SRS THREAD ABOUT TOPICALS. ARE "PICK YOUR OWN TOPIC" WEEKS LAZY AS FUCK ON THE MODS PART?

[sral]

this came up in the AOWL today:

http://www.netcees.org/showthread.ph...wpost&t=120194

personally i think it is.

it might not be, and i'm not knocking the mods because they put in a shitload of time here i dont

BUT 'pick your own topic' to me just feels like a cop-out

it has an aura of "The mods couldnt be bothered to find any topics, so go find one for yourself"

the whole idea is to be given a set topic so you force yourself to be creative with it

finding your own topic completely nullifies that

in my opinion.


anyway, i could be wrong, maybe you guys feel different on this?

thats why i brought it here.

discuss?

[Hush]

Agree
It would be like write ur own mag week

[sral]

Originally Posted by Hush

Agree
It would be like write ur own mag week

or "pick your opponent to write a battle verse against this week" and just use a bunch of pre-prepared ether you've been stacking up for

i dunno man

open a "topic suggestions" thread or something and have people drop ideas in if you're really that short on time/effort

nah mean?

i'm not even having a pop at the mods, i respect their shit, i just call it how i see it.

[sral]

Originally Posted by sraL

open a "topic suggestions" thread or something and have people drop ideas in if you're really that short on time/effort

nah mean?

quoted for truth

[Amen.]

yes, lazy

and yes, you right bout being giving a topic and forcing the writers to be creative

rather then letting them select something that they know they are used to or accustomed too

yes, lazy

[Split Eight]

I agree with this sentiment, but believe that the idea was to maybe make people a little less reluctant to write by allowing more creative freedom

Not to mention- for as much as we collectively demand quality, challenging topics-- I think that "how well did each competitor write to the topic" is VERY often overlooked in favor of "which competitor wrote better and did they also mention the topic in passing"

Like, if you clearly repurpose an old verse everyone jumps all over it. But it's completely binary, like as soon as you *scrape* the surface of the topic the main voting criteria suddenly becomes heavily weighted towards everything BUT connection to the topic

It's like people want us to enforce the idea that writing to the topic is important because it eliminates voter bias/ skill mismatches, but then outwriting your opponent is all about showmanship and we as voters allow that to happen

It works both ways. People rarely write strictly to the topics because creative leeway gives them a competitive edge

This is why I think picture topics are superior. There are many ways to interpret them, you can incorporate them as the entirety of your story or a brief scene, and it's glaringly obvious if you grabbed something from the archives

[Hush]

How bout pick ur opponents topics ? @Vulgar @dr. Dog @sraL

[Split Eight]

Originally Posted by Hush

How bout pick ur opponents topics ? @Vulgar @dr. Dog @sraL

That's a cool idea, the only problem is that we need to enforce a check-in deadline for that week

We will look into trying this.

I was thinking of trying some other shit as well, like:

-given a quote, one writer has to support it and the other has to discredit it
-giving two or three easier/ open-ended topics to each battle that all have to be used
-given a well-regarded Open Mic verse, write the better collab/ complementary verse than your opponent

we'll see

[sral]

Originally Posted by Hush

How bout pick ur opponents topics ? @Vulgar @dr. Dog @sraL

I mean this is cool to an extent, Certain used to do it and let his opponent pick for them.

Personally I wouldn't be a fan of this in my battles. I much prefer a topic list with 8-9 pictures chosen by the mods, maybe some phrase topics, maybe even a few story prompt topics "You just found out you have AIDS, what do you do?" etc

Diff topics inspire diff formats of writing for diff writers. Sure, ideally you should be able to come up with something to anything if you're that good a writer... but if someone is inspired by a certain picture/topic, it usually leads to a better verse by them rather than then half-assing to a topic their opponents chosen for them that doesnt hit them creatively.

[Witty]

I always write to the topic.

Give me any topic, I'll write THE FUCK out of it.

[Pharaohs Army]

Originally Posted by Witty

I always write to the topic.

Give me any topic, I'll write THE FUCK out of it.

"write the fuck out of it"?
come on witty. who talks like that?!


@Mr. J

[Witty]

Originally Posted by Pharaohs Army

"write the fuck out of it"?
come on witty. who talks like that?!


@Mr. J

I TALK LIKE THAT.

I WILL WRITE THE FUCK OUT OF YOU TOO.

TRY ME YOU EGYPTIAN FUCK.

TRY ME.

[Pharaohs Army]

I SAID IT TO MR J ONCE I FOUND IT IRONIC OR SOMETHING NOW I'M LOOKING UP THE TRUE DEFINITION OF IRONY OMG DON'T TEST ME BOI

[Witty]

Originally Posted by Pharaohs Army

I SAID IT TO MR J ONCE I FOUND IT IRONIC OR SOMETHING NOW I'M LOOKING UP THE TRUE DEFINITION OF IRONY OMG DON'T TEST ME BOI

k sorry.

[Mr. J]

I remember when I champed for a few rounds I had the option out of three topics and the one that wasn't picked was given to other writers

we also had like a topic suggestion thread where topics were placed and you just chose what you wanted

either way I dont recall picking your own topics from your own ***he of stuff...
it has its positives & negatives

[Diode]

god forbid you be creative in a creative writing league

[sral]

Originally Posted by Diode

god forbid you be creative in a creative writing league

It's lazy as fuck on the mods behalf to do it. If you can pick and choose your own topic to write to, why even bother being in the league?

You can throw that in Open Mic and be done with it.

That's my point. It's nothing to do with being 'creative'.

[Diode]

Originally Posted by sraL

It's lazy as fuck on the mods behalf to do it. If you can pick and choose your own topic to write to, why even bother being in the league?

You can throw that in Open Mic and be done with it.

That's my point. It's nothing to do with being 'creative'.

because the end result is "who wrote a better story"

this is the way topical leagues ran for YEARS before the mod-assigned format became popular

[sral]

lmao i'm pretty sure i've been around and participated long before you and yeah

that never happened

thanks

[Diode]

Originally Posted by sraL

lmao i'm pretty sure i've been around and participated long before you and yeah

that never happened

thanks

you're completely wrong, especially since i ran both topical leagues on bboys and pr.

IT'S OKAY TO BE WRONG, LARS.