[Matt Q]

Janice,

I wasn't offended by what you said, I just couldn't see it's relevance to the topic at hand, though I think perhaps I'm a little clearer now.

This is what I take you to be saying: A good poet shouldn't need a workshop, and only uses it to iron the odd metric bump or weak line. So it should be very easy not to workshop a poem should one be wary about privacy/security issues. However if one does feels the need to workshop the poem, then one is getting some added value, and this puts one at an unfair advantage and it's only fair that an editor should know this. Is that right?

Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling

That said, what I do if I want to submit to Rattle and similar is to send a poem which is not workshopped. How hard is that?

I must say that this reminded me of an old joke. A man goes to the doctor and says, "My arm hurts if I do this" and the doctor says "Well, don't do that then" Personally, I find work-shopping my poem is a very useful part of getting it ready for publication, rather like test-driving it. I don't need anyone to tell me what to write, but I do find feedback from others invaluable in assessing what isn't working as well as it could be, or what isn't coming across. I don't think this is unfair, as anyone who wants to can join a poetry forum if they wish to (or show a poem to friends etc), and it's still my work when it's finished: it's not a poem written by committee. So, if I want to submit a poem to Rattle, I'd want to workshop it first. (And incidentally, there's currently no security-related reason I shouldn't, in case I've given the impression that there is -- see below. Rattle was just my example.)

Basically what I am saying is that since there is no solution that will suit everyone to a tee, why fiddle with it at all? It is just more work for Alex. If Eratosphere has worked for more than ten years (11, 12, I've lost count) why complicate things?

I guess I find myself wondering why you say that there's no solution that will work for everyone? So far no one has raised any concrete objection to changes. Perhaps there is an alternative way of doing things that suits Roger and Julie better and doesn't inconvenience others? Take the password-protecting and creation of Deep Drills, for example.

As for work for Alex, I imagine he's the best judge of what's too much work for him and what isn't. For all we know, adding password protection might take five minutes (it might not, of course!)

Regarding what Tim said, I've corresponded with him on this: see post #58 on this thread. He said, that technically anything publicly accessible counts as published, but what he doesn't know about won't hurt him. So basically, workshop away, but make sure your poem can't be found. I'm happy that I can take steps to do this for future poems that I workshop on the Sphere.

Best,

Matt