A SIMPLIFIED slimmer and trimmer MM..., crits and exhibition Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hello all,

I am posting this here in Nero's News, and I will also plan to send this as a board email to those eligible (Sliver, Gold, Platinum members + staff).

We've been discussing our upcoming seventh anniversary and the need to SIMPLIFY our poetry home. We feel the time is right to do some trimming back and utilize the archive section for the less active forums. We'd like to focus on our most popular areas in the immediate future, Herme's, Seren's, Acropolis and Pandora's Box. We'll still keep Odin and the MMHC alive as well, but our primary focus is on the poetry and the interactions that result from the popular areas of our site.

To start, I plan to to 'house clean' a bit by archiving the following forums listed below. Everyone will still be able to read and reply to all threads posted in the archive category - you just won't be able to start 'New Topics' there anymore. Here are the forums planned:
Plato's Pearls & Shogun's Psalms
Plato's (exhibition only) has always been a less active area with the intent to have it be the place to post your "polished" works once they've already been critiqued and finalized to your liking. We will make an exception going forward so that folks who want to post poems for exhibition only in Herme's or Seren's still can (more to follow in the crit/no crit paragraph below).
Shogun's came into being by request from a few short form member experts to segregate them from the others. Since its inception, this forum has not faired well, and those who requested it are no longer active at MM. It makes most sense to archive it and go back to posting your 'form' poetry into Herme's.

Loch Ness (Chapters) - This forum has had minimal activity and we'll change the wording in Stonehenge to allow for either short stories or chapters going forward.

The Great Wall of Fame & Laureate's Legion (forum awards): Given that so much of my time had been spent on the 'awards' coupled with the fact that I haven't been able to keep on top of them for nearly 2 years (other chosen priorities), I'd like to archive these two that are manually database intensive and instead, will award the mini-plaques based on a visual analysis of a members' activity to earn that particular award. For example, when I see regular posts by member x in a forum like Herme's, I'll just add the mini-plaque to their signature and forego all the database tracking and posting of the 'announcement with summary' threads that were done in this forum.

To crit or not to crit: A suggestion for some changes that had been put forth to archive the exhibition forum, Plato's Pearls and change the format of posting in the crit forums, Herme's Homilies & Seren's Synapse and Shogun's Psalms seems like the best way to move forward with MM at this time. The idea is that you would post a tag line either in the title description or in the beginning of your thread stating a desire for critique. That can be done by simply using CR vs NC with a star, or a series of stars if light, medium, & full critique is desired. As Merlin put it, "This way, whoever wishes critique can request it, and any not desiring any will not get any. This way, a person need not feel compelled to thoroughly parse a piece, which may be well beyond his/her capabilities at the stage they might be." This would in no way change the 1:2:2 rules - for each topic you post, you must still comment on 2 other member's posts (and if you seek a crit, then you must provide 2 crits as expected). This suggestion does not take away workshopping. We're all in favor of improvement and recommend it to those who feel they can benefit. The idea is to offer a choice to crit or not to crit, within the existing forums.

I think that'll do for now...
Please feel free to offer your thoughts either here or to me by PM.

SIMPLIFY is a fresh and clean tagline for the future.

Best,
~Cleo

[jgdittier]

Dear Lori and staff,
Tho I've been dry as the Sahara for several months now, perhaps your proposed reforms will end the drought.
I wandered away from MM because of an aspect of its strong commitment to crits. My problem was/is that I consider myself a light verser. As a light verser, both crits written by others and my crits for others mostly missed the mark. I found no happy place to post where verse such as mine would be treated as LIGHT VERSE. In critting others' POETRY, my intolerance for the many new no-nos that I now believe are inflicted on modern R&M POETRY would make my comments of little value. I've found similar problems everywhere I've landed and believe that why the dry spell.
I'm much in favor of your reform. Maybe now my muses will return. Ditto too for those who have developed their art fully and will thus be relieved of the need to read crits from those less advanced.
Cheers, jgdittier Ron

[4rum]

Dear Lori and staff,
Tho I've been dry as the Sahara for several months now, perhaps your proposed reforms will end the drought.
I wandered away from MM because of an aspect of its strong commitment to crits. My problem was/is that I consider myself a light verser. As a light verser, both crits written by others and my crits for others mostly missed the mark. I found no happy place to post where verse such as mine would be treated as LIGHT VERSE. In critting others' POETRY, my intolerance for the many new no-nos that I now believe are inflicted on modern R&M POETRY would make my comments of little value. I've found similar problems everywhere I've landed and believe that why the dry spell.
I'm much in favor of your reform. Maybe now my muses will return. Ditto too for those who have developed their art fully and will thus be relieved of the need to read crits from those less advanced.
Cheers, jgdittier Ron

I've had a suspicion that this may be the case with many. I write pretty mild or generic stuff too. I'm very happy to find that I'm not alone in my apprehension of giving full blown crits when ... 1. I don't really feel qualified and 2. Often there is not enough substance to warrant a critique.

I'd prefer to be supportive and encouraging. I hope MM will take these suggestions as meant ... with the warmest of intent and respect for a fine board and fine staff.

Sam