contest winners, new feature announcements

I’m having problems with my account. I just tried to claim it for about 10 minutes using every email acount I own. I have proof of my copyrighted poems from this website and old emails sent from here. Please help me.
-Elise

Posted by Elise Vandersteen on 23 November 2009 @ 7pm

Hey, annie,

tell the poet who wrote “First Attempt at a Shakespearean Sonnet” to email me if he has any questions on Patrachian, or if he needs help on another Shakesperean sonnet… these styles are my specialty.

thanks,

Nicholas Ryan Shinault

Posted by Nicholas Ryan Shinault on 26 November 2009 @ 11pm

LuLu,
I’ve been watching your site for several months now. I’ve read your contest rules, and past poetry blogs. I have come to a conclusion, you people are a bunch of morons. You let anyone vote for the entries to eliminate the majority of the poems because you say that there are just too many for you to judge. This is the most biased system of judging a contest that I’ve ever seen! Do you really think that everyone will be honest and decent? If you do then you’re a fool! Over the past week I’ve seen people post poems for their first appearance and somehow they magically accumulate hundreds of votes overnight, all perfect 10’s. Ha Ha Ha, yea right! Is anyone else paying attention out there? Because I would really like to know! There’s one person who just posted 30 or 40 poems, I won’t mention the name but they are at the top of the leader board now, and about 15 of his poems already have hundreds of votes overnight! Some poems on the monthly board have as many as almost half a million votes! Others have 20 or 30 thousand votes, another has a quarter of a million votes! Ha Ha, yea right! Is anyone else noticing this?
Your site is rapidly becoming a forum of cheaters! And you promote this by allowing it to happen! And by making remarks like “Don’t forget to keep voting for your favorite poems”. Tell me, how does one keep on voting for ones favorite poems when one is only allowed a single vote per person? Hmmm, makes you wonder doesn’t it? This practice of allowing contestants to vote benefits no one but yourself, and at the expense of good honest writers! What a joke, it would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetically sad! A good honest poet doesn’t stand a chance with such rampant obvious cheating going on!!!
There’s no way that I would post my poetry on your site just to watch it get trashed by jealous head-hunters and watch poems (if that’s what you want to call them) that aren’t about crap (like the ones on the top of the leader board now) get hundreds of perfect scores!
When you guys get real, and figure out how to run a contest right, then maybe I’ll participate. But right now, you’re a joke!
I’ll make a prediction for your site. Eventually you’ll have to hire a team of nerds to fix the growing problem of who is legitimate and who is a stolen registered voters identity. Because when I see these obvious cheaters racking up these votes then that tells me that they either hacked into your system, or they are stealing other peoples e-mail addresses to vote themselves up. How many people are locked out of your site right now because a cheater has stolen their address and made up a password that they don’t know? I bet it’s many many many thousands! You will eventually have to either shut this site down and start over or hire a team of nerds to fix it. So why not just hire some judges instead? Morons!!!

Posted by Gary Johnson on 28 November 2009 @ 5am

Gary,
Yes, I have noticed this too! And you’re right, there is a lot of obvious cheating going on. But I would hope that the good people that run Lulu’s aren’t of bunch of morons and are noticing it. If I were them I think that I would tag these authors as dishonest and not consider their entries. I appreciate being able to post my poetry just for it’s protection alone, and to have a place where freinds and relatives can read it. As far as the possibility of actually winning, I gave up on that when I realized everything that you said is true about the people cheating. I’ve tried to bring this to their attention in the past however not so harshly as you have. I don’t blame Annie and the staff though, I figure that their hands are just tied and they’re trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 28 November 2009 @ 8am

Im sorry to put this here but i do not have outlook on my computer and there is no other way to let “lulu poetry” know that MY POEMS ARE GONE!!!! I have searched an they just arent here, so once again im sorry that i had to post this here but if someone could email me or email the “lulu” people my email address I would be so grateful. God bless you.

Posted by ashley on 29 November 2009 @ 9am

I just want to bring it to your attention that an author named Heidrun Paula Emma Kordholste Nikander has posted 50 or 60 so called poems, and that many of them recieved anywhere from 20 to several hundred perfect 10 ratings overnight! I have enjoyed visiting this site in the past to read the poetry here, however this sort of obvious cheating offends me. Are you at Lulu’s going to let this sort of dishonesty prevail? Because every time someone like this cheats him or herself into consideration, they effectively knock some good honest poet out of consideration.

Posted by Tess Straley on 30 November 2009 @ 9am

I do not know about the cheating but I am sure about loosing over ten years of poems. I would like so much if they could have brought over my poems when then took over the site. but i understand that this could not be. I just hope that others like me took the forethought to print their work. i hope to get some of it back on here soon.

Posted by michelle yvonne kelley on 30 November 2009 @ 12pm

I would like to wish the staff and all my fellow poets a happy holiday season and I hope that you had a pleasant thanksgiving.
I would also like to apologize for comments made to the staff that were made by my friend Gary who was in town and staying with me for thanksgiving. I see that you didn’t post his comment, that’s probably for the best. I don’t blame the staff there for the actions of the dishonest so called poets. I did leave a rebuttal defending the staff there, however I have to agree with what was said about the problem itself.
It’s a shame that supposedly grown mature people conduct themselves in this manner, especially someone that dons the title of a poet. A true poet (in my opinion) would not allow themselves to be ruled by greed or dishonesty. When I see the obvious dishonest actions of these contestants I am both offended and alarmed. I am alarmed because as I understand the process of determining poems to be considered for the grand prize, then it would seem to me that whenever some dishonest contestant acquires a high rating dishonestly, then some honest contestant who might have otherwise been considered would then be knocked out of consideration. I’m offended because I am a poet and these bad apples are ruining things for the rest of us.
I know that the staff there has to be aware of what I’m talking about. There is no possible way that an entry that was posted yesterday could receive anywhere from twenty to hundreds of votes overnight, all perfect 10’s! Or for a poem to earn collectively over a period of time thousands of high ratings.
I also know that the staff there at Lulu’s have your hands tied both by the rules and by circumstance. However when I voiced my concerns over the possibility of this happening in the past you said that if it was discovered that a contestant had cheated then they
would not be awarded any prizes. That’s a good thing, but the unfortunate thing is that while this is occurring these contestants are ruining this site for the rest of us.
I think that you should make some statement, or issue some warning to that effect, before it gets any worse, or come up with something to deter this type of behavior. Or at least that’s my opinion anyway for what it’s worth. Thank you and Happy Holidays!

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 1 December 2009 @ 9am

Hello Annie, please my works have been idle ever since I won the October 3, 2009 daily contest. Please do something, I am not seeing any on the leaderboard. Since you promised to upload every poem on the leaderboard, I’m hoping to start seeing them soon. Thanks

Posted by Muhammed Lawwwal Sule on 1 December 2009 @ 9am

Its soooooooooo hard for me to believe some people are getting soooo many votes.My friends and family can not read my poems because they do not know how to get to them.The only way I see my own poems is to go to my account.Once and awhile a friend or family member will visit and they read my poems after I go to my account.Im at a disadvantage as far as getting many votes because people dont know how to get to them.I have over 60 poems on but when me and others search my name it says no poems.If I win I want it to be fair if its not fair I did not win.I do think its not fair that people can not pull up my poems to vote for them.It was soooo easy before when people could put the poets name and pull up all of the poets poems.

Posted by Art on 1 December 2009 @ 11am

Hi Elise,
If you are having trouble claiming your profile, please contact our support team at help@poetry.com for additional assistance.
Thank you,
Annie

Posted by Annie on 2 December 2009 @ 9am

Hi Everyone,
It looks like we had an exciting week while I was out on holiday. Thank you for brining this question of cheating to my attention. We will investigate the matter and address it with the poet privately.

I understand your concerns about allowing the community to rate poems for the contest. However, Lulu Poetry receives a high volume of submissions and there are a lot of wonderful poems to choose from. Having the community rate poems helps the judges to narrow down the entries. Having the judges select the final winner helps to prevent abuse of the system. There is always the possibility of cheating with any contest, but we hope that all our poets will show integrity. If we find that a poet has cheated, their prize may be revoked.

We do have technology in place to help reduce cheating- like requiring users to register on the site before they can rate, and checking IP addresses of users. This kind of information can help us determine if individuals are abusing the system.

If you ever have concerns that a poet is cheating, please let us know by emailing help@poetry.com.

Thank you,
Annie

Posted by Annie on 2 December 2009 @ 10am