[Roger Slater]

I posted my poem "As Winter Ends" recently to the Deep End. A couple of days before, I posted the exact same poem to Gazebo. A moment ago, when I googled a few phrases, the Eratosphere thread was the only search result. I don't know why it didn't show up for Gazebo, but the answer may provide a clue as to what we should be doing here.

Anyway, why can't we do "self-pruning," i.e., edit the poem out of our own threads? I would suggest that we simply invent a new protocol requiring those who want to "self-prune" to clearly announce their intention one week in advance. Perhaps the announcement should come in bold, capital letters at the top of the first posting, setting forth the exact date of pruning. That way, people will have time to copy the thread if they so desire, or rush to post a critique they've been working on.

I know that this would leave quoted portions of the poem in place, but maybe, as a courtesy, those who quoted chunks of the poem could edit out the quotes as well. Regardless, it's better than nothing, and ought to be effective particularly if people take care not to use the real title of their poem in the subject line.

PS--

My strong preference would still be to make the entire site invisible to anyone who is not logged in. Registration should remain free and easy, but those who want to view the site should have to be logged in to view it. This would be a complete solution to the problem. And quite apart from the problem of prior publication, I would very much favor this approach since I see absolutely no reason why we should want our work being displayed to anyone who casually wanders by. It really is a form of publication to allow that to happen, if you want to be honest about editorial reactions, and I would prefer to be able to post without shame or inhibition among people I trust and choose. This is especially true since (like most of us) I often post work that I know to be particularly flawed, since my more polished work is less in need of workshopping. Why would anyone want their incomplete work to be displayed to the entire world when there's a simple solution, i.e., just making the site invisible to anyone who is not signed in? That would keep the site from Google and prevent anyone from stumbling across our unfinished work. Not to mention preventing people from our "non-poetry" lives from sitting in on our poetry discussions.

It would really be a very minor inconvenience to ask people to log in before being able to read the site. It takes just a few seconds, and you can stay logged in for quite some time before you have to log in again. I really don't get why we let non-members read. It's like having a workshop in someone's house and leaving the door open with a sign inviting strangers to come in and have a seat in the back.

I belong to two discussion forums that are invisible if you are not logged in. One has 20 members, the other has a few thousand members. I have never seen any of their posts on Google. Ever. And I can be sure that no one other than my fellow members has seen what I have posted.