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Introduction to Egoless

_____Welcome to the Egoless Poetry Web Site! The purpose of this place is to allow you to get an objective, dispassionate evaluation of your work without ego conflicts. No lapdog, revenge or clique critiques here! And how do we attain this lofty goal? Easy. We identify neither the poet nor the critic. You won't know whether the work you are critiquing is by a good friend or by someone who once accused you of being a Rod McKuen fan. Think of it as a masquerade ball. The purpose is not to guess who is behind the mask but to benefit from what they have to contribute to the proceedings. _____Poems posted to the Egoless Web Site do not generate an HTML file that can be web searched. Thus, editors cannot trace any work that we post here and, if the critiques convince us that our "darling child" poem is an "ugly duckling" we can simply abandon it without acknowledgement or regret. Note, too, that except for contributions included in our Hall of Fame (see below), all poems and their critiques will be deleted automatically within a month of posting date. Clearly, if showcasing our work is our goal there are far better places online to post our efforts. _____ We encourage you to read this entire orientation page and to browse among the posts here to familiarize yourself with the environment. If it suits your needs, register for a free member's account and start posting poems and critiques. _____We would like to thank poets Rik Roots and David Rutkowski for the inspiration and suggestions. Click here if you would like to read a short history of Egoless.

Your Personal Information

_____The personal data that you provide in obtaining your new membership will not be revealed either here or to spammers; it is strictly for internal use as long as you remain a member in good standing. A valid ISP email address must be provided so that we can contact you as necessary. _____In order to make an egoless web site work it is important that you do not sign your posts. Indeed, you should try to avoid any distinguishing format that might identify you as the author. "That's my style!" you say? Learn to change it. Break out of the mould! _____ Note that posting a poem without including your name does not affect your ownership of your work. By posting here you are in no way suggesting that your work is being placed into the public domain. Plagiarism is something we take very seriously here. Anyone posting a piece here that is not their own will, at the very least, lose their membership. Anyone caught stealing--yes, plagiarism is stealing--work from here will be reported to the author of the piece for possible legal action.

Posting Poems

_____On the main page, under the listing of poems, you will see a prompt which says: Click here to post your own poem. _____ Once you click on that link you will be prompted to enter the title and text of your poem. There is also a box for explanation of terms or references used in the poem. Do not use this area to explain the meaning of the poem or the mood you were in when you wrote it. Let the poem speak for itself. _____ You can use standard HTML to insert formatting such as Bold, Italics, Underlining, text colours and "A HREF" (for URL links). To avoid unpredictable results we suggest that you keep such formatting very simple. For more on how to use simple HTML click here and, once you've read the instructions there, use the BACK option on your web browser to return here.

Posting Critiques

_____ To critique any poem that you are reading simply hit the button that says: _____Then start typing your advice to the poet. We don't require that you be polite but we do insist that you be as precise and detailed as possible. Try to avoid fluff (e.g. saying nothing more than "This is great!") or a mere "This is crap!" _____When you are done with your textual contribution please take the time to give the poem a Rating from 1 to 10 (or 1 to 6) in the box which looks like this: 10 - Superlative 9 - Brilliant 8 - Extraordinary 7 - Excellent 6 - Very good 5 - Good 4 - Fair 3 - Poor 2 - Very poor 1 - Abysmal No Rating Given _____Please bear in mind that we encourage quality criticism here. As a member you are encouraged to rate critiques--including those of poems that you did not create. _____In the spirit of this "egoless" environment you are discouraged from evaluating/reviewing a work if you believe that you know who wrote it.

Contacting Us

_____This site is largely self-moderating. If you wish to contact the webmaster with a complaint, suggestion or kudos please enter your message below and hit "Send". Please include your email address if you wish a reply or confirmation. Your Email Address:

The Hall of Fame

_____Poems and critiques which score very highly in our members' evaluations will be eligible for our "Hall of Fame". Members will be contacted for their consent prior to any such inclusion.

Ratings

_____ All poems and critiques can be graded from 1 to 10 by Egoless members, 1 to 6 for Egolite members assessing Egolite contributions. These ratings will mean that every poem, every poet, every critique and every critic will earn an average rating. We hope that this will help you chart your progress as a poet and as a critic. _____There may be a tendency for some poets to rank negative critiques lower than flattering ones. Try to avoid doing this. As poets we don't tend to improve by being told how "good" our work is. We are here to find out what is "wrong" with our work, not to hear praise. _____The Poet Ratings (i.e. "P.R.") and Critic Ratings (i.e. "C.R.") are a reflection of the member's previous contributions. Both are expressed numerically from 1 (worst) up to 10 (best). These ratings are set originally by the member but, after posting three poems the member's P.R. becomes the average of all responses to those poems. Similarly, after posting three reviews our C.R. will be determined by evaluations of our critiques. _____Alongside the rating of a poem we'll see a Reliability Index. This is calculated as two parts Critic Rating and one part Poet Rating of the critic(s) rendering evaluations. In general, the higher the Reliability Index the more interesting the critiques and, perhaps, the more weight we should give them. _____You are encouraged to assess any critique that you read--whether you wrote the underlying poem or not. If you do not have time to write a detailed critique of a poem please feel free to give it a numeric evaluation after due consideration. _____If you do not have time to write an adequate critique of the poem please take a moment to render a "peanut gallery" evaluation. These will appear as: From the Gallery: ~6~ 5 8 4 _____This means that a member whose Critic Rating is approximately six has deemed the poem worth a score of five out of ten, while a second member with a Critic Rating of eight has rated the poem as a four.

Highlights

_____The opposite of a "killfile" or "flag" (see above) is a "highlight". If you discover a member whose poems or critiques you find particularly intriguing you may wish to designate them a "must-read". All future contributions from this message will be prefaced in the listing by an exclamation mark to alert you to the fact that this post is "not to be missed". _____To honour a fellow member in this manner simply hit the "Highlight" button on their poem or critique. _____Under "S" for "Status" on the poem listing you will see: "?" designates a flagged member's post. "!" designates a highlighted member's post. "U" designates works by you. _____As with killfiles, members will be apprised on logging in of the number of other members who have "Highlighted" them. They will be informed of neither the identity of the highlighter(s) nor the reason(s) for it. It is considered a compliment to announce a highlighting in a critique. _____Killfiling, flagging and highlighting affects only your account. Other members will still be able to see that person's contributions without any designation--at least until they, too, decide to highlight, flag or killfile the member in question.

Legend for Various Types of Posters

_____Whenever a poem has more than one comment (including critiques, followups and author responses) you will see a bar across the top and near the bottom of your screen iterating these contributions. Critics, the author, the user, moderators, killfiled, flagged and highlighted members will all have different coloured boxes on this bar. _____There will be a legend at the very bottom of that screen explaining what each colour signifies. Clicking on "Posts:" takes you to the legend.

Egoless and Egolite Poems

_____The Egoless Web Site is, in fact, two web sites in one: Egoless for poets with Poet Ratings of five or more and Egolite for new poets. To view these poems go to the Egoless site and click on the buttons that look like this: _____If you do not feel qualified to evaluate or comment on a poem or critique in the Egoless section please go with your instincts.

Hit, Chime and Gold Star Counts

_____Hit counts allow both the author and prospective readers the chance to measure interest in the work. The natural "flight to quality" should not be lost on the novice poet; better writing invariably attracts a greater number of readers here and everywhere else. _____ The Egoless web site provides hit counts for: "Read hits" the number of people who have seen the poem; "Crits" the number of people who have written critiques of the poem; "Posts" or "Comments" the total number of contributions to the thread, including critiques, followups and responses from the poet; "Crit hits" the number of people who have seen the critiques of the poem. "Chimes" or "Me-Too's" the number of people who agree with a critique and have nothing that they feel is worth adding (beyond an evaluation of the critique). _____After you've written a few noteworthy critiques you may see, under "Assessments of your Critiques", a chime total in brackets. This is the number of members who have, in addition to numbering among those who graded your critique, agreed with it 100%. Generally speaking, a high chime count in this box is, as Martha Stewart would say, a "good thing". _____Similarly, some may eventually see a chime count beside the number under "Number of Critiques Received by You". This is the number of people who voiced their complete agreement with the critique of one of your poems. This being the case, any such "me-too" vote acts as another numeric assessment of your poem, identical to that given by the original critic. Unlike the chime count under "Assessments of your Critiques", these members are not included in the total that you see (hence the "+" sign) since these people did not necessarily write critiques of their own. A high number here suggests that your work (and, even more generally, this site) has attracted the attention of some very good critics. That, too, is a "good thing". _____Members revisiting a poem or critique will not cause these hit counts to be incremented. _____Members can score a poem without critiquing it, but such numeric evaluations are merely for "lazy feedback" purposes. They do not count towards the poet's or poem's rating. A count of Gold Stars for "Perfect as is!" poems is also kept. Each of these is an evaluation of "10" on Egoless, "6" on Egolite. To the right of "From the Gallery:" we see the Critic Ratings of those who awarded the poem an evaluation without a critique. Each Critic's Rating is followed by their evaluation of the poem. Evaluations which are Gold Stars are in gold.