[David Rosenthal]

Interesting. Back in the thread that led to this one, I asked if it would be OK to delete my old poems after they have been critted and slid off the page. Maryann suggested I do just that. This morning when I searched my name in TDE I found posts going back to early summer and decided that tonight I would take Maryann's suggestion and sit down and delete my poems one by one.

I just searched, and all that came up were a couple of threads from December that I commented in. Apparently all the old stuff was trimmed. Did this thread lead mods to prune? If so, thanks -- to the thread contributors and the mods.

David R.

[Tzemach Aryeh]

The responses against my idea were quite numerous and strong, so I'm not expecting to change anyone's mind here, but . . . I get the feeling people grossly misunderstood my suggestion. There are seventeen boards on this forum, and my proposal was to make three of them visible only to registered members. The vast majority of the boards would remain unchanged and fully public, and there would be no restrictions on registration. Reading through the responses, it seems like people interpreted my suggestion as a much stronger action.

Scott

[Chris Hanson]

Solutions might be:
1. Regular pruning, as suggested several times above;

2. Recognising the poet's right to the thread. If a poet asks for a thread to be deleted, would anyone seriously argue the point? The comments have been given, the revisions have been done. It should be the poet's right to have the thread remain or not. If respondents were worried about preserving their crits for posterity... well, the thread is gonna be pruned anyway, so why worry?

3. Failing (2), the poet could delete the poem and all of his/her replies, then PM all respondents and ask them if they'd mind deleting their crits. Not the best option.

Last year, I posted a poem on the Round-Up which was deemed to be unsuccessful in workshopping. Then, to my utter surprise, it was picked up by a journal. I simply PM'd Quincy and asked him to remove the entire thread, and explained why, and he did it immediately. No problem, and nobody got shitty that their crits had vanished. Sure, it's not something that you'd do lightly or on a whim, but it should be an available option to the poet.

Just my late view on this.

[Henrietta kelly]

No, no Scott we all understood:

but hells bells, man we all have our own tangents we like to swing naked from--And most invigorating when things look to be slow elsewhere.

Keep up the good work. carry on~~ henie

[Maryann Corbett]

Okay, we're getting a handle on this pruning thing.

There are mixed signals on how far back to prune: Alex says two or three months, Carol says 30 days, and there are people who would like something even shorter.

It seems best to be conservative, and some of the slower boards need a longer time. So Met, TDE, Non-met, Translation, Fiction, and Art have been pruned back to 60 days for the present. We're waiting for some clarification before we prune harder. (The other boards have not been subject to regular pruning in the past and there's no plan to start.)

Do PM me, or post here, if you want to express an opinion. And we should probably thank you for giving the issue a shove.

[Michael Cantor]

I suggest 30 days after the last post to a thread. Any comments made after that long a delay are almost always by newbies, gaming the 15-crit requirement, looking for threads where they can put up a quick one-liner, and frequently screwing up the Board and screwing over current posts by dredging up a batch of dead threads.

If we do change to thirty days, I suggest an announcement, and a permanent statement somewhere, to alert those of us who run electronic or hard copies of their threads for reference and copyright purposes.

[Roger Slater]

Apropos searching the site from within the site (this may be something of a tangent), I've noted that the search link up at the top of the main page, right next to the FAQ link, hardly turns up anything compared to doing the same search in the search box at the top left of the main page (where you get to choose "web" or "ablemuse"). The latter is much quicker, and it also picks up a lot more pages.



[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited February 14, 2008).]

[Oriane Stender]

I realize this thread is specifically about publication/prior exposure issues, but it makes me wonder - am I a lurker? (I guess technically I'm not because I've registered, but I mean in a more general sense.) I've really been enjoying following some of the threads and only make occasional comments, and never critique anyone's poem. I feel I'm learning something about poetry and poets and the workshopping process, which are all valuable to me as an artist. Are my comments unwelcome or a nuisance? I'm asking honestly, because if you all would prefer that no non-poets hang around, I'd like to know. Don't be shy.

Oriane

[Pua Sandabar]

I feel I'm learning something about poetry and poets and the workshopping process, which are all valuable to me as an artist. Are my comments unwelcome or a nuisance? I'm asking honestly, because if you all would prefer that no non-poets hang around, I'd like to know. Don't be shy.

Ha! Don't be a goose, Oriane!
We non-poet/poet-wannabees serve a definite purpose on boards like these.

From what I understand of the breed, a good number of real live poets actually want to know whether or not their work speaks to the rest of us.

Besides, learning's what it's all about, eh?

Happy weekend!
Honk!

[FOsen]

Oriane, If you're a nonpoet who reads poetry, I think your biggest danger here might be folks who want to clone you.

Frank