A Practical Guide To Housekeeping On Allpoetry

Contest Poems Vs Poems, Lists And Collections

\This column is the work of the author Methods, statements and opinions expressed are not to be construed as the official policy of or of any person appointed in a position of authority at AP. All actions are at the reader’s risk. All names shown in images are imaginary and bear no intentional resemblance (at the time of writing) to any AP name.\  \Graphics are representative of AP pages and many have been altered to show the fullest detail. \










Why bother Housekeeping? Sooner or later your poems will stretch across more than one page when you're searching. Sooner or later you will want to locate that one poem. 18 poems and 120 contest poems to your credit? read on......


*_Put your work into Categories
_*
I know that choosing one category is mandatory but categorising your work accurately and fully will help you find it all the more quickly. You have a maximum of three categories to choose from:

*_Poem categories_*


*_Column Categories_*


*_Story Categories_*


Let's say you write five humorous haiku's (on one page) about the foibles of nature. There are three obvious categories already: Humour, Haiku and Nature. Good categories will help when you move onto the next stage which is: Lists








_*Lists and Collections*
_
In reality these are the same thing. On your author pages they are refered to as Lists and on poems, stories and columns as Collections. \From here onwards I shall refer to both as 'Lists'
\
_*Adding A List*_

From your author page:


Press 'settings'

This page will appear:



Click on the 'Lists' link.

This page will appear (or at least one very much like it):



To add a list press the [new] link. This page appears:



You are more than capable of filling in a few boxes and pressing  so I will pass on. Note that a list does not have to contain just your pieces of work.

_*Populating your lists

*_There are three ways to populate your lists.

*1* Add the poem to a list when you post it.

*2* Open the poem and edit it.

*3* Open the list and 'add poems'

\also applies to Columns and Stories.

\_Adding a poem to a list when posting or editing a poem

_You must have at least one List before you can use this option.

Open the poem for editing or post a new poem.



Look for this box on the poem page and choose a category before you press the 'edit poem' button. \Note that the Lists showing are MY lists, make your own! lol

\_Adding Poems from within a List
_
Open up the list you want to populate



The 'edit list' DOES NOT allow you to add or edit the list or poems. It is to edit the List page itself!
The 'manage items' will be covered shortly. Press the 'add poetry' link.



The complete list of your poems will open up. To the left of each poem will be a white box. A box like this  means that the poem is in a List already. Poems CAN be in more than one list. If you select it by clicking in the box and it is already in the List you are populating, it will not add it again. At the bottom of each page will be a button.  If you have ticked a poem on the page, be sure to press this button BEFORE moving on to the next page or you will lose it. Note that your contest poems and your poems are considered to be seperate from one another.



*_Managing A List

_*


Open up the List you want to tidy or arrange.



Press the 'manage items' link. The Manage List page opens:



The arrows on the right will shift items up or down the list. The bottom of the page will look like this:



Press the  button to make the changes permanent.
I have always found the 'Item Number' option to be a bit unwieldly but it is fine if you work with more than one browser window open. It is a good option if you add another author's work to your list as you do not have open access to their poem lists whilst in 'List' mode.

The aim of all of this guide is to make your work more accessible both to you and to your readers. They can see your collections and can navigate rather than blunder blindly through. The easier you make it for them, the more likely they are to stumble across one of your gems

*_Poems Vs Contest Poems



_*As you can see, despite entering masses of contests, I only have 3 contest poems. The easiest way to change a Contest Poem into a regular poem is to open the poem in 'Edit' and press the 'remove from contest' link. This takes it out of the contest and removes all reference to the contest. Be very wary when using this option, removing a poem from a contest also removes all associated paraphenalia, including trophies.




The other option is to open the poem in 'edit' mode.



This screen will appear:
Press 'Change this into a regular poem'


The final screen appears:


Press the  button.

Another reason to change a 'contest poem' into a 'poem' is ease of use. If you try and enter it into a new contest you will still have to remove it from the old one first.









Contest Poems Vs Poems, Lists And Collections