A Question of Kindness

[Truerenigma]

I am not a fan of crucifixion either. It makes people cross.

As those of us who've been here for a decent amount of time know, we're not opposed to change -- the only fundamental premise we have is that people give more than they take. We would all rather a place where we feel comfortable to air our own opinions and have them responded to in an adult fashion; where people are grown up enough to know that we are not our poems, nor are we only critics; where women are treated as equals and not objects to be hit on or cossetted; and where knowledge is shared freely, not rammed down people's throats or ridiculed as snobbery.

I agree, but of course it's not a perfect world. And of course some people who are not accustomed to criticism are going to (at first) think "it's mean...to criticize other people's poems", or even go so far as to say criticize "the thing which I've worked so hard on, and put my heart and soul into" or "I spent hours and hours on this"; but they just don't realize that some people have put overnighters, years, unfathomable amounts of time into this enterprise; and telling that to someone who has been working on the same poem for the past three years and can't sleep until the etymology every verb and noun on the page has its roots in the same archaic language is ...well...trite. It's what you do after the initial pain has worn off (and it is a necessary pain), and where you direct the energy that it wells up in your poor little misunderstood heart-- are you going to smash your computer, or hit the books?--that counts. And crit is what we come here for, right?

There are plenty of sites where all of the comments are limited to such constructions as...

"I like...so much"
and
"I like...not as much"

but that just doesn't work not me.

On most of the other learning-center-constructive-criticism-workshops trolls, flamers, and spammers are quietly dismissed; here we have a little fun (often times even educational fun), so what's the big deal? For those newcomers who are feeling bad for the troll—just wait till they are disrupting your threads, and muddling your learning process; you'll be quite relieved when the regulars here rally behind you to run them to the Arse, and then point you back in the right direction by debating the finer points of B.S., and poking holes into their piles of feces.