Stick it

[Angeline]

Why?

It's potentially an interesting thread about a significant poet in a language other than English, always a topic that PF&D people might be interested in, but why stick it?

If it "gets lost" surely the reason is that readers aren't interested in it, isn't it?

I thought that a thread got stuck because it was generally important to the forum like the "Hi, welcome to the PF&D" thread, or the "New poems review" thread, or a contest or challenge thread.

General interest, like. The current Halloween challenge is a good example.

But this? Lesiman may be an excellent poet, but shouldn't his interest in the general community be gauged as other threads are, by whether people read them? Contribute to them?

Generally, I like the poems. (One idle comment—what the hell does "inspinuates" mean?) But that, for me, isn't the point.

Why is this thread so important as to stick it?

We have had a series of master classes in poetic forms. When we first raised the issue of "classes," we also talked about having a more general discussion on poetic techniques or just how to write good poetry (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the general idea). And when we talked about the "class threads," we agreed to stick each for a short time. Since this thread could generate such discussion, it seemed relevent to me and hence I stuck it, planning to keep it stuck for a week. I'm simply trying to find a way to provide opportunities for the kind of discussion people indicated might interest them. I certainly don't want to make Senna (or anyone) uncomfortable or suggest that what he (or anyone) recommends is better than what anyone else here might recommend. I just want to see some discussion. If it makes people uncomfortable or contributes to discord, I'll unstick it.

 

[WickedEve]

I do not wish to second guess the moderators' decisions. I may (I do) disagree with their recent decisions, but I have no way to battle them, so worrying about that is pointless, and merely upsetting.

I have no wish to be upset.

I'm curious about the "discussion people indicated might interest them." Since anyone can start a thread in the forum, I'm puzzled as to why someone might feel that there is no support for their interests.

Start a thread, bud. People will comment. Or, if they don't, no one else is interested.

So this recent reorganization is curious to me. Why?

I don't know that I theoretically object to it, but why?

Just curious.

Tzara. This is simply a forum. Ange and I are simply mods. We have been here for years and care about this place, same way someone here for three months may also love it. Laurel trusts us to do our best here, and we do try to make it a good place, and we love the people here. Being uspet about a stuck thread seems odd but I'm sure there's more to it. When my ex would talk to me, it would piss me off. Not what he said, but I was frustrated with everything he had done. I suppose the worse thing we've done, in your mind and maybe others, is make a poet's hangout. So what's wrong with having a hangout? It's just a second part of the poetry forum. Use either forum. The hangout is for any thread you want: poetry, chat, fun, etc. This forum, same thing, just less chat/flirt in some threads. And that's about it. It should be a positive thing. I read your first post in your new blog thread. Yeah, I could tell you were pissed. But that's not a big deal. You now have a blog or some other thread to be pissed in. That's okay. That's one of my favorite times to write.

If some of you choose to be angry, then do so. Write about it. Whatever you want. This all will pass, like many things I've seen here in the past.

A reminder: Angeline, Lauren, and I are your poetry forum moderators. If you do like a decision we make, then contact Laurel. Until she tells us differently, we will continue to be moderators and make some basic, moderator decisions. Always feel free to start a thread, or PM us. We do listen. You may not always like our decision but we listen.
Angeline, if you want to stick the thread, do so. We have stuck many threads for many posters in the past. We give more than we receive and always have. I know you and your heart and you know me. So... stick it.

 

[WickedEve]

I have posted this thread in both forums and hope you'll all join in to blow off steam, complain, make suggestions, etc.
I really am listening and I know Ange is. We do believe that eventually most of you will enjoy the new sub-forum and not see it as a negative.
I do realize Tzara's post was about sticking a thread but I still believe there's more to it: the poet's hangout.
Feel free to PM me. I don't bite.
Make complaints. I listen.
I try to fix things. Solve problems. Or just listen...

 

[Angeline]

Why?

It's potentially an interesting thread about a significant poet in a language other than English, always a topic that PF&D people might be interested in, but why stick it?

If it "gets lost" surely the reason is that readers aren't interested in it, isn't it?

I thought that a thread got stuck because it was generally important to the forum like the "Hi, welcome to the PF&D" thread, or the "New poems review" thread, or a contest or challenge thread.

General interest, like. The current Halloween challenge is a good example.

But this? Lesiman may be an excellent poet, but shouldn't his interest in the general community be gauged as other threads are, by whether people read them? Contribute to them?

Generally, I like the poems. (One idle comment—what the hell does "inspinuates" mean?) But that, for me, isn't the point.

Why is this thread so important as to stick it?

Ok, lemme respond. I should tell you first though that I'm taking pain drugs for a toothache (and waiting for an appointment), so if my post devolves into how poetry is like rainbows or leprechauns or some such, you'll know the Vicodin I just took kicked in.

I'm glad you're not upset. I don't want anyone to be upset, certainly not over whether or not a thread gets stuck, but more importantly over the creation of the hangout. Otoh, I know people are upset about the changes, or disagree with them as you do. Some people are very angry, and I'm sure the pm's have been flying about "how could they." People will believe whatever they want, but the creation of the forum was what we said it was: an opportunity to give people two poetry places at lit, one for hanging out and chatting and one for writing and workshopping and "technical" discussion. And creating the hangout does not mean people can't write poems or discuss whatever they want in the hangout. Of course they can; we're not crazy and we wouldn't suggest that we could control that by creating a subforum. But we do now have two places, one of which is now more focused strictly on poetry writing.

So why is that a bad thing? Do you think when the authors created the Story Discussion Circle or the BDSM forum created the Cafe that people were angry? I'll bet some were. There's always people who will believe these things happen because someone is trying to "get" someone else. I'll bet there are people here who think we did this to move the Bistro because of one member's blowup about Bijou. And that's just, well, dumb and untrue. I don't operate that way and neither have the other mods in all the time I've known them. And anyway I would never give in to one person's issues with anyone else here. I can't do that. Taking sides in that way is always lose-lose to me.

The changes we made were to provide an opportunity to make the forum better. That's all there is to it. Change is not always easy for people; they have growing pains. But six months or a year from now, people will love that we have a hangout and a more strictly writing-oriented place. New people will come in and they won't know the history, so they won't see it through the prism of who did what to whom. And the rest of us will be fine. I believe that.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Okay, well, I'm glad we're finally talking about this, because I've been unable to resist forming some opinions of my own, regardless of how hard I have tried.

Thing is, the BDSM forum often has fifty or sixty people in it, and that size crowd definitely merits dividing a board into two areas, one for chat and one for more serious topical threads. It's justified in that sense, because there is a legitimate argument that important threads might get lost with that much traffic.

There are, what, eight people on here, max, at any given moment? Usually when I check it's maybe three or four people looking in. Never once in the past two years have I gotten on the PFD and found so many new threads that they rolled over onto the second page.

I'm staying for two reasons: I have friends here, and I have nowhere else to go that does what this little village does. But I have yet to see any really rational reason to split the poetry board, given the minimal traffic we have here. It LOOKED like the reason for it was just that too many people were chatting and flirting in threads y'all wanted to keep pure. It LOOKED like there was a double standard, where some folks are allowed to converse and dialogue in places like the blog thread and the "keep the review thread clean" thread and then others were not. That's just what it LOOKED like. And I'm having a lot of trouble understanding how it wasn't that. There's a feel here, a sense of elitism that I have trouble finding ways to defend.

I am, it can be proven, one of the biggest cheerleaders for both this board and the decisions of the mods here. At least I have been. I've been the liaison and diplomat and defender of the policies and choices here any number of times, most recently with the whole Senna's-being-an-asshole-again problem. I'll add a link to the Bistro pages that featured that particular dramallama if anyone wants to see what a huge defender I've been of this area and how it works. But this division has made it a lot harder to shake my pompoms about how well this place is being managed.

Case in point. I saw no one but Ange and Senna discussing translations. I didn't see ANY, let alone ENOUGH interest in that topic to merit sticking the thread. So how do I explain or defend that to anyone? Damn, y'all. I have immense respect for Eve and Ange, and probably would for Lauren if she were around, and consider them my friends. So as a cheerleader I'm in a really tough spot here.

I am, quite frankly, liking some aspects of the new segregation. I'm more inclined to be out of control, to start weird new threads and generally bring some of the porn back into this PORN BOARD, despite the occasional stalker-style acid bath I get for being a HUGE WHORE WHO HAS LOWERED THE GENERAL TONE OF THE PFD. I'll own that, and how. I came here for both reasons, after all.

What's done is done, and we'll all get used to it. And frankly, perhaps I've always belonged on the Wrong Side of the Tracks. There are obviously at least one or two people who think so. Since the Bistro was specifically created as a result of a flame war, and its two main goals are to a) provide a space where there are no rules to break except perhaps the rule to Be Kind, and b) to provide a space where people are safe from conflict and flame wars and get all the attention they want, from me at least as well as the wonderful pack of deviants we've gathered there, then it by definition belongs in the Hangout, where there aren't a bunch of rules to break.

And I belong there too. So in that sense, the Hangout was a good idea, and I'll make use of it as constructively as I can, despite the fact that it really feels like I'm being sent to the wrong side of the tracks.

I'm not going to ask for justification, or rationale for the division. I'm sure there were some terribly sensible reasons for doing so. But the issue was this: It looked exactly like a duck. It walked and talked and quacked like a duck. It hung out with other ducks. And that makes it increasingly difficult to convince people that it's not a duck. Sticking Senna's thread was a strongly duck-like symptom, but unsticking it isn't going to make the basic issue go away. You see what I'm saying.

That's the sum total of my rant on the whole thing. I'm going to go back to focusing on being a HUGE WHORE WHO CONSISTENTLY LOWERS THE TONE OF THE PFD. Only now the only area in which I'll be lowering the tone can be the Hangout. Perhaps that's for the best anyway, though I hardly dare to hope it'll save me from another acid bath or two along the way. Meh. I'm starting to get used to them. They seem to be good for my complexion.

your resident Temple Whore,

bijou


eta: far as I can tell, there's no chance of one of Senna's threads getting "lost" anywhere as long as he's in the mood to pontificate about something. No risk whatsoever, whether or not anyone else is contributing to the thread. If that was the worry, I think we can all rest easy.

 

[WickedEve]

What was the harm of Ange wanting to stick a thread for a little while? Threads can be stuck and unstuck and we've done it for others. If you need something stuck, you just PM us and we'll probably do it. I finally unstuck the "Who is reviewing which day" thread. It wasn't used much. So, is the sticking of a thread that big of an issue around here? I never gave it much thought. Is it like a reward to have your thread stuck or a punishment to have it unstuck? Seriously.

And what's with all this separation and colored folk fountain talk? It's still the poetry forum. Go to whichever room you want. Use them both. It doesn't matter if we have two people a day on the forum. We had a discussion circle forum that got almost no use. Laurel was nice enough to give us that sub forum and so we decided to make it more user friendly. I don't get why some of you act like it's a punishment to be in that forum. I can click on a thread in the hangout as quickly as I can in the PDF. I read the entire forum.

For now it's there to stay. The reaction is strange, at least to me. I think you all need to see this forum as a whole. As a house with two rooms. I like hanging out at my computer in my bedroom and sometimes I go to the livingroom and watch cnn on the big tv.

Bijou, glad you had your say. I disagree with you the same way you probably disagree with me. We now have a larger forum with two areas for threads. I've gotten some PMs and some of you guys seem to like the more relaxed hangout and others like the atmosphere of the PDF. It's still the poetry forum. And this poetry forum is a good place because of the people in it. But if some of you want to be upset over something that shouldn't even really be that much of an issue, then do it. But what a great atmosphere some of you are making around here. I'm speaking as just a poster now. I like the hangout but don't say much there because of the silly, unneeded tension.

Like I said, the sub forum is here to stay for now. And I think Laurel was really nice to give it to us, and even nicer of her to change the name to a more functional forum. I'm certainly not going to bother her now about ridding the poetry forum of its hangout. I know some of you like it. I do. New people to the forum will probably find a use for it too.

Speaking of new people, I comment on submitted poems often. I even invite new poets to the forum -- the entire forum. I am always happy to help anyone who PMs me with any problem. Angeline arranged for the Halloween Contest and gives us her knowledge and feedback on poetry. We have never tried to be cruel to anyone or make anyone feel like, well, a black person at a fountain. If you think we're not bothered by any of this, then you're very wrong. I was the one who PMed Ange about the sub forum. We've both been wanting to change it for months. It was basically just sitting there. Sure, we could have left it, requested to have it deleted, but instead we asked for a poet's hangout. We were excited to get it. Well, I guess shame on us.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Just to be clear, Eve, you still have both my support and my respect. I really try to only form opinions about things I could actually change, but sometimes I fail. As I said, the sticky-thread thing was only a symptom of a larger potential weirdness.

I don't like drama, and I'd rather play. I'm going to prove that by not getting all het up about this either way, and mostly just playing and writing poetry, which is why I'm here.

And disagreeing or forming an opinion is not a sign that I don't like you, or Ange, or anybody else. Hell, I even occasionally disagree with people I'm married to and claim to actually love. So that and affection are of course not mutually exclusive. I'm sure I'll have my pompoms out again before too long.

bj

 

[WickedEve]

Oh, well, your post was nice enough and now I'm stuck with this picture I found to post and, yeah, it was for you... So, here's the picture and I was going to say something about you being on the devil's naughty list.

http://www.eveshabit.com/devil.jpg

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Oh, well, your post was nice enough and now I'm stuck with this picture I found to post and, yeah, it was for you... So, here's the picture and I was going to say something about you being on the devil's naughty list.

http://www.eveshabit.com/devil.jpg

If that was going to be a punishment then you got me all wrong because I LOVE that.

Besides, sticking out the tongue is a sign of libido and fertility, dontcha know. Like here:

http://m-carstairs.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/totem1.gif


Hey, does this mean we're having a FACE-OFF?

bj

 

[bluerains]

makes me

glad I am just another poet hoo...with no answer...obtw...I dyed my hair blonde
really...dah...days of dark are over...blondes get the door opened...now thats
a real question...

 

[Angeline]

Okay, well, I'm glad we're finally talking about this, because I've been unable to resist forming some opinions of my own, regardless of how hard I have tried.

Thing is, the BDSM forum often has fifty or sixty people in it, and that size crowd definitely merits dividing a board into two areas, one for chat and one for more serious topical threads. It's justified in that sense, because there is a legitimate argument that important threads might get lost with that much traffic.

There are, what, eight people on here, max, at any given moment? Usually when I check it's maybe three or four people looking in. Never once in the past two years have I gotten on the PFD and found so many new threads that they rolled over onto the second page.

I'm staying for two reasons: I have friends here, and I have nowhere else to go that does what this little village does. But I have yet to see any really rational reason to split the poetry board, given the minimal traffic we have here. It LOOKED like the reason for it was just that too many people were chatting and flirting in threads y'all wanted to keep pure. It LOOKED like there was a double standard, where some folks are allowed to converse and dialogue in places like the blog thread and the "keep the review thread clean" thread and then others were not. That's just what it LOOKED like. And I'm having a lot of trouble understanding how it wasn't that. There's a feel here, a sense of elitism that I have trouble finding ways to defend.

I am, it can be proven, one of the biggest cheerleaders for both this board and the decisions of the mods here. At least I have been. I've been the liaison and diplomat and defender of the policies and choices here any number of times, most recently with the whole Senna's-being-an-asshole-again problem. I'll add a link to the Bistro pages that featured that particular dramallama if anyone wants to see what a huge defender I've been of this area and how it works. But this division has made it a lot harder to shake my pompoms about how well this place is being managed.

Case in point. I saw no one but Ange and Senna discussing translations. I didn't see ANY, let alone ENOUGH interest in that topic to merit sticking the thread. So how do I explain or defend that to anyone? Damn, y'all. I have immense respect for Eve and Ange, and probably would for Lauren if she were around, and consider them my friends. So as a cheerleader I'm in a really tough spot here.

I am, quite frankly, liking some aspects of the new segregation. I'm more inclined to be out of control, to start weird new threads and generally bring some of the porn back into this PORN BOARD, despite the occasional stalker-style acid bath I get for being a HUGE WHORE WHO HAS LOWERED THE GENERAL TONE OF THE PFD. I'll own that, and how. I came here for both reasons, after all.

What's done is done, and we'll all get used to it. And frankly, perhaps I've always belonged on the Wrong Side of the Tracks. There are obviously at least one or two people who think so. Since the Bistro was specifically created as a result of a flame war, and its two main goals are to a) provide a space where there are no rules to break except perhaps the rule to Be Kind, and b) to provide a space where people are safe from conflict and flame wars and get all the attention they want, from me at least as well as the wonderful pack of deviants we've gathered there, then it by definition belongs in the Hangout, where there aren't a bunch of rules to break.

And I belong there too. So in that sense, the Hangout was a good idea, and I'll make use of it as constructively as I can, despite the fact that it really feels like I'm being sent to the drinking fountain for the Colored Folk, to steal someone else's metaphor.

I'm not going to ask for justification, or rationale for the division. I'm sure there were some terribly sensible reasons for doing so. But the issue was this: It looked exactly like a duck. It walked and talked and quacked like a duck. It hung out with other ducks. And that makes it increasingly difficult to convince people that it's not a duck. Sticking Senna's thread was a strongly duck-like symptom, but unsticking it isn't going to make the basic issue go away. You see what I'm saying.

That's the sum total of my rant on the whole thing. I'm going to go back to focusing on being a HUGE WHORE WHO CONSISTENTLY LOWERS THE TONE OF THE PFD. Only now the only area in which I'll be lowering the tone can be the Hangout. Perhaps that's for the best anyway, though I hardly dare to hope it'll save me from another acid bath or two along the way. Meh. I'm starting to get used to them. They seem to be good for my complexion.

your resident Temple Whore,

bijou


eta: far as I can tell, there's no chance of one of Senna's threads getting "lost" anywhere as long as he's in the mood to pontificate about something. No risk whatsoever, whether or not anyone else is contributing to the thread. If that was the worry, I think we can all rest easy.

I said I wouldn't post in this thread again tonight because some of the things said really bother me, sort of like they astound me to think "why would anyone think that"? And I know you--most of you in fact--will indeed play nice because you're nice people and this is a dumb thing to be fighting over. At least it is in the sense that any of us could be writing a poem or buying a dildo or having phone sex or yknow, anything more positive.

Was there too much chatting and flirting in some threads we wanted to keep pure? Yes there was, and I'm pretty sure I said from the beginning that was one reason for the change. There have been many times when I've said very mildly, please keep the chat/flirt to a minimum in this thread. Actually most of the time I ignore it because a) chat and flirt never bothers me personally and b) I chat plenty myself and I don't want to be a hypocrite. And it's a problem because a few posts are ok, but a lot of hijack posts can take a thread away from its purpose. It does irritate some people who see this forum as mainly for poem writing and discussion. And who are these people? Well some of them are former posters who still lurk sometimes, but mostly left the forum because it got too chatty/flirty for them. So if it irritates some people, enough even to drive some away, what is the big deal of having two places in our little world to do our thing? I honestly do not understand the hurt feelings. Well ok maybe I sort of do in a general way, but I disagree with them because I'm just trying to do the right thing here. And we ended up with more than what we were using.

And I understand that people think there's elitism here. People thought that when I first came to the forum. And I wasn't a mod then, obviously. Maybe I even thought it was true at first. People will always, I guess. And I know some people can be jerks. I wish I had known about the Senna drama. I didn't (cause I didn't read the threads where it was discussed) until a few weeks after it happened. I can't make people like each other or be respectful of what might bug somebody else. I'm just some women in Maine for chrissakes. Anyway there are people here--since I've been here--who believe that if you post a poem either at Lit or on the forum, it's a tacit agreement to let readers critique it. And some reviewers, like Senna, have strong opinions and little compunction to say they don't like something. Do I think it's ok to be so judgmental in reviews? No, I don't and I don't review that way myself. Beyond that I have little say over what others say there. But if I had known about it when it was happening I would have tried to help because I usually do.

The whole back of the bus analogy is repugnant to me, not that I can control what people feel. Yknow I could say that it LOOKS like people are overreacting because they love the drama. It does to me. And hell some of them might even agree lol. But others might be as flabbergasted as I am by the thought that something we did to help has made people feel like we told them to sit down and shut up.

Anyway I'm happy that you see some value in the hangout. That was the whole point. Yes, people can feel free to bring the porn back here--though there always has been graphic erotica on the main forum, too--and people can write, say, post whatever they want. That should be a good thing. And I don't feel hated, just misunderstood.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I 'm back who can I irritate now? Personally apart from having to fiddle around to find where I wanted to go at first I don't give two hoots where threads are as long as youuuuuuuu lot are still here in whatever capacity. It's really not worth coming to blows over your know !!! We as friends are all that matters! Now just listen to your auntie Annie who loves you all