The Popular POEM is a platform for finding the common signal within our collective opinions and boosting it so that it can be heard by our various leaders.
For example, the Popular POEM can be used to help people in the United States communicate collectively with the President of the United States (POTUS). Many other POEMs are possible though.
Check out the inception video and the introduction video for more information.
The Popular POEM was created so that people could:
Collaborate with each other to find a common message;
Easily communicate that message to their leaders;
Feel free to express their opinions without other people (friends / family / employer / etc.) knowing their viewpoint;
Know that their opinion has an impact.
The Popular POEM was designed with the sincere intent of helping all people achieve those goals.
Check out the inception video for more information.
A POEM from the Popular POEM website is a collection of 25 independent lines of text. Each line is constructed by taking anonymously given messages from all contributing poets and carefully combining them together to express the commonalities among them.
The Popular POEM is updated only once per day, and each poet may provide only one anonymous message per day. So, the POEM is crafted with equal weight from every poet.
Initially, the Popular POEM will contain random characters. However, given a bit of time, the POEM will evolve to show the consensus opinion of all contributors.
Check out the novelty video for a slightly different description.
The "POEM" in Popular POEM is capitalized because it is an acronym for Public Opinion Evolutionary Machine.
Watch the accounts video for a walk-through of the process.
Three-step process: (1) Activate account via email, (2) purchase a subscription, (3) confirm phone-number via text-message.
After you submit the sign-up form, an email will be sent to the address you provide. Once you receive the email, click the included link to activate and log into your new account.
This process will provide you with a means of receiving communications from us for tasks such as resetting your password if you forget it.
Afterward, you will still need to purchase a subscription and then confirm your phone number before you will be able to help write the Popular POEM.
Watch the accounts video for a walk-through of the process.
Three-step process: (1) Activate account via email, (2) purchase a subscription, (3) confirm phone-number via text-message.
It is necessary to purchase a subscription to make your own contribution to the Popular POEM. Early adopters can choose their own discount on the price for a one-year subscription.
Importantly: After purchasing a subscription you will still need to confirm your phone number before you will be able to help write the Popular POEM. Presently, confirmation requires that your phone be capable of receiving text messages.
Watch the accounts video for a walk-through of the process.
Three-step process: (1) Activate account via email, (2) purchase a subscription, (3) confirm phone-number via text-message.
Visit the confirmation page, to receive a five digit code number via text message. Once you receive the code on your phone, type it into the text field and submit it.
This confirmation process will help prevent individuals from creating a large number of accounts for one person. Any given phone number can be associated with only one account.
After confirmation, you will then be able to contribute your private messages to the Popular POEM.
The POEM is updated only once per day. For every consecutive day that you submit a message to the POEM your streak count will increase by one. Try to maintain your streak!
Immediately after you submit your message, the impact that your message will have on the POEM for tomorrow is computed. If you reload the page, then a measure of that impact will be shown as your "last best fit" score. Try to boost your score!
The number of individual messages that were used to construct a particular line in the POEM on that day can be seen when you tap or mouse-over the line. Write your message to increase the number of contributions for the line you like!
Unfortunately, automated comment bots and people with sock-puppet accounts are able to significantly amplify the influence of their opinions on the internet compared to your everyday average person.
We charge a fee for a subscription to help ensure that your opinions cannot be artificially drowned-out. In other words, if someone wanted to submit dozens or hundreds of messages, then that person would need to purchase dozens or hundreds of subscriptions. This approach is not 100% effective, but it is helpful.
Also, on many other sites advertising is used to cover the cost of development and maintenance so that individual poets do not have to pay. However, because this site is popularly oriented we believe that the best interests of the public are better served by not allowing for any commercial influence. Hence, we charge a modest, hopefully not prohibitive, subscription fee.
Unfortunately, automated comment bots, people with sock-puppet accounts, media personalities, etc. are able to significantly amplify the influence of their opinions on the internet compared to your everyday average person.
We restrict the number of messages that a given account can submit to one-per-day so that each account has the same potential influence as any other account. In other words, no single account can swamp all the others by submitting multiple messages every day. This approach is not 100% effective, but it is helpful.
Unfortunately, automated comment bots, people with sock-puppet accounts, media personalities, etc. are able to significantly amplify the influence of their opinions on the internet compared to your everyday average person.
We restrict accounts to one-per-phone-number to help ensure that your opinions are not artificially drowned-out. In other words, if someone, wanted to submit dozens or hundreds of messages, then that person would need to have dozens or hundreds of phone numbers. This approach is not 100% effective, but it is helpful.
As with all profile information, your phone number is held in confidence by the Popular POEM. Further, when storing your phone number, it is first encrypted and then stored in an additionally encrypted database.
Shortly after you deposit a message, it is pulled from the database and processed. Your message is compared against the current set of twenty-five lines in the POEM and the degree of agreement is found. A line with high agreement is selected and then an incremental modification of the original message is recorded.
At the end of the day, all of the incremental modifications are accumulated and the Popular POEM is written for the next day.
Additionally, popular lines are identified and mixed together to produce potentially interesting and novel expressions. This is the origin of the "Evolutionary" aspect of the Popular POEM.
This is an interesting question.
A good way to think about this is to first ask yourself, "Of all the messages that I have in my mind, which one do I want to submit?" Then, to get your message to appear in the POEM, you should choose the one in your mind that will produce the highest fitness score.
That is, you should craft your message to have as much in common with the existing POEM as you can while still expressing your opinion. When a line in the existing POEM and the message that you want to submit are the same, then you have made your message appear in the POEM!
The last best fitness score is a numerical representation of the highest degree to which your message "matched" with a line from the POEM.
Note that the Popular POEM uses a statistical approach to help guide its evolution. Therefore, you may see some fluctuation in your last best fitness score even if you give the same message and the Popular POEM is in a similar state.
Yes and no.
Submitted messages are run through a basic obscenity detection algorithm. If something is detected, then a notice is printed to suggest that future messages be less crude. However, no attempt is made to modify any messages.
The Popular POEM is a poem and poems are art. If the community of submitters produces a poem that contains strong language, then that should be respected as an accurate representation of public opinion.
Naturally though, one would hope for poems that exhibit artful and incisive language. Crudeness is usually the last refuge of those that have lost the argument.
As the number of people who contribute to the POEM increases, it will become increasingly likely that the person the POEM is for will actually read it. In the grand scheme of things, however, simply having that person read the POEM is probably a fairly minor accomplishment.
To achieve a grander goal, it will be helpful to craft your desired message along the lines of a common expression that you anticipate a large number of other people will agree with so as to compel action from the person that the POEM is about.
Further, because it will likely take multiple days for a large number of people to come to consensus you should craft your message to address a fundamental topic or issue that can persist in the face of some shorter-term daily crises.
If you have found a bug in either the Popular POEM web site or in the operation of the underlying evolutionary machine then we would be grateful to hear of it.
All bugs will be addressed as soon as practicable. Additionally, as soon as practicable, a bug-bounty program will be established to support the efforts of anyone in the developer community to make the Popular POEM into a more robust program and web site.
When an early adopter purchases an annual subscription then that person will have the opportunity to define the price that they want to pay.
If that is you, then we hope you find the Popular POEM to be both useful and intriguing. Then you can identify a price that is comensurate with the value you place on it.
A P-FAQ is a Possibly Frequently Asked Question.
None of the questions here have actually been directly asked. However, they seem to be logical questions that someone might possibly be curious about.
Hence: P-FAQ
Yes.
A fundamental goal of the Popular POEM is to provide privacy to its poets so that they are free to express themselves.
You many use any alias that you like for your name. Your personal information is held in an encrypted database and that information is scrubbed from any database logs. Additionally, any sensitive information such as your phone number and password are further encrypted even before being put in the database. Your credit card number is not stored by the Popular POEM at all. All transactions are conducted securely using Stripe as the payment processor.
The Popular POEM will not sell, give away, share, trade, or in any other way distribute any profile information.
In sum, every effort has been made to ensure that your account information and any messages that you contribute to the Popular POEM cannot be obtained by anyone.
Yes.
A fundamental goal of the Popular POEM is to provide privacy to its poets so that they are free to express themselves.
All private messages are permanently destroyed immediately after they are used to inform the production of the public POEM for the next day. Normally, the time between creation of a private message and its destruction is less than one second.
During that time, all private messages are held in confidence by the Popular POEM and will not be sold, given away, shared, traded or distributed in any other way.
Private messages are not included in database log files.
No.
When you deposit a message it is connected to your poet ID number and stored in a database. Typically—less than one second later—your message is pulled (deleted) from the database and used to develop the POEM for tomorrow by mixing it with the messages from all other poets. Because each POEM is a mixture with some randomization it is generally not possible to extract any one contribution and associate it with any specific poet.
The brief database connection between your message and your poet ID is used only for incrementing your streak count and for returning the last best fitness score to your account. Other than that, your expressions and any record of them are completely private and are not retained at all.
Database log files do not link poets and their messages because the messages themselves are not included in the log files.