Hello,
15 minutes ago I decided to have a look on this website as I had heard it mentioned at 'Re:Verberate' @ Trof a few times. I was able to join the site with ease. It said I would be sent an email shortly, and I was - A triumph! The site is easy to navigate and should prove useful to me as a hopeful writer.
Thanks
Karen Muldown

Been a member of this site for a small while now and I have to say I like it, 93% of the performances I do these days are from what I've found on the gig guide.
The members and staff on the website are also incredibly warm and supportive as well. And the external links have access to other decent websites too. What moer could you want?!

Biscuits, Cayn, ask for the biscuits!

Well the buscuits go without saying!

I want editing facilities and some of your mind-reading powder and fig rolls.

Editing facilities...now theres an idea!!

Editing biscuits. You edit them as you eat them.

Looking at that picture you would have no idea that I was talking about someone getting castrated would you ha ha!

Hi, Cayn, have you done the crossword on your teeshirt? To the casual observer you look as though you're talking about biscuits ;-)

Unfortunatly I haven't got round to completing the crossword yet, besides someone replaced the clues with tour dates

There must be a Stain Devil to soak those tour dates out so you can complete the crossword. Or do you prefer tour dates instead of somebody's random words? Here are some random words for you:
be-bop, scarf, gasahol. And some tour dates: 12/4/07, 19/3/08

Well I don't want to destroy it as I bought it on my 21st birthday at a gig with The Ruts and Bad Manners.
As for tour dates, heres two more: 11/08/07, 07/09/07.

I think this is a great site and its nice to see it done this side of the Atlantic i.e not America the uk needs more sites like this one!

My brain just had a wave!

Many poets on this site have there own individual sites and there are many links provided by this site.

Are these links recipricated? What if 'writeoutload' links are put on each poets site? What if 'Writeoutload' forms partnerships with Library Services and Local Authorities to promote poetry?

See how that pans out, then hightale it back to the Arts Council. Best thing about the above, it costs nowt.

What do you think?

cheers
Bard from Urmston

Great idea Phil!
I think a lot of our poets are linking back to WOL from their sites but we'd encourage everyone to do so. We also have some links from Bolton Metro to the site (I think) but you're right we've been remiss about contacting other local authorities. However, it isn't cost free as it takes time to do these things, a commodity that is fast reducing given all our commitments.

Could you help by getting us a link from whatever borough Urmston is in (or is it a borough in its own right)?

Hi Phil?
1. Yes every site that we have on the "External links" section does have a link to this site

2. Yes, Poets' Showcase does contain 188 poets and if we multiplied that by £5 that would give us a nice income stream of £940 pa. However, we are competing with Myspace/Youtube which both charge nothing so I guess many people would walk. What we are hoping to do, if we get some funding, is to have additional functionality that users can buy so e.g. we allow you three mp3s for free and an amount of money for any extras mp3s you want to hold on site.

3. Actually, it looks as though we are going to get around 15k visitors this months (equates to well over a million hits). Yes, we could use this, particularly as many of our users are early adopters, in two ways: firstly to get sponsorship and secondly to attract advertisers. These are both things that we are considering but I suppose at heart anarcho/socialists and a pact with big business is fraught with potential dangers and we are concerned at the reaction of our membership to such a move. Nevertheless good point and one that we will be pursuing more seriously.

4. We toyed with the idea of asking for donations and have approached well-known, well-heeled philanthropists but so far to no avail - anyone know a billionaire?

So good ideas - keep 'em coming. Ask not what WOL can do for you but what you can do to finance WOL (this is a joke).

Big Mac anyone?

Paul Blackburn

Hi everyone

As an early and still committed member of WOL, I've watched the development of the website in recent months and the current debate with mixed views. I've been pleased to see the number of poets' profiles grow and can claim many of the regionally and nationally known poets as being there at my request/recommendation/harassment. I value those pages, keenly check out who has been added and use my page in lieu of a website, using the link on many of my emails. I have promoted WOL up and down the land and will continue to do so. All credit to Dave, Paul and Julian and the many poets whose words, friendship and company I value greatly. Having been to many poetry nights at many venues, I know that a good Howcroft and Octagon night are truly something special. (Can't comment on the others as my day job -lots of evening meetings- and family commitments prevent me from getting out more.) The gig guide is also a masterpiece of hard work and networking- thank you!

My main concern has been the discussion forums - but I'm sure there's nothing there which can't be sorted with a little discipline and administration - especially if volunteer/s can be found. Whilst it's pleasing to see them becoming well used, and clearly 6 -10 people are getting a great deal from them, my frustration has been that a single rolling discussion between a few people is wandering all over virtually every thread, each of which quickly becomes....(insert own adjective dependant on one's taste). Example 1: my Glastonbury gig review which I linked to all sorts of influential people who we need on board, was soon talking about "farting on biscuits". The way the website currently works, new visitors get to the responses before the original posting and many, I know for a fact, don't bother to scroll down. Example 2, the current important debate about the future of the discussion forum has run to 30+ postings in a thread called "Hiya Gorgeous" when there's a perfectly good thread called "website feedback". (Please don't get into who said what, when, apologies, recriminations etc - I've not checked. It's not about that. Let's move on.)

I'm pleased if people have come to value these discussions and the new friendships which are clearly forming - good luck to you guys. God knows, poetry is a lonely game! But I'm sure there's a better way of doing things - all the site managers are trying to achieve in suggesting some revisions, jeez!

Take a quick look at this, maybe it's a standard discussion forum, I don't visit many? It's Manchester Comedy Forum - http://www.manchestercomedyforum.co.uk/phpBB2/index.php An exact parallel, here's the hub of a local scene talking to itself, welcoming new people in. There is a thread for each venue, gigs get booked, advice is given, introductions are made, videos are swapped, axes are ground, deals are done, serious topics discussed and chit is chatted. By far the most postings are in the chit chat section where anything goes. People are disciplined in what they post whereas otherwise it ends in a mushy mess where nothing can be found. Site moderators (I'll come back to them!) point out when people are wandering off a topic, move threads to a better home and occasionally declare threads closed. Any great debates (eg advice to new starters) is placed as a "sticky" at the top of the thread or in the section MCF Gold.

All I would ask is that we move to a similar sense of order please guys. To do this it might take several things. 1) Does our current forum have the capacity to be so ordered? 2) Does the site have the bandwidth/memory capacity/whatever? 3) Can we let some new people be site moderators and do we have any volunteers? I'm sure it wouldn't be too onerous for people who are already spending a lot of time on here. 4) Can people stay disciplined to the new format? In anticipation of responses about "poets being free spirits, don't tie me down, man" - all I'm saying is if people drive on the same side of the road, the thing works well. The opposite happens and nobody can move.

Poetry review pages - another debate but I've gotta dash now. I'm sure there can be room found for it somewhere if some people value it.

Please take all this in the spirit that it is intended - keeping this fantastic community working well and growing :-)

Cheers

Tony

Excellent contribution Tony - thanks!
We'll consider further what you say and I think you make some good points about discussions which as we get more moderators on board we can incorporate.
Cheers

Hello Tony. Manchester Comedy Forum? Are you angling after a poetry site where no work is shared online, and where everything is reserved for live performance? Comedians don't show their work for several reasons: some, because it arrives by improv and has a spontaneous eliment in performance and so doesn't exactly 'live' in written words, others because it's possible for other comedians to help themselves. The reason I ask is because your page on the gallery has no poems, simply a CV and a fine array of comments: I know some poets fear having work 'borrowed.' Yes, the Manchester Comedy Forum is so tightly controlled it appears brusque -- there's no trading in wordplay, no exuberance. Their chit chat thread is trade in lingusitic bare threads.
As for th 6-10 people who seem to glide across taking the same thread with them like some sort of infected tumbleweed -- I'd say it is often just 6-10 people whose personalities flow across subject matters -- the same minds operate on diverse topics and answer in their own inimitable ways. You wouldn't, perhaps, choose to associate with those 6-10 people of which I know you consider me to be a member (maybe a prime number).
One of the reasons I have been unable to respond to many of your postings is that they are delivered as statements. You inform, you leave no room for discussion. I can see now, having joined the Manchester Comedy Forum, that your prediliction is for this drier communication: you want mess free exchanges of information. Everything in its place, and no place (or a demarcated 'chit chat' area which will be treated as anethema by a swathe of poets) for outbreaks of personality because this sometimes brings with it the dreaded 'personal.'
I can't say I have enjoyed every way each thread has gone and some of the more effusive pieces felt distinctly alienating, but I'd be loathe to go the way of asceptic wariness peppered with information deemed to be relevant. Yes, as I have said before, we have chosen WOL to represent us to the world, it is in all our best interests for the site to be the best it can possibly be.
As for your quote, yes, I'm sure no farting on biscuits happens at Glastonbury. However, the thread was a lot more about wordplay and surreality than you seemed to have judged it, but that's your prerogative. Ah well.
When I joined WOL in late November 2006, the discussion forums were pretty static, with longeurs ( cybercobwebs) between postings. Why? I wasn't around to put serious poets off.
Ah well.

Would it be possible to have a 'goto' button and a 'back to the top' button?

If a reader wants to read a particular discusssion or to they need to do alot of scrolling, so it could be useful..

These may be amungst the options you are already exploring!

Cheers

Phil

Paul

Further to your responce about my contacting my local authority, Trafford MBC by the way, I have done just that on my first day back since being off post op.

Its at its infancy stage as we speak, but i am working along the lines of an open aged poetry com. At Trafford we have the Trafford Partnership TV., which can offer f.o.c. 40 word templates. The screens are placed all over Trafford.

So as thing stands; 1 its in partnership with Trafford Library Services,2) Each poem is a max of forty words, 3) Run Workshops,

I have other parties I need to speak in the public and private sectors. The project is at the infancy stage,but will keep you informed as, how and when they develop. This could be good for WOL and lead onto other thinks

Talk more soon

Phil

Ah the pull of the open superhighway and the wind in your biscuit.

As a result of all the "lively exchanges" herein, I have been doing a bit of research, like, on other discussion and review boards/sites. We are not unique, dammit! It seems that people sometimes start off serious, get on friendly terms and want to chat about, er, chatty things. And on some sites, other users get frustrated if they think their stuff is not being taken seriously enough.

Several people have cited the chatty nature of the discussions as being a factor in persuading them to pluck up the courage to come along to a Write Out Loud or other session.

Horses, courses.

But, it is nobody's fault but Write Out Loud's for not persuading the Arts Council to fund this venture and being peace-poor poets, to boot (not an invitation). With funding we intended to create separate areas for chat, serious discussion, reviews, solicited critique, etc. Each would be and look different, with different guidelines and expectations. We still will do that but...

For us, it is difficult to try to balance between the differing views of a site's functions and potential uses.

But this is t'interweb and we want to err on the side of freedom of expression (I know: one person's freedom is another's oppression). We clearly upset a few people with trying to solve some of the issues expressed by Tony (and others privately). But others quietly applauded. You can't please all the people all of the time. God knows, I try!

That's why some choose to buy a pack of assorted, in spite of there always being one or two left to the last because no-one likes them.

But I still think there is room for a fig roll once in a while.

Julian

Wow Phil sounds great but I'm not sure that I understand you properly - can you email your thoughts in a bit more detail and outline WOL's involvement to paul@writeoutloud.net

i will be contacting KP this week with an update

Cheers

Phil