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Boilerplate

Blog Posted:9/10/2016 11:28:00 AM

In light of the suicide of fellow Soup poet, Faith Gajadhar, I'd like to broach a subject that has bothered me long before this tragic occurrence: those monotonous, pre-fabricated, boilerplate, form-letter comment-greetings posted to new Soup members. I assume their purpose is to greet as many new users as possible with the least amount of time and effort. A useful and well-intentioned endeavor. However, in certain circumstances (said tragedy), these same cloned comments often appear cold, disingenuous, annoyingly repetitive and spacially out-of-place. What do you think, Soupers?

Faith Gajadhar's Poems:
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems_poets/poems_by_poet.aspx?ID=80420

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Team
Poetrysoup

Date: 9/13/2016 4:36:00 PM

A good word can never be bad.

Tom Arnone
Date: 9/13/2016 5:19:00 PM

Even if it's not genuine? Or said haphazardly and repetitively without regard for the content to which it is directed?

Constance
La France

Date: 9/10/2016 7:19:00 PM

well another way to look at is that at least the accused took the time to greet and welcome a new poet and I recall being new once, years ago and was welcomed and it did not seem cold to me . . .

Constance La France
Date: 9/10/2016 9:23:00 PM

Thanks for the compliment Tommy, I have worked hard to improve my writing. When I comment on a poem, I mean it when I say beautiful, wonderful and lovely, or I do not comment. I suppose I could find different adjectives but I tend to use the same ones because well I like those words, I use them in my poems too. I will come up with new ones for your poems, maybe you will need a dictionary to decipher them. Love Constance

Tom Arnone
Date: 9/10/2016 7:40:00 PM

No accusations here, B. W. I acknowledge positive greetings for new poets are a good thing. It's the repetitiveness, the sameness of the comments that make them appear, in certain circumstances, tired, cold and removed. If it is too time-consuming and/or difficult to compose live, personal messages, then an alternative might be a larger and more varied assortment of prefabricated responses. At least then, they wouldn't appear so obvious and cloned.

Stephen
Pennell

Date: 9/10/2016 4:10:00 PM

If said comments where not made new posters would be lucky to get any comment, and the people that greeted me, i still have contact with via comps and remarks take a bow silent one, pd, when your new to the soup you don't know its a "boilerplate" post and they bring smiles into the world carry one chaps. good question my friend mind

Stephen Pennell
Date: 9/10/2016 5:07:00 PM

must take ages to keep on top of it and dedication,you only notice it when you start reading poems and you see the same post on other poems , they have found a few abusive , rude , copied poems as well so they are helping the soup just a thought .

Tom Arnone
Date: 9/10/2016 4:51:00 PM

That's a good point, Stephen. I understand the benefits of pre-written, introductory comments. Perhaps, a larger assortment of diverse responses might mask their obvious, repetitive nature. What do you think?

My Past Blog Posts


Scare Me Good Poetry Contest Finalized! Date Posted: 10/7/2016 8:51:00 AM
Boilerplate Date Posted: 9/10/2016 11:28:00 AM
The Ratings System Date Posted: 8/27/2016 7:11:00 AM

My Recent Poems

Date Posted	PoemTitle	Form	Categories
10/10/2016	Bubble Branes	Couplet	change,children,community
9/19/2016	500 Days	Sonnet	break up,desire,destiny,f
9/13/2016	Weekend Undercover	Pantoum	childhood,dream,fear,hall
9/9/2016	Isabelle Dinoire	Limerick	beauty,bereavement,death,
9/6/2016	The Visit	Narrative	best friend,death,first l
9/2/2016	Two Left Beats	Quatrain	celebrity,england,guitar,
9/1/2016	Autumn-Brown	Sonnet	autumn,desire,first love,
8/30/2016	Sv Pop	Narrative	daughter,fantasy,future,h
8/23/2016	Age and Flow	Sonnet	age,first love,growing up
8/20/2016	Mary and Frank	Clerihew	creation,gothic,horror,po
8/17/2016	Poem 2848	Narrative	absence,lonely,love,plane
8/15/2016	Bereft	Verse	corruption,dark,fear,grav
8/15/2016	Silent River Run	Verse	allegory,cat,environment,
8/11/2016	Wet Ways	Quatrain	creation,earth,environmen
8/8/2016	All Hail Medea	Narrative	beauty,death,desire,fanta
8/2/2016	Sandy Love	Sonnet	absence,desire,devotion,e
7/30/2016	Ying Yang Evolution	Tanka	death,environment,green,l
7/26/2016	A Foundling	Quatern	beauty,child,confusion,de
7/26/2016	Call To Mars	Etheree	insect,lost love,love,mar
7/16/2016	Number 15	Quatrain	absence,best friend,commu
7/16/2016	A Tough Regret	Quatrain	anger,emotions,feelings,f
7/16/2016	Two Poles of the Same Magnet	Quatrain	best friend,desire,longin
7/15/2016	Fields of Being	Quatrain	earth,humanity,life,love,
7/15/2016	One Me	Monoku	courage,dedication,devoti
7/14/2016	Nehru Pizza	Quatrain	childhood,children,feelin
7/13/2016	Many Things	Couplet	angel,fairy,fantasy,horro
7/12/2016	The Taken Girl	Narrative	angel,children,daughter,f
7/9/2016	A Ghost I	Quintain (English)	absence,death,desire,fant
7/7/2016	Once Upon a Summer Missing	Quatrain	absence,beach,desire,frie
7/5/2016	We Are Flotsam	Quatrain	addiction,depression,eart
6/17/2016	Snow Does Flow	Pantoum	earth,life,planet,science
6/12/2016	It Happened Like This	Villanelle	flower,fruit,garden,green
6/12/2016	What Is Masculine	Pantoum	body,dad,gender,inspirati
6/11/2016	Trip Doors	Pantoum	america,love,music,native
6/9/2016	Vintage 4th Vortex	Quatrain	america,birthday,celebrat
5/29/2016	Sonnet 14, Part 3 of 3	Sonnet	evil,fantasy,fear,horror,
5/29/2016	Sonnet 14, Part 2 of 3	Sonnet	evil,fantasy,fear,horror,
5/29/2016	Sonnet 14, Part 1 of 3	Sonnet	evil,fantasy,fear,horror,
5/6/2016	A Mother's Day Memory	Acrostic	caregiving,childhood,fami
4/19/2016	April's Babbling Foolishness	Prose	art,computer,crazy,food,f
4/19/2016	The Eyes of Venus	Rhyme	beauty,desire,humor,mytho
4/19/2016	I Thee Wed	Quatrain	love,marriage,passion,rel
4/19/2016	I Wanna Be	Quatrain	allegory,dream,fantasy,fe
4/19/2016	More Than Love	Rhyme	desire,i love you,love,pa
4/19/2016	Mrs Stahlberg	Narrative	abuse,evil,horror,murder,
4/19/2016	My Geisha	Narrative	humorous,life,marriage,pe
4/19/2016	Sad Love	Pantoum	absence,desire,first love
4/18/2016	Ode To a Weary Wolf	Quatrain	animal,fantasy,horror,mag
4/18/2016	Outsider	Rhyme	break up,emotions,first l
4/18/2016	Piggies	Rhyme	abuse,addiction,candy,cho
4/18/2016	Revenge	Quatrain	anger,death,evil,horror,m
4/18/2016	Slow Down	Rhyme	change,desire,humor,magic
4/18/2016	Tootle Lou - Children's Version	Narrative	adventure,allegory,childr
4/18/2016	Tootle Lou - Adult Version	Narrative	abuse,addiction,friendshi
4/18/2016	Water of Life	Quatrain	allegory,drink,fish,life,
4/7/2016	Rush	Quatrain	anger,fear,feelings,psych
4/7/2016	Loser	Quatrain	addiction,depression,desi
4/7/2016	Farther Than Daddy Thinks	Quatrain	conflict,confusion,family
4/7/2016	Cpu Break	Free verse	body,health,uplifting,
4/7/2016	Villanelle For Health Care	Villanelle	health,humanity,life,peop
4/7/2016	Wet Moon	Quatrain	moon,poetry,science,scien
3/1/2016	Water Bug Love	Quatrain	allegory,desire,fantasy,i
3/1/2016	Ease On Down the Flame	Quatrain	feelings,longing,love,pas
3/1/2016	Discarded Love	Quatrain	angel,desire,feelings,hea
2/18/2016	A Purple People Poem	Quatrain	halloween,horror,humor,im
2/18/2016	Angela's Dream	Narrative	dream,fantasy,horror,inse
2/7/2016	Fish Butt	Rhyme	animal,cute love,feelings

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