My lucky day. The first time that I have looked at this web site in at least 3 weeks and I see Claude's first parody in over 3 years! You haven't lost it, Claude!

When you've an iPhone
Out on a stick
The pic you're clicking
Is of a prick
Ella's not Cantor
But love your banter
'Bout hi tech poopie.

Hey thanks John; good to see you still come around occasionally. Thanks Al, liked your fragment there!

Bravo! Outstanding! YAY!!! 555! But hey, where are all the 1s I was supposed to give you as an enemy? I don't see any.I also don't give bs ratings of 323s or any other combos. All these votes are yours Claude. And I didn't have to comment either as it's not required.The site has simply changed. Most people high 5 their buddies regardless of content, pacing, subs, everything. Not my fault. I get 1 bombed and mixed ratings too. Life goes on...

Gee, maybe Rob is sane. Maybe his parodies are funny. Maybe they're perfectly paced. Maybe he had nothing to do with the site changing. Maybe he doesn't give himself 5s...... Naaah!

Well, Rob, if you say so I guess it must be true. As the obvious dominating master of this site, what you say goes, and whatever other people perceive as being painfully obvious must be jealousy. I do admit I secretly wish I had the time to do what you do. My apologies for doubting you oh great one. Please go ahead and continue to totally NOT make a joke of this site with your imaginary friends.

WWIT? -- I will admit that I don’t actually blame Rob for what’s happened to the site. There are a variety of factors at play there, including the way the internet’s changed and all the different forms of social media. It’s just more competitive now. That said, Chucky has always encouraged quantity by making a big Parody Authors list with a “king” at the top, which attracts a certain type of personality. And by getting rid of the Top Ten lists, and giving new visitors no way to know how much great stuff is buried here, there's just very little to encourage quality-minded people to stay. It was just a matter of time before someone came along and decided they absolutely had to “take over” the site in every aspect. I guess that’s what bothers me so much about Rob -- he may have come here hoping to become part of a great community, but at some point, for some reason, he decided that being a part of it wasn’t enough. He had to rule over all he surveyed, by any means necessary. Is he really that surprised that the real people here aren’t down with that?

I think another reason this site is in bad shape is that all the past masters of the previous decade are gone! I think what happened is that this site came into being and began attracting people who saw Al Yankovich in the Nineties on MTV and said, "I could do that" Then suddenly there was this forum for people to test this idea and they discovered it was true. And then word got around, and suddenly you have this community of people who are supporting each and who are trying to top each other and the results were truly spectacular .. and so that is a great thrill. But as the years go by, the thrill gets less and less. And once you've done a thousand parodies, you've all popped your wad. You've proven the point. And basically you all retired around the same time. ... And then around 2013, a few truly mentally diseased people (Or perhaps it was just one) came around and turned this place into a cesspool of negativism. Whoever this was he was eventually banned, so I'm not pointing fingers at anyone currently on the site ........ The upshot is, this site could really use the input from some of you old timers. I mean, if this site were ever to fold, lots of people would lose thousands of man hours of work

All good points CML. I know when I arrived at this site in 2003, it was thriving, mostly with young people, and I was part of a wave of older folks who sort of took over and (IMHO) raised the quality level significantly by, like you said, supporting each other and competing in a positive way. But looking back at my first visit here, the thing that really excited me was the Top Ten lists, which really ignited my competitive spirit. My belief is that now, the only thing like that to inspire and excite anyone is the Author List, which again, only rewards quantity. So for anyone new to the site, it’s very easy to find poorly written parodies designed primarily to move the author’s name up the list, and much more challenging to find well-written stuff. The Top Ten lists weren’t perfect -- the voting fraud was even worse back then -- but I don’t think anyone realized what an important purpose they served. When the Song of the Month Contest took off, we had a thread on the messageboard with a LINKED list of the winning songs, and Chucky was kind enough to link that thread to the front page. I was thrilled about that, primarily because (I thought) it would give new visitors to the site easy access to some of the best parodies it had to offer. Sadly, when I moved on, whoever ran the SOTM continued to list the winning songs, but stopped including the urls so it wasn’t linked anymore. Anyway, I’m just babbling now, but the bottom line is, I do think there are things that could be done to encourage new people to stick around, but I don’t think Chucky is interested. So while I’m enjoying my recent return to the site, I don’t know how long it will last; it feels pretty pointless now.

So what can be done? Here are my 555 cents, please feel free to add ideas:

A Homecoming Day event every year! A special day for veterans to gravitate towards. If you're now a one-parody-a-year writer, that shoud be the day to post it for. (Not sure what day it should be, I'm not even sure if Homecoming is a fixed day every year in the USA, but because of movies and television I'm kinda familiar with the concept).

Help me tell Chucky to drop the Amiright Events category on top of the front page, current headline is from Dec 7! Really doesn't invite new visitors to scroll down (I suggested this already one or two years ago, but at that point he still thought that category would grow).

A "From The Vaults" random parody every day on the front page. I'm no computer techie, but this could be done with a script, right? One random parody from the same date 5 years ago, one from 10 years ago and one from 15 years ago. Something like that.

@ Claude: Brace yourself for some nostalgia overload!

http://k1chyd.adress.eksjo.com/amiright.htm

Holy crap, Peter! I love that link page! Exactly the sort of thing that I’d think would totally excite a new visitor to the site. I also love your other ideas. I’d thought about some sort of reunion -- the non-parody part of the messageboard had a FB-organized reunion thread recently that looked fun. Basically, I assume most people are like me, they check in from time to time, it’s always nice to see a familiar name or two, but odds are we all just show up at different times. A simple “everyone show up on Halloween” or whatever could be very effective. I hadn’t thought of the “From The Vaults” - that does seem a bit similar to the “Random Parody” button, now that I think about it. The idea I had closest to that was an “All-Time Favorites” linked list I was actually working on, to post on the messageboard and invite others to add their faves as well. But I made the mistake of e-mailing Chucky about it to see if he’d be willing to link it to the site and never heard back from him so I stopped. The other idea I had was a new contest designed to combine the best aspects of the top ten list with the best aspects of the SOTM to come up with a monthly top 40. Again, that would require a link, and again, I interpreted the lack of response as an indication that I shouldn’t bother. Maybe if enough people show interest, he’d get on board though. Thanks for the reply.

Change the Author List default setting to alphabetical order of authors' names, and therefore no "King of Quantity" at the top unless that option is clicked.
Someone has been banned from this site? I suggest that another criterion for banning be a parodist's repeated and serious call for dropping 300 kiloton nuclear bombs on civilian targets he deems hostile.

Well, like I said before, I'm sure he has his reasons for encouraging quantity. I don't really know how things like affiliate links work and all that. The quantity guys have been here almost as long as the site itself, and I've always been an advocate of ignoring stuff you don't like. It's just really difficult to ignore when that's practically all there is. So while I'd love it if the quantity wasn't encouraged so much, my focus would primarily be on encouraging quality as well. As far as banning people, I do think he's been consistent in his criteria and have always commended his tolerance of views he may not agree with, even if the current absence of alternate viewpoints does make them harder to ignore.