Banned members

[popeye]

Hello all, I was just looking through the members list and noticed a large number of banned members just wondering what is causing the problem

[heslopian]

A lot of them are spammers, people who join then start threads filled with links to travel agents etc.

[Leanne]

Pretty much all are spammers actually -- it takes an awful lot to be banned from here otherwise. I think you're safe

[grannyjill]

I'm so glad jiminy asked this ....I've been itching to know the answer to that question - especially as they appeared not to have posted anything at all. I wondered how they could have caused offence simply by logging on.

[Touchstone]

Yeah. When people are banned for spamming: their posts, which are all just spam, are deleted. When people are banned for breaking some other rule then most of their posts are legitimate posts, often posts which people have replied to, so they're left on the system. [And a lot of spam is posted by automatic programs which register account after account after account, so as forums become better know it's not uncommon for 80% of "members" to actually be spammers.]

[srijantje]

I'm so glad jiminy asked this ....I've been itching to know the answer to that question - especially as they appeared not to have posted anything at all. I wondered how they could have caused offence simply by logging on.

they just put spam in their sig or homepage without posting,so get banned immediately

[popeye]

Pretty much all are spammers actually -- it takes an awful lot to be banned from here otherwise. I think you're safe

Phew, that's a relief Leanne, I was worried there for awhile, you know I don't mind a bit of Bully Beef now and then, but Spam, I could never come at that, cheers

[billy]

now we have the extra re captcha up we only get 4 or 5 spambots a day, without them we get 20 to 25. and someone has a lot of work to do. every now and then we get rid of the damned...banned.

[popeye]

Thanks all for the explainations, cheers

[Leanne]

Spam remains the most common reason for bans, but increasingly it has become necessary to ban people who simply refuse to follow direct instructions. Dumping several poems in the critique forums without any intention of either contributing to other threads or actually workshopping your own poems will result in a warning first, with which most reasonable people will comply. However, unreasonable people will consider themselves untouchable until the banhammer falls.

Plagiarism will also result in an immediate ban. I'm afraid there is no warning on that one -- all writers are aware of what it is and why it's such a serious matter. Anyone attempting to pass off the work of another writer as his/her own definitely doesn't belong here.

[popeye]

I've put the words spoken in Il Silenzio as a sort of foreword in my practise sonnet, does that count as plagiarism? If so I will gladly remove it, cheers.

[billy]

normally if you use a whole phrase in a poem and it isn't obvious who it's from or about, then credit that part in a footer.

if the poem's an obvious homage then i wouldn't call it plagiarism and see no need to credit anything. william carlos homages are obvious ones where everyone has done one. a parody doesn't need to be credited. if you write a poem about a poet and use a line of theirs in the poem, i wouldn't call it plagiarism. usually plagiarism is something the writer doesn't want you to know about.

an example would be me writing a poem and starting it

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou
then going on to say


romeo, romeo, wherefore art thou
there is no Romeo, only some lothario ....blah blah blah

the 1st line isn't plagiarism because it something every poet has read before and knows about, i suppose it should be credited but i doubt someone would hang you for it.

[Todd]

I've put the words spoken in Il Silenzio as a sort of foreword in my practise sonnet, does that count as plagiarism? If so I will gladly remove it, cheers.

It's not even slightly plagiarism. You mention the source in the poem. It's clearly set apart from the work and not being passed off as yours.

Just my take.

[popeye]

Whew, thanks billy and Todd that's a load off my mind, with all this talk of plagiarism going about I had to make sure, cheers!