The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1930  Tuesday, 22 November 2005

[1] 	From: 	Tony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
	Date: 	Monday, 21 Nov 2005 14:54:42 -0500
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads

[2] 	From: 	Bob Grumman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
	Date: 	Monday, 21 Nov 2005 16:29:09 -0500
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads

[3] 	From: 	Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
	Date: 	Monday, 21 Nov 2005 22:29:01 +0000
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads

[4] 	From: 	Abigail Quart <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
	Date: 	Monday, 21 Nov 2005 18:21:16 -0500
	Subj: 	RE: SHK 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Tony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Monday, 21 Nov 2005 14:54:42 -0500
Subject: 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: 	Re: SHK 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads

Hardy,

I consider it one of the great virtues of your site that high schoolers 
(even visibly lazy no-goodniks looking for shortcuts), amateurs, and 
non-academics all have free access to it, free of any need to display 
credentials. Those more established scholars who wish not to be "used" 
can protect themselves easily by maintaining radio silence.  That being 
said, I think Phyllis Gorfain got it right in her post.
Perhaps you could review threads and posts that you've rejected in the 
past for the reasons that moved you, and come up with a list of the 
principal ones.  (Yes, I know you've posted your editorial standards 
from time to time, but this might be a trifle different.) Not for use as 
a criminal code to be enforced, but as an indication of the standards of 
courtesy and good citizenship that have evolved organically out of our 
own activity.  And, if there is ever a vice-regent of the site, he or 
she'll have something to go by.

And, perhaps, that list (or any other list of norms you have kicking 
around) should be sent to every new member, for acceptance prior to 
registration.

Tony

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Bob Grumman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Monday, 21 Nov 2005 16:29:09 -0500
Subject: 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: 	Re: SHK 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads

How about a REJECTS thread to which Hardy consigned all posts meeting 
his disapproval--and accepted not post to?  It could be kept out of the 
Digest.

Maybe even kept at a website that people could go to if they wanted to, 
like the Archives.

Of course, I'm speaking from near-complete ignorance of how operations 
like SHAKSPER work.  I just don't like the idea of possibly valuable 
posts concerning some horse I think alive banished because someone else 
thinks it dead.  But the bottom line is not over-burdening our 
moderator, to whom we owe a great deal.

--Bob G.

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Monday, 21 Nov 2005 22:29:01 +0000
Subject: 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: 	Re: SHK 16.1906 Dead Horses and Closing Threads

To this beholding eye, Hardy should optimally bear the whiphand as Forum 
doorman, not bouncer. Once admitted, each thread should be allowed to 
die a natural death, perhaps automatically limiting longevity to, say, 
three posting weeks, or earlier if two successive posting days draw no 
posts.

As for Larry Weiss' carefully conceived blacklist, I'd retain only 
authorship creep among his Impermissibles. Perhaps, he should place at 
the top of his personal list: using the Forum to shamelessly smear 
fellow posters.

I urge Hardy to resist the Procrustean tide and remain true to his 
inclusive generosity.

Joe Egert

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Abigail Quart <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Monday, 21 Nov 2005 18:21:16 -0500
Subject: 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads
Comment: 	RE: SHK 16.1914 Dead Horses and Closing Threads

Okay, I've kept out of this attempt to turn the list into a graduate 
school bulletin board, but this from Stuart Manger simply horrified me, 
and I'm trying ever so hard not to take it as a personal insult:

"Like Holger Syme, one of my major aversions is for those who write as 
if the characters in plays were real, with back stories or forward 
stories.  That seems to suggest so fundamental a misunderstanding of how 
drama / theatre is made as to render most of what they then go on to say 
as worthless, for they are reducing Shakespeare to an interactive soap 
opera. That has to be seriously worrying in a forum which was intended 
to be an exchange of scholarly or near scholarly opinion, hasn't it?"

Clearly, poets and playwrights need not apply.

Would Mr. Manger really teach a young writer that dramatic characters 
are not meant to have any reality and therefore imagining backstory or 
future life or current life for them is irrelevant?

I apologize for having intruded my worthless opinions on a serious 
scholarly exchange.

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>

DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the 
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the 
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