[Tzemach Aryeh]

In this thread , David Rosenthal talks about journals' submission guidelines in respect to poems that have been workshopped online, and it got me thinking . . .

What do people think about removing guest access to the workshop forums? In my experience, allowing guests to read posts serves two purposes: first, requiring registration actually deters it; second, it prevents lurking. Lurking can be desirable for some discussion boards (i.e. those devoted to spreading specialized information to a broader public), but does not offer any advantages to a workshop which thrives on replies more so than new threads.

On the other hand, anything that discourages new membership requires serious consideration. However, leaving the non-workshop boards open to guests would serve as a bridge and help mitigate any negative effects.

So, what do people think? If we removed guest access to the workshop forums, our poetry would maintain full eligibility for journals, and I think the downside would be negligible. I would at least like to give it a shot and see how the change affects new registration, as that is the only counter-argument I can think of.

Scott

[Henrietta kelly]

No workshopping a poem on line is not the same as being published.

Threads drop off. Words are changed. Anyway, smart editors Google every poem.

If you want doors on the dunnies, change schools I say.

The Wall at the Gaz can be looked at as being published because some of it has been there since Don Taylor learned how to drink milk and gurgle.

I think he still gurgles

~~ henie

[Quincy Lehr]

Scott--

I'd be against for several reasons:

1. This board serves a real public function as a notice board and discussion area for writers of metrical verse. I read items on the Sphere with profit before ever workshopping here.

2. Poems are not permanently archived, and the Sphere does not participate in that stupid IBPC which muddies the waters as to what a workshop's function is.

3. Closed boards not accessible to the public just have a different dynamic. They get less new blood in them. And if you can't see what's being posted and who's posting and what the criticism is like from the outside, you really can't know if a board's for you, unless you're already in the know somehow.

Quincy

[Roger Slater]

What matters is to avoid Google. If it's not on Google, then it pretty much doesn't exist for present purposes.

Another thing to do would be not to require registration to read the board, but, for anyone who does not sign in with a user name, to require them to type in a random number/letter sequence to gain access. I imagine most of you have encountered them from time to time. They are often required, for example, before you can leave a comment on a blog.

But the main virtue of that, once again, is it ensures a protective wall between the board and Google.

Eratosphere itself should be available in Google, but there's simply no reason that the text of any poem published in the Deep End should readily searchable by any of the billions of people who use Google (let alone by the huge number of editors who would, as a result, not consider the work for print publication).

[Maryann Corbett]

Instead of talking about solutions that would call for programming that none of us can do, and time that Alex may not have, it might be wiser to discuss solutions that are within the power of moderators, critters, and poets, and to test those solutions.

Poets can delete their own poems at any point. We should test whether the title that remains still produces results in a Google search.

Critters can refrain from duplicating whole poems, or pieces of them, in their critiques, to respect the poet's desire to avoid Google.

I believe moderators can edit out titles, though I'm not sure; the board might balk at an empty title field. (This has never been done or discussed.)[editing back: I experimented with my own LJStalker thread, replacing the title with underlines. Now the thread doesn't seem to show up at all. Hmm.]

Moderators can delete threads, though the policy has been not to delete poem threads on request but rather to let them stand until pruning time.

Let me be clear that I'm not proposing any particular solution. I am not saying these would be good ideas. I am trying to discourage people from getting excited about a solution that asks Alex for a major time commitment.

[A. E. Stallings]

It's a moot point--membership can effect no such changes anyway; such powers lie only in the hands of Alex.

[Roger Slater]

I have expressed my fears and concerns, but I'm wondering if anyone here has actually heard of a real-life case of an editor declining to publish something because it turned up in a Google search? Or are these fears just theoretical?

Back to the techie question, I do believe that there is a relatively simple way to automatically generate secrete code in every post that causes the search bots that Google sends out to by-pass the page.

I'm sure it would be something of a bother for Alex, but the whole site is a bother to Alex that he willingly undertakes to our undying gratitude, and I'm hoping that the incremental extra bother will not be a deal breaker.

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

I wouldn't be in favor of Scott's proposal, for the reasons others mention. I wouldn't even be here if I hadn't happened upon Erato in a google search and checked it out. I doubt I'm alone in that.

Recently, I checked a poem I'd posted in Met last Oct. and wanted to send out. In Dec., the poem was still visible, so I deleted the poem and all of my posts (which contained a lot of revisions of specific lines). The poem has been accepted for publication. I just checked again, and the thread is no longer visible, but the title still shows as being workshopped here, just not accessible (an error message comes up). It seems a shame to delete all my responses -- especially since I received such great advice on the poem -- but I didnt' want the thread getting in the way of getting the poem published. And I guess it depends on how serious some editors are in their notion of wanting "nothing found on a google search." Obviously the editor who picked up this poem was more concerned with the poem being found than the title or references to it. A lot of these decisions seem to be in our own hands, or, as Maryann points out, a Moderator's.

[Quincy Lehr]

Maryann's last solution seems to be an obvious one. I've deleted many a thread on the Round-Up upon being informed a poem had been submitted somewhere, and...

You know, there's a broader point here. For all the talk about how the internet changes things... well, it has in this instance. And, accordingly, what 'publication' actually means has changed, too. We simply communicate online more. And the rules for what counts as what are still very much in flux. I griped about the IBPC above, because I think it confuses posting on a workshop with final publication and throws the process into a grey area. But none of the boards in which I participate are part of the IBPC.

Likewise, what about posting on a blog? If I still had a blog and posted a new draft upon it, it would not be all that different from mailing such a thing arounds to friends, aquaintances, and that one poor schmuck who stumbled onto the thing while trying to book a hotel in Quincy, Massachusetts. I'd tend to be chary of posting on a blog, anyway, but I'm not sure that it would count as poetry publication, really, as the likelihood of anyone outside my circle seeing it would be pretty small. Were I Ron Silliman, though, it would count as publication, as the man's blog is very frequently read. Silliman's blog would be the equalivalent, in poetry blogging, of the Los Angeles Times, perhaps. My own hypothetical blog would be more similar to, say The Padukah Baptist Church Newsletter.

All of which is to say that we're all still figuring this out--and so are editors. What's what will probably only really become clear over time. Keep in mind that this board--one of the oldest of its kind out there--is less than ten years old.

Quincy

Editing in--Roger-Bobby... I've heard of one case involving a poem posted on a blog.

[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited February 13, 2008).]

[Laura Heidy-Halberstein]

Wouldn't the best thing for those concerned about it be to simply re-register using a name not their own?

Honestly, I wish I had remained "Lo" simply because of Google and all the other assorted search engines out there. It's not so much that I fear an editor will turn down a poem because it's considered "previously published" because I'm really not convinced that's the case in most instances. It's more that my few actual publishing credits are being systematically pushed down on the "list" which appears if my name is googled because, now that I am using my "real" name to post here, all the damn Erato threads are showing up first. It was a non-issue when I was "Lo" since Google is/was incapable of making that sort of association.

I would think that if an editor was checking to see if a poem had been previously posted anywhere on The Web, he/she would google the poet rather than the poem. If I'm wrong about that, and someone's concerned about an potential editor searching for publication/workshopping by title, just retitle the damn thing when you submit it.

I'd hate to see Eratosphere go "private," though. I'm pretty sure there are as many of us here who've been published because we've posted here as there are those who've been turned down because of it. I know I've had poems workshopped here which have been noticed by various editors, as has Dan, and I know several other posters who've also had the pleasure of getting one of those letters which says, in effect, "I'd really like to publish _________________ which you've posted over in The Deep End."

Like most things, posting a poem in a workshop has the potential to cut both ways.

Lo