Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34491
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34491
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I've had a look at [allpoetry.com](https://allpoetry.com/poems), a few review sites such as [sitejabber.com](https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/allpoetry.com) and sites reporting about it such as [PlagiarismToday.com](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2005/06/27/allpoetrycom-still-great/).

On their [registration site](https://allpoetry.com/) they mention quite a huge number of members - "Over 500,000 poets get feedback and improve their poetry". I couldn't find any information about how many of them could be considered "active" and how many could be considered "lurker", but in general this seems to be a big community, which means there are lots of possibilities for feedback.

There is no nice way to link to some of the posts on the frontpage, which makes it hard for me to reference the post. This is not really a good thing as you want people on the internet to be able to easily refer to specific works, such as StackExchange for example offers with the "share" button under every question and answer.

After searching a bit for what I wanted to link from the frontpage I found what I was looking for: [_The Passionate Shepherd To His Love_](https://allpoetry.com/The-Passionate-Shepherd-To-His-Love) from Christopher Marlowe has 106 comments, which looks like a lot of feedback at first. But looking through the comments I am getting the urge to flag them as "No longer needed"... Comments like "Deep" and "Cooley" won't really help you become a better author and they kind of seem to drown the useful critiques that this site is supposed to deliver. Of course, this is not an aspiring author - this is simply a poem from someone that lived in the 16<sup>th</sup> century, but for me this is a good indicator that people are not really into discussing poetry and more about simply reading it. You might find fans there, but you won't find a lot of people discussing poetry.

So let's go back to the frontpage - which is not easy, as it's always trying to bring me to the "publish your work" site... - and look at a random poem I can see like [this one](https://allpoetry.com/poem/13733008-Sing-Song-by-Andrew-Sano). Half of the ~10 comments seem to be useful while the other half is simply "I like this" in different variations... Other poems seem to exhibit a similar behaviour and the time when the mentioned one was published was "one month ago". There seems to be a mechanism that randomly picks poems to display them on the frontpage, which might help to get some eyes to view your stuff even after some time, but the amount of feedback in general seems to be more like a comment or two every couple of days. After reading that there are more than 500,000 people active on this site that is focused specifically on giving feedback I would have expected a bit more.

I find it a bit disturbing to read their [store](https://allpoetry.com/store), which offers different membership styles. The silver one for example mentions

> Lots of extra comments on your poems

I am not sure if I read that correctly or I am simply missing something, but this reads as if you are paying them to comment on your stuff... I am not sure if that's the kind of feedback you are searching for.

The feedback on [sitejabber](https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/allpoetry.com) is very differently: some people like it and some are devastated that the owners of the site published their work without their consent. There is not much between "I love this site!" and "Stay away!", but such feedback sites are always a bit difficult. You never know the story of what exactly happened behind the scenes and who is posting there.

[PlagiarismToday](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2005/06/27/allpoetrycom-still-great/) on the other hand mentions that the mods at least respond fast to plagiarism and other problems. Swiftly acting mods are good - plagiarism from other site members is a bit concerning. This is also shown in [Handling Abuse Through the Community](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/08/14/handling-abuse-through-the-community/) The site is mentioned positively in [Paying to Plagiarize?](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2005/12/03/paying-to-plagiarize/) They even mention that the different pay levels don't affect moderation in [Buying Your Way Out of Trouble?](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2005/07/02/buying-your-way-out-of-trouble/).

But the same site also has [The Sad Poetry Plagiarism Story from Canada](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/09/19/the-sad-poetry-plagiarism-story-from-canada/) that mentions the site.

All in all this site doesn't seem to be as great as they make it sound at first. Relatively expensive membership for a site that wants you to publish stuff and comment on other peoples stuff, weird descriptions of extra features in the different membership levels, which also suggests a "second class citizenship" for free users (or even "third class"), not so much feedback, no long and elaborate discussions about poetry, just small comments, which are quite often simple "I like this" comments, no negative feedback option (just a like button) - it sounds a bit like a gratification site that allows you to read lots and lots of poems, but I am not sure if it's a good site to get honest feedback from other people with experience in the field. The feedback you can find on the web is split quite clearly amongst the line of complete lovers and haters - not much in between, though I suspect exactly in between is where you will find yourself. I am not a member of the site and can't give you first-hand experience, but on the other hand I am not biased in any way.

Ultimately it's up to you. The site seems to be relatively big and if all you want is _some_ sort of free feedback from like-minded people it seems to be a good opportunity.

Original score: 4