Showing posts with label Courtesy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Courtesy. Show all posts

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Forum Thread: Should Poetry be "Polite" and "Genteel"?

In the post ACommoner's Deleted Poll Question spambait said...

Hi Jennifer,

I was raised to have good manners. Forgot all that pretty much but.....

I consider the web boards I've run to be an extension of my living room. I expect visitors to act like they dropped by for a visit. I'm very easy to get along with but I do draw some lines.

And when somebody starts complaining about Freedom of Speech I remind them that they have freedom of speech but not in my living room. If they want to spout off about something taboo on my boards they are welcome to go build their own board.

Since you plan on a web board format here, you'll probably want to lay down some ground rules. Spend some time thinking about them then enforce them as needed.


(Posted March 26, 2008 5:41 PM)

Spambait offers some good advice here, and I should probably post better forum rules and a code of behavior and decorum.

But I have a dilemma: by their very nature, guidelines and rules are forms of censorship, which is exactly what I would like to avoid in this forum.

How does one give voice without allowing for some discontent and, yes, noisy debate?

Certainly, individual forums have the right to establish their own rules and regulations, and evidently the other poetry forums have decided to ban snark and smackdown.

Poetry is often known as a genteel occupation in which poets smile while stabbing each other in the back. Very catty, I must say.

So true poetic politeness seems to be vastly overestimated.

On the other hand, I wouldn't want to see a pack of marauding thieves to ransack my living room and steal my books, paperweights, and rocks, among other things.

So, perhaps, this forum might be moved out of the living room and into the wrestling ring.

;=)

Seriously, though, when does so-called decorum become a means of silencing foes as opposed to true gentility, which is kind and real?

Foetry was not at all genteel in its approach, but people listened and much in the literary world changed because of Foetry.

However, I am not Foetry; in my day-to-life life, I am not a smackdown kind of person, though I can be blunt. So I envision Poets.net as evolving somewhere between Snooty two-shoes and Genghis Khan.

Just how much should Poetry be polite and genteel?

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