[Shodan]

Originally Posted by BURDENS

How the fuck did you get in the FVC?

Originally Posted by BURDENS

I mean straight up. Ever since I returned to the site, your votes are some of the main ones that I continuously shake my head at & I don't even think you've voted against me tbh. It's the off shit you say in your expo & I see you doing it everywhere.

Do you know who tells me things like this? Dunning-Kruger bubble residents who don't have enough foundational knowledge to tell a good text battle bar from a bad one. I have never once gotten a complaint like this from someone who has won a bracket tournament. My memory isn't perfect, though, so if you've won a bracket tournament and have complained about my votes in the past - then by all means, step up to the table. I'm not holding my breath.

Originally Posted by BURDENS

You very recently claimed that my set ups are not relevant to my punchlines. Do you not realize that I have studied the best on the site for years to get where I am now?

I've spent years listening to hard rock, therefore I can do riffs like Eddie van Halen.

Originally Posted by BURDENS

I do not write rookie shit homie, I know the ins & outs of this text shit.

this is a straight up lie

Originally Posted by BURDENS

& honestly, making sure everything is as relevant to my main punch as possible is one of the biggest things I focus on & pass down to anyone who asks for my advice.

If we're just limiting the discussion to the battle you're presumably complaining about my vote on, the recent one with guts, then explain how this is supposed to work:

"I'm 'Lookin Fo Meals' w a black MASK & MORE THAT'S NEW fo a TASK TO SCORE A FEW, hed only 'Produce enuf to Leave w da Chicken' while runnin FAST IN DOORS W CLUES of JACKIN STORES FOR FOOD!"

You're clearly obsessed with my expos, so surely you've read where I've derided people for using "2014-style execution" where a wordplay only works if you read it one way. "He'd only produce enough to leave with the chicken," okay, that makes sense as a phrase, but then read it the other way. "He'd only produce [PRO-deuce] enough"... nah bro. If you don't see what I'm talking about, substitute produce with another noun, like GROCERY. Then you'd have "He'd only grocery enough to leave with the chicken" - do you understand now why this is a reach?

And as for the part about this bar not having a relevant setup, think about this. You mentioned something about him leaving with the chicken. But NOTHING in the rest of the bar had ANYTHING to do with chicken, and if chicken is being used in some metaphorical or colloquial sense here, then I didn't catch it. Please... enlighten me.

Originally Posted by BURDENS

I know what I'm doin dawg so your comments like that got you lookin mad funny & it's something that I feel needs to be brought up considering the major effect your votes have w that high VP.

Again, no hate just bringin light to an issue on the site. On some grown shit, I believe you can jump in here & explain yourself w out it escalating into drama. So lets talk about it.

Yeah uh huh... I'll explain myself when you explain what this is supposed to mean:

How he a Monster who's FIRST IN YO LIST when there's 'No Stories' bout him LURKIN-TO-GET every PERSON-WHO-LIVES the way we 'Hopin To See A Beast' that 'Hasn't Been Seen' it's like WORKIN CLOSE SHIFTS while SEARCHIN FO MYTHS!

If you're looking for a beast that hasn't been seen, you'd search for a mythological creature, not a myth. What is a close shift? I've never heard that term. It sounds to me like you're just putting in words to make shit rhyme.

I know this all sounds needlessly hateful, but the problem here isn't my voting. It's you writing shit that doesn't make perfect sense, or in some cases doesn't even make a lick of sense, and then calling me out for circling it in red ink.

The one thing I will admit you're right about criticizing me for is that I sometimes make blanket criticisms when they only apply to some of the stuff I'm seemingly talking about. Like, the tuck and bear arms / tuck in bare arms line made perfect sense, even though it wasn't executed how I'd have liked it to be. But I don't have the time nor the desire to write out every. single. little. nuance. of what I see when I read a battle verse. Nobody does. You could write a fucking 50 page thesis about almost any battle verse in history, that doesn't mean that people DO. I say what I think needs to be said and then move onto the next battle. I'm not perfect. But I damn well do not pull punches when I see garbage.

---------- Post added at 09:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Cecil

I believe it's fair to get his side of things, and to offer us insight on how he breaks down verses.

I can't lie, Shodan's explanations at times can be a bit critical. I've been here a while and I can't recall ever seeing him rate anyone higher than a 6. Also, a good majority of his votes are spent saying what was wrong with what he saw (I believe a well-explained vote sheds light on improvements needed as well as praise for good/decent work).

When people send me bars to critique or judge, I have to tell them over and over to make sure the wording is perfect because some voters will discredit your whole bar or verse because of one word being off. Even if the punchline is dope conceptually, if it's not worded perfectly then they won't give you credit. I was talking about Shodan lol although it makes you write better and more precise, it's still a sucky truth that you really could write a dope bar and because of one word or term not fitting like he thinks it should, it might destroy your whole verse's chances of standing up to your opponent's.

So, all in all I think his critical fashion of voting helps you write better, but I also understand the frustration behind the way his votes come off to people. There are lot of people who feel this way about Sho.

I'm not going to apologize for giving people low ratings. I want to "keep room at the top" so there are clearly recognizable gradations in quality between verses with a 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, just like with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The thing is that very few people can consistently write verses at above what I consider a 6. Almost nobody, or maybe nobody at all, can consistently write what I would consider an 8 or higher. But these kind of verses DO occasionally appear, and when they do, I can mark them with ranks that aren't inflated.

I agree that I'm overly critical, not in the sense that I don't pull my punches as much as I should, but in that I'm wont to bash negatives without praising positives (when they are present) or giving advice (when the person can clearly benefit from it). And much of the reason that I'm like this is because I simply get more kicks out of mocking people for writing trash. I don't know. I can't defend this habit of mine. I guess it's something for me to work on in the future.

There are other voters who see shitty bars and have the same angry gut-reaction I do. @Rieper might not be eager to admit it, but he sees things the same way I do most of the time. The difference is that he's not nearly as caustic in pointing them out, and sometimes he doesn't even point it out at all whereas I would have spent a whole paragraph riffing on it. @Edgeworth also. Riep, Edge, and Sho are like the holy trinity of hating on bad bars. I'm just the guy with the megaphone.

I recognize a clever concept even when it's executed awfully. In my opinion, that's just MORE reason to attack the bad execution, not less. Someone who writes a dope concept has shown that they have the ability to write a dope concept, which is an uncommon talent, not something that you can be taught or learn just through practice. That talent needs to be forged into the ability to write an actually solid verse, and learning how to execute a bar well IS something that almost everyone can learn through teaching and practice. Letting badly executed fire off the hook is wasting our best stock.

How I break down verses, well, that's as easy for me to explain as it is for me to explain how I'm typing this sentence. It's a process that I do without even really thinking about what I'm doing or how. Easy as breathing. I see a bad bar, my mental bad-bar-radar goes off. That's not something I can Vulcan-mind-meld into your brain.

[Shodan]

Originally Posted by BURDENS

How the fuck did you get in the FVC?

Originally Posted by BURDENS

I mean straight up. Ever since I returned to the site, your votes are some of the main ones that I continuously shake my head at & I don't even think you've voted against me tbh. It's the off shit you say in your expo & I see you doing it everywhere.

Do you know who tells me things like this? Dunning-Kruger bubble residents who don't have enough foundational knowledge to tell a good text battle bar from a bad one. I have never once gotten a complaint like this from someone who has won a bracket tournament. My memory isn't perfect, though, so if you've won a bracket tournament and have complained about my votes in the past - then by all means, step up to the table. I'm not holding my breath.

Originally Posted by BURDENS

You very recently claimed that my set ups are not relevant to my punchlines. Do you not realize that I have studied the best on the site for years to get where I am now?

I've spent years listening to hard rock, therefore I can do riffs like Eddie van Halen.

Originally Posted by BURDENS

I do not write rookie shit homie, I know the ins & outs of this text shit.

this is a straight up lie

Originally Posted by BURDENS

& honestly, making sure everything is as relevant to my main punch as possible is one of the biggest things I focus on & pass down to anyone who asks for my advice.

If we're just limiting the discussion to the battle you're presumably complaining about my vote on, the recent one with guts, then explain how this is supposed to work:

"I'm 'Lookin Fo Meals' w a black MASK & MORE THAT'S NEW fo a TASK TO SCORE A FEW, hed only 'Produce enuf to Leave w da Chicken' while runnin FAST IN DOORS W CLUES of JACKIN STORES FOR FOOD!"

You're clearly obsessed with my expos, so surely you've read where I've derided people for using "2014-style execution" where a wordplay only works if you read it one way. "He'd only produce enough to leave with the chicken," okay, that makes sense as a phrase, but then read it the other way. "He'd only produce [PRO-deuce] enough"... nah bro. If you don't see what I'm talking about, substitute produce with another noun, like GROCERY. Then you'd have "He'd only grocery enough to leave with the chicken" - do you understand now why this is a reach?

And as for the part about this bar not having a relevant setup, think about this. You mentioned something about him leaving with the chicken. But NOTHING in the rest of the bar had ANYTHING to do with chicken, and if chicken is being used in some metaphorical or colloquial sense here, then I didn't catch it. Please... enlighten me.

Originally Posted by BURDENS

I know what I'm doin dawg so your comments like that got you lookin mad funny & it's something that I feel needs to be brought up considering the major effect your votes have w that high VP.

Again, no hate just bringin light to an issue on the site. On some grown shit, I believe you can jump in here & explain yourself w out it escalating into drama. So lets talk about it.

Yeah uh huh... I'll explain myself when you explain what this is supposed to mean:

How he a Monster who's FIRST IN YO LIST when there's 'No Stories' bout him LURKIN-TO-GET every PERSON-WHO-LIVES the way we 'Hopin To See A Beast' that 'Hasn't Been Seen' it's like WORKIN CLOSE SHIFTS while SEARCHIN FO MYTHS!

If you're looking for a beast that hasn't been seen, you'd search for a mythological creature, not a myth. What is a close shift? I've never heard that term. It sounds to me like you're just putting in words to make shit rhyme.

I know this all sounds needlessly hateful, but the problem here isn't my voting. It's you writing shit that doesn't make perfect sense, or in some cases doesn't even make a lick of sense, and then calling me out for circling it in red ink.

The one thing I will admit you're right about criticizing me for is that I sometimes make blanket criticisms when they only apply to some of the stuff I'm seemingly talking about. Like, the tuck and bear arms / tuck in bare arms line made perfect sense, even though it wasn't executed how I'd have liked it to be. But I don't have the time nor the desire to write out every. single. little. nuance. of what I see when I read a battle verse. Nobody does. You could write a fucking 50 page thesis about almost any battle verse in history, that doesn't mean that people DO. I say what I think needs to be said and then move onto the next battle. I'm not perfect. But I damn well do not pull punches when I see garbage.

---------- Post added at 09:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Cecil

I believe it's fair to get his side of things, and to offer us insight on how he breaks down verses.

I can't lie, Shodan's explanations at times can be a bit critical. I've been here a while and I can't recall ever seeing him rate anyone higher than a 6. Also, a good majority of his votes are spent saying what was wrong with what he saw (I believe a well-explained vote sheds light on improvements needed as well as praise for good/decent work).

When people send me bars to critique or judge, I have to tell them over and over to make sure the wording is perfect because some voters will discredit your whole bar or verse because of one word being off. Even if the punchline is dope conceptually, if it's not worded perfectly then they won't give you credit. I was talking about Shodan lol although it makes you write better and more precise, it's still a sucky truth that you really could write a dope bar and because of one word or term not fitting like he thinks it should, it might destroy your whole verse's chances of standing up to your opponent's.

So, all in all I think his critical fashion of voting helps you write better, but I also understand the frustration behind the way his votes come off to people. There are lot of people who feel this way about Sho.

I'm not going to apologize for giving people low ratings. I want to "keep room at the top" so there are clearly recognizable gradations in quality between verses with a 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, just like with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The thing is that very few people can consistently write verses at above what I consider a 6. Almost nobody, or maybe nobody at all, can consistently write what I would consider an 8 or higher. But these kind of verses DO occasionally appear, and when they do, I can mark them with ranks that aren't inflated.

I agree that I'm overly critical, not in the sense that I don't pull my punches as much as I should, but in that I'm wont to bash negatives without praising positives (when they are present) or giving advice (when the person can clearly benefit from it). And much of the reason that I'm like this is because I simply get more kicks out of mocking people for writing trash. I don't know. I can't defend this habit of mine. I guess it's something for me to work on in the future.

There are other voters who see shitty bars and have the same angry gut-reaction I do. @Rieper might not be eager to admit it, but he sees things the same way I do most of the time. The difference is that he's not nearly as caustic in pointing them out, and sometimes he doesn't even point it out at all whereas I would have spent a whole paragraph riffing on it. @Edgeworth also. Riep, Edge, and Sho are like the holy trinity of hating on bad bars. I'm just the guy with the megaphone.

I recognize a clever concept even when it's executed awfully. In my opinion, that's just MORE reason to attack the bad execution, not less. Someone who writes a dope concept has shown that they have the ability to write a dope concept, which is an uncommon talent, not something that you can be taught or learn just through practice. That talent needs to be forged into the ability to write an actually solid verse, and learning how to execute a bar well IS something that almost everyone can learn through teaching and practice. Letting badly executed fire off the hook is wasting our best stock.

How I break down verses, well, that's as easy for me to explain as it is for me to explain how I'm typing this sentence. It's a process that I do without even really thinking about what I'm doing or how. Easy as breathing. I see a bad bar, my mental bad-bar-radar goes off. That's not something I can Vulcan-mind-meld into your brain.