Yes, I absolutely agree. I mentioned something similar in the feedback section.
Having two separate lists seems fair to both the story writers and the poets on this site.
I often peruse that list looking for the hot stories of the month, but they are few and far between when the scores that poems get often dominate the Top Picks.
I strongly agree with this.
The poems are a completely different ballgame, and as long as they are together, they are over-represented on the front page in my opinion.
Maybe you misunderstood, She. Nobody's saying to do away with the poems.
This is in the wrong forum. I'm moving it to the site feedback forum. This Topic has been DONE to death.
Yes, Xuani...I agree with you that it wasn't addressed but it doesn't make sense to separate these. If people don't like the poetry they can remove that category from their Lush front view. I find the poetry section to be better written(in most cases). It's easier and quicker to write a poem than a full on story but why should the poets be discriminated against. I find a lot of the stories are 'samey' using the same plot and character types. We might be an erotic story site but we have evolved to much more than that with the social aspect,the awesome forum and the emergence of really great writers and poets.
In fairness to Buddybear, it did just get revised. I don't think he made the figures up, based on what was there just recently.
Okay, I can't see how the Febuary story picks can change in a day/week but I'll ask Gav how it works it out.
I think if poems want to be treated as equal with stories, then we should go all the way with that. Even love stories that don't have a strong sexual component are deemed to not be suitable for this site, so shouldn't the same standard go for poems? With the creation of storiesspace, we wouldn't even be stifling poets' creativity, since there is a perfectly valid outlet for non-sexual writing there. Plenty of writers have published both here and on storiesspace in both the poems and stories sections, so why not just make that the rule, rather than a somewhat common practice?
You want to remove love stories as well now? See how this escalates , then it will be another category then another.
Because them they would be in a poem section not a love poem section. Are you going to police that and moderate that? It's easy to make suggestions without having to be the one responsible to implement the suggestions. I don't want to have to be the person that rejects a beautiful piece of poetry because it doesn't contain any sexual elements. I have in the past rejected poems because they haven't been love poems.
Love stories are defined as 'For all you romantics out there, here is our love stories section. These are stories of romance and love, which are generally on a deeper relationship level than stories in other categories. This story category focuses on falling in love, being in love, and developing a loving relationship. Please submit your real life or fictional love stories here'
I don't see anything about them having to contain sex in there. In fact there is nothing in the story submission page that says that sex has to be included in the love story category.
Did I stir up a fire ant nest? Good golly, it seems I did.
If ("IF!") poems and stories were written on a common basis, or judged on a common basis, then my suggestion to separate the scoring (and scoring ONLY) of poems and stories would be bogus.
1. They are not written on a common basis. The stories (almost universally) have a strong sexual and/or erotic content. Poems often don't. They do typically relate to romance, foreplay, anticipation of heavy breathing soon to take place. But how in heck can you even compare... say... Dancing_Doll's "Stacey's Confession" with Top_This' "A Different Place"? They are both outstanding in their own right. But they are such different genres that you have no common basis for comparing them. Which one is the best "story"? Surely the former, because the latter is not technically a "story" at all. Perhaps a vignette of a scene out of a story.
2. They are not judged on a common basis. I seem to notice that when a poem is even moderately good, it gets 5's straight up. But even the very best written (or the most erotic) stories often get 3-bombed enough so that they drop off the Best 10 chart. Readers expect a story to turn them on to some degree. If it doesn't, WHAM, a 3. Poems are not judged that way. I had one of my best scoring stories, given a 3 and a rambling comment on how the sexual relationship wasn't "logical" and was only "make-believe". Godfrey Daniel! ALL my stories are make-believe! But you NEVER see poems 3-bombed and commented that the plausibility of the metaphor between a mud geyser and male ejaculation was tarnished by the choice of Trochaic rhythm scheme and the lack of rhyming. Sweet Mother of Pearl!
So poems collect nearly all 5's and even the best stories rarely manage to avoid 3-bombs. It's not an even playing field.
You've been a bad girl! Now take your pajamas off and go to my room!
Excellent post. Well said. =d>
