One last push and we're there
Donation protected
poetTown has been a work in the making for 4 years now and we're approaching the finish line. We cannot begin to express how excited we are, beyond mentioning how humbling this long journey has been.
Our aim is to establish a new paradigm in collaborative writing - not because we're the first to have the idea but because we are doing it right. That is a bold claim but made in humble gratitude, not arrogance. Read on and see why.
We focused on a deep attention to detail; consistently placing the user at the centre of our approach; making sure the user is the customer, not - as with many sites - the product and building tools that enable users to build each other up, not tear each other down.
I've always believed that everything we create of value is hard and yet fun at the same time. As someone once said, if you aren't enjoying yourself, you're doing it wrong.
That said, it has been hard - complicated along the way by some periods of ill health and life interfering. Life? - I had one of those once, before 17 hour days and code reviews .. not to mention bugs. Seriously, just hearing that word raises a nervous tick.
But most of that is behind us now and the end is in reach. Come on over, and cross that line with us. It's fitting, that a site centred on using a social media approach to its fullest, toward a model of collaborative and cooperative writing, should take those last steps though collaboration and cooperation.
So what have we been building exactly?
There isn't room, without writing a novel, to list every tool the site offers, so we'll try to outline as much as we can in brief.
On poetTown each user is called a Poet. poets can doing the following and more:
The most central feature - and the one we are working on now - is revenue-based. Not just ours but yours. Any work published - be it a poem; review; article ... anything generated by the site's poets - can have a small fee attached by its author. This is permitted on paid accounts only but those start at the low price of $2 Australian a month.
They can be on a paid per view, where a sample is displayed and anyone who wishes to read more pays the tiny fee. We're talking from tenths of a cent to a few cents per view at most. Or, they can be on a 'unlock this poem' basis. In this case a fee is set and when enough poets have sponsored the poem, or just one poet if they pay the whole fee, then the poem is unlocked and viewable by all.
The poets on the site make the content, so it's only fair that you have a means of benefiting from your contributions. When we aid we aim to make a truly collaborative site .. we really meant it.
Poets can read, write, translate and share poetry, in almost 250 languages. Other features include comments, reviews, annotations and mentoring.
Annotations allow users to edit each others work. This does not change the original poem. It marks the changes - what was deleted, added, changed and allows footnotes to offer context and explain the reasoning for the edit. The author of the poem can then examine the suggestion and, if they agree, with the click on a button publish a new version of the poem with the changes incorporated. The poet who made the suggestion is listed as a collaborator.
Mentoring is an advanced form of Annotation, in which poets can help teach others in a one-on-one back and forth.
We firmly believe that poetry is not limited to any one language. It should not stop at the water's edge but run past the gaps between us. A core aim of the site was to see poetry reach as many as possible, for it to be shared across cultures and national boundaries - a reflection of the global humanity found between words.
To that end, we have built the site to allow members to write in almost 250 languages, with more to be added as we get feedback. We are especially dedicated to giving languages that are at risk a place to live again and to allow poets to experience a rich range of work that, without translation, would be inaccessible.
Each poet has the option to mark any poem as open for translation. Then, other poets will be able to write translations of that poem. It's a simple as it gets.
An essential part of any writing process is that of the rewrite. The continuous refining, tweaking and ongoing evolution of a work. This is a singularly important aspect of creative writing and, almost always, the one that is overlooking on writing sites.
All versions of any poem you write are saved. This allows you to easily revert to a previous version when an edit does not work. Or, you can split a version off as new work, if it have potential in a new context. You can make old versions public, to show how your poem progressed from rough draft to the the polished end result. You can also make older versions private. We would encourage making them public as this is a very useful tool for those poets looking to learn and study the evolution of a poem.
Collaboration in the writing process itself is another feature we think you'll appreciate.
If an author opens a poem to collaboration, then others can request to collaborate, and everyone involved can add to or edit the poem. This can be structured in advance - for example: "each collaborator must write one stanza" - or poets can write side-by-side and merge the individual efforts at the end.
Speaking of authors, each poet can have multiple authors. Each of these can write on the site, perhaps aligning with different genres or poetry forms or writing approaches. Authors can also be shared authors. We call these Writing Groups and they allow everything that Collaborators can do, except the work is published and credited to all the poets within that Author.
Poems, and any other member content, can be given a standard copyright or listed under creative common. We have the ability for poems, if the author allows, to be embedded on other sites such as blogs and dedicated poetry sites. Where this is done, all copyright is also displayed, with a link back to the poem on poetTown.
Poets are not just limited to writing poems. We have areas of the site for Articles; News; How-to Guides; Reviews and in-depth conversations.
We also cater to spoken work and cross-media poetry, with the ability to embed video and audio renditions of poetry into any work.
Poettown integrates with many other social media platforms and we'll add to this over time. For example: You can automatically have a poem published on poetTown simultaneously published on Facebook, to your feed, to a page you have created or to a group you are a member of - as long as the group allows. Another example is to have a linkback to the poem automatically twittered and so on.
Finally, with regard to the in-depth feature outline, we are dedicated to building community. To that end we allow poets to sponsor other poets. On purchasing any plan, a user can choose to send 10% of their payment to a 'poet-in-need' ... which will be selected from random, weighted toward the more financially constrained members of the site. It can be done anonymously or openly with the poet recieving the sponsorship will being informed of the gift in either case - whether with a mention and link back to the sponsor or not. Poets can also choose, at any time, to send gifts to other poets.
In addition to all these features, we also allow, a very brief overview:
Poems can be archived, screened and flagged. Authors can also be archived, along with everything written by them with one button.
All ratings are anonymised. This is aimed at avoiding the tit-for-tat process we see happening on poetry sites all too often. Ratings are also processed to present an accurate rating, using sophisticated statistical methods. A poem with 3 ratings of 9, and one of 4 (out of 10), should rank higher than one with a single rating of 10. Members can still see the raw rating value whenever they wish.
The site has been built with accessibility in mind at every point. Our goal is to allow poetry to be accessible to as broad an audience as we possibly can.
The site has badges, to reward members for being good community members. These, as they accue, add to a poet's reputation which gives a very real benefit in the form of discounts and special offers.
Yes, there is more still but that novel we mentioned is beginning to appear. So we'll leave it there for now. We are on facebook, so feel free to come on over - poetTown on Facebook - and share a word or two.
We welcome suggestions and questions and look forward to engaging with anyone with either.
Together, with those who share a deep love of poetry, we will reach the launch and give a lasting contribution to poetry across this pale blue dot.
We would like to express our deep gratitude in advance. It is truly humbling to have experienced the kindness of so many over these years. We would not be here now, so close to everything we've worked so hard to see manifest, without all those we've met on our journey.
Kate and her Partner
Our aim is to establish a new paradigm in collaborative writing - not because we're the first to have the idea but because we are doing it right. That is a bold claim but made in humble gratitude, not arrogance. Read on and see why.
We focused on a deep attention to detail; consistently placing the user at the centre of our approach; making sure the user is the customer, not - as with many sites - the product and building tools that enable users to build each other up, not tear each other down.
I've always believed that everything we create of value is hard and yet fun at the same time. As someone once said, if you aren't enjoying yourself, you're doing it wrong.
That said, it has been hard - complicated along the way by some periods of ill health and life interfering. Life? - I had one of those once, before 17 hour days and code reviews .. not to mention bugs. Seriously, just hearing that word raises a nervous tick.
But most of that is behind us now and the end is in reach. Come on over, and cross that line with us. It's fitting, that a site centred on using a social media approach to its fullest, toward a model of collaborative and cooperative writing, should take those last steps though collaboration and cooperation.
So what have we been building exactly?
There isn't room, without writing a novel, to list every tool the site offers, so we'll try to outline as much as we can in brief.
On poetTown each user is called a Poet. poets can doing the following and more:
The most central feature - and the one we are working on now - is revenue-based. Not just ours but yours. Any work published - be it a poem; review; article ... anything generated by the site's poets - can have a small fee attached by its author. This is permitted on paid accounts only but those start at the low price of $2 Australian a month.
They can be on a paid per view, where a sample is displayed and anyone who wishes to read more pays the tiny fee. We're talking from tenths of a cent to a few cents per view at most. Or, they can be on a 'unlock this poem' basis. In this case a fee is set and when enough poets have sponsored the poem, or just one poet if they pay the whole fee, then the poem is unlocked and viewable by all.
The poets on the site make the content, so it's only fair that you have a means of benefiting from your contributions. When we aid we aim to make a truly collaborative site .. we really meant it.
Poets can read, write, translate and share poetry, in almost 250 languages. Other features include comments, reviews, annotations and mentoring.
Annotations allow users to edit each others work. This does not change the original poem. It marks the changes - what was deleted, added, changed and allows footnotes to offer context and explain the reasoning for the edit. The author of the poem can then examine the suggestion and, if they agree, with the click on a button publish a new version of the poem with the changes incorporated. The poet who made the suggestion is listed as a collaborator.
Mentoring is an advanced form of Annotation, in which poets can help teach others in a one-on-one back and forth.
We firmly believe that poetry is not limited to any one language. It should not stop at the water's edge but run past the gaps between us. A core aim of the site was to see poetry reach as many as possible, for it to be shared across cultures and national boundaries - a reflection of the global humanity found between words.
To that end, we have built the site to allow members to write in almost 250 languages, with more to be added as we get feedback. We are especially dedicated to giving languages that are at risk a place to live again and to allow poets to experience a rich range of work that, without translation, would be inaccessible.
Each poet has the option to mark any poem as open for translation. Then, other poets will be able to write translations of that poem. It's a simple as it gets.
An essential part of any writing process is that of the rewrite. The continuous refining, tweaking and ongoing evolution of a work. This is a singularly important aspect of creative writing and, almost always, the one that is overlooking on writing sites.
All versions of any poem you write are saved. This allows you to easily revert to a previous version when an edit does not work. Or, you can split a version off as new work, if it have potential in a new context. You can make old versions public, to show how your poem progressed from rough draft to the the polished end result. You can also make older versions private. We would encourage making them public as this is a very useful tool for those poets looking to learn and study the evolution of a poem.
Collaboration in the writing process itself is another feature we think you'll appreciate.
If an author opens a poem to collaboration, then others can request to collaborate, and everyone involved can add to or edit the poem. This can be structured in advance - for example: "each collaborator must write one stanza" - or poets can write side-by-side and merge the individual efforts at the end.
Speaking of authors, each poet can have multiple authors. Each of these can write on the site, perhaps aligning with different genres or poetry forms or writing approaches. Authors can also be shared authors. We call these Writing Groups and they allow everything that Collaborators can do, except the work is published and credited to all the poets within that Author.
Poems, and any other member content, can be given a standard copyright or listed under creative common. We have the ability for poems, if the author allows, to be embedded on other sites such as blogs and dedicated poetry sites. Where this is done, all copyright is also displayed, with a link back to the poem on poetTown.
Poets are not just limited to writing poems. We have areas of the site for Articles; News; How-to Guides; Reviews and in-depth conversations.
We also cater to spoken work and cross-media poetry, with the ability to embed video and audio renditions of poetry into any work.
Poettown integrates with many other social media platforms and we'll add to this over time. For example: You can automatically have a poem published on poetTown simultaneously published on Facebook, to your feed, to a page you have created or to a group you are a member of - as long as the group allows. Another example is to have a linkback to the poem automatically twittered and so on.
Finally, with regard to the in-depth feature outline, we are dedicated to building community. To that end we allow poets to sponsor other poets. On purchasing any plan, a user can choose to send 10% of their payment to a 'poet-in-need' ... which will be selected from random, weighted toward the more financially constrained members of the site. It can be done anonymously or openly with the poet recieving the sponsorship will being informed of the gift in either case - whether with a mention and link back to the sponsor or not. Poets can also choose, at any time, to send gifts to other poets.
In addition to all these features, we also allow, a very brief overview:
Poems can be archived, screened and flagged. Authors can also be archived, along with everything written by them with one button.
All ratings are anonymised. This is aimed at avoiding the tit-for-tat process we see happening on poetry sites all too often. Ratings are also processed to present an accurate rating, using sophisticated statistical methods. A poem with 3 ratings of 9, and one of 4 (out of 10), should rank higher than one with a single rating of 10. Members can still see the raw rating value whenever they wish.
The site has been built with accessibility in mind at every point. Our goal is to allow poetry to be accessible to as broad an audience as we possibly can.
The site has badges, to reward members for being good community members. These, as they accue, add to a poet's reputation which gives a very real benefit in the form of discounts and special offers.
Yes, there is more still but that novel we mentioned is beginning to appear. So we'll leave it there for now. We are on facebook, so feel free to come on over - poetTown on Facebook - and share a word or two.
We welcome suggestions and questions and look forward to engaging with anyone with either.
Together, with those who share a deep love of poetry, we will reach the launch and give a lasting contribution to poetry across this pale blue dot.
We would like to express our deep gratitude in advance. It is truly humbling to have experienced the kindness of so many over these years. We would not be here now, so close to everything we've worked so hard to see manifest, without all those we've met on our journey.
Kate and her Partner
Organizer
Kate Sylvia
Organizer
Wilson WA
