Bill, I applaud and endorse your view entirely. I'm not knocking charity, and I'm certainly not knocking anyone's attempt to master a foreign language. Since that's exactly what I'm attempting slowly and painfully to do with Italian, I'd be crazy to mock others doing the same with English.
But the context has to be right. Imagine a group of highly proficient Italian poets participating in an online poetry workshop and producing good quality verse. Along comes an Englishman who presumptuously imagines he can take part in the enterprise too, and starts posting poems and crits in Italian. His posts contain basic errors, his reading of others' poems misses endless stylistic and idiomatic nuances, his own poetry is stilted by the narrowness of expression open to him. Why should the Italians spend time addressing these issues when their purpose is to achieve the highest and most publishable standards for their own work? They shouldn't, and I wouldn't expect them to.
Eratosphere members are entitled to expect a high minimum standard of proficiency in English. I'm not advocating rudeness to non-native English speakers, and I'm not aware that there has been any. But anything less than a native standard of fluency is going to get in the way of the board's reason for existing, which is to work towards professional standards of writing. This isn't a beginner's forum, no matter what language you speak.
Now, if members would like to propose a new board for people who are writing in English as a second language, that would be an interesting idea and (speaking purely for myself) I should think it could be given serious consideration. But I don't know how many people would make use of it.
So I say again, although there is no constitutional reason why members for whom English is a second language shouldn't post their work and crits of others' work, they can't expect an especially tailored response.
On the general matter of critical rigour, tone, etc - there are no easy answers. The moderators have to try and maintain high standards of poetry and criticism within the bounds of civility. If we could always get it right we wouldn't be having the problems that face us now. Our members care passionately about poetry. This can lead to hot debate. Maybe some members care a bit too much about the sacredness of their own views. But these things won't change. All the mods can do is try to be fair, and to be as transparent as is compatible with respect for individual privacy in their management of these tricky matters. And Bill, sane, calm voices like yours are more precious than rubies in times like these.
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