[William A. Baurle]

I joined in the early oughts and casually added the b* to my first name, thinking nothing of it, but it has caused some people to think I was trying to do something clever, like Will iamb, as in iambic, but that was not my intent.

I've gone to my user cp and I see there is an option for "display name", and I have William A Baurle in there, but nothing changes.

Is there a way I can change my username? After fifteen years, my username here is beginning to irk me, particularly because of threads like this.

Funniest thing is, it really doesn't matter, because I'm a nobody**. Google me and you'll come up with precious little.

Paranoid as ever,

William Anthony Baurle

*If only I'd done it in upper case: WilliamB, which worked fine for me on several boards.
** I've been submitting, and researching places to publish some stuff, so maybe I'll go from a nobody to a somebody one of these days... (< humor)

[Janice D. Soderling]

Williamb, yes you can change your name. Ask Alex, who takes care of such matters. Alll your old posts will be changed to your new moniker.

Bill Lantry. I joined in 2006 and real names were required then or a valid reason for using a pseudonym. Transparency is the general rule. So Skip may be using his real name here, but a pseudonym elsewhere, or he may not be an active poet or writer. Apart from GT he only posts translations.

From the guidelines:

Eratosphere caters to writers and artists who want to improve their own work, to help others in that process, and to exchange useful information. We try to maintain high standards of craft. As a posting venue, Eratosphere is not suitable for most beginners or for those who mainly seek mutual support and praise. However, all visitors with interests in poetry, prose, and art are likely to find interesting reading among its rich contents.

(...)

What is a Moderator?
Moderators oversee specific Forums. They generally have the ability to edit and delete posts, move threads, and perform other actions. Becoming a Moderator for a specific Forum is usually rewarded to users who are particularly helpful and knowledgeable in the subject of the Forum they are moderating.

(...)

From Terms of Service
Eratosphere is an adjunct web forum to Able Muse Review; it is a private membership website and visiting it or being a member is a privilege, NOT a right.

1. Eratosphere reserves the right to accept or reject any prospective or existing member's signup request, remove or banish any member from the site with or without warning for contravening the site's rules and guidelines, and/or grant and revoke privileges whenever the staff deems such actions appropriate.
2. The information published at this website may be outdated or wrong in one way or another, thus no information should be used without consulting the appropriate professional authority to verify its validity.
3. Content sent to Eratosphere by its members or visitors which breaches the site guidelines is subject to rejection, deletion, modification or editing by the staff.
4. All members are required to comply with the site's rules and agreement, and respect the staff and the site's goals.

My red.

In my unhumble opinion there is a lot of ad hom, direct name-calling and insults are allowed to stand which brings down the standards of Eratosphere as a respected site for poets and writers. Direct insults should be, also in my unhumble opinion, directly deleted by moderators.

One should be aware that Eratosphere is an adjunct to the literary journal ABLE MUSE and bad manners here reflect back on the reputation of the journal as well as on the workshop.

Many members have been banned for a determined period of time or permanently for less than what is allowed to stand in this thread. This complaint is NOT policing. It is simply a matter of retaining good tone and a reputation acquired over the last 16 years. If a text wouldn't be accepted on an op-ed page, it shouldn't be allowed to sully GT.

To Skip. The use of "pinko" hasn't been current since Joe McCarthy's days. You are living in a time warp where children slide under their desk to practice for when the USSR drops its stolen atomic bomb.

Note too, that Communism and Sharia law are two quite different ideologies. And it is now legal to marry across race and gender throughout the United States, from Cajun country to the Canadian border.

But it is NOT legal to use whom and whomever for who and whoever, or to not know the difference between wave and waive. We have Sphere police who writers who commit such public atrocities!

Eratosphere is first and foremost a site for writers, and as such, it is inevitable that members will be concerned about the state of the world at large.

I think it is important that a debate or discussion allow opinions expressing all sides of any issue. However, the arguments presented (as also noted in the guidelines) should be respectful to the opponent. Satire or reasoned argument is acceptable but not ad hom.

Ad hom is a recourse for those without true argument, but the guidelines prohibit it in these hallowed halls.

[William A. Baurle]

Williamb, yes you can change your name. Ask Alex, who takes care of such matters. All your old posts will be changed to your new moniker.

Thanks, Janice, will do post haste, toot sweet, and with much celerity!

[Skip Dewahl]

Janice, it's no secret at this point that you and others are frantically going through the rules and searching the web to oust me, which you may well achieve, so go ahead, but quit calling me a racist when I never denigrated any race, but rather stood for legal immigration, legal voting, and continuing national identity unusurped by any other nation who claims that half of the US is their property. I don't contribute many translations, needless to say, but I'll put my work beside anybody here knowing I never phoned anything in. No, off the cuff I'm not the best of spellers, particularly when I get incensed at seeing political discussions heavily off-balanced by whomever and all. Unbowed (but expecting a bloodying) as always-Skip.

[John Whitworth]

Isn't it OK just to translate?

I'm sure people were using 'pinko' over here in the sixties, people who had never heard of Joe McCarthy.

[Pedro Poitevin]

Your views, Skip, are shared by people who have enough integrity to give their name: Ann Coulter, Mickey Kaus, and even Donald J. Trump are anti-immigration for reasons like the ones you've articulated. Their views make them unpopular with liberals, but they have the integrity and honorability to own their views. You, like them, may not be a racist, but as long as you use your anonymity to troll people whose identities you know, you're certainly (unlike them) acting like a coward.

Pedro

[Alex Pepple]

It looks like this thread, besides ballooning into one of the longest ever on the Sphere, has more than lost focus several times over. Especially, it has devolved given its multiple ad hominem posts in contravention of Eratosphere guidelines. Thus, thread locked!

...Alex