Poetry Forum Renovations: What Do You Want?

i say password-protect - yes to all four.

i'm up for the password protection, ain't nobody should be reading our stuff.

but i'm not sure it needs to be so organised as having 4 different sub forums. i guess in some ways i'm something of a minimalist. i always thought it worked fine with just one forum. but that's my opinion. so many forums might muddle my mind.

I'd really like to get paid for posting. Can we arrange that?

poetinahat said:

I'm planning another update. Here are some options I'm considering (not all of them together):
- Moving *all* poems out of the main forum, into Poetry Critique
- Password-protecting the whole Forum
- Password-protecting the Chapbook
- Creating sub-forums for different categories (discussions, games, etc.)

Click to expand...

The first would take care of the last issue and second would take care of the third, so one and two. Or the the first and the third.

Any other suggestions would require some thought on my part, and since I have declared today as the "Day of No Thought", they will have to wait.

How about this (my dream scenario):

Password protect everything, ie the whole poetry forum.
Then...

Have three sub-forums -

1) the Critique Room, everything that goes here is looking for heavily constructive criticism and advice.
2) the Poetry Corner, everything here is critquable unless the author begs off constructice criticism, but the only thing one really expects here is feedback, good/bad, in depth or one liners.
3)the Common Room, everything else is here. Games, discussions, etc.

Perhaps you could make all the games sticky so they don't get lost in the shuffle?

I like the idea of password protecting the lot of it. Then We just need: Games, Discussions, Poems.

If we want a non-critique Chapbook, that's okay too. But a Single place for all poetry with critiques in mind is best. At this time, it seems to me that the Poetry Critique is passed over frequently.

It seems to me it will be very difficult to compete with sites that are exclusively poetry critique sites. There are some good ones out there, both at the beginner level and expert/intermediate level, with all range of critique from mild to abusive. They offer a concentration on developing specific poems through the workshopping process. Any move in this direction is to try to take “market share” from these sites, and may not be sustainable in the long run. Rigorous critique is a time consuming venture, though one of the most thoroughly enjoyable and fulfilling things I have ever done in my life. To ramp AW up to a full fledged critique site is not a goal I would support. Some incremental increase and improvement, yes; full-fledged critique, no.

Yet, who I am to say do this or that? As a newby and one who will never be very active here, my voice should have less weight than the regulars. I think what you have here is something unique among writers sites: a general writing site with a poetry sub-group folded within. The fact that we can share poetry and obtain some critique on our poetic works within the same site where we can discuss our novels and articles and non-fiction books is tremendous. One site fits all. What we give up in rigorous critique we gain in convenience and a broader-based fellowship of writers.

So I don’t see a need for extensive changes, and don’t have an opinion on password protection. I suggest that we keep the three forums, perhaps re-naming them to agree with the following purposes:

1. Poems for showcasing, general comments only.
2. Poems for critique
3. Poetry discussions. Games could probably go here. During an adjustment time, poems meant for critique or comment that get posted to the discussion forum could be moved by the moderator. I doubt that the learning curve would take very long.

I think three active forums along these lines would be find.

NDG

PTH,

I agree with your recommendations; so I vote...........(we could vote) to do what you said.

kid

I say yes to all 4 things you proposed, Poet (password protection). I also think that "Poetry Critique" gets ignored, possibly because people think a rigorous critique is required. I have a poem there that's had 16 reads, yet only 1 person ventured to comment. (And I'm happy with single sentence comments.)

I suggest a variation of what some others have suggested:

ONE poetry showcase &/or critique thread
ONE discussions thread
ONE games thread

I second Rivana and ddgrypon.

I second rivana

Go for it Poet...all of em...it is true the ones in critique do not get as much comments as the ones on the main board (tested by moi )

I like to read the poetry. I like having the games protected because that's about the only place I share.

I don't critique poetry because to me, that's like saying: 'How do you like my blood type?

Not everyone thinks that way; critique is where they want to be dissected. Having a separate dissection room is good. It keeps the blood from splashing around the room and scaring off the poetic non-scientists.

I do agree with Godfather in that less is more. Brevity is beautiful.

I think it's a great idea to password protect the whole show, Rob.

On another note, if you plan on doing any other redecorations, I'm partial to gingham and chintz. (Paisley: not so much.)

I'm for three main categories; Poetry, Discussions, Games and Prompts. with subdvisions if needed. (like poetry crit and poetry chapbook).
I'd say password protect it all, but would that discourage cross board use? Poetry discussions would not come up if an AW member clicked on 'new posts'.

Keep it as simple as possible. I know others here have suggested this, but I'll do it again.

Main board: Discussions, announcments, games, rate-a-poems, etc.

Critique: Keep as is.

AW Chapbook: Keep as is, though it wouldn't bother me if it was password protected.

I guess the only real change I would make would be a new rule that if you are going to post a poem, you must do so in one of the 2 sub-forums.

Simple is better, I agree.

How about a Sticky with all the games listed in it (maybe that's already there?) Password protection for the whole lot sounds like a great idea.

Anything that Sara says I immediately agree with
swooningggggggggggggggggg


HEY MOMMY .. HOW IS THE KID??????????????

(and my friend is coming to Israel soon so he is putting in the order for the book this weekend )

What about a section on where to submit your poetry for publication?

We don't have this here on the poetry board, do we?