And it seems that you assume that I:

1. Knew you were black the minute I saw your poem.

2. Would have immediately called you the "n" word had I known that, and

3. Am suffering some form of insanity by repeating what has been said on the board several times before, for reasons I did bother to explain when asked, although, as many moderators would have done, I could have simply said, "because."

And yet you are not rude, but perfectly reasonable. Great logic there!

quote:

Originally posted by Allex Spires:
I beg your pardon for my ignorance, but what exactly am I supposed to put into a forum titled Inspired by Ray?

The forum clearly says, "How has Ray and his writing inspired your life?" not "Please post full length every work of fiction and poetry, published or unpublished, you have ever produced."

And, no, it is NOT the only incident we've had here. You've had no opportunity to see the many things which were deleted, or probably even to view the ones which were edited, which some then complained weren't edited enough! But for those who understand neither the rules, nor what I mean by what I say, I am updating them under the "Deletions: What Goes, What Stays" thread."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dandelion,

This is insanity.
I didn't suggest that at all.
I'm the one who brought up nigger.
1. Knew you were black the minute I saw your poem.
2. Would have immediately called you the "n" word had I known that.

Is frivulous babbling. I never suggest any such thing, if you could comprehend the english language in its written form you'd be aware of that!

If I had been ray bradbury, and ray bradbury were me. And ray bradbury had never published the martian chronicles and decided on a whim to chexck out allexspires dot command message boards and saw inspired by allex and decided to post what I feel yto be a very powerful and moving piece of work, Way in the Middle of the Air, it would have been immediately pulled.
I did not suggest anything of the sort, that you would have referred to me as a nigger.
I don't believe that ray bradbury has racist fans. Though he probably does.
I was using that as an example of how silly it is to worry about what might bother someone.
I asked about previous incidents and was told that there had been one near incident.
Near incident.
That was all of the information I had.
I'm sorry for not noticing that the board said how has ray bradbury inspired you.
But when I came on there was nothing against me puting up a poem.
The greeting that I recieved on my maiden post was a threat and confusing.
When I asked what I was supposed to put here, my question was ignored.
I'm off to offend peopkle somewhere where people can recognise that offense is not to be found in everything so everything is not not allowed.
This rambling that I am doing now, I'm sure is at least slightly offensive to the users and visitors of this board.
This discussion is worse a billion times over than the poem which started it.
If you'd been tactful to begin with it would never have occurred, hence My offense of you.
I will leave this site and find something else so you can have your precious fear of fiction.
And believe that only fiction itself is offensive and what people say in general is not.
You have blown this amazingly out of proportion by simply ignoring the most important part of this whole thing. Informing the user of propriety.
You lied to me and cheated me.
Lie: One short story, not necessarily offensive, but rambling and pointless, was deleted.
Evidence: And, no, it is NOT the only incident we've had here.
Cheat: again, I WISH people wouldn't post fiction and poetry to the board!
Evidence: Okay, I just updated the rules.

(Uses offensive language, ending with word Gestapo!)
Leaves.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dandelion,

This thread reminds me of a little part in the movie 'Armageddon.'

It's the scene where Bruce Willis is arguing with Colonel Sharp about turning off the nuclear weapon. Remember? (Willis is holding a big wrench in the scene and threatening to use it.)

Then the BIG guy and the GENIUS Guy come walking into the scene and genius says: "Okay...what'd we miss?"

If you'll notice, I never actually said the poem was bad, just that I questioned the concept of posting original poetry on the board in general. Now the world will never know, as the prima donna has pranced off with his poem in tow.

Say Allex,

I have enjoyed your comments and it has enlivened the board to a point and counterpoint mode.

You bring up a good point though, there really isn't a forum for young (new) authors to present their works. I understand why it is not allowed here, but what about creating a new board (as suggested by Pete) entirely devoted to new authors, be they fiction, fact, or poetry writers.

As far as the mechanics of such a board, i.e., sponsorpship, maintenance, etc., I am not sure how that would work.

I fondly remember literature classes in college when the instructor would take our submitted work and mimeograpghed (yes I am that old) them for us all to read and comment on.

Also I had the privilege to be in a writer's group with Richard Bach, the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and a number of other books.

We would bring our latest efforts to a weekly meeting, read them, and have the opportunity to present helpful criticism.

It is nice to see a vibrant young (why I am assuming your age, I have no idea) person who is passionate about writing. Keep up the good work.

As a side note, and I know that there is a separate posting elsewhere, but when I spoke to Ray yesterday he confirmed that A Sound of Thunder is having a national release Labor Day Week end.

Remember the SMELL of mimeographs!

It seems that had someone else besides me, preferably biplane, been the first to reply to Allex, much unpleasantness might have been avoided.

As it was, I was the first to respond with the first thing that came to mind, which he chose to see as a rude personal attack.

I had no chance to relay to Allex, who was far too busy screaming, that the first or second person to post fiction on the board received at first no response, then, to a followup asking about the lack of response, rather abrupt treatment: https://raybradburyboard.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6791...531071011#4531071011

Yet that individual did not throw a fit like this. I have never seen such a display (on this board anyway, except maybe during the late Michael Moore war,) but can assure you people have both had posts deleted and even been banned at other places for far, FAR less. Neither happened here; he simply chose to leave. Perhaps seeking that ever-elusive elysium where they will truly appreciate his genius.

As for writing groups, plenty of places exist, on Yahoo, Google/Usenet, MSN, and others, to start groups for certain subjects, but I don't think they belong here.

Dandelion,

You did the right thing. I didn't respond to Mr. Spires poem because sometimes silence speaks louder than words. I suspect I wasn't the only one who felt that way. (The kind and good biplane1 notwithstanding.) Even so, Mr. Spires just flopped his poem out there and that was that. What did he want us to do? He never said. And then he responded inappropriately to your post. I suspect poor Mr. Spires has a long, tough road ahead of him as a writer if his skin is so thin.

Best,

Pete

There are tons of sites where people can post poetry and fiction for review and input. The woman who used to post here as Celestial posted several stories to one of them and emailed me the web site. (In fact she wrote one story inspired by a beach scene I had emailed to her. I went and read and commented on her stories there. My daughter posted several original poems at a poetry site and received input and comments there.

My own reading of this thread is that Mr. Spires's reactions seemed way out of proportion to what he was reacting to. There are a lot of writers who claim censorship every time someone disagrees with them, edits their work, or decides it is not worthy of publication in a given environment.

Oh, Dandelion, and others, how glad I am to be back after a long absence. Where else?

To those ignorant or interested:

This has been a longwinded discussion and not a fit, a fit has lots of cussing and crying involved.

Thanks, dandelion, for saying I have genius to me.

If dandelion had been running for office of the President of the United States of America in '04, I see a very high probability that dandelion would have won. Twice as smart and confused as the official winner, the people would have taken to dandelion so sweetly that if dandelion had not won there would have been rioting in the streets from coast to coast.

Dandelion said:
As it was, I was the first to respond with the first thing that came to mind, which he chose to see as a rude personal attack.

I had no chance to relay to Allex, who was far too busy screaming, that the first or second person to post fiction on the board received at first no response, then, to a followup asking about the lack of response, rather abrupt treatment

Allex Spires retorts:
If dandelion, (obvious fake name to distract law enforcement) had been the second or even eightieth person to respond and did so in the manner that dandelion did, I would still have performed in the same way.

If dandelion had no chance to tell me such a thing, while I was responding to each post as they appeared and not posting out of turn, why did dandelion have oppurtunity to say so many other things that weren't that? dandelion did have the oppurtunity but ignored it and now sits in the corner pretending that I attacked dandelion, letting people kiss dandelion's boo-boos.
dandelion does seem very surprised that someone wouldn't put up with dandelion's solidly rude way of being. . . .I even asked for the information. No chance? dandelion is a liar.
Remember, my second post:
And if there's no rule against it, why would it be subject to deletion?
How's that for a chance?
Dandelion, you are a liar and a bad one. Just give people what they ask for, if you don't want to or don't have it then say so. Otherwise, I have no idea why you went bush beating on me.
dandelion mentioned a near incident, whi didn't dandelion use that oppurtunity to tell me that there were ,in fact, ACTUAL incidents? . . .Because dandelion is a rude conniving person.

And then a general response to everybody:

I never said that dandelion said anything about my poem, good bad, whatever. . . .that was never a part of this discussion but is being used as a distractionary tactic.

Yes, I'm young, 2nty 2.

I didn't want a response or if I got one I expected a sensible response.

I wanted to share with fans of Bradbury and his style. I could join a hundred writing groups and have no access to readers (there's a big difference between writers and readers) of Bradbury or fans of his style, especially not in such number as are conglomerated here.
I didn't want critique, I just wanted to share. I was told that it wasn't proper to share such a thing in this place and I asked why and was ignored.

The poem was removed because the discussion surrounding it had nothing to do with the poem but with site regulation and tact, the main attraction being distraction. And, since this is not a democracy, the people knowing or not doesn't change a thing about the rules.

By the way, the omited insult was:
(edited to plain english) Copulate all the way to the devil, you, who are capable of being banished by god, sex addict Gestapo.

I don't know how screw-head is a profanity or why poetry and short stories following the style of Bradbury are not allowed here, a disclaimer disallowing such items over 2000 words would solve the presented reasoning straight off.

Dandelion said:
again, I WISH people wouldn't post fiction and poetry to the board!

Allex Spires points out:
Notice the word 'again', as though it is being repeated. See how 'wish' is presented in capitals, a net-yell. Unless my eyes decieve me that is an exclaimation mark at the end of the statement, excited force of speech as though amazingly sure of the self. A rude statement. Is there a less rude way to read something that is presented in that manner?

To pterran:
I was told not to present writing here, what the devil are you talking about, a long, tough road ahead of me for not posting what is void where it is prohibited??
If my deciding to stop fighting a brick wall and instead go wading through swamps and savanah, taiga and tundra in search of a back door is a sign of thin skin, I'd like to slice you open to examine the tough of your epidermis, give you a comparison to mine so that you can have a more solid understanding of such things. Don't need you to go out thinking that way in public; there are wolves out there would tear you to shreds in half a minute with less than that much of a chance.
If my response had been inappropriate it would have been removed, you fool.

Mr. Dark:
Not being allowed to present {varable something) because of fear of offense, is censorship. Maybe if you turn on the light you'd get that from your dictionary. . . .too dark, I suppose.

Allex Spires

Post Script:

Dandelion:
The forum clearly says, "How has Ray and his writing inspired your life?" not "Please post full length every work of fiction and poetry, published or unpublished, you have ever produced."

Allex Spires:
It does ask the question but doesn't specify anything about it. The poem, Open the Stars, is me showing how Ray has inspired me.

I didn't post anything and everything that I'd ever written, some of it is very offensive and deals with sex drugs violence and satanic heavy metal music. I selected a very friendly piece with no intention of ever posting anything of the sort again unless I ever wrote anything like it again which I doubt I will.

We all know that we belong up in the stars. People look to the stars and dream, scream at those who hide the truth of the possibilities of our existence. Hide money to keep us grounded in some insane fear that if we leave, God will hate us. Instead we have wars, destroy monetary and natural resources holding back our want of those stars, that 'up there. . . .out there'.

I said it in four stanzas instead of four sentences. And it has been repeated by this thread.

I know that I've written something worthy of a good read. I want to do something that is perfectly sensible and am told that I can't. Information is subverted and inquest is ignored. We have a long arguement and I wind up with nothing but my confusion at the end.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Allex Spires,

I vote that dandelion re-posts her guidelines of what is and isn't allowed. If possible, this should be in a "sticky thread" like you see on other message boards.

Mr. Spires,

If I were as unhappy about this board as you seem to be, I'd take my toys and go play in another sandbox. Better yet, I'd build my own sandbox, where I'd be unfettered by anything as mundane as rules. Let freedom ring!

You've had your say and then you've had your say again. Doesn't sound like to me you've got anything new to add, other than more insults, and you're not adult enough to apologize for them. Why go on with this?

Best,

Pete

quote:

her than more insults, and you're not adult enough to apologize for them. Why go on with this?

Best,

why did you go on with it after I'd left? Oh, yeah, because we're both dumb. and have nothing better to do.

Originally posted by pterran:
Doesn't sound like to me you've got anything new to add

Allex Spires:
I thought that
It does ask the question but doesn't specify anything about it. The poem, Open the Stars, is me showing how Ray has inspired me.
Was pretty new.