Thanks, Duncan, for posting the results of the Rules Committee meetings, and thanks to the whole Rules Committee for their diligent work. I know that they want to do what is best for our community, and to enhance the Vancouver Poetry Slam going forward.
Of course, these are big proposed changes, and we should expect a healthy debate about the pros and cons of adopting them. I hope that as many people as possible will follow Duncan's suggestion and let your thoughts known. At the same time, let's remember that even though we may disagree, we should disagree respectfully, as we all have the same goal, which is to make the Van Slam better.
With all that in mind, I suppose my first question is:
1. Isn't it a good thing that first place winners step aside?
It opens up more spots for other poets, and allows others a better chance of getting the thrill of winning a slam, which is a big boost to a fledgling poet's confidence, and makes that poet eager to continue writing and performing. If the slam each week had all of last year's team members competing, as a fledgling poet, I would feel I had only the slimmest of chances of even making the second round, which would be a hugely discouraging.
2. Doesn't our current system reward high-placing poets enough? Do we really want to make sure that someone who keeps placing third makes the play-offs? and if the current system is not broke, why fix it?
A points system rewards not only the quality of placings, but the quantity.
3. So why do we need a points system?
We have a points system for the WOWps qualifying system because we wanted to encourage the women in our community to compete more often, which made a lot of sense. We needed women to compete more often to create more diversity in the voices on our stage, and in our community.
Any points system demands more participation. Poets will be looking to slam as often as they can to rack up points. But we already have a huge line up of poets trying to sign up for our poetry slams. At the end of the last team qualifying season, there were regularly over 20 poets trying to sign up for 12 spots. This was a real problem for our community, and, as I see it, the points system will make this problem worse.
Poets will feel it necessary to slam every chance they get so they can get into the top four and gain points for qualifying. That seems to be why the Rules Committee has put a cap of seven slams for competing poets, but right now the great majority of poets slam less than seven times, far less. The fact that we need a cap is a strong indication to me that the Rules Committee realizes that a points system will increase participation. If we needed more poets signing up each slam, I would be all for this system. But we don't. We need the opposite. We need more opportunities for a growing number of poets to express their work.
I foresee a situation, caused by this points system, where we end up with 30 or more poets vying for those 12 spots at every regular slam, and many poets leaving our scene because they didn't get a chance to share their work. So my last question is: if the current system works, why would we risk pushing the Van Slam toward such a situation?
Again, I thank the whole Rules Committee for their work, and I know that they have been hashing this out for some time now. I recognize that the Rules Committee's only goal is to make the Van Slam better, and I hope that they will continue to work toward this goal.
