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Community News
Contest this! - 02/24/2007
by JD Clay
All members are cordially invited to join the fun and frivolity in the Poetry Contest Forum.
A St. PaddyÂs Day Limerick Contest is up and running and you neednÂt be Irish to enter or win.
Erin Go Bragh!
Email Migration - 12/04/2006
by Gavin M Roy
I'm going to be moving email to a new system. If you currently have a pathetic.org email address you will receive an instructional email that tells you how to login and get your new email. I expect this change to happen this week.
If you're seeing this after the change has taken place and can't check your email, please email me at [email protected].
If you're supposed to have email (paid for an address, but are not setup) please email me as well.
Poetriage: A Critical Care Forum - 08/06/2006
by JD Clay
At long last we are proud to announce a place for all Pathetic Members to go for surgical critique on their poetry. To find out more just click on the ÂPoetriage forum tab and read the Operating Procedures for details.
Its success hinges on your participation and it should be fun and informative, so scrub up, share your ideas, stop the bleeding and enhance your poetic growth.
Visit Poetriage and tap the vein; itÂs a bloody mess.
Database Corruption - 09/26/2005
by Gavin M Roy
Due to a server crash and hard drive failure, I had to roll back the data on pathetic.org to 9/24 at 4am. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. Unfortunately it was not something that could be avoided. This means any poetry, journal entries, forum messages, and instant messages posted in the last 2 days is no longer available.
Call for Poem of The Day Suggestions - 09/10/2005
by Richard Paez
Read a poem? Liked the poem? Think it should be featured on the front page? Please let an administrator know! WeÂd love to share that gem you found with the world!
Teen Poetry Contest Winners - 08/21/2005
by Bruce W Niedt
Here are the latest winners of the Teen Poetry Contest, as announced by Michelle Angelini:
1st - Lauren Singer - "I compared him to poetry as he was getting dressed"
2nd - Louis Kitchen - "Free Roamin'"
3rd - Tricia de Gracia - "She Knows"
The first place winner will be featured in Poem of the Day. Congratulations to all, and thanks again to Michelle for her work on the contest.
Scheduled Downtime - 05/27/2005
by Gavin M Roy
The site will be down tomorrow, Saturday, May 28th for approximately 3-4 hours in the AM while I perform updates to the database server. There should be no data loss and things will return to normal when I'm done.
Poet Spotlight - 03/11/2005
by Bruce W Niedt
Due to circumstances beyond our control, there will be no Spotlight for the month of March. However, the Spotlight will return in April. Thanks for your patience.
New Site Administrator - 02/19/2005
by Gavin M Roy
Please join me in welcoming Mike McConnell as our newest Site Administrator. Since he joined as a member in December of 2003, Mike has been a great addition to our community, both in his writing contributions and in helping other members. We would like to thank Mike for his on going participation and acknowledge his efforts in being a resource for other members.
Member Photos, Revisited, Part XVII - 12/06/2004
by Richard Paez
Recently, several members have asked about or expressed concerns regarding the pathetic.org member photo rules. Lori's excellent post below discusses the general rules; however, recently several members have asked about special effects applied to photos.
As explained on the photo upload page, photos must be unaltered images of a member's face. This means that the majority of your face must be visible (enough for you to be recognized from the picture) and that the photo cannot have undergone any form of computer-assisted manipulation. Any effects not available from your average neighborhood photo developer are not allowed. This means black and white is ok, sepia is ok, lighting effects that could have been achieved "naturally" are ok, but brush effects, color effects (solarization, psychedelic, etc), lenses, and so forth are not.
This rule has been in place since pathetic.org began allowing photos and is in place for the same reason that we require "real" names. Please remember that we don't require you to post a photo, only that if you do post a photo it resembles what the average book publisher would consider for a book jacket photo--a recognizable portrait of the author.
If you have any questions or concerns about your current photo or a photo you are considering uploading for your member photo please feel free to contact one of the administrators. If you have had a photo deleted and are unsure why it was deleted please feel free to contact one of us and we'd be happy to talk to you about it. Please understand that removing photos is not something the administrators do for fun or to spite specific members, it is one of the things Gavin has asked us to do to keep pathetic.org a serious writing community that allows members the maximum leeway for creativity in their writing while retaining a cohesive structure overall. Certain aspects of the site, such as library and poem/journal page layouts, allowable member names and photos, and so on are kept uniform to make the site easy to navigate, to maintain a professional and warm appearance, and to facilitate communication between members. Of course, you are welcome to post as many pictures (altered or otherwise) as you like in your journal (as long as they are not obscene). You can find excellent suggestions on how to post photos in your journals in the Site Support and Features & Feedback forums.
We appreciate your understanding.
Sincerely,
The pathetic.org staff
A solicitation, of sorts - 10/07/2004
by Richard Paez
Do you know of any poems that you'd like to see made Poem Of The Day?
Here's the challenge:
a) The poem can't belong to someone who's been POTD before (or in remotely recent history)
b) The poem can't be explicit (either by tag, by content regardless of tag, or by my definition, which includes sappy love poems)
c) You have to IM me the link to the poem (PLEASE don't post it here in the forums!)
AND HERE'S THE REAL CHALLENGE:
d) I'd love for you guys to recommend poems to me that you find difficult to like, or by poets you may not personally like. If you're a liberal, send me a link to the conservative poem that challenged you; if you're religious, send me the poem that made you read it again even though it made you little uncomfortable; if you hate rhyme, send me that one rhyming poem you found that makes you break your non-rhyming rule; if you think purple-people-eaters belong on the endangered species list, send me a rabidly anti-purple-people-eaters poem.
I want to see a few poems up on the POTD that force us to think, poems that challenge our belief systems and preconceived notions, poems that promote democracy by opening the doors of communication and respect, poems that we can and should acknowledge even if we personally dislike them.
I look forward to your recommendations!
--Richard Paez |m|
Site Administrator
Uploading Pictures - 09/21/2004
by Lori Johnson
Just wanted to post a reminder about the rules & regs regarding the uploading of pictures on your library page. Below is a list retreived from Sallie's reminder she posted in January. It never hurts to be reminded, right? :)
Photo's will be removed under these circumstances:
Processed or altered (negative, posterized, solarized, etc.)
No face (back of head, hand covering face, cleavage only; if you don't want people to see what you look like, don't post anything)
Partial face (my rule of thumb is that at least one eye, the nose and mouth should be visible)
Inappropriate photo (rude gestures, inappropriate objects, etc.)
Thanks for your cooperation in this matter.
Planned Server Outtage - Sunday 5/30 - 05/29/2004
by Gavin M Roy
I will be upgrading the operating system on the database server on Sunday, 5/30/2004. The site will be down for an estimated 2-4 hours.
MarchTeen Patron Contest Winners - 03/29/2004
by Bruce W Niedt
Well, itÂs been a very interesting year for me as coordinating judge for the Teen Patron Contest. IÂve read a lot of excellent poems from the younger members of our site, and made some new friends as well. IÂd like to thank all the judges who participated, past and present: Bonnie Adams, John Adams, Famida Basheer, Cathlyn Cartier, J.D. Clay, Jeanne Marie Hoffman, Lori Johnson, J.A. Selby, Chris Sorrenti, and Sallie Mattison Young. (Hope I left no one out!) And to recap, hereÂs a list of the first-prize winners from the past year:
April 2003: Nalani Soon
May: Caitlin Thompson
June: Mallory Nakamura
July: Kristina Costa
August: Stephanie Laubscher
September: Carolyn Ferreira
October: Lauren Singer
November: Mainon Schwartz
December: Pedro Trevino-Ramirez
January 2004: Lindsay Sanders
February: Brian McGinniss
Âand finally, our March 2004 winner, Indigo Tempesta, for her poem Âdown the hillÂ. She will receive Patron status, and a prize to be announced. Second place goes to Adrian Gaspar for ÂA MadamÂs Opus: FioraliaÂ, and third place goes to Aiko Scott for Âelegy in springÂ. They will also receive prizes, and all three will be featured on Poem of the Day when eligible. Honorable mentions go to:
Deliania Carlton, ÂWinterthurÂ;
Sarah Gaspar, ÂOn my failure to forget the one who moves meÂ;
Sarah Joie, ÂThe Rainbow ConnectionÂ;
Ashley Lane, ÂThe Maiden RoomÂ;
Jacqueline Marie, ÂEach Fall, Across Time ÂÂ;
Caitlyn Mullarky, ÂThe World Never Stops SpinningÂ;
Wiley Otis, ÂSpies in ChicagoÂ;
Christian Ragunton, Âjumper cablesÂ
;
Octavia Elisabeth Younger, Âdrift with me; like snowflakesÂ.
See the above hyperlinks to view these poems. Congrats to all the winners for this month, and this past year. Keep up the great writing!
New Database Server - 03/28/2004
by Gavin M Roy
As you can probably tell, the new database server is up and operational. The site should be much faster for you, and features that I turned off should show back up in the coming days. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible. We have yet to reach our donation goal for the server, and I will be posting a full roster of those who donated and how much was donated and how much is needed to cover the expense.
Wedding Bells - 03/28/2004
by Gavin M Roy
On Friday, March 26, 2004, Jersey Daniel Gibson, given a 3-day pass from Basic Training, proposed to long-time girlfriend and Pathetic member Anna Michelle Sasso. She answered 'yes', and the two haven't set a date yet, but are looking forward into the future.
Pathetic.org Rules RemindersÃÂ - 03/13/2004
by Richard Paez
1) Your member picture must be Âunaltered photos of your face. By Âunaltered we mean that we would be able to recognize you in real life from your PPS picture (in other words, changing your photo to black & white is ok, making is psychedelic is not). By Âface we mean we should be able to see enough of your face to recognize you in real lifeÂa picture of just an eye, an ear, and so on is not sufficient. Of course, obscene gestures, very suggestive content, and so on are not acceptable.
2) ÂExplicit poems or journals MUST be marked with the explicit tag. Explicit is what any reasonable person expects it to beÂcuss words, sexual/suggestive content, violence, and so on. Please err on the side of caution on this issueÂwe can only remind you so many times before we start deleting things, and we really hate to delete anything.
3) Your Âoccupation and location (ÂState, ÂCity, so on) must be real. ÂOccupation weÂll give you a little leeway on, but locations should be places on Earth that real people live at and can connect to the internet fromÂÂpast the orbit of Mars and similar are fine for your Bio, but not for your demographicsÂfeel free to leave those spaces blank if you would like, but please be realistic if not honest.
Remember folks, the site rules exist because we want to keep Pathetic a serious site for serious poetsÂthereÂs plenty of room for mirth and silliness in poetry, journals, and forum discussions, but to make sure that Pathetic remains the site we know and love we have to draw a line somewhereÂthese rules are part of what keeps Pathetic from becoming one of those other sites full of anonymous members who spend as much time flaming each other as they do working on and sharing their poetry.
Thank you all for understanding, and if you have any questions or concerns about anything, please do not hesitate to contact me or one of the other administrators.
Sincerely,
Richard |M|
Favorite Living Poets Survey - 03/07/2004
by Bruce W Niedt
I am starting an informal survey to determine the favorite living poets of Pathetic members. Please see the General forum under that topic and send me your replies as soon as possible. Thanks!
Server Fund - 03/03/2004
by Gavin M Roy
As many of you know, we've been experiencing problems with growth over the last few months. This primarily has to do with the fact that the size of our database and the complexity of the database queries that run the site has caused us to out grow any of the currently available servers. While the monthly donations go to cover the cost of hosting and building a reserve to replace hardware, which we've done a few times in the past two years, it can't cover the cost of a new database server. I am now running a server donation drive to help raise money to get a new database server. Our goal for the amount to raise is a $2200 which is enough to cover the following server and taxes:
http://www.pathetic.org/server.html
If you have the ability to donation to our server, you will of course receive patron status. Any donation over $25 will also receive free lifetime email. If you have any questions, please contact me. If you are able to donation to this fund drive, please donate to [email protected] using the button below and not the normal donation route. Thank you!
February Teen Patron Contest Winners - 02/28/2004
by Bruce W Niedt
The votes are finally in on our February sonnet contest! Our entry list was relatively short this month, perhaps because writing a good sonnet can be more daunting than it seems. And quite a few of our entries went outside the traditional Ârules of the sonnet, whether intentionally or otherwise. In spite of all that, we found several that were prize-worthy. So congratulations to Brian McGinnis, our first prize winner for his sonnet, Âfrom FlowersongsÂ. Brian wins patron status courtesy of Pathetic.org. Second prize goes to Caitlyn Thompson for Âa sort of love sonnetÂ, and third prize goes to Abbey Meents for ÂBairlinnÂ. All the above will also receive prizes to be determined, courtesy of fellow Pathetic members. Special Honorable Mention goes to Stephanie Laubscher for ÂA Different Shade of EnvyÂ, and the following poets receive Honorable Mention:
J. P. Davies, ÂTamed by the ShrewÂ;
Kathryn Lord, ÂI Am Just Your Marlboro  Light Me UpÂ;
Alaina Schneider, Âgirl with coffee sentimentÂ.
The Honorable Mentions can be viewed by clicking their hyperlink titles. The rest will be featured as future Poems of the Day, if and when eligible. Congrats to all!
(There now, wasnÂt that every bit as exciting as the Oscars?)
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