Automated Compassion

I just finished installing a small feature which will let you all know when your submission falls out of the top-10 in its category.  In light of a recent conversation with Cyber in the forums, I want to point out that my selfish reason for adding this feature is to get more exposure at Duotrope and help remind folks to come back and check out the site.

Please watch out for any strange behavior when posting because the way the site works, every time you post, one of these rejection notices is supposed to get mailed out.  Let me know if you have any problems posting, or if one of your submissions that is currently in the top-10 reports “after tenth” (on the “permalink” page) and you never got an email.

Also, I did my best to write a good email that you all won’t mind getting from time to time even though it’s discouraging news.  Here’s the template, and if you have suggestions on improving it, I’d appreciate them:

        It is with great sadness that Litmocracy has to inform
        you that your submission is no longer in the running.  If you’d like
        to see other pieces in the category, use this link:
        http://www.litmocracy.com/weblog/C26

        We hope that you will continue participating despite this setback.

Almost done!

February, I mean.  It’s almost over.  I always long for Summer during the Winter and I’m thankful for the warm sun on those days when it shines and I can sit outside and let it warm my skin.  For those in Australia and other upside-down places, I guess I should apologize for being so hemisphericentric.  Maybe you could come up north and enjoy Summer with us?

Featuring The Big Ones, by Les Dalgliesh

I knelt in silent awe before the oracle
My pockets stuffed with questions categorical
I pulled out one or two
She said, “This just won’t do.
I cannot answer these
They’re all rhetorical.”

Hey Dave-

If you think it would help clear any confusion up (assuming I wasn’t the only one confused) then you have my permission to post my email to you and the reply you sent today. Maybe get the discussion of the effectiveness of newsletter info delivery and consumption going that way. Like you said- you hadn’t considered that some folks might recluse themselves from a catagory voting in order to keep from bias (yet that is not in anyones best interest and is misplaced grasciousness) etc, and other forecasts for easier group dynamics. 

Either way- I understand you will be making adendums to this newsletter so far? Thanks for getting back to me. I should have noticed I was emailing to a non-person-entity when I wrote.

Thanks Kathy,

I use Targetware to send out the newsletter and I did that on Sunday evening, but I don’t think it has actually gone out yet.  I haven’t heard anything from the guy who set it up for me.

Anyway, for those interested in what Kathy is referring to, she had emailed me about not voting in a category to which she had submitted.  In my responsebelow, I refer to “the next newsletter” which from appearances is this one.  But really, I already *tried* to send this one out.  I’m not sure what to do now.  I’ll probably send one out from the site itself (a bit more reliable, but a bit less useful).  Here is the email I sent her:

I just discovered a bunch of emails for me that were stored at Targetware, and yours was one of them.  When you vote all the way through a category, the last page shows you the piece in first place, and below that there’s a table of 10 pieces.  These are the 10 pieces that are still “in the running”.  Using the voting, the software orders these 10 pieces so that when someone posts a new submission, the “worst” one according to the voting gets bumped out.  When that happens, the author of that piece gets a notice.

As it is now, you should vote all the way through a category after you post something to it.  This will generally mean that you put your own piece in first place (which is perfectly reasonable).  I guess I should explain this more.  I’ll do that in the next newsletter.  Until I read your email, I hadn’t thought about the fact that many members will vote, and then post, and then recuse themselves from voting in order not to bias the results.  The funny thing is, those are the very people most qualified to make decisions between the pairs of submissions.  In other words, once you submit something, you should come back often to ensure that you always add your vote that says “I like my piece better than this new one” - and in the process of doing that, you’ll also indicate how each new submission figures into your ranked list.

Les Dalgliesh indicated that he worries about losing great poems that just don’t have the mass appeal that Litmocracy tries to find.  Your poems are a good example because they require the reader to think a lot.  Litmocracy will eventually help alleviate this problem by using voting records to find other members with similar tastes (ie, cerebral poets will tend to find eachother).  Each member will then be able to view new poetry that is favored by that group of members.

I had to swap the contents of this and the March 11 newsletter because I forgot to update the link in the newsletter.  Oops.  So the comments above go to here: http://www.litmocracy.com/forums/viewthread/137/