why are storm poets allowed to participate in IWPS?

[mollykat]

i think this is silly.   "The point is not the points, the point is the poetry" right?  so shouldnt more poetry (and thus more poets) make people happy?  and if we are going on the premise that these champions of poetry are the best of the best of the best, than that means our slam system is completely without flaws yes?  but we have five random judges, who sometimes know less about poetry than the dumpsters sitting outside the venue.   So, maybe some really awesome poets didn't get picked to be "champions" of their venue.   Doesn't the storm slot leave space for error?  And we're humans, so there's bound to be error.   If you completely disagree and think the poets chosen as reps for their venues are undeniably the best wordsmiths alive, who cares if storm poets get in?  by this criteria, they can't win anyway right?

im just thinking aloud.   personally, i think the more the merrier.   Also, i think the stress on who wins is a little ironic.   Isn't this about getting out, getting heard, keeping poetry alive? 

No!  it's about winning!!  ROAR!!!  cheer for your team, paint your face, write with the formula that is bound to score a ten!!!

=D 

i think it's really cool that this whole organization exists in the first place, and we should not nitpick quite so much.   If Taylor Mali wins, will he not deserve it because he wasn't chosen to rep urbana? 

[Dahled]

cut NPS to 65 or so teams...
-bill mac

every time we suggest this it gets shouted down... imho 64 # of teams for the tourney, especially since the larger field is harder to find host cities for.

[Jared Paul]

I don't see any reason to shrink it.  If you can make it to Finals against 60, you should be able to make it to Finals against 72.  Or 80, or 100.  It's anybody's game.  Let the haters hate.

[Stefan Sencerz]

Two things:

1) To be fair to BigPoppaE
I take his post to be a question (and not a critisism,
and he further clarified it two posts further)
and an invitation to a discussion.

I like that the tournament is as big as feasible.
If there is a process of selecting Storm Poets for available spots
(after all deadlines were met),
and if the process of selection is FAIR
there is no problem in my mind.

Stefan

[Dahled]

I don't see any reason to shrink it.  If you can make it to Finals against 60, you should be able to make it to Finals against 72.  Or 80, or 100.  It's anybody's game.  Let the haters hate.

the reason to shrink it or cap the number of teams isn't about the competition at all but to make it easier/possible to find cities to host it - the bigger it gets the more unwieldy and harder to facilitate. each additional venue you have to get makes it that much more impossible for smaller markets.

additionally what capping the number of teams at nps would do is push us towards a regional system which would make teams compete against more, not fewer, teams on the path to winning. it'd just be x teams at nps, but 2x or 3x teams in regionals to get to nps.

[inkera]

@Dahled This thread isn't about NPS. 

[Dahled]

i know - i'm responding to something specific that Bill Mac brought up that relates to both iwps and nps (which i quoted a little higher up in the thread). Then i went on a tangent that related specifically to nps. I know first hand about the difficulties of finding additional suitable venues when the field grows. we were able to do it here (if you use a loose definition of "suitable") but many places wouldn't be able to do the same.