In our constant effort to improve the Harriet experience, we’ve implemented a new comments feature for readers to express their likes and dislikes.
The new comments feature allows readers to anonymously state a “like” or “dislike” preference for comments on Harriet posts by clicking on the “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” icons below each comment.
Each reader will only be able to “like” or “dislike” once for each comment, so there’s no reason to worry about getting a frantic “like” click frenzy–or the opposite– from one particular reader.
The like/dislike ratio will be displayed to the left of the handy icons, updating with each vote. If a comment hits a certain dislike ratio, that comment will be hidden, requiring readers to click to view it.
We hope this feature will give the Harriet community another way to voice its opinions about the discussions occurring in the thread. If you have questions about the new feature, please email us and let us know.
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Hi Alan,
The stated comments policy is still in place:
PoetryFoundation.org welcomes comments that foster dialogue and cultivate an open community on the site. We reserve the right to delete comments that contain offensive language or personal attacks. Repeated violation of this policy will result in restricted use of the site. The first time a person comments on a site, his or her comment must be approved by the site moderators. Subsequent comments will appear on the site automatically. Please note: We require comments to include a name and e-mail address. By submitting a comment, you give the Poetry Foundation the right to publish it.
So, yes, we will continue to moderate the comments of individuals who violate the comments policy. Hopefully, this will continue to be a rare thing!
-Travis
Travis, could we add a CIRCUS MAXIMUS visual to the Harriet array? This would accentuate the “bread & circuses” feel, which has been gaining momentum. & maybe some stills from Fellini Satyricon. Or shots of dead gladiator. Lion eating Spare Rib.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the concept. Slam-dunk. Crowds & Power.
Just so we remember that in certain occasional, unusual, very suspenseful & dramatic situations (see : Bicycle Thief? 12 Angry Loud Blowhards?) the Majority is sometimes… [drowned out by mob roar]
Thanks for your response. I see the dislike button’s working on my comment, which was held for moderation briefly — had I violated anything? I think I’ve only posted here once before, a few days ago.
Hi Alan,
You were still registering as “new.” All should be clear for now.
-Travis
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Hi Kent,
Good questions. The “particularity” of a reader is tracked by IP address, among other things. So that keeps each to each pretty well.
I like your rewards system idea. We’ve talked about a number of different options along those lines, so we’ll see where we end up.
Cheers,
Travis
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Hey…can we vote on all those crappy poems posted on the main page, too?
Oops. Sorry! (Did I say that out loud?)
And may I make one more suggestion? If those who get a lot of “thumbs down” votes are to be punished by way of disappearing comments, what about *rewarding* those who get the most “thumbs up”?
For example, what if the two or three leading vote-getters over a period of six months were rewarded with a Guest Commentator stipend, even a small one: say at quarter rate that of the regular Big Name Harriet bloggers.
I mean, why not? Lord knows some of us spend enough time doing it! Why not create a new part-time career opportunity for those who just can’t help themselves? I mean “who just can’t help ourselves.”
No question it would attract news. And it might, who knows, even lead, down the road, to a new MFA specialization (in second and third-tier Creative Writing programs):
“Professional Comment-Box Writing for Poets.”
The notion might sound wacky, and I suppose on one level it is, but hey, when you think about it…
Kent
Travis said:
>I like your rewards system idea. We’ve talked about a number of different options along those lines, so we’ll see where we end up.
Seriously?
Well, then would you please vote for my comment? I want to start racking up the numbers without delay. And I refuse to vote for myself!
Kent
Travis:
IMHO, Nixon Chimes (i.e. “Nichts & Chimes”) buttons are a welcome addition. Personally, I’ve found them helpful since they were instituted on “Egoless” about a decade ago.
These questions are in no way complaints:
1. In the future, will they be applied to the original post? (Sauce, goose, gander.)
2. Can we see the raw totals? (+3 is a sweep in a triumvirate, a cliffhanger in a general election.)
3. Can the names of the responders be placed at the top of each post so we know who we’re reading beforehand?
Thanks for all you do for Harriet, Travis!
Best regards,
Colin
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Hello Travis.
How many individual readers need click ‘dislike’before the comment is hidden, please?
Hi Desmond (and Terreson!),
We’re going to see what kind of response the feature gets before implementing the “collapse ratio” on any kind of regular basis. So, Terre, that your comment got collapsed after two was just a test to see if the thing works. It does. And now your comment is back up there in plain view for all the world. So don’t leave just yet!
Thanks for your patience.
-Travis
Travis,
You might want to email Terreson and let him know what happened, in case he checked out already.
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I have now had the opportunity to observe this feature in action.
IMHO: bad idea! This is exactly how we ended up with George W. Bush.
No thanks.
Agreed. The tyranny of the demos in action, demonstrated before one’s very eyes.
Hey, Kent…I just voted for myself. You should too…you’re making sense. This is legal under the Constitution.
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I like this.
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Not that there is any way of policing this, but on Reddit we generally try to encourage people to “upvote” or “downvote” a comment on the basis of its value to the discussion, rather than on the basis of whether they agree or disagree.
There is a difference. Perhaps there could be a disclaimer somewhere.
I’d hate to have people decline to give their valuable opinion just because they have a large negative number by their comments.
just an idea.
Yet that seems exactly where this sort of thing tends to go. I’ve seen it happen on several poetry boards before. It almost always ends up as an ad hominem popularity contest. I find it fascinating how even on this thread the intelligent questions by a few folks, in a neutral, non-judgmental way, have already gotten dozens of negative comments.
One fatal flaw of this system as it’s currently set up: It IS a popularity contest because we cannot see the actual vote tally, only where it stands as a total. It would be interesting to see, when the tally is in the negatives, if there were any positive votes, for example. Or if lots of votes cancel out to zero, coming from all sides.
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“You can’t judge anything by the ‘reds’ and the ‘greens’ on this thread, it seems to me, except that a simplistic dualism has no place in evaluating views about poetry.”
In which case, why bother having them?
All it does it stir things up. it doesn’t add anything. It just turns discourse into even more of a binary partisan argument. Make no mistake, most people are going to click red or green depending on whether or not they like what the person says, or whether or not they like the person. It’s purely subjective.
In this literary-critical world, especially in poetry, where so many critics already decry the rampantly subjective nature of most reviewing, do we really want to make things MORE subjective? or provide more fuel to that particular fire?
Not I. Obviously I share the minority position, however, and I’m quite content with that.
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For some reason I believe this like/dislike device is going to lead to a mass usage of “Like” and “Dislike” in the actual 3-dimensional world.
It is interesting that the human duality (which I encountered first in literary form through Joseph Campbell) comes into play even in something so small as like/dislike.
I then came across it again while reading up about quarks — how their natural state is a subatomic triumvir of sorts. Two “up” quarks and one “down” quark (a proton, no?). Nature at its basics tends towards three — so instead of yes/no, mind/body, time/space, like/dislike… things are more likely — yes/no/maybe, mind/body/soul, time/space/infinity, like/dislike/ehhh…
This is a terrible idea. Why would a poetry-related site want to encourage glib, facile responses, instead of extended, reasoned ones? Of all the replies one might make to a thoughtful post, “I like this” (or “I dislike this”) must be the most useless imaginable. Do you really want to make quality synonymous with popularity?
But perhaps the initial post was satirical, and soon you will be promoting boiled-baby as a supplement to the food supply.
RHE
A good word to the wise. But I have a feeling there may be a causal relation between “dislike” and “extended”. (There’s such a thing as over-extended.)
Amen corner.
Did he just write “boiled baby”?
I am laughing on the inside right now.
Giggling on the outside.
Travis Nichols says: “Hi Desmond (and Terreson!),
We’re going to see what kind of response the feature gets before implementing the “collapse ratio” on any kind of regular basis. So, Terre, that your comment got collapsed after two was just a test to see if the thing works. It does. And now your comment is back up there in plain view for all the world. So don’t leave just yet!
Thanks for your patience.
-Travis”
First off it would have been nice to have been told my initial post to this thread, and those of others, amounted to a test. For some reason I tend to expect more of poets than I expect of, say, the CIA known for conducting tests without complicit acknowledgement of its subjects.
Second thought. My initial post is objective. It presents both the positive and the danger side of the new idea. It then states that I am not inclined to participate in the new way. So what is to be disliked about such an assessment? Is it disliked because I point out the postive value, because I point out the danger, or because I say the new system is such I choose not to participate in it? So is it disliked because I pointed out the postive, or pointed out the danger, or because I said I wouldn’t engage in the new feature, or because someone(s) have an animus against me?
Third thought. Almost two years ago I witnessed the (creative) demise of poets.org, the online extension of The Academy of American Poets. The site is a shadow of its former self, so to speak. Here, with this new protocal, I predict the same drop off.
Fourth thought. Travis and all, you got poetry board snarks here that are known to anyone who has worked the lines. One poster upthread, for example, is known through out the online poetry community for, in his capacity as moderator, deleting posts that stand contra to his personal beliefs. He just erases posts. I am guessing ya’ll don’t get the snarkiness of which poets are capable of.
Fifth item. On the small poetry board I run the consortiuum’s mother board has this option of good/bad karma for every post. It is like your new like/dislike feature. The first thing I did when creating the spot was to disenable the function. I figure poets and people either speak up or sit down.
Terreson
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Oh, what ego more fragile than the writer of poetry?
Only poets and heroes would trade wealth for vain glory.
I was just looking back over some of the earlier threads I’d been engaged in to see how the Like/Dislike function might have changed the tenor and indeed the whole direction of the argument. I found Martin Earl’s FISH II thread particularly instructive because it wormed it’s long, devious way through various fishy difficulties, one being that Martin himself was, as he described it, “on the other side of the moon” (he was travelling from Lisbon to New York–which, incidentally, are on almost exactly the same latitude. Did you know that, Martin, and what’s on the same latitude as Nova Scotia?).
Things are seldom what they seem in a dialogue either, and sometimes what seems a straight remark ends up in the Outer Hebrides while a perverse tangent becomes the Zen shot that gets a thread right back on track. I was placed in a sort of devil’s advocate role in that thread, which might not have been possible if Martin had been there all along to readjust what he meant–as he did very eloquently right at the end well over 100 comments later. On the other hand, the difficulties I introduced led us to other endings including Directive, the classic poem about getting lost, and on to Christian Wiman’s “Five Houses Down.” This might not have happened had readers been encouraged to dislike what I wrote instead of reading it.
Like and dislike is precisely what we must NOT concern ourselves with in such a dialogue, otherwise how can we ever be expected to change our minds? If we come in with the assumption that this or that angle is beyond the pale, or this or that poster is from the other side of the tracks, what hope is there for a balanced Harriet? For I see Harriet as different from all the other poetry sites because it’s the only one that is not maintained by and for the PoBiz, simply because it is a.) financially independent of the PoBiz and b.) not run by PoBiz staff. Indeed, Rebecca Wolff has just headlined that she’s “Paid to Post,” an astonishing observation. Can any other blogger in the world claim that but someone blessed by Harriet? And my assumption would be that the regular staff are paid well too, as indeed they should be. But who else gets paid well to work with poetry but those who are dependent on the teaching business, the higher the more remunerative?
That’s why Harriet has a huge incentive to rise above the tendency to “Like” and “Dislike,” which inevitably is going to bug us because there are such rivalries in the field—as there always will be when any job market’s tough.
One of the things I liked most about Columbia up there on Morningside Heights in the 50s was that there was no town-and-gown tension, whereas it was simmering there right below the surface all the time in New Haven (I lived on Orchard Street!). And in Cambridge the friction was ancient and deadly, indeed to such an extent that if you went up to Kings or Christs with a local accent in the 50s you would have to get elocution lessons or the other students would bully you. I mean, there were fist fights all the time, particularly on Saturday nights!
The only time the local rowdies and the silver spooners got peacefully together was when the Beatles came to town in the early 60s!
Like and dislike have no place here on Harriet, at least if you want to welcome into the community individuals who are outside the mainstream. I hear Desmond Swords loud and clear, our “grafter” from Dublin–who incidentally chose to speak the Queen’s English in his last comment just above and not the various North Country and Irish dialects that are his native tongue–he did that so we would not dismiss him. And Desmond can make the town-and-gown argument much more eloquently than I can because he’s suffered so much humiliation from it in the past.
There should be no place for such prejudice here on Harriet, and I do ask you urgently to reconsider this new scheme.
Christopher
An interesting article Harriet’s new way brings to mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunning
Terreson
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Just prior to the introduction of red and green thumbs, every thread on Harriet was wrenched into a back and forth on Thomas Brady’s hobbyhorse. Confront him, overwhelmingly refute him, as I and others did, or ignore him, the result was the same: the discussion was hostage to the lowest common denominator.
This vulnerability to the loudest bore is an artifact of cyberspace in the absence of a hands-on moderator, or as now, a community mechanism for up and down. Community verdict on Brady’s blather was overwhelmingly down. He has apparently either recognized that he was unwelcome and withdrawn or been banished for bad ratio. I hope the door didn’t hit his butt too hard on the way out.
It’s good to talk about poetry and poets without being incessantly preached at that anyone you might be interested in isn’t Keats. Those remaining here can certainly be silly: I find Knott’s insistence on Carruth’s criminal complicity with Norton in the case of The Voice That Is Great Within Us truly strange. But he doesn’t insist on taking over every single thread.
And it’s true: the poet can be one weird voice crying uncomfortable things in the wilderness. Stone him, stone him!
Balance that with the welfare of the community. Answers are not easy.
The thumbs are certainly reductive, and the lions are always hungry. (And the recent game-boy matches for scores are adolescent, but one can try to ignore them.) But the blatherers–are deadening to the mind and to the spirit. One could hope that they have ears to notice how much dead space they can create. But if not, Harriet, please do listen to pleas for a different experiment. This one is not succeeding. Like/dislike are really not adequate words for poets.
margo
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You might try getting my name right, Christopher.
I’m so sorry, John Oliver Simon. Like Martin Earl I learned to read in the 50s (in the 40s actually–I’m older) and was taught to sound everything out. So I’m a poor speller and not good at whole word recognition.
I’ll never do it again, I promise (setting himself up for yet another disaster!).
Christopher
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I apologize again for mixing up the order of your name, John Oliver Simon. Please forgive me.
Sid was dyslexic; so he thought people were dissing him. It’s hard to like Sid. Face it, the threads are verbose and seldom to the point; if there WAS a discernable direction in the original post. The flaw is not in the stars… I like the feature, but Sid’s agin it. Remember, a no vote will elect George Bush to a third term (the machine is rigged!).
Hello Harrieteers–
Humans are still reading and reviewing posts! So never fear, we hear and appreciate your thoughtful responses to this experiment. We’ll let it go a while longer and see how things shake out. Thanks, Cathy
I like the idea someone mentioned upthread of putting the poster’s name at the beginning of each post rather than at the end. I also agree that the like/dislike categories are too simplistic and that the experiment as it stands isn’t very useful.
OTOH, I agree with JOS about hobbyhorses and one trick ponies mucking up the threads.
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Christopher,
Blog talk? No. I use both of those terms in real life. Cliches? Sure, but apropos, IMO.
As to the rest of your post, “we”? Are you riding in on your own bandwagon?
Christopher Woodman says: “With all due respect, Rachel, I don’t agree with the way you say that. That’s blog talk and this is Harriet. There’s been far too much of the old mud slung about in the last 2 weeks, and we’re looking now for soil much more fertile. We’re also interested in more useful vehicles than bandwagons, which after all just lead to war or to Florida elections!
It’s not that you’re wrong necessarily, just that “hobbyhorses” and “one trick ponies” are clichés and we can do metaphors.”
Woodman, you finally succeeded to reaching to my last bad nerve, and this over three sites. Where do you get off telling Rachel, or anyone else as you have want to do, the way they should say what they think? I mean talk about thought policing! While you rail against poetry sites and po-biz, frankly, yours is a most censorious voice. You are forever telling us how we should think and how we should speak and how we should see things.
Don’t ever tell anyone again how they should say what they think.
Terreson
I’ll think about what you say carefully, Tere–I certainly don’t want to stir up more trouble.
I thought I covered myself by saying a.) “With all due respect” and b.) ” “I don’t agree with the way you say that.” It was just my own opinion, in other words–my attempt to help. Also I’m 70.
I think this little flare up pretty much gets to the heart of the matter. Would anyone else care to comment?
Christopher
Sure.
This is exactly why likes/dislikes doesn’t work: it brings the discussion down to this level. Or rather, it brings it down to this level far more quickly, and far more directly. As if poets’ fragile egos weren’t already delicate enough!
Jung once said: The person least likely to realize when they are being possessed by their unconscious forces is the person in question. I see this in play all the time. Not to try to psychoanalyze anyone from a distance, although it’s tempting when it’s as obvious as it often is, but people really do reveal a lot about themselves when they react from emotion rather than considered thought. It’s often TOO easy to make a knee-jerk reaction in this medium, when one can dash off a reply in the heat of the moment, and hit “Post Comment” before they cool off. Pretty much everyone does this. (I make no claims to being better than anyone else at this. Certainly I do it too. Who doesn’t? On the other hand, I do make claims about having learned by observing.)
You say you couched your request in polite terms. That is nit-picking of the worst sort: it is defending ill will by saying it’s okay because it was politely worded. That’s basically adhering to the letter of the law (laws of courtesy, of there are such things) while trampling all over their spirit. The veneer of politeness is not convincing, in this instance, because the message behind the polite veneer was strongly condemnatory.
Yes, you do have a bad habit, no matter how politely worded, of telling others how to think, and how to express themselves. Before you take umbrage: you DID ask.
On the other hand, in this you are hardly alone. The blogosphere (which includes Harriet; see below) is rife with such rhetoric. I don’t see less of it here than elsewhere. In fact, I see pretty much the same voices, and the same arguments, here as everywhere else in PoetryWorld. It gets boring, frankly, because it’s so utterly predictable.
This thread, and most of the other “discussion” threads on Harriet suffer from being dominated by several loud voices who believe that the only way to state their views is by shouting down everyone else’s. And also who have nothing positive to say—all comments are negative, or attacks, or veiled insults. Do you really stand in that category? You decide. Nonetheless, a little self-awareness goes a long way, and you (and everyone else) might look at the way you (everyone) express yourself, as well.
Coming down on other people for the way they express themselves is exactly what you say you don’t like other people doing to you: think about it. (This is classic mirror-projection, to use another Jungian term: people projecting out onto the world exactly what they can’t see in their own selves; and the world is very kind as to mirror it back.) It’s a matter of walking one’s talk. If one says that one doesn’t like to be corrected, then one is on very shaky ground when one has the habit of correcting others all the time.
Finally: Saying that this is Harriet and not “blog talk” is patently absurd: for one thing, this IS a blog. For another, most people operate pretty much the same way, no matter what the venue, be it blogs or message boards or Harriet. (Saying “this is Harriet” presumes several things, some of them elitist, others of them separatist, few of them affirming rather than insulting. Who’s a snob, then?)
Somewhat relevant to this thread about ‘judgment’ on poetry blogs, many of you may remember the raging debate we had about censorship. It preceded, and may even have inspired the current ‘Like/Dislike’ feature. At that time, one Jack Conway was wreaking havoc here. He may actually be the only person ever officially banned from Harriet.
At any rate, his real name is J. North Conway and I thought some of you might be interested in following this link I found about our old (hell-raising) friend Jack C.
“BIG NEWS for my new book!
http://www.rd.com/book-excerpts
Named one of the five best for the season.
Comment by Jack C.”
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Well, you DID ask. I didn’t open that door, and I probably won’t go through it ever again, here. I said what I needed to say; and the rest is not up to me.
Will my opinions on like/dislike sway the powers that be that determine whether such options will continue to be used on Harriet? Doubtful, very. But then, I don’t expect my opinions to be even heard, here, much less actually listened to, or responded to. Like you, like others, I’ve been around this block several times, and I have no illusions.
In fact, my remarks were general. I DID say that others act in those ways, I did. That pretty much everyone can get into it. So if you want to take my remarks as applicable to many folks, that;s fine. If you want to take them personally, I can’t help that, either. Yet I do think about how I phrase things, and I tend to say them only after carefully considering my own language, so as to be as precise as possible, and state my positions clearly. If I wasn’t clear enough in already stating that my points do cut all ways (not just both ways), then consider me as saying so now. Again, everyone has done it—although some make more of a habit of it than others.
On the other hand, for example, was calling me “Ralph” meant to be a joke, or was it a brain-fart? It’s the ambiguity of such things, if you don’t indicate them to be joking around, that makes people take umbrage, and get pissed off. I reserve judgment for now. I’ll just say, condescension works all ways, too; you may think you’re a lot older than most of us, but that may or may not actually be true. Doubt anyone around here knows much about me, nor do I expect them to—or care to. Not my problem. (And I’m completely neutral about the issue, to be honest; I am moved to shrug, at most.)
It’s very hard to tell tone of voice, or if people are joking, in a text-only medium in which no-one can hear the other speaking. This is well-known. Hence, the need to use language precisely rather than sloppily. (I find it hilariously paradoxical how so many poets are so sloppy in their prose, or their blogs, etc., when at the same time they decry imprecision in Poetry.)
Did I ever say I dismissed you as a fraud? I’m familiar with you, and your history. I’ve done my research, and I even defended you when you were being banned, elsewhere. Don’t assume I’m ignorant, and don’t assume everyone here is younger, or less experienced, than you. This is precisely why going out of your way to tell people how to express themselves comes across as condescending: because in fact you don’t really know if it’s merited or not, you just assume it is. And THAT is arrogant.
And no, I am not singling YOU out: lots of people do that, and my comments are general. But again, you DID ask.
What you say about “dissidents” (perhaps too strong a word in a discussion that really means nothing, in the big scheme of things) is true in many situations, online. Having been perceived as such myself on numerous poetry boards and blogs, simply because I bring a different (non-”poetry professional” yet very well-read) perspective to discussions in which I choose to participate (which is a tiny percentage of what I actually read through). I’ve been banned a few times, and I’ve left a few poetry boards willingly, of my own volition, when it became clear that outsider viewpoints were not only not welcome, they were rejected with extreme prejudice. One wastes one’s time if one pursues matters, in such circumstances. I’d rather go write a poem. LOL
Calling oneself a dissident is often a tactic of self-justification. I did not say that YOU were doing that, but I did point out that in many of these poetry sites the worst gadflies (you’ve named some few of those, so I shan’t) tend to use exactly that excuse: “I’m being attacked simply for being the voice of dissidence.” Actually, when someone is being an agent provocateur they’re not being a genuine dissident, they’re just stirring up trouble for the sake of stirring up trouble. There IS a difference. Pretty much everyone knows what that difference is, from observation and experience. The other tactic one sees a lot, among those who think that discussion consists of insult or shouting everyone else down, is claims that they’re just being honest or telling the truth. But being honest isn’t being only negative, and only insulting. Not in the real world of discourse, anyway.
P.S. I only spoke out on this thread because your question, which seemed to genuinely invite honest responses, opened a door to a discussion I find interestingly relevant to the topic of this thread. The whole like/dislike issue opens the floor for a (meta-)discussion regarding critical styles, and commentary styles. It’s worth discussing, in general, because mostly it’s taken for granted. Or so my experience has been.
Often one runs into personality-ego-level minefields whenever this topic about style of discourse comes up. The question of how to respond to someone one disagrees with, without being either condescending or pedantic, is very much a matter of style-of-discourse. I have always maintained that if one can think of only one way to make one’s point, one has set false limits upon one’s own style of discourse. There is almost always a more courteous way to say something, if one just stops and thinks about it. The quick-response of a blog comment as well as the even quicker response of a like/dislike button, by their very speedy nature, promote knee-jerk responses rather than thoughtful discourse.
So, if one really wants to generate discussion and dialogue, here or anywhere else, the like/dislike binary paradigm seems a very backward way to go about it. Such simple binary opinion-registering isn’t likely to deepen discussions, only to polarize them. Hence, I deem it useless, and more likely to generate new divisions rather than heal old ones.
You did say it, Arthur, indeed you did. And I did ask the question and you did answer it.
The “cuts two ways” at the end of my last comment was just a hope that I wasn’t the only one listening. I also do suspect that you replied to me at some length partly because you do take me seriously, Arthur, whereas the tone of Terreson’s and Rachel’s attacks made a reply hardly worthwhile. I did reply in any case, and yes, I’m still in the loop–which means I’m still open. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t feel that either Terreson or Rachel are engaged now that the door is slammed shut.
You say this sort of thing so often that I suppose you believe it. I suppose I’m coming around to the notion that you are Brady, since it’s so hard to imagine that anybody could be taken in by his act. Maybe you could point us benighted academics (that’s how we get pegged, even if we’re also well known for our poetry & criticism, right, Chris?) to some instances where he proved “better informed” than, well, anyone at all, ever. We must have repressed our memories of these shameful comeuppances.
again (sigh) that’s a reply to CW, not AD. this “reply” thing works even less well than the thumbs do. (I clicked “thumbs down” on one comment no fewer than ten times, just for the hell of it, & each one was recorded by the site.)
What’s even more amusing, Michael, is when the only category worse than “benighted academics” is “benighted amateurs,” particularly when such further dismissals come from the same source. As if no credentials were ever good enough to satisfy, or any lack of credentials. LOL When one sees that sort of internal contradiction, it’s not difficult to see that the true underlying thought is “everyone but ME is benighted.” On balance, the reverse is often more true than not.
Dear Everybody,
I think one of the biggest mistakes I have been making on this site is to defend Thomas Brady, I know that, and yet here I’ve gone and done it again. I think I only do it out of an old teacher’s instinct, to crack down on the bullies and rub their noses in the right of even the most unlovable and annoying child in the class to be free!
It was hard to reply to Rachel’s attack without following it back to John Oliver Simon’s before it, because she used his exact words–polysyllables, but so few of them. He had written:
“Just prior to the introduction of red and green thumbs, every thread on Harriet was wrenched into a back and forth on Thomas Brady’s hobbyhorse. Confront him, overwhelmingly refute him, as I and others did, or ignore him, the result was the same: the discussion was hostage to the lowest common denominator.
This vulnerability to the loudest bore is an artifact of cyberspace in the absence of a hands-on moderator, or as now, a community mechanism for up and down. Community verdict on Brady’s blather was overwhelmingly down. He has apparently either recognized that he was unwelcome and withdrawn or been banished for bad ratio. I hope the door didn’t hit his butt too hard on the way out.
I replied in some detail, but unfortunately I got John Oliver Simon’s name wrong and although I’ve apologized after every instance (4 of them in all, and I’m still sorry) he has never spoken to me again.
Perhaps the on-going snub is also because of the content of my reply above where I defended the person whose name shall no longer be mentioned. Of course it was partly your fault, John Oliver Simon, because in-spite of our total differences you insisted upon calling me him. And you of all people should know the difference, and certainly not stoop to that level.
I wonder if, in exchange for this undertaking from me, the 4 posters involved in this immediate discussion, JOS, R, T, & MB, could also give an undertaking not to suggest I’m the unmentionable either. It doesn’t really matter, but it might help lift the clouds if you do.
Arthur Durkee has been fair on this–he knows who I am, and that I’m just me. Indeed, he also knows that if you combine me with someone else you dislike you just create another binary, and that means more dualism and strain.
So, if one really wants to generate discussion and dialogue, here or anywhere else, the like/dislike binary paradigm seems a very backward way to go about it. Such simple binary opinion-registering isn’t likely to deepen discussions, only to polarize them. Hence, I deem it useless, and more likely to generate new divisions rather than heal old ones.
Christopher
Christopher,
I don’t know if you are using multiple personas here or not. I never said that you were Thomas Brady, however, because I don’t believe you are.
Christopher,
I did indeed suggest that you were one and the same as “Thomas Brady,” a pseudonym to begin with, because your unfailing sycophantic praise of him has a truly narcissistic tone. It’s very hard to imagine anyone being taken in by his act who isn’t on the take.
You say you aren’t him. I accept that. Let’s move on.
I don’t even truly care who’s who. Anymore than I care about author photos. Content counts for me. The poetry. When the blather here turns to interpretive biography, i change the channel and go back to my books. The rest is–or I hope remains, shorter lines, or silence.
margo
I think I have this right. I am pretty sure I have this right. So the like/dislike rule applies to respondents only? It doesn’t apply to a blogger’s original thread?
I mean if the respondent should run the chance of getting shunned why shouldn’t the blogger run the chance of getting the anonymous thumbs down? Fair is fair.
Truth be told…but never mind.
Terreson
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A common complaint about the Internet, whether it’s being leveled by a journalist who just lost his newspaper job or someone who found herself the target of online rage, is that it’s such a shallow, spiteful place. While it’s a ludicrous statement — the Internet is merely a medium, not anything homogeneous — the complaint is valid in large, and vocal, parts of the online world. It’s odd that in this age of loosened borders and individualism, online you can be drowned out with boos and hisses just by stating an off-center position. Sure, the idyllic promise of the Internet is that it can bring you news from around the world and expose you to people and things you never would have seen otherwise, but in reality many of us use it simply as an echo chamber. [...]
With all the filters, communities, forums, and moderated comment sections, you never need hear an opposing viewpoint ever again. Web site forums that used to be interesting and lively can quickly turn knee-jerk and unified, with those possessing quirky senses of humor or an interesting take on things shamed into never commenting again. [...]
The bully who will relentlessly attack the target of his rage from the safety of a blog is often the same person railing against the lack of human decency today.
– Jessa Crispin
http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article07080901.aspx
It seems the discussion has run its course. Just as well. Guess we’ll see in what direction Harriet takes herself.
Terreson
Let me just say, though, that I have, in fact, actually been to places even more serious and humorless than a poetry blog. Let’s see, I had to go to my ex-boss’s funeral that time… and then to Mother’s, then Dad’s, my brother-in-law.
Shit, I still have to plan my own damned funeral. I had to bury the old dog today.
Thank God for poetry blogs or I’d never have any fun.
If I might be permitted one more observation, here at the end.
The trouble with the Like/Dislike option is that it encourages posters to think as they are reading a comment, “Do I like this?” instead of “What is this trying to say?” or “What’s in this for me?” or, best of all, “What’s going on here in general? How did this come up, for what reason? What’s in this for the discussion?”
As it is now one becomes polarized, whereas in an ideal discussion one should rise above both personalities and viewpoints. That’s an ideal, of course, but this is a site I would hope could model an ideal, and be an example of poetry discourse in this country at its best.
As to the nitty-gritty of it, and speaking more honestly than I probably should, I know that the present system brings out the very worst in me personally, and I suspect the same thing happens to others–you can see it very clearly in the absurd swings in the voting. Also, I can hear the howls of protests everywhere, “Why did that comment get trashed?” “Why red for that?” Well, sometimes what you wrote got trashed because I trashed it myself, that’s why. Indeed, I get all heated up by those Reds and/or those Greens and I think, this simply isn’t fair! — and start spraying my scent around indiscriminately which, needless to say, is going to be mostly Red when I’m feeling like that. I mean, I’ve cast so many votes in the last week I’m not proud of, and I hate to see our beautiful discussions so defiled!
I’d love to see lots of green votes for what I’m saying so we could all admit that this is, Yes, what we’re doing and No, not what we want.
Christopher