into the archives and posts a slew of replies to very old posts, as is being done lately... then, you have to scroll through page after page just to try to find the fairly current posts among the old ones...

[FinalsTwin]

Originally Posted by mammamaia

the base problem is that so many want to post their poems that we have to go back one or more pages to see if ours got any responses... which is why i so seldom post my work any more...

Thats the reason why I only submit very little yet I do lots of other stories and things off and on the computer.

[Pawn]

If anyone has any suggestions for fixing the problem that is the poetry forum, we're all ears.

[Wyndstar]

I'm not sure there really is anything wrong with the present system. When I feel I've missed a particular author's latest work, I simply do a search under the author's name.

However, if this isn't satisfactory, perhaps the page could be programmed to just list all the poems written during the month by title and author alone. Click the name of the poem, access the poem and the ability to leave a comment. At the end of a poem's 30 days of being up, it automatically goes into an archive accessable by doing a search on the author's name. At the rate people post poetry, you'd probably need to have about four to five collumbs of poetry up in a single page. and more than one page, but it would probably be better than the present listing of 20 poems per page that can vanish in less than 15 minutes sometimes.

[Glfralin]

I don't think there is a problem at all if you realize that all you have to do is go to a members personal page and click on the link that will show all threads started by that author. I've used it several times. It is a time saving method and if word just gets out about it, then we can make a better effort of checking on particular poets to see how they have improved, get to some that have been lost in the shuffle, and check on our own posts. No way is going to be perfect, but there is more than one way to approach this issue.

[ghent96]

I personally really like the idea of one thread per author. If they feel that some of their poetry sufficiently deviates from their previous work in style or topic, then they can PM a moderator and ask for permission to start a new 2nd thread titled appropriately for their newer work.

30 days seems awfully short. Maybe 60, before an autolock and moving the thread to an archive forum?

The poetry forum is busy, no doubt. It shouldn't be un-busy. We just need more people posting critiques than posting up new work.

A few people post several things per day, dozens per week. They rarely read other people's work, rarely comment, and rarely check back on their own threads even to respond to critiques. They literally are spamming out their work onto the poetry forum.

A few other people critique a bit, read a bit, might go back a page or two, might start to post only one of their own works, carefully chosen, but just feel overwhelmed and give up.

Everyone else in the poetry forum is somewhere in between. One extreme makes everyone else's experience there unbearable. The other extreme is hindered and doesn't even get to have an experience here.

A limit on new threads per day, and per week is an excellent idea. If there were a way to rate a forum member on their number of posts (ie - critiques) versus their number of threads (new threads they started), this would be a great solution, I think. Let's say they exceed a 3:1 ratio (far too liberal, I'd say a 10:1 ratio ), then they are unable to make new threads. If a moderator catches someone spamming or making silly, pointless, short posts in great number, they can dock their "rating" as punishment.

[Sigur Rós]

One thread per author=a lot of threads, and I doubt all the authors would get a lot of reply's, and there'd be several pages of authors. And how do you keep up with making threads for all of them. Not to mention some only post one poem and leave forever. I think It'd be agrivating. I like it how it is, besides we've been working hard in the poetry section latley to get everyone well helped and equally replied to.

[Glfralin]

Did you all not read what my earlier comment. If you want to follow your own work to where you began, or someone elses. Just go to the person's personal page and there is a link to "view all threads posted by this member" That is the thread per poet if you want it.

[Wyndstar]

Glfrailin,

I think that would work if you know the author, and just did a search. But I think that some people have the concern that sometimes good poetry vanishes in a day that was written by new people, and if you never knew it was up there, you wouldn't know to search for it. We do have one shot wonders from time to time (one poem, one log, then gone). And not everyone has the time to check every day for poetry (I don't come on the net every day, myself). Of course, I'm coming from the angle of wanting to read poetry, rather than posting it.

[Stewart]

Subscribe to your own threads. Simple.

[Glfralin]

Great idea Stewart. I guess my point is that there are ways to find the newbies, and several ways to get around in these forums. I to get frustrated, but there is no one thing that's going to fix everyone's complaint.

[k3ng]

I think what we have now on the forums is a compromise of ideas. So for me, it works. May not work the best, but it works. As mammamaia said, a thread per author would really screw up the commenting. It'll get all messy I believe.

What I like to do however (and was doing a while back, and will begin doing again soon) was just to go over the first three pages, see if there are any unanswered posts there, and post a comment. Doesn't matter from whom. Hence the mission in my signature.

I think there can be no proper 'solution' to the problem. If the problem is that you feel some works are ignored and gone over really quickly, I believe you can PM a mentor or some people you know (or me) to drop by and read and give you a comment through a PM, instead of bumping the thread back up again and pushing the latter ones down. Or maybe we should have all comments and critiques on the poetry forum sent through PMs? Maybe that would be just as mad....

[thamior]

Originally Posted by Pawn

If anyone has any suggestions for fixing the problem that is the poetry forum, we're all ears.

Allow people to subscribe to certain poets, so say I subscribe to oh I don't know ....Pawn. I would always get to see his new threads in the poetry section when they are made...and for new people you can even (if you know how to code well) have an option to subscribe to new poets, so anyone that makes a post in the poetry section that has less than a certain number of posts (or posts in the poetry section), you can simply unsubcribe from them if you find you dont like their work and dont feel you can help them.

My ideas are hard to code, thats understandable, but I believe they would help the situation, poetry is an unwieldy section, my section (I love how I call it mine ) has the opposite problem though, I'm lucky if I get one or two comments on my stuff because no one goes there.

[Bika]

Limit the number of new threads that can be started on a daily or per week basis (per person).