Designing the perfect poetry board is a contentious issue. I’m going to take a couple of unpopular stands. Debate is welcome.
Resolved: A poetry board without conflict is just a teaparty.
Argument, debate, dissent, these are what force us to think about our own arguments and statements. A poetry board that stifles debate is a board that will, and should, die.
Debate stifling can be done through many avenues. Deleting posts. Banning users. Creating rules within rules. Shunning. The pressure can be subtle or intense. But when the goal of the board is getting along, the users start to go along. This is closely related to issue 2, but can be even more deadly. The homogenization of a board is its doom. Oh, it might stagger along with imperialistic efficiency for a while, but its utility will disappear.
The only way to combat argument is through argument.
Aha, taking unpopular stances, now this could be fun! Few comments:
I don’t know about, “A poetry board that stifles debate is a board that will, and should, die.” I don’t see any real evidence of this. We have plenty of poetry boards with large populations that subscribe to the Make-Nice-or-Else ideology. They don’t seem to be dying—in fact, I would say that their agenda has almost entirely conquered more discursive models. I do think something dies (critical thought, the ability of a board to talk about poetry in informed/interesting ways, the “utility,” as you put it, to people who are truly interested in poetry, maybe), but the communities themselves seem to thrive.
Anyway, I think most of us agree with this concept in principle—enforcing agreement with the majority has never been a particularly effective method of encouraging creativity or intellectual growth. But it’s a HARD task in practice. How to draw the line between healthy dissent and allowing trolls and weirdos to drown out everyone else with their ad-homs, dizzying array of off-topic posts, offensive language, etc? Boards die, too, when they become monopolized by conflict. We’ve seen a number of boards suffer because this is such a compelling concept, but such a difficult one to put into practice. Thinking of QED and Melic, in particular.
We want enough tension to keep us on our toes, interested, occasionally required to defend ourselves, our aesthetic, or our beliefs…but not so much that we get ulcers just from logging on/reading in the morning. Not so much that the conversation becomes wholly unbeautiful, without goodness, seemingly without value. I still have no idea what the best way is to ride that line.
-Hannah
What? A second anonymous?
Hannah, excellent points. Just this blog-only discussion has led to some animosity, though I don’t think it’s quite ulcer-inducing in its severity.
But I think we’d both agree that people, just people in general, are annoying and frustrating and should be shot. So the problem with a poetry board is that it necessarily involves people!
for the record, qed is not dead. never was dead. and is in no danger of dying anytime soon. it is a small board that appeals to a small amount of users. that’s all. qed, much like tequila, is acquired taste.
Reading comprehension FTW: We’ve seen a number of boards suffer because this is such a compelling concept, but such a difficult one to put into practice. Thinking of QED and Melic, in particular.
Suffer. Suffer long and hard, baby. And because of a noble calling, albeit one somewhat unevenly applied.
I’ve never been a big fan of the “acquired taste” argument or, for that matter, its kissing-cousin, the “if you don’t like it, go away” argument. We shouldn’t penalize people for talking about/trying to improve the quality or direction of the communities they love and support through hours of their reading/writing time each week.
After I was banned from a particular board, I remember one of my favorite critics, this guy I really respected, saying something like that. If you don’t like it, go away. It’s an acquired taste; don’t try to alter the recipe. The whole point of fighting for something is that you DO like it, you DO believe in it, and you think it could be, should be better. Back when I was a wee poet, lurking at Gaz, one of my favorite things about the Old Gaz Era (Jeff, Claudia, Seth, RJ, etc) was how willing they were to constantly self-critique, evolve, confront instead of dissemble, etc. There used to be threads up all the time about the quality of the crits, the poems, the purpose of the board. Always thought that was a good practice.
xx
-h
Hannah, I agree with you about being up front and allowing dissent and, even more importantly, conversation about dissent. If a board is great, it can withstand dissent. It can withstand scrutiny.
Everyone is always so goddamned defensive. Gotta drive out the infidels.