So Tommy Turtle, one of Amiright's more intellectual yet beloved and still engimatic contributors, has evidently gone into a self-imposed hibernation, thanks to what I am guessing is the comments of overly rude trolls or newbs...or for his own belief that nobody cares about his work.
http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/thebeatles1763.shtml

Well, WTF and all that?! :-[ ???

Wherever the heck he/she/you have gone to, he/she/you will be missed (again), believe it.

He does have somewhat of a point...mandatory voting and commenting can be counterproductive and has probably kept me (voluntarily) out of parody contests more than any other factor. For me, it can take less time to read than to decide on a fair vote, but I might be in the minority there

Looks like the original comment has been removed from that parody.  So, here's my two cents.  I agree with Ethan that mandatory voting and commenting is counterproductive, for just reading the daily parodies, although I would encourage it.  It's nice to get the voting and comments, and by doing the same for others, you likely encourage people to vote/comment on your works.  I try to reciprocate, although I haven't been very active here lately.  And you pretty much have to accept you'll get 1s for no reason other than pissing you off.

I feel contests are different...if you enter a contest, I do feel you're obligated to vote/comment on other parodies, since others in the contest will be voting/commenting on yours (and it's usually in the rules). 

I don't know the cause of all this, but I know two things:

a) Rude and/or ignorant comments are a fact of life around here, but
b) The players in our self-run contests USUALLY have a finer sense of decorum than the average Weird-Al-Wanna-be.

Poor Tommy was so mad, he hyperlinked the same song twice.  :o

I'm not sure from where you guys are getting the mandatory commenting angle...

In addition to what I already said in comments there: As far as I can tell, he's upset that no one noticed all the hard work he put into the footnotes of the parody linked in the opening comment (I've a feeling he linked the same parody twice to test us...). I have to admit I didn't either, at first. They aren't just footnotes, but parodied footnotes, and pretty funny ones at that.

I may be wrong, but my other guess is that he feels some people are speed reading his parodies. I know I get that feeling at times, and try to avoid doing it myself.

Something else he mentioned in the parody text: reciprocity is a bigger factor on the site than it should be; very few authors routinely get comments from non-parody authors. I've found this to be a problem for quite some time now. It's hard to be completely objective when the author you may be criticising is also one of your readers. Personally, I prefer honesty over a lame review/comment because I would never have improved if people didn't take the time to do what some call "nitpicking". Of course, you have to brush off the 1 voters (or, better yet, mock them), the occasional asshat who leaves downright mean comments, and focus on the good comments.

Some thoughts on parody voting/commenting...

When we (Pippin and I) are regularly contributing, I do try to go in everyday (including days we do not have parodies up), and vote and comment on all the OS's that I am familiar with. I don't always get there because I  have not been well lately and have been pretty mentally zonked on some days. I appreciate every vote and comment we get on ours, so it distresses me when I am not able to reciprocate. Some of those who regularly vote ours often do OS's that i am unfamiliar with, and I feel bad on days when I am unable for that reason to vote theirs. :(

There was a time when we stopped contruibuting for months because I just did not have the time to comment, and I felt it unfair to solicit votes and comments from others when I was unable to reciprocate. Pippin's time is even more constricted than mine, so much of the voting/commenting falls on this half of the duo.

As for commenting, there are some authors who have turned commenting into a sort of wit-fest, and truthfully, I often feel totally lame in my own comment contributions. I just don't have the energy for that type of repartee. So much of the time I don't put a great deal of thought into it; just want to let the author know that I have read and appreciated his/her parody.

Voting - there are often times when I might not find a particular parody funny - that doesn't mean it isn't - just not to my taste of humour. In cases like that I usually still vote 5 for humour as I realize that to most it might be funny. I have to admit that I often vote straight 5-5-5 on authors that I generally like and read regularly. If I read a parody that I really think is bad, I usually just skip to the next without voting - I don't like to hurt anyone's feelings.

I do try to vote every OS that I am familiar with, regardless of the author, but I have noticed that there are some authors who seem to have a groupie thing going and only vote certain authors. Perhaps I am a bit guilty of that myself with Alvin and JB, but it is mostly because they do songs that I am familiar with...

I have to admit that I routinely skip anything political (my life has enough aggrevation ::) ), any subject I am clueless about, such as some sports parodies and video game related parodies, and most entertainment related parodies (since I don't watch TV or go to movies and seldom know the subject).

Dave's parody station has a been a blessing as it has allowed me to be exposed to and appreciate some authors that I would normally not pay attention to since they do songs I almost never know the OS for... :)

Anyway, these were just some of my random musings. Feel free to ignore them.. ;)

As for Tommy - I thoroughly enjoyed his contributions and am only sorry that I did not give a more thoughtful critique of some of them... :(

Merry...not to be a copycat...but, you said everything I wanted to say.  Plus, I really hate to admit it, but I threw tantrums at first because I felt that I couldn't contribute very well.  Must have been a doozy, because a duo wrote a parody for me  ;D  ...saying that they sucked in the beginning too.

Now I found my style but I'm so vague about it that sometimes it gets me down when no one understands it...but I really voluntarily chose that style and like it.  I can understand the hours of work that Tommy put in his parody and know that he probably feels down.  I spend hours on mine, am really proud of it....but..... :\'(

Us artists and our fragile egos, huh?

So Tommy Turtle, one of Amiright's more intellectual yet beloved and still engimatic contributors, has evidently gone into a self-imposed hibernation, thanks to what I am guessing is the comments of overly rude trolls or newbs...or for his own belief that nobody cares about his work.
http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/thebeatles1763.shtml

Well, WTF and all that?! :-[ ???

Wherever the heck he/she/you have gone to, he/she/you will be missed (again), believe it.
  I hope he doesn't stay away for real--he's one of the reasons I'm still around allthough I don't submit parodies often ( I won't post unless I can record which means each parody can take a week or so unless I bunch up some old ones). . .I don't get hung up on comments, I'm just hopeing to get laughs out. . .and I know Tommy is just having a bad day, we love him too much as a Parodist for him to fully disappear, I'd be very sad if he did.

Looks like the original comment has been removed from that parody.  So, here's my two cents.  I agree with Ethan that mandatory voting and commenting is counterproductive, for just reading the daily parodies, although I would encourage it.  It's nice to get the voting and comments, and by doing the same for others, you likely encourage people to vote/comment on your works.  I try to reciprocate, although I haven't been very active here lately.  And you pretty much have to accept you'll get 1s for no reason other than pissing you off.

I feel contests are different...if you enter a contest, I do feel you're obligated to vote/comment on other parodies, since others in the contest will be voting/commenting on yours (and it's usually in the rules). 
  Agreed on the Comments on Contests, what I wish is that everyone put enough effort into the comments to show they read it for fair consideration. . .most of the comments are insightful and tells enough that I could tell they read it, but comments like "great" don't really say much. . .but that's life, and unfortunately not everyone gives it the same effort.  I don't have a lot of free time, but what I do is I read one song from every contest I'm in and give full attention to those parodies rather than doing them all last minute, I mark the best ones in a favorites folder dedicated to AmIRight to go back to at the end and pick my favs. . .

I'm not sure from where you guys are getting the mandatory commenting angle...

In addition to what I already said in comments there: As far as I can tell, he's upset that no one noticed all the hard work he put into the footnotes of the parody linked in the opening comment (I've a feeling he linked the same parody twice to test us...). I have to admit I didn't either, at first. They aren't just footnotes, but parodied footnotes, and pretty funny ones at that.

I may be wrong, but my other guess is that he feels some people are speed reading his parodies. I know I get that feeling at times, and try to avoid doing it myself.

Something else he mentioned in the parody text: reciprocity is a bigger factor on the site than it should be; very few authors routinely get comments from non-parody authors. I've found this to be a problem for quite some time now. It's hard to be completely objective when the author you may be criticising is also one of your readers. Personally, I prefer honesty over a lame review/comment because I would never have improved if people didn't take the time to do what some call "nitpicking". Of course, you have to brush off the 1 voters (or, better yet, mock them), the occasional asshat who leaves downright mean comments, and focus on the good comments.
  Agreed Red Ant, and that's why I hope he isn't really leaving. . .I got the footnotes--and I did make notice of it, but I didn't leave a huge page long comment but enough to let him know I read them. . .I just hope he reconsiders---While some of us leave huge comments, a lot of others just don't have time. . .I feel the same way sometimes, but I catch myself leaving short comments now and then just because what else is there to say?  I love his writing, while I don't usually find them hilarious--I find them to be intellectually funny and always have, I don't think he realizes that appreciation is there, Well I guess the activity of this thread kinda proves we do appreciate him.

In my experience with TT, I find him to be critical, but not in a bad way. On my last parody, he gave me a 354, but this criticism was well deserved in my opinion. He took the time to explain the reasoning behind his vote, and due to a misplaced line on my part, I have to agree with him. He nailed me on the head, but I was the one who gave him the hammer.  Parodizing songs should be, for the most part, something we do because we love to do it. When I write a parody, it's usually for two reasons, other than I love to do it. 1). to be informative and 2). to make the reader laugh. If I don't think that my parody falls into at least one of these two categories, I will usually scrap it until I can fix it. I have been criticized by some people, and others have been very generous in their response, like Tommy. The commentation should be something we can learn from, and not used to slam the parodist personally. If a low score is warranted on someones work, then, in my opinion, time should be taken by the commentator to explain why that is. We can only grow sharper with our talents if constructive criticism is doled out. Only when a low score like 323 or something like that is issued, with no explanation, does this become counterproductive. The same goes for automatic fives being given without reading the authors work, and relying on the other votes to decide on a parodists rating on his or her work. Tommy, if you read this, don't give up. I don't think that I'm the only one here who wants to see future TT parodies. We should all be here to help each other grow as parodists, and not launch unexplained attacks on each others work. Remember that as parodists, we should all try to make the world laugh because there is a lot out there to cry about. Peace everyone.

I know this is going to sound like self-serving whingeing, but there are many reasons why I don't comment and vote as often as other people do. I don't think I'm the reason for Tommy's irritation, but yet, it might be helpful to explain where I come from on this, so maybe others can understand.

I don't have regular PC access...my time on-line is surreptitious jumps to my favorite web sites while at work, so my time is precious and quick. When I hop on Amiright daily, I scan the New Parodies list for OS's that interest me, for authors that interest me, or titles that stick out like a sore thumb. Sometimes the parodies I read compel me to comment and/or vote, but very often not enough--that would include even the most accomplished writers here. Sometimes Latest Comments compels me to view a recent or not-so-recent work. I devote more of my scheduled free-time to the contests we run here where I can be extra critical and really enjoy the works.

We have to remember that all of this is Entertainment--without any pre-assigned requirements other than keeping the art works and commentary at least PG-friendly and unhurtful-- and people can (and should) only give so much of themselves to it in addition to their life's priorities. I do like all his efforts to enlighten our minds while entertaining us, but I hope TT understands that he is not the only artist in the world whose work is not well-read or acknowledged.

I know this is going to sound like self-serving whingeing, but there are many reasons why I don't comment and vote as often as other people do. I don't think I'm the reason for Tommy's irritation, but yet, it might be helpful to explain where I come from on this, so maybe others can understand.

I don't have regular PC access...my time on-line is surreptitious jumps to my favorite web sites while at work, so my time is precious and quick. When I hop on Amiright daily, I scan the New Parodies list for OS's that interest me, for authors that interest me, or titles that stick out like a sore thumb. Sometimes the parodies I read compel me to comment and/or vote, but very often not enough--that would include even the most accomplished writers here. Sometimes Latest Comments compels me to view a recent or not-so-recent work. I devote more of my scheduled free-time to the contests we run here where I can be extra critical and really enjoy the works.

We have to remember that all of this is Entertainment--without any pre-assigned requirements other than keeping the art works and commentary at least PG-friendly and unhurtful-- and people can (and should) only give so much of themselves to it in addition to their life's priorities. I do like all his efforts to enlighten our minds while entertaining us, but I hope TT understands that he is not the only artist in the world whose work is not well-read or acknowledged.

As a regular reader, but not an author, I have seen your name under several parodies comments, a lot of them critical in nature, including Tommy Turtles.

Without regular access, maybe it would behoove you to use your precious time reading and commenting on the Great Writers here, instead of critiquing morons work. Does it make you feel like Simon Cowell to come down on people? Wait, I get it. You don't feel qualified to comment on the better stuff, so you critique stuff on your level of writing!

I generally vote when I have a parody up(or if I see one that I really want to read). I use the internet at public places and the ones I go to have time limits(usually an hour at a time), so I read the ones I know or that interest me(even if I don't know the song). I always leave a comment with the rating, even if the vote is less than 555 perfect. I do try to vote and comment as objectively as possible(so that I don't seem too mean when doing so, but I have been very blunt a few times before).

Lately, I haven't been in much of a mood to write parodies period, although I do try to do one on occassion, so that I'm alittle active on this site.

I actually have plenty of ideas(inbetween 20-30 at least), but due to both break-ins that happened to my apartment, I haven't been really writing any, mostly because I had my dad take most of my CDs for safe keeping. It won't be until after I move out that I actually become more active again.

Edit: Sorry, ran out of time there.

Anyway, I know the feeling of just wanting to stop, I don't get too many votes or comments myself, mainly due to the themes I use(sometimes I can't help getting an idea based off of anime or something like that). But I have a goal, I intend on making a parody to every Nirvana song I've heard, so I definetly won't stop.

But I have a goal, I intend on making a parody to every Nirvana song I've heard, so I definetly won't stop.


Follow that dream!! 8) :D

EDIT: You'll even parody "Beans" (from the When The Lights Out box)? LOL!

Turtle was one of the people who encouraged me to stay when I felt down.  There's a lot of times I'm going to miss jokes and not understand things.  I didn't think to look up the word sesquipedal until he said it in a comment.  Turtle needs to stay.

Follow that dream!! 8) :D

EDIT: You'll even parody "Beans" (from the When The Lights Out box)? LOL!


Yes, plus a few you haven't heard(that are out on bootleg).

I'll have to also do "Nobody knows I'm new wave"(not the title of the song/jam, but it's a title that everyone calls it) and the song that's mistitled "Bambi Slaughter".

Heck, I'll probably even do ones to his Fecal Matter Demo songs, there are some whole recordings up on youtube(do a search with the words Fecal Matter). I'll just have to link the songs and lyrics up.