I don't swear much either. I just think it is a dumb idea. And if people get past it there would be swears on the site, so wouldn't schools get a red flag when trying to access it anyway? I just think the whole filtering thing is stupid. I just don't get why they're treated differently than other negative words. Wait a second....who cares, the mods probably won't change it anyway. Well, whatever, just an idea.

I like the swear filter. It prevents all the little fourteen year old wanna-be gangeters from coming into SL with their:

I like ****ing ho's
and **** **** *** u knoe
That I buy all the ****ing **** fliest clothes
and smoke teh **** biggest ****ing bowls
and my ****in ***** car got some ***** rims
and some ****ing gold plated trim ******
and ima kill u. *****!!

It's hard to act like a tough guy when all your cuss words get censored out.

I'm sorry if this was asked, but is bumping your piece still allowed?

I'm all for swearing when used properly. A well-placed curse can really bring an otherwise dull and lifeless line to life, be it by adding anger, sarcasm, whatever.
Generally, I don't think you should need to swear more than once a song, though - once you're doing that, you're starting to expose a lack of basic vocabulary.

[QUOTE=DeadReligion]And if people get past it there would be swears on the site, so wouldn't schools get a red flag when trying to access it anyway?[/QUOTE]

As far as I'm aware (the guys in the pit would be able to answer this for definite, but I have a life away from the internets, so I have an excuse for my ignorance), the school filters work in a similar way to the swear filter on here - they don't actually look at what we see when we open the thread - they look at the code (right click--> view source (in IE)). This means that in the same way you can insert [tags]to[/tags] to circumnavigate the swear filter, those same tags also duck under the school filter's radar, as it's only reading [yourtag]shi[/yourtag]t - although all the letters are there, and the board obviously hides the tags once you come to read it, what is actually there isn't going to be picked up by any of the filters, as in it's code form, it's not a swear.

Class dismissed.

[QUOTE=False Advertising]I'm sorry if this was asked, but is bumping your piece still allowed?[/QUOTE]
Only do this if it has zero replies. I actually need to see bumps so it's best if you do if you haven't go a crit yet.

Question:

With the recent revival of the forum, what would be the both the general and the moderators' views on me resurrecting the 'song of the month' threads - I did a couple a long time back, and they got a reasonable response, plus they highlighted the best pieces, and ensured they got a bit of recognition, even after they'd dropped off the front page.
Especially this month, as we've had so many good pieces from both regular and new writers, and interest in the forums seems to have spiked recently, it'd be a good way of making sure that the users feel involved.
Personally, I feel as long as we don't let it become a circlejerk with the same writers appearing each month, it could be a good thing. I know that once you reach a certain level of writing it's all down to opinion and/or popularity, but it's something different, and brings to light the level of quality writers we have here.

I won't stick it only because we have too many stickies as it is, but if it's good for the community in here and promotes good pieces it sounds like a good idea. You can always IM me with a list of pieces from the past month or something and we'll look at possible highlights. I'll run those we pick by Nick too so it doesn't seem biased.

Yeah, that's fair enough - there's no need for any more stickies, and as the thread is only really expected to have a lifespan of a week or so, there's not really a need for it to be stickied anyway.
The IM thing sounds like a plan. Do you have AIM only, as I'll have to download it (or Trillian or something) first, what with being non AOL and all.

I don't understand swear filters either. I can understand people don't like extensive use of cursing on posts but the filter doesn't really stop it, it just changes the words to some lame censored version, the word itself is just as obvious as if it were written, so what does censoring the word actually achieve? All it means is that words are slightly harder to read, its not people don't figure it out anyway...so it does nothing for profanity prevention.

personally i could care less, i just think that curse words do have a place in music and poetry and anyone who disagrees is stupid and backward, and that pathetic attempts at censoring profanity do more harm than good. Do you think Philip Larkin would have had the same notoriety if he'd said "your parents [i]fusty nuglet[/i] you up?"

[QUOTE=SubtleDagger]I won't stick it only because we have too many stickies as it is, but if it's good for the community in here and promotes good pieces it sounds like a good idea. You can always IM me with a list of pieces from the past month or something and we'll look at possible highlights. I'll run those we pick by Nick too so it doesn't seem biased.[/QUOTE]Why not unsticky the In-Depth thread, Writer's profiles, Tips & Questions, and create like an all-purpose thread with links to those threads (and Song of the Month) so people can find them and bump them whenver they want.

I'll think about it.

Is there a certain time limit between posting a piece and doing your other critique, or is it as long as you crit some songs before you post your next one?

[quote=A Perfect Sonnet]Is there a certain time limit between posting a piece and doing your other critique, or is it as long as you crit some songs before you post your next one?[/quote]

[u]Furthering The Question A Little[/u]:
What about if you have already done a whole bunch of crits and haven't posted a song in a while... Then you post a song; do you have to go crit something straightaway or can you just wait until your ready to post something else?

For example; I've posted at least 4-5 replies to people's lyrics (I've been trying to go for low reply counts too :D) in the past few days and I haven't posted a lyric in this part of the forum for ages... If I suddenly get a creative urge and post something then I don't want it enforced on me to do a crit, because it would generally be a poor critique and I have already been contributing crit-wise when I really don't have to.


Ugghh! That hurt my head trying to type that.... uhhhh Hang-Over :upset:

Hey guys, I just got back from band practice... the stuff we wrote is coming along really well... but now I have to do work and write actual lyrics rather than just screaming and growling incoherently :upset:.

Unfortunately I'm having a writers block.

So far I've been able to come up with really really really generic pseudo political lyrics:

[I]I see the empires
Begin to fall
I see our nation
Crumbling
Degression of humans
Back to primal
Loss of all culture
In full chaos[/I]

and then I don't know what the hell else to put... should I feel dirty from that [I]horrid[/I] display?

oh no, people don't give a crap about reading tips and questions as it is, let's not even begin merging a lot of threads into one. Hello, I'd like to congratulate Burt for being more around and being the effective mod he was back in the day and all the pertinent butt-kissing related to it.

yeah, 123 etc.

Just a thought for the critiquing guys, I'm going to start using the 'rate thread' feature, just to give a quick snapshot of the quality of the thread - during busy times it can take about 30-45 seconds to load a page on a 56k, longer if user is downloading as well, so it's frustrating to wait that long to view a song and it turns out to be trash.
Any thoughts?

Yes, I've started using the rate system as well.

I was tossing around the idea of what if the forum was broken up into a series of smaller forums (maybe two or even three), instead of just one big forum for everyone to post in? They could be seperated homogeneously by writing ability.

I see some new/young writers to the forums who post up their stuff and they get ripped to shreds by the more experienced writers. But when I think of what my writing was like when I first started seriously writing at thirteen or fourteen years old, I can empathize, because to be honest I was cliche' and wordy and all those other problems new/young writers have. However if these new writers keep getting critiqued by the better writers and being told "your work is bad, your work is bad" eventually they will give up, and we won't have any new writers.

At the same time, it's disheartening as a more experienced writer to have to read the same mindless drivel from the newer less experienced writers. For every one "good" piece I read, there are at least twenty bland ones to wade through. I find myself growing increasingly harsh and critical the more often I read work that I feel could be done better. There are a handful of writers in the forum that I consider my peers or even superiors and I greatly value there imput when they critique me. But there are other members who just say things like "oh that's good" or "oh I liked it" and can't give me a proper critique due to lack of writing experience themselves.

There is such a wide gap of ability between writers, it's hard to maintain any form of writing standard without being too harsh or being to lax on people who are at the very extremes of the curve. If the forum was split, perhaps we could fix this?

Even a simple breakdown like:

Beginning Writers
Intermediate Writers
Experienced Writers

Then if a member posts their work in a forum above their writing ability, other members can politely tell them to try submitting it in a lower forum. Likewise, if an exceptionally good member is posting their work in a lower forum they can be told to try a higher forum. Members would be able to read and post in all the forums, just actual submissions would go into their respective level of ability. That way newer/less experienced writers can visit the experienced writer's forum and see what a good body of work is. Accordingly, the more experienced writers can go to the beginner forums and give out critiques and suggestions to improve the newer writers without holding them to the same standard as the experienced writers.

yeh that's a good idea but sometimes it would be hard to differentiate between intermediate and experienced writers. There's no clear line. Perhaps just beginners and experienced sub forums?

That's a really good idea, but I am willing to wager a shiny penny that it'll never happen.

Of course miracles happen, but yeah...

Great idea though. I just wonder how one would determine who goes where, I can easily imagine an "Experienced Writers" forum being infested with 14 year olds who imagine that they're "all that".

In other poetry forums, experienced writer need a special password in order to access the exp. forum. That'll never happen here though, so I doubt S&L will be divided.

[QUOTE=-Nath-]
Great idea though. I just wonder how one would determine who goes where, I can easily imagine an "Experienced Writers" forum being infested with 14 year olds who imagine that they're "all that".[/QUOTE]

Well assuming there are enough "experienced" writers constantly on the forums, the standard of quality writing could be self governing. The writers themselves would maintain the majority of quality control, with the mods having to do minimal work.


[QUOTE=RunAmokRampant]yeh that's a good idea but sometimes it would be hard to differentiate between intermediate and experienced writers. There's no clear line. Perhaps just beginners and experienced sub forums?[/QUOTE]

Well there is a large gray area between being a beginner and being very good. I was thinking of using the experienced writer's forum as a place for the top handful of writers, and the intermediate forum as a catch all middle ground, and the beginner forum for the bottom wrung.

You could even seperate the three forums by writing problems:

[b]Experienced Writers -[/b] Pieces of work requiring polish and fine tuning. Focus on connotation, mood, theme, and tone.
[b]Intermediate Writers -[/b] Idea refinement. Removing extraneous and unnecessary information. Idea Cohesiveness. Proper use of multiple imagery, metaphors and similies to create an overall theme.
[b]Beginner Writers -[/b] Heavy grammatical and Structure issues. Capitalization, punctuation. Overuse of Cliche' and unoriginal ideas. Lack of Imagery, Metaphors, and Similes. Mainly content issues.

If the forums get split they should be open to everyone to read and post in. Where a member submits their work would be the only thing that would be limited.

I like the division idea. Sounds cool.

It's an idea I'll admit to toying with in my head sometimes, but the fact is, it's probably not going to happen, especially with the emphasis recently seeming to be on [i]fewer[/i] forums.
There are a few points to consider, as well:

1. Assuming the current crop of users (ie most of the guys who have posted on the last few pages)sticks around, this is the busiest S&L has been in the two years I've been here - this place has serious consistency issues - there have been times in the past few months where we've been lucky to see three new songs a day, and that's including the 'OMGZ I M155 U' type songs we're all sick of. Hopefully, you'll all stick around, but I know first hand what it's like when the other half gets you under the thumb. ;) If this was to happen again, we'd have a hard time justifying keeping 2-3 forums open.

2. Recently in this thread, a few users (myself, Tojes and someone else I think) looked back and posted some of our first songs here - obviously, there was significant improvement all round since then, but none of us would have improved without access to the better writers around here. I've picked up literally hundreds of little tips and tricks, and got inspiration from images that guys like RollerQueen, SubtleDagger, ATC, Metaliq and so on have written about. If those guys were suddenly to disappear to another, segregated forum, their skills and tricks are lost - no-one can learn from them, as the only people that read their pieces are people that are extremely competent writers anyway. I think we underestimate how much newbs can pick up and learn by writing in the same environment as a veteran.

3. Who decides when a user is capable of moving up a level? If it's the user, what happens when (as Nath said) we get someone who thinks they're better than they are, or conversely, sticks around in the beginner forum because they like the ego boost of getting 9.5/10 for every single song they post?
If it's the mods, what happens if (and this is not suggesting anything against either mod, I'll add) we get a user who is a fairly decent writer, but the mods don't rate him/her? Or perhaps the user's a good writer, but an idiot, and the advanced users would rather they didn't have to put up with said user?

4. To be as blunt as possible, it's a form of elitism - whilst that's fine in The Pit, where more or less anything goes, here in S&L, it would be a bit more of an issue. We also run the risk of it becoming seen as a circlejerk club by the users that aren't part of it.

I do like the idea, but I don't think it'll happen for those reasons and more - plus it would be a nightmare to implement.

Also, welcome to the best community thread in the forums guys. Stick about, you're all sensible. :)

Alt/Indie has the best community thread.

That idea will also never happen, because J's a laze when it comes to making new forums. Anyways I've been on block for about a month, hopefully something will come out soon.

If any of you guys have never heard maudlin of the Well's BATH I severly recommend it, some of the best lyric/music ever made.

As far as lyrics go, I'm currently hooked on JamisonParker, specifically 'Slow Suicide'.

Ditto Jason's comment. There's really only a handful of regular posters, and ignoring the inherent elitism of such a division, most of the forums simply wouldn't get the kind of traffic that would justify it's existence. Not only that, but I suppose the responsibility of deciding what goes where will have to be the moderator's, and I think they've got enough on their plate given the new critique rule.

[QUOTE=slack]Ditto Jason's comment. There's really only a handful of regular posters, and ignoring the inherent elitism of such a division, most of the forums simply wouldn't get the kind of traffic that would justify it's existence. Not only that, but I suppose the responsibility of deciding what goes where will have to be the moderator's, and I think they've got enough on their plate given the new critique rule.[/QUOTE]

Even if they were, like I said MX the admin won't make it. So there's no reason to discuss it anymore.

I think S+L is fine as it is. We're pretty busy, we have our regular decent lyricists who always offer good advice and crits and we're a happy little community. Even if we did spilt the forum (which isn't gonna happen) there would be even more problems that we have now.

Anychow... I have a problem. I have an extremely hard time deciphering other people's poems. I mean I really struggle with getting the basic concept of what they're writing about. It gets to the point where I can't offer a decent crit. Also along the same lines... sometimes when attempting to crit a better writer than myself, I find their writing so complex and different that I don't think I can offer any advice because I can't compare it to anything. Does anyone else get this or am I just odd?

Yeah, sometimes. I think as long as you justify your interpretation, it's okay.

[QUOTE]sometimes when attempting to crit a better writer than myself, I find their writing so complex and different that I don't think I can offer any advice because I can't compare it to anything.[/QUOTE]

If it gets to that stage I think you have to question whether they really are better writers.

I absolutely do not want to split up forums into divisions for certain writers. Nick and I have done some stuff on another forum like that; it is really effective with making people better writers, but it takes a huge amount of mod work and only works with huge poetry sites to begin with, since new members would not be interested in dealing with all the divisions. There would also be a huge amount of complaining about mod elitism because with forums like that, mods have all the power and make all the decisions about a user's talent.

Can someone please kill this douche [b]mahershalalhashbaz[/b]?!! He's got at least three songs on the main page (two posted a couple of minutes apart)and I doubt he's done much critting. And he's stealing other bands song titles for his own work: [quote=mahershalalhashbaz]The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows (title stolen from Brand New- I liked it so much)[/quote]

I Just did a search on his name and he has never posted a response to anyone elses work (Let alone a crit) And he has posted 5 song threads in S&L... Where the total of his 18 posts mostly come from (the rest come from other forums)

He wants feedback on five seperate lyrics and yet has not contributed a single drop to this forum.

Had to go to work; I got him.

Wow- I'm just listening to the 9 leaked demos from Brand New, Jessie Lacey really is quite incredible with his lyrics. If any of you are fans I'd suggest you [url=http://anarchyforsale.com/demos.zip]check them out.[/url]

hmmm - rumour has it that those songs aren't all going to make the album, although I'm not sure how true that is.

I think the band themselves said that none of the songs were going to make the album, but that's also rumor.

*sigh* - I'm considering just writing 3 or 4 paragraphs saying 'this was alright but I've read this 100 times before - you need to work on imagery (read ATC's/SD's guide) and ease up on the forced rhymes.'

I could critique 5 songs a day accurately and easily, just by copying and pasting those paragraphs. It's really frustrating sometimes. :-\

I'M THROUGH TO THE NATIONAL FINALS!!!!

I got a reply back from one of the poetry competitions I entered, I won the regional heat and now I've been entered into the National Final.

It really is great, the National Final is usually won by a really well known famous poet so I don't really have a chance. But still, I'm sooooo excited!!

If I come in the top 15 I go down to London to a reading thing, where I meet a load of famous poets, and I read one of my pieces (doesn't have to be the one I entered into the competition).

I think 'thrilled' sums my feelings up at the moment :)

Timmy P

Congratulations- that's awesome.

What piece did you post?