I am appalled.

[rose]

Oh my. There is a top author contest running now, in which the first two rounds are popular vote rounds. From their web page:

In round 1 over 82,000 votes were casted from 136 different countries. This competition has caused a wave of positive messages to advance forward into the world. This energy has now ranked this website at 42,000 in the world in internet traffic and has given thousands of authors the confidence and knowledge to get their message noticed and moving forward into people's lives.

The above paragraph does not resonate with my vibrance.

The first reason is that I hate giving out my email address willy nilly and never participate in this kind of voting.

The second is, sure we all make mistakes and put up some clunkers in our haste to post, but it seems like we should strive for higher standards when soliciting writers than we do at any other time. Forgive me, contest sponsors, but someone has to say it: You are seriously lacking in swing.

rose

[polymath]

My vibrance is casted into fomenting mammock by this's message's positively advances emphasis forward over irregarding delivery method discoursing whose gooder at Interneting than all but supposably 41,999 betterses. No verve.

[Margo]

My vibrance is casted into fomenting mammock by this's message's positively advances emphasis forward over irregarding delivery method discoursing whose gooder at Interneting than all but supposably 41,999 betterses. No verve.

You so owe me aspirin, polymath. I can smell the fried synapses. :)

[polymath]

You so owe me aspirin, polymath. I can smell the fried synapses. :)

A consolation; it wasn't easy on my synapses to write it. What I smell is astroturfing and phishing. I won't validate my suspicions because I don't want to wind up on a spam list for sales pitches of the "winners" books. Twice bitten, forever shy.

[J. T. SHEA]

My vibrance is casted into fomenting mammock by this's message's positively advances emphasis forward over irregarding delivery method discoursing whose gooder at Interneting than all but supposably 41,999 betterses. No verve.

My thoughts exactly, Polymath!

[rose]

And yet I see some talented writers among the 271(!) finalists. As for the unlucky 2000 who didn't make the cut, they can still sign up for a how-to-get published-course for a one time special price of only 79.95.

I wonder when they get to learn the how-to-write part.

rose

[Jessica Peter]

Even reading through that several times, I'm not quite sure what they're getting at. Hm.