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  #21  
Unread 04-19-2015, 05:53 AM
Matt Q Matt Q is offline
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Thanks Maryann,

As I said in my post, I'll email him. Just doing that now in fact.

I posted this because I thought others might be interested in the information.

best,

Matt
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  #22  
Unread 04-19-2015, 06:30 AM
Matt Q Matt Q is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett View Post
Editing back to add: A reasonable precaution is to avoid putting the real title of the poem in the title field. The site's front page is the one that's not protected from Google, and what's in the title field appears on the front page.
Thanks Maryann,

The problem being that rssing.com makes the first two lines or so of text of your thread available to Google, which would include the real title if you followed this strategy.

-Matt
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  #23  
Unread 04-19-2015, 08:30 AM
Michael Cantor Michael Cantor is offline
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I don't see why it's necessary to make such a fuss over this and start contacting everybody. As far as I'm concerned, the Sphere is a workshop, and it's purpose is to discuss works in progress. Poems appear here for a short period of time, and then disappear, and - on my part - if I'm sending one out which is still up here, I take it down myself. And - despite Matt's problem - it works. It works just fine.

I take the stance that this isn't publishing - it's workshopping - and act accordingly. And 99% of the poetry world either takes the same approach, or simply doesn't think about it. Why do you have to bother bringing it up at all? Publishers who don't think it through, or who don't understand the nature of the Sphere, or who decide - if you insist on pinning them to the wall - that it's safest to be utterly holy - may think through something they've never bothered about, and decide that they don't want anything that's appeared on the Sphere. So what do we do then? Change the title and the first two lines? Stop workshopping? Or just let the dammed thing lie, and not go off and raise a fuss because the first lines of two of Matt's poems appeared on a scuzzbag site. It is not a big problem. Please don't turn it into one.
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  #24  
Unread 04-19-2015, 09:37 AM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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I think you are right in every particular in this instance, Michael.
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  #25  
Unread 04-19-2015, 11:33 AM
Matt Q Matt Q is offline
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Michael,

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Cantor View Post
Why do you have to bother bringing it up at all?
1. Insofar as there's any value in the poems on this site being shielded from search engines, I thought that people might be interested to know that there are currently reasonable sized holes in the shield. I was. I can find some of my poems very easily on Google, and I can find other people's too. I have read previous discussions on this issue, and this seemed to be new information.

2. The situation seems to be one that could possibly be resolved, made to go away, our shields be restored to full power. (Sorry, I seem to slipping into an episode of Star Trek).

These seemed to me to be good reasons for my original post. I see value in the points you make too. I imagine most if not all of the problems are resolved by making sure that the post is deleted/gutted on submission.

Best,

Matt

Last edited by Matt Q; 04-19-2015 at 11:37 AM.
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  #26  
Unread 04-19-2015, 12:46 PM
Michael Cantor Michael Cantor is offline
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When I said "bring it up", I meant with the publishers. No problem in alerting Spherians. As a matter of fact, it served as a reminder for more aggressive cleaning of the Boards (and thanks to those who do that), so in that sense it was helpful. My complaint was about waving a red flag at publishers, and creating a problem where one doesn't exist.
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  #27  
Unread 04-19-2015, 01:05 PM
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Maryann Corbett Maryann Corbett is offline
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Michael, I know my view of this differs from yours, but here goes: I'd like it brought up with publishers because, honestly, I'd like there to be a general understanding among them that workshopping is not publication. That understanding does not exist right now. Unless we talk up that idea, it will never gain currency, and we'll go right on having doubts about whether we can safely submit things posted here.

Right now, there's a post at the top of all the forums that tells us we can't gut out our poem threads, that we have to leave the poems up a certain length of time. It's too long for my comfort, and that's another thing that makes me unhappy about posting poems.

Naturally, you can (and will) do what works for you. It doesn't work for everybody.
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  #28  
Unread 04-19-2015, 02:24 PM
Alex Pepple Alex Pepple is offline
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The tone of some of the discussions here leads me to believe that some of you didn't take the time to read the link I'd provided here ... or if you did, you didn't quite grasp the facts presented ... or, if you did read it a while back, the facts might have gotten hazy with time. So, here's a brief presentation of the salient facts:

1. The contents of ALL the workshop forums (Metrical, TDE, Non-Met, etc.) are FULLY protected from search engines with the "no-index" tag which I'd programmed way back to be inserted automatically into those threads posted there. That means, if you pick any poem posted in a workshop forum, and google the first line or any other line for that matter, it should not come up in the results.

2. a) The title of a poem posted in a workshop forum may not be hidden from the search engines because, if that post is at the top of the forum, the title will appear in the Eratosphere homepage summary of the top post in the various forums. That means that while a poem thread is at the top of a workshop forum, a search engine might visit and pick up the contents of the Eratosphere homepage which would include the aforementioned titles from the top posts of workshop forums. b) Thus, as has been suggested/advised in quite a few previous posts, the simple way to avoid that problem, if it's of concern to you, is to simply use a fake post-title for the workshop poem thread when you post it: that decoy title may show up in the search engine results, but it can't be associated with the real title of your poem, or the poem itself.

3. That brings us to Rssing and other such web scrapers and bottom feeders. Even with all that scraping, all they actually have is only the thread titles. Thus, taking the action presented in 2 b) above should take care of shielding your poem from any search. And you may even notice that if you go to an Rssing page that lists a thread here, and click on that thread, all it does is actually forward you to Eratosphere, albeit under an Rssing web frame. So, they're not actually storing the contents of the threads they're scraping, just the tiles.

Hopefully, this should cool down all the raucous and panic and allow those who actually wish to workshop to continue doing so without all the fear factor!

Cheers,
...Alex
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  #29  
Unread 04-19-2015, 03:46 PM
Matt Q Matt Q is offline
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Hi Alex,

I was aware of your points 1 & 2. But I think that what you say in 3 about rssing is not quite the case. It doesn't just store the thread titles. It stores the first few lines of the thread and hence the first few lines of the poem. I can google the opening lines of poems, and the rssing link shows up in Google (that's how I became aware of rssing). If I follow that link it takes me to the poem on Sphere, assuming that poem is still there (which it was in my case). Where people use a fake title for the thread and the real title above their poem, rsssing will still store the real title by virtue of that being the first line of the thread. This means that some of the poems currently posted on the forums can be found if you use Google to search on first lines (and titles). Without rssing, this wouldn't be the case.

For example, if you Google these opening lines:
"High on a window today: good traction, smooth ,wet with rain"

You'll find rssing have a link which takes you straight to Steve's poem. Actually it appears on a second site too ...

I'm not saying this is a huge problem, and I apologise if my pointing this out is causing people to panic, that's certainly not my intention.

best,

Matt

Last edited by Matt Q; 04-23-2015 at 04:17 AM. Reason: Added no index tags, as otherwise I've made lines of Steve's poem findable. Doh!
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  #30  
Unread 04-19-2015, 04:08 PM
Alex Pepple Alex Pepple is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Q View Post
Hi Alex,

... Without rssing, this wouldn't be the case.

For example, if you Google these opening lines:
"High on a window today: good traction, smooth ,wet with rain"

You'll find rssing have a link which takes you straight to Steve's poem. Actually it appears on a second site too ...

I'm not saying this is a huge problem, and I apologise if my pointing this out is causing people to panic, that's certainly not my intention.

best,

Matt
Hi Matt -- I stand corrected as to the practices of Rssing. In that case, here's my advice to combat their posting of the first few lines of poems: before the poem title and first line in the post, include a few nonsense lines on top, which is what Rssing will end up picking up, thus sparing the real first few lines of your poem. I know it's not an ideal solution, but why not feed some junk to this bottom feeder, which then ends up sparing you grief from their unsanctioned scraping of the Eratosphere.

Cheers,
...Alex
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