User blog:Mystical Trixter/ERB Wiki's First Official Poetry Slam

Hello, one and all, I am happy to welcome you to something I've had planned for months now, the ERB Wiki's first ever Poetry Slam! Now, for those who may not know what a poetry slam is, it is a competition in which poets and writers gather together and read/recite their works, which judges will score and compare to that of another's work in a bit of a tournament like bracket, the poet/writer that makes it to the very end, obviously, is the winner.

Rules and How it Works:
How this will work is I have selected three judges for this (Myself, Tiger, and Tim) and we will each grade a poem posted for this tourney on a scale of zero to ten, zero being an abysmal piece of work that has nothing of value in it, and ten being a great poem well worthy of praise. After each of us has given a score we will then combine our scores together, which will lead to the poem's grand total of points, which we will then compare to that of somebody elses poem, whoever had the higher score will move on to the next round.

Here are a few ground rules for this:


 * Those who wish to join should be an established user (at least  2 months or so of activity, we'll say 300 contributions is the minimum.)


 * Blocked users are elligible to join, though you will need to post your poem elsewhere and/or send it to a judge for them to post.


 * Poems for the competition should be  made into a blog, that way the judges will be more likely to see it, if we do not, you are welcome to link it to us through PM or Skype, we are usually quite available most of the day.


 * Your poem really doesn't have to have a specific theme, meaning or subject, just write whatever you feel like.


 * While auditions are not neccesary, they would be nice to have so we can know how you write and see how well you would do.


 * If you are in this, please do me a favor and take this at least a little serious. By that I mean don't just write complete gibberish, a complete joke of a poem and stuff like that.


 * This here is the biggest rule in my eyes. Do not, and I absolutely mean do not attempt to sway a judges vote in your favor via PM or the like. We will be trying to judge these from an unbiased standpoint and if we see this, while we probably won't disqualify you, we may deduce points from your total score.


 * If you are eliminated from the competition, please try not to be upset, by that I mean posting comments of rage and saying we were biased and the like, we want to keep this a fun and lighthearted competition.


 * These are different from rap battle tourneys, obviously. So when you see your name matched up with somebody else you do not nessecarily have to say things about/against them in your work, if you do, that's your choice, but it's optional.


 * A judge may join if they desire. However if they do they may not score their own poem biasedly, such as giving it an instant 10/10, be honest and reasonable here, please. I myself will not be joining.


 * Furthermore, while I trust my fellow judges, we are expected to be truthful and unbiased with each of our scores, if anybody suspects we may not be following that, they are welcome to report it to one of us, and it will be discussed among us. If it so happens that was the case, we will remove the judge and find a replacement. I don't expect this to happen, but it's nice to have here just in case.

With those out of the way, let us move on to sign ups,

Sign Ups:
There are only 8 slots for this, I'm aware that's a rather small number, but that's the number most of these types of competitions have when they begin, and since I don't see as many people being interested in writing poems as they would be battle rapping, y'know? This will be done on a 8-4-2 style bracket.

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Back-Up Spots (Incase there is something wrong with one of the current sign ups)

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That should about cover things, I hope we can all make this a successful and fun little competition. I've been wanting to do this for a long time.