[Allen Tice]

Originally Posted by Alex Pepple

If you're one of those going for the nonsense prefixing of poem post, are you stumped for what gibberish to use? Then, here's some help--

- need a paragraph of junk prose? how about this?
- need some line of rubbish poetry? how about this?

Cheers,
...Alex

These are very good, Alex, very, very good. But, as for me :

"Lorem Ipsum is my choice.
I just adore her squeaky voice.
And if you mock my sweetie-cake,
I'll bop you with a rotten hake."

Copyright © Allen Tice 2015

[ross hamilton hill]

' the Sphere is a workshop, and it's purpose is to discuss works in progress.'

I agree with Michael that this thread is a bit 'so whatish?' just get on with it. but it did set me thinking about what a poetry forum actually does, workshopping, yes, but that to me covers a range of possibilities.
A poster may, and there are some who do, simply post a poem, wait till all the comments are made then thank everyone, that happens regularly, sometimes not even a thank you, just silence. Perfectly reasonable, no demand that a poet defend, explain, respond to comments, one assumes the poet/poster has read them, and that's all that's required.
Others basically assume the poem is finished, that all criticism, no matter how insightful is beside the point, it is their poem, they wrote it and no one else can rewrite it for them. Again a perfectly reasonable approach, a poem only has one author, ( there may be the rare exception, but really can you think of any major poem written by two people, or more.) So are these people simply showcasing their poems, evading the workshop process, I don't think so because the implied learning experience is ongoing, the criticiem of poem A will influence poem B which is yet to be written, in that way poetry forums can have a powerful influence.
The last category, I can think of, most closely fits Michael's idea of 'workshopping' a poem, that is the poet who revises the poem in line with suggestions, incorporates ideas or actual phrases suggested by commentators. This works for some, but also is often disastrous for others, poets lose control of their own poem, lose their voice and instead the poem becomes less not more. We have all seen this happen, and it emphasises the point that a poem is a solo creation, try to make it otherwise and it ceases to be a poem by a certain person and instead becomes a poem by an Erato workshop, with mixed results.
Perhaps the one other category is the suggested edit, I often think this is the best form of advice as it mimics the editors time honoured role in the production of literature. If a comment suggest you drop S1, and you do so, the work is still entirely your's, your 'voice' is intact.
There are probably aspects of this subject that others can think of, and also this is not part of the thread although is a response to a comment on the thread.
If you've heard it all before, well sorry but you didn't have to read it and if you're wondering why I bothered, well I am hopelessly jet lagged and there is not a lot else to do at 2 am.

[Allen Tice]

Odd, but I just again examined an American, supposedly high-status, publication of (what it still pretends is) poetry, that stringently bans all Internet adultery whatever. This bit of bound wastepaper recently morphed from Ezra Pound and others (including friends of mine) into a throbbing cat box. I have taken it from my roster to the yard.

Yet there are other Internet-rejecting slick magazines and non-slicks in the USA that I wouldn't mind gracing. Notions of power and legality and superiority and sheer money make them keep their Internet defenses up. And they are right to do so if they want, from their monetary perspective, and they do have the time and manpower to make make their shields work quite well.

No proof ever of rejection from finding something online? Duh! Michael, tell me why a mega-magazine would take the time to reply in these online days with a human note: "we found your pantoum online"? They wouldn't deign, nor would *me* in their place, either.

I cannot speak for the UK, and OZ, and Canada, and Pitcairn Island. But if Alan Jerkins and the TLS are big enough to be unthreatened by minor "prepublication" somewhere, I say God Bless Him, two times!

There's those who ban, and those who might not.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Allen Tice

Copyright © Allen Tice 2015

Nice one, Allen. Well played.

[Roger Slater]

The most effective solution would be to put the workshop forums into a mode that makes them invisible unless you're signed in, as we currently do for the Drills & Amusements forum where people post magazine contest entries. I believe this has been suggested in the past and the consensus was that it's a bad idea, perhaps because being able to read the site without being signed in is presumably what allows us to attract new members. But if that's the reason, one solution might be to allow people who want to explore the site without registering to sign in using "guest" as their username and "password" as the password (with that particular combination not having posting privileges). Quite apart from the question of pre-publication and editors, I myself have never been comfortable with the idea of posting my unfinished and possibly to-be-abandoned work where anyone can read it.

And we should also admit, though it pains us, that those editors who regard places like Eratosphere as previous publication have a pretty good point. If you put something on the internet and let everyone in the world read it, even if it's only for a month or two before it's pruned, it sure does sound like publication to me. In fact, if you published your work in a print-only magazine with a circulation of 400, say, it's likely to be seen by fewer people than will see it if you post it at Eratosphere during a busy month, and it's certainly true that far more people have the opportunity to see it even if they don't take advantage of that opportunity. Isn't that what publication is?

[Allen Tice]

Originally Posted by W.F. Lantry

One of them even told *me* to do it!

*You* are right, of course, it was well done.
(And the other ten verses are unposted. Monkey no see what needy no see. )

Best, and Thanks also.

[ross hamilton hill]

At the moment there are 8 members and 66 guests viewing the Sphere, it has when I have looked been the usual ratio, so hiding the Sphere would lose a huge floating audience, some idle viewers others perhaps as dedicated as members but not wishing to comment, just read.
I think this ratio is vital for the future life of the Sphere and far more important than trying to sidestep the reasonable request from editors that poems be fresh and unseen before.

[Matt Q]

So, a few days back I contacted the editor of Rattle as I said I would. Since this thread continues, I thought I'd report back on his response.

I told him I posted poems on workshop forums that were public, in the sense that anyone who knows where to look can find them, but that they were hidden from search engines.

I also told him that sometimes "traces" of the poem might show up in search, in the form of a few lines appearing at rssing.com that might show up in a search, but in these cases, the poem would have already been deleted from the site.

He said neither case would cause a problem. He said he doesn't want subscribers reading poems they've read before. He said that technically the general rule is that if a poem is accessible online, it counts as published, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him.

So basically, he doesn't mind if they're workshopped off radar, he doesn't even mind that searching for the poems may show that they've been work-shopped in the past, he just doesn't want to be able to find them when he looks. So this tends to suggest that, at least for Rattle, ensuring that a poem is gutted/culled before it's submitted would seem to be enough, given that Alex already ensures that search engines don't cache copies of the poems.

-Matt

[Roger Slater]

Originally Posted by ross hamilton hill

At the moment there are 8 members and 66 guests viewing the Sphere, it has when I have looked been the usual ratio, so hiding the Sphere would lose a huge floating audience, some idle viewers others perhaps as dedicated as members but not wishing to comment, just read.
I think this ratio is vital for the future life of the Sphere and far more important than trying to sidestep the reasonable request from editors that poems be fresh and unseen before.

I don't think we workshop poems to gain an "audience," Ross. A workshop is not a showcase, and if we want to be credible when we tell editors that a given poem that was workshopped here was not "published" then it makes no sense to say that we ought not to lose our "huge floating audience" of "idle viewers." In fact, you make my point for me. We don't need an audience of idle viewers, and it's inconsistent with the mission of the site, and perhaps eliminating such an "audience" would cut back on vanity posts that the poet only pretends to be wanting critiques for but is actually just preening.

Of course, if my suggestion of having a "guest" log-in were followed, it would just take an idle viewer a few seconds to knock on the door and gain viewing access. So the only idle viewers who would not get to lurk here and admire your work for no particular reason germane to workshopping would be those who are so idle and uninterested that they don't want to type the word "guest" into the username field.

[Allen Tice]

In order to send sign-in cookies to a visitor, Eratosphere software now needs to note the visitor's Internet address. Moreover, from its records Eratosphere may recognize repeat visitors and members that are not signed at the moment. I -- as a member -- often come to Eratosphere to look, but leave again without signing-in. If my own usage is any guide, I am very often counted as a visitor. So those simple statistics may not translate the way Ross suggests. The "floaters" might be fewer than appear.

Bots. Before long, if not already, bots will include "guest" along with other "sign-in" spoofs. Even a very simple "captcha" requirement that a child could solve should block bots pretty well.