What annoys me most is...

How some people can have the nerve to rate my poem a 1/5 not telling me why they hated it or how they think I can improve maybe!! Personally if i dont like a poem I refuse to rate. Poetry shouldnt have ratings!! Its like painters and their paintings, take for example Picasso and Da Vinci!!! Completely opposite each other but amazing artists!!

If you honestly believe poems shouldn't have ratings, why care if someone rates your poem a 1?

Very few people have the education to properly judge a poem, at least on techincal merit, so just forget about it. Comments are worth their weight in gold, if you get someone who takes the time.

Votes are for lazy people.

Your right, its just I thought it would only be fair if someone should give a low rating they should explain why they didnt like it.

Thank you for opening my eyes! I did over react a little lol.

Sorry for that..i too feel if one doesnt like the poem, one shouldnt rate it...as far as am concerned on the other hand, the rates is there just for prestige, i dont htink its necessary but its what makes me write better, like a motivationa factor so i dont htink its that useless

Ditto if someone doesnt like my poems i would rather them just tell me. i dont like getting anything under a 5 cause am scared that if my rating goes down people wont even look at my stuff and think am a bad poet. i think people should vote only if they think its good. i dont give out 1's EVER i give every poem i read a 5 whether i like it or not but i only comment on the ones i like :)

I vote 3's nd 4's and sometimes 5.

The voting system is stupid because everybody hovers around the 4.8 mark making it impossible to assess whether you are any good, or just friends with lots of the forum...

i want people to rate my poetry honestly, i fucking hate getting 10 5's on a poem i wrote wile having a shit.

just me mind, if i do vote less than 5 i tend to leave comment.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

@ Sean, it doesnt matter what you were doing. Its all about the art and the passion in your words.
If you do get 10 5's then it means alot of poets agreed that your poem was great.

I still do agree its stupid though, there shouldnt be ratings. I honestly think it should just be comments.

The only way a voting system would be agreeable to me, is if to vote, you needed to write at least 5 solild lines of feedback. Then your vote would count for something, backed up by justification.

EXACTLY Kevin, I agree 100% It would only be fair if it was that way.