[David Rosenthal]

I agree with Bob's idea of a guest login. Add that to the tags, the members only workshops, and the frequent pruning. I just googled a poem that was cut in the lat pruning -- it was right on top with the first line or two visible in the google summary and a link to the cached page with the whole poem. If Wiley is right that mags are rejecting based on this, I am very deterred from posting anymore.

David R.

[Roger Slater]

I have been deterred for quite some time. Children's book editors are extremely strict about prior publication. It's well known that they Google everything. As a result, I have declined to post many poems here because I didn't want to spoil their publication chances (though I've risked one or two now and then, which are, happily, no longer turning up on Google). As a result, I have missed out on getting feedback from the people whose opinions I value most. I would love to be able to start posting my work more. Only invisibility would make me feel completely secure.

[David Rosenthal]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I have been deterred for quite some time. Children's book editors are extremely strict about prior publication. It's well known that they Google everything. As a result, I have declined to post many poems here because I didn't want to spoil their publication chances (though I've risked one or two now and then, which are, happily, no longer turning up on Google). As a result, I have missed out on getting feedback from the people whose opinions I value most. I would love to be able to start posting my work more. Only invisibility would make me feel completely secure.

Yeah, I would hate to lose the great feedback I get here. Until now I haven't been to concerned about it, but if people are actually having editors say, "sorry, but we found your poem on Eratosphere," then I don't want to risk it. Man! This rots!

David R.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Just to muddle the issue further.

The risk of proving plagarism is another issue. When poems are pruned, the only record that might show proof of ownership might be the googled records.

A week or so ago, I noticed at a web journal a published poem which was very similar to a poem I remembered from a workship (not here, on another site). It just so happened that I remember the author as well, because it is an author whose work I like. But the published poem was by a name I did not recognize.

With regular pruning, as we have here, there is no record of the poem having been workshopped EXCEPT through a googled record.

I don't publicly post the work I am most proud of, but I am very happy to have access to clever people to rework poems that I can't straighten out on my own. Sometimes this excellent help from my peers will allow me to turn duds into "real" poems i.e. make them publishable.

But then the next problem arises, EITHER find a friendly editor who won't mind (some indeed say that they prefer getting workshopped poems as such poems tend to be higher quality).

OR save it for publication in a context where it will not matter, a chapbook or a future collection.

After seeing that near look-alike poem, I think there are advantages in googling.

I also read recently somewhere about a young poet who had won a contest and googled herself just to see what came up and found that her winning poem had won two other contests under someone else's name. So there are both advantages and disadvantages with these creepy-crawlies.

It does help one keep a protective eye on one's work.

[Susan McLean]

I would hate for this site to become hard to find for novice formalists and others. On the other hand, more and more editors seem to be Googling workshopped poems and then rejecting them if they can find them. Right now, the Drills and Amusements forum is apparently not being pruned at all, so if I post something there that I later decide to try submitting somewhere, I have to go back and delete it myself. More frequent pruning might help solve the problem, if posters can be a bit patient in waiting till well after a poem is pruned before submitting it somewhere.

I don't really like the idea of having to register (even as a guest) before I have a right even to see what a workshop looks like. I would never have found this site if Alicia had not directed me to it. The more difficult we make it for new people to find their way here, the fewer will come. At least if part of the site (where poems are not being tried out) is available to anyone, we might attract enough attention that people will then be curious about the workshops and register as a guest to see them.

I wish we could keep things the way they were, but people's use of the Internet keeps changing, so we may have to change with it.

Susan

[Maryann Corbett]

Susan, was there ever a time when Drills and Amusements was pruned? I'm not pruning it because I wasn't directed to, but there's no reason I can't.

[Roger Slater]

I agree that parts of the site can and should be kept fully public. In fact, there can even be a designated open poetry workshop for people who prefer the visibility.

Maybe the solution is simply to have a single "hidden" area that people can choose to use. Let the individual poet decide.

I'm guessing that more and more poets will opt for hidden.

I really don't see the problem with guest log-ins. When Alicia suggested the site to Susan, I'm guessing that Susan would have made the effort of typing the word "guest" in a box. What's the big deal? I can't imagine any serious metrical poet who stumbles on the home page declaring this to be the place for serious metrical poets being dissuaded from checking us out because you have to spend 8 or 9 seconds signing in as a guest.

[Susan McLean]

I don't think Drills and Amusements was ever pruned, but times are changing. I have certainly seen poems that started there wind up in journals. Since we have many writers who are adept at light verse, perhaps if we talk about making the workshops available only to members, that should be another one that is protected from spiders.

Susan