Take your partners!

[k-j]

All right, time to pair you up with the poet you secretly yearn to work with!

We have 16 participants. I'm not including myself in this pairing process; if we have a latecomer then I'll team up with them, otherwise I'm not bothered.

I want everyone to order the 16 words below from 1 to 16, with 1 being the word you most associate with, or are most intrigued by, or simply like the most. It doesn't matter really. Be as quick as you can and don't spend any time pondering your choice deeply. Send my your orderings by PM.

I'll correlate the responses and try to match "beginners" with "experienced" according to a line of best fit. I will look for people who rate each others' words highly, and also who have similar preferences generally. We have slightly more Exp (9 or 10) than Beg (6 or 7), so after all of the beginners are accounted for there will be one or two Exp-Exp matches.

List of words:

choices
clone
dreams
fluvial
furkle
impetus
law
loophole
owls
path
poshlost
rust
somniloquy
soul
spoons
topiary

Thank you for playing.

[k-j]

Obviously there's no point in ranking your own word, so really it's a 1-15 I'm looking for.

[Ros]

furkle? poshlost?

you're just showing off, you lot.

Ros

[k-j]

Update: just waiting on OE and Ryan P. before I assign partners.

If I haven't heard from those two by Monday I'll assign them to each other and get on with it.

[David]

Well, who's mine? I'm all agog.

[k-j]

Okay, I think everyone is more or less fixed up. Should I post the pairings here? Yes, I think so.

First I'll just explain how I did it. It was entirely mathematical. The first constraint to consider was that we wanted to pair Exp with Beg where possible. So Brian can't go with Ros, sorry Ros.

For the remaining possible combinations, I looked at how each person had rated the other's word. So, for example, DonegalPirate rated Bodkin's word top, numero uno, which gives a value of 1. Per contra, DonegalPirate's word was Bodkin's third favourite, a value of 3. I simply add these to give a base matching score of 4.

But I'm really looking for not just for high ratings (low matching scores) but high mutual ratings. I want to avoid the situation where Mic and Dante, with a decent matching score of 13, are paired together on the strength of a 1 from Mic for Dante's word but a lowly 13 from Dante for Mic's word. So I subtract one score from the other and make the sign positive to give a "congruence" score for each pairing.

The final score is just the matching score plus the congruence score. In the example of DonegalPirate and Bodkin, this is 4+2=6 (by far the lowest overall score and thus the "best" pairing).

Starting with this one, I went through the lowest scores in the matrix which cranked out six reasonably good pairings. Then it got tricky. Luckily I had OwenEdwards and Ryan P., neither of whom ranked their favourite words, as floaters. I was able to assign a couple of misfits to these two based on their (the misfits') ranking of OE and RP's words.

So there is science behind this. You can argue with the method, but if you accept the method you have to accept the outcome. And the surprising outcome is that each person is actually paired with the best fit (with one very close exception), i.e. for each participant, there is no better participant with whom they could have been paired than the one with whom they are actually paired. This is quite remarkable when you think about it.

Anyway, on to the results of this jamboree of geekery:

[k-j]

(in no particular order)

Brian Edwards - Select Samaritan
Donegal Pirate - Bodkin
Mic - Ryan P.
Ben Johnson - Dante
Nicky B. - David
Calico - John Lott
Suzanne - Owen Edwards
Oggiesnr - Ros

I suggest you get in touch with each other and make beautiful poetry.

[bodkin]

I feel certain you should have been squaring something and dividing by the number of pairings minus 1...

[Ros]

What were we doing, again?
Was it some sort of sonnet? Do we use the word one of us selected?

sorry, bit dim tonight!

Ros

[k-j]

What were we doing, again?
Was it some sort of sonnet? Do we use the word one of us selected?

I think we decided on no restrictions at all, didn't we? Or rather, whatever restrictions you want.

[k-j]

I feel certain you should have been squaring something and dividing by the number of pairings minus 1...

I would have loved to but rl intruded as usual.

[brianedwards]

DonegalPirate and Bodkin [...] by far the lowest overall score and thus the "best" pairing).

But, err, both regular Exp posters therefore breaching rule #1.

Whatever, I'm delighted with my partner. Hope he brings the lube.

[k-j]

DonegalPirate and Bodkin [...] by far the lowest overall score and thus the "best" pairing).

But, err, both regular Exp posters therefore breaching rule #1.

Hmm - for some reason I had DP in the Beginner bucket. Ah well, never mind.

Whatever, I'm delighted with my partner. Hope he brings the lube.

lol

[brianedwards]

Some members are very conspicuous by their absence: Nash, Geoff, Ray, Nar, Pauline, Brendan, gavin . . .

[Suzanne]

HellooooooooooooooooooOwen.

I suggest the poems are (1)posted anon. for that untethered appeal. It was such fun last time.

And we can post as (2)many poems as our team produces.

And if those mentioned want to (3)jump in, they may do so by writing with one of the people on the list.

This will give us a few more poems in the contest. I would think that is more interesting than just a few.

And the intended deadline will be???

Suzanne

[brianedwards]

I suggest the poems are (1)posted anon. for that untethered appeal. It was such fun last time.

And we can post as (2)many poems as our team produces.

And if those mentioned want to (3)jump in, they may do so by writing with one of the people on the list.

Disagree on all counts.

[Suzanne]

Why?

[brianedwards]

Ha. How did I know you'd come back with that Suze?

Why should it be anonymous? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Because it was "fun"? Please, spare me the reductionism.
Why should we post as many as we like? Nonsense like this reduces the whole enterprise to the level of "Writing Exercise" with its inherent denial of the possibility that something of real worth might actually be produced.
And why should those who haven't signed up already now be allowed to handpick a partner from among themselves? Kind of undermines all the hard work k-j has put in so far don't you think? If we were handpicking partners from the start we could have had this thing started weeks ago.

Of course, pairs are free to write whatever they like, but only one poem should be submitted to the comp. If pairs want to share their other efforts too, they can do so - on the boards, after the comp is finished.

B.

[Suzanne]

Oh. My mistake. Sorry.

[brianedwards]

Apology accepted.

[Suzanne]

Yes, I'm sorry if it sounded as if I disrespected k-j, it was not my intention.
The rest of your explanation I see as a difference of opinion, B.

It's not important, just ideas. Disagreeing is okay.

[Nash]

Some members are very conspicuous by their absence: Nash, Geoff, Ray, Nar, Pauline, Brendan, gavin . . .

This one's not my sort of a thing Brian, but I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

[brianedwards]

Some members are very conspicuous by their absence: Nash, Geoff, Ray, Nar, Pauline, Brendan, gavin . . .

This one's not my sort of a thing Brian, but I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Fair enough. I think collaborations are a good idea myself. A whole human being is much more interesting than a word prompt or theme. Potential for some real poetry I reckon.

B.

[Nash]

Some members are very conspicuous by their absence: Nash, Geoff, Ray, Nar, Pauline, Brendan, gavin . . .

This one's not my sort of a thing Brian, but I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Fair enough. I think collaborations are a good idea myself. A whole human being is much more interesting than a word prompt or theme. Potential for some real poetry I reckon.

B.

I agree Brian, there's been a lot of successful collabarative work in the past, weren't the Dada lot quite big on that sort of thing? But, y'know, one man's meat and all that.

[k-j]

Don't worry about devaluing my "hard work". I enjoy messing about with spreadsheets.

I do agree with Brian though - one effort per pair.

If anyone else is reading this and wanting to join in, I'm still available. Send me a PM if you like. Otherwise I'm quite happy to just observe.