We Need Your Help..., A housekeeping request Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hello all,

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Let me start by saying the entire management team thanks you very much for your interest and support in workshopping poetry at MM. Mosaic Musings is a writers’ workshop for those seeking genuine commentary and criticism on their works. Newcomers are very welcome. This board is for you, by you and the fostering of feedback is most welcomed to make it the best workshop for your individual writing growth. By offering friendly, yet thorough, critiques, we will support and encourage members to polish their work in a setting that is relaxed, fun and challenging. We offer a variety of critique and exhibition forums, exercises, poetry and prose education, challenges and competitions suitable for all writers, from novice to expert.

Having reiterated our mission above, I'd like to focus on a few items of interest. Your feedback helps us to gain perspective on what is in our control to improve on and provides us with a plan of action on how to achieve those goals. Recently, there has been an increase in some habitual posting trends we'd like to curb. We've been slow, along with many sites, which is normal for this time of year. However, many of us do pop in, take a peek and see no one else on or no new posts and then decide not to log in. So, our first request is to ask of those who do peek in often, to log in and post one critique in a crit forum or one comment in a non-crit topic (or more of course), allowing others to follow suit, enacting change. That change can start with just one post. My personal goal is to make at least one reply each time I visit MM. Maybe others will too and that is the start of something new and wonderful.

Now, on to request #2. It is very easy to post a one line, high praise reply. We all do it from time to time, and there are times when that one sentence says so much. However, I want to stress our mission again, to encourage workshopping through honest, yet thorough critiques. High praise commentary should really be geared to those poems that you honestly feel are worth such praise. It is very crushing to a writer to receive high praise from one board and then post at another board thinking their work is all that, only to get knocked down. I'm not saying this to anyone in particular, but know from experience what it feels like. IMHO, I'd much rather have the honest crits, than an atta-boy. At least I would know what is weak and could then focus my efforts on those aspects of my work.

Request #3 has been mentioned by several members: It seems there is a shift in the style of critique offered. There appears to be a generally-accepted standard of rewrites in lieu of in-depth critique. This is troublesome IF the critter isn't offering specific reasons as to the rewrite, which may not be taken in the proper context by the original author. When offering a crit, please tell the author the reasons behind your suggestions. If those changes warrant a rewrite, that's fine as long as you've explained it in your response. We must remember that our poets post topics to have them workshopped with improvement/education and learning in mind. Even if you are new to critting, one area of focus might be: Do you understand the message the writer is presenting? If not, there is your starting point.

The last item, request #4, again was mentioned by several members: The overwhelming preponderance of quotes within quotes within quotes within quotes when replying in kind. Years ago, when we formed MM, our site attorney had advised to never quote another writer's work in its entirety, for copyright reasons. It's fine to quote certain lines, passages, but try to steer clear of quoting an entire work, even in a crit environment. Knowing we operate a workshop forum and that this is habitually done all over the internet, we never really paid much attention to it. However, lately, a few mods have been editing those 'quotes in quotes' replies because they detract, cause more paper waste (when printing a thread) and in most cases are not necessary. It's also more work for us that could be better utilized elsewhere on the board.

Part of this could be simply a lack of understanding how to use the various posting features of our board. There are some threds in the FAQ forum as well as in our HELP files that I hope will be of use to you. Why not just play around with the features too when time permits?

Displayed below each post/reply in a topic, there is a 'Quote' button. Pressing this button will allow you to reply to a topic, and have the text from that particular reply quoted in your own reply. When you choose to do this, an extra text field will appear below the main text input box to allow you to edit the content of the post being quoted. We highly recommend that you either remove the two quote tags surrounding the body of text you just clicked on and any erroneous wording you are not focusing on when offering your critiques. You might also consider just quoting individual passages OR make those passages a different font style or color, like italic or bold - or make your replies another font style. I can certainly walk through the posting features with any of our members as well. We can even set up a time and meet in our chatroom if that works for you. The recommended method is to click the 'ADD REPLY' button instead located underneath the last post in a topic. You can always copy/paste previous replies as well into your own, and once you get the hang of it, can utilize our multi-quote button.


Well, that's our housekeeping requests. Please do let us know your thoughts, and ask if you need any assistance.

Cheers all!
~Cleo, AMETHYST and Imhotep

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hey Steve,

I don't mind that members copy/paste my poetry when offering crits in response. It's using the quoting tags that is not necessary. Even though some legal-eez types will tell you not to quote entire works, I think it really depends on who is the critter and who is the writer of the work and their personal preferences.

Thanks for stopping in and commenting!
~Cleo