Welcome to the Globe!

>1 Crypto-Willobie: I agree that it's a good idea to apply this rule to new posts, but please reconsider deleting older posts. For better or for worse, those already exist, and many of us have read and interacted with them (despite our disagreement with them).

Maybe I feel this way because this is, after all, a library site--and libraries are about preserving written words, not deleting them.

>2 JacobHolt:

Thank you.

Obviously, I strongly support and agree with that view.

Your opinion, because it comes from you, is especially welcome (to me, at any rate) because it helps to show that my views, discounted as "misguided rants" by the administrator, are regarded as, at a minimum, worthy of being allowed to remain there in their in the context of the original threads where I posted and argued them--and, thus, tolerated to an extent that the administrator does not intend to permit. What's being proposed and sought is, of course, nothing short of the complete removal of threads some of the posted opinions of which the administrator here finds offensive.

This is the dangerous renewed popular ethos of our time in so many places and respects. See, for example, Professor John McWhorter's essays (at "It Bears Mentioning") on this new obscurantism.

This matter is very old at this site and concerns many books, authors and topics which others would readily see disallowed.

I'll point out here that the intended Delete date is June 30 so that proxfordicity can save his contributions, and move them to the De Vere group or archive them or whatever.

Anyone else want to weigh in?

I understand wanting to remove the topic from conversation access since there is no good way to "close" a thread and anyone can open it up again simply by posting in dormant threads. But information deleted is lost forever and that does feel contrary to the spirit of LT.

You could, for the sake of historical memory, simply create text files of the topics in question and provide a link to them. They copy/paste fairly coherently and would serve as evidence you could point to if sometime in the future people start to question the ban on authorship arguments.

I’d also prefer if the old posts are left alone - like it or not, this was what the group was before a change in policy was announced.

>1 Crypto-Willobie:
Can you edit the subtitle of the group?

Shakespeare, his Contemporaies, and Context - should be "contemporaries".

Can always copy the offending threads into the wiki and create links to the posts archive in the wiki for those interested in the past debates. This preserves the posts while not allowing a reopening of the threads/wounds created by said posts.

>6 AnnieMod:

Thank you, too, for voicing that.

As I see this and, I suspect, future controversies yet unexpected ensuing from the kind of policy-lines Crypto-Willobie advocates here, the actual gist of the matter turns around something which, again, John McWhorter, professor of linguisitics, recognizes by this, his apt comment, which I excerpt here, in briefest form:

..."Some choice passages from Mr. Taylor’s opus:

"In light of the deeply embedded and largely unexamined neoliberal ideologies in the foundation of NAIS (National Association of Independent Schools) (and thus in independent schools as a broadly constructed segment of the education landscape), it would appear that such schools are fundamentally problematic spaces."

"Get ready, though: to people like this, 'problematic' means blasphemous, and blasphemy requires desperate, and even hostile changes of procedure.

"Neoliberalism and its attendant beliefs about the market, individual control, and meritocracy are existential elements of independent schools and, thus, any attempt at constructing an inclusive space or decolonizing community will face immediate challenges."

_____________________

(https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/do-black-people-enjoy-being-told)
(emphasis added)

This is the real offense: blasphemy. I refer to Stratfordian views of Shakespeare's identity as "Stratfordian orthodoxy for a reason: the view is asserted as one asserts an unquestionable faith and since that is the driving motivation behind the desire to see my participation relegated to a back-alley alternative, its presence in the Globe as Crypto-Willobie would have it must constitute a standing affront to the orthodox faith here.

How many other LT groups are destined to become havens of orthodoxy? How many other unwelcome views are destined to be outlawed by the group administrator as similarly blasphemous? How does this represent "progress" except in the most reductively and blandly judged sense? What good reason is there to suppose that this proposed policy guideline shall admit a controversies at all, however mild—other than, of course, those which happen to suit the administrator's personal biases?

LT must face this matter as and for the thing that it is because, no matter how one might wish otherwise, important principles are involved and to traduce them now in this case is only going to invite further miserable consequences for the site generally and its membership. Trying to pretend that an easy and convenient way to side-step controversy has been arranged is an act of childish make-believe.

We are adults here.

But, as is so often seen, adults are fully capable of reverting to childish wishful-thinking in which the world is forced to conform to a certain group's idea of comfortable truth.

In all he wrote and did in his life, the real mind behind the author pen-name, "Shakespeare," vehemently opposed that.

>5 southernbooklady: and >8 gilroy: I would think any new posts on an old thread would be prohibited under the new policy and would be deleted if added to an old thread after June 30th. Old threads don't need to be locked or removed to prevent this; the moderator can enforce it the same way he enforces the ban on all other new posts that violate the new policy.

>6 AnnieMod:
Actually the Authorship Battleground isn't what the group originally was. It was a traditional group discussing the real William Shakespeare. Then the conspiri-nasties began storming the walls and made it a less pleasant place to be.

Btw, a number of online Shakespeare groups have been forced to institute similar policies, to wit: the FB groups Shakespeare Forum; Shakespeare and Early Modern Friends; Early Modernists; and the venerable SHAKSPER listserv.

>7 lilithcat:
Yeah, I can fix that. 'Arf a mo'

>9 proximity1:

Oh, boo-hoo.
We're trying to free this group from this kind of blather: framing the question in terms of religion and free speech and liberty, when really it's question of history and evidence and common sense. I didn't start this crusade in order to push people around, or to force them to believe anything they don't want to, or just to get on proximity's case. Over the last few years various group members I've spoken with have lamented that it appeared nothing could be done about the infection of anti-Shakespearian propaganda in the group. Then came the Admin reforms of the last couple months. I became the group's admin and several members asked me if now something couldn't be done.

proximity1 and his ilk can still spread their improbable fictions, but why in this group when they already have a group dedicated to just that subject???
“Edward De Vere and the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery” https://www.librarything.com/groups/edwarddevereandthesh

>10 JacobHolt: Except that keeping the threads visible, even if dormant, could possibly drive away new members who would want to dissect the Actual Plays instead of the politics and innuendo of who actually wrote them. Sometimes, perception makes as much of a difference as content does.

>12 Crypto-Willobie: Why here? Because some people just don't understand what boundaries are and believe they can do and say whatever, wherever, whenever, without any consequence.

>11 Crypto-Willobie:

My point is that groups evolve. I did not like where the group went so I do not post much and ignore most threads. There were no rules that said that these discussions were not welcome. If tomorrow a new admin says that because the name of the group is The Globe only the plays are to be discussed, will we also lose all talks about the sonnets? :)

We have rules now. Deleting future posts is fine - kicking out the one member who actually makes the mess would have been a better idea but that’s hard to implement and monitor. Deleting a 5-10 years post because it is against a new group rule (a post that still does not violate TOS of the site and did not violate the group rules until years later) won’t make me feel welcome or want to post here any more than the current state of the group does.

Just saying. It’s the principle - p1 had been on my ignore list since forever. But there had been people discussing in these threads whose messages will be either lost or removed from context when the big cleanup happens.

>9 proximity1: Don’t thank me. You are the reason for being where we are. Were you able to play with other kids or if you cared about anything but your pet question, we would not be here now.

Here's an idea...

Is there a way to "close" a thread? That is, leave it as is but make it so that you can't post to it anymore? Then we could freeze old authorship threads (preserving them), while banning any future proselytizing for the anti-Shakespearian position.

Then only new posts from Auntie Strat would be deleted, and the poster referred to the De Vere group. And those not abiding by these guidelines would be warned, and if not compliant, removed.

>15 Crypto-Willobie:

How about if you made sure to post a LAST POST warning/explanation in the offending threads? You draw the line, and then if anyone posts there despite the sign, removing those posts shouldn't be controversial.

I was just an occasional lurker but, FWIW, while I have no desire to encourage the breathtakingly silly authorship debate, I did find many of the responses to the CO&NSP!rraCY!! enjoyably informative and witty. It wasn't all loss!

However, the main problem I see with the drastic approach of nuking everything, is that it seems unfair to posters who may not know that might happen (unless you are contacting and hearing from them all?)

Since there is no guarantee anyway that sooner or later new posters won't come in with the same old same old, informing them/reminding them of the policy in the old threads likely won't use up more energy than doing so in case of newly-created threads or posts.

>15 Crypto-Willobie: That idea makes a lot of sense to me. Seems like the best of both worlds.

>16 LolaWalser: >17 JacobHolt:
I'm waiting to hear from Site Admins if there's a simple mechanical way to Close a thread. If not I'll probably go the way of posting CLOSED warnings on the naughty bits..

... "We're trying to free this group from this kind of blather: framing the question in terms of religion and free speech and liberty, when really it's question of history and evidence and common sense. ...

And, regarding just this: "history and evidence and common sense," no mentions outside of the use of a name, "William Shakespeare", a name, unlike that of others, whether of his time or since, never otherwise known of, spoken of, referred to than as author of work supposed presumptively as his—and that presumption, though now long-disputed--including by scholars—for more than a century, is to be henceforth required of all participants here as a precondition of participation; failing this, that is, the expression of any contrary shall be forbidden and removed where they're found—while, before, this wasn't the case.

In other words, we're discussing "William Shakespeare", presumed by this group's administrator to have been responsible for the literary work supposed to have been written by a person of that name. Anyone intending to participate here must subscribe to that view as well since that presumption here is inherent, as we see it and insist on it in the very use at all of the name itself.

... " I didn't start this crusade in order to push people around, or to force them to believe anything they don't want to, or just to get on proximity's case." ...

You and all like you are on no less of a partisan "crusade" than any other devoted student of writing attributed to the name "Shakespeare." That's the point and, now, the entire point.

No one does, would, or ever has discussed "William Shakespeare" otherwise. No one ever cared a whit for him or his family until his name came to be associated with certain plays and poems. Absent that, there'd be, and there'd never have been, any mention of this person. In other words, all interest in, attention to, him is predicated on a presumption which remains utter conjecture of the thinnest kind.

You sought and, with the support of a clique who agree with your intolerant stances, you got your position here to do exactly all of that and, above all, that—as it's clearly your first and priority initiative—whatever else may be on your posse's minds to do.

Almost nothing you say is true. Go away.

>14 AnnieMod:

"Don’t thank me. You are the reason for being where we are. Were you able to play with other kids or if you cared about anything but your pet question, we would not be here now."

I'm not "able 'to play with other kids'"?

Nonsense. Again, these "other kids" label what they don't agree with or approve as heresy, as blasphemy. And that is my fault for not "playing with other kids" 's intolerance?

Oh, on the contrary, yes, "we" would be here—just as, later, it shall prove that others with minority views on other controversial issues shall find themselves "here" because you and the site administration chose to institute programed intolerance of minority opinion:

whenever and wherever their particular interests run afoul of an administrator who's there in the first place so he can censor opinions he doesn't approve. You and others set this up over and against concerns raised in the discussions which preceded the changes.

All that was ensured when the site's administration programed it in by instituting these new arrangements.

What you want is a controversy-free site where disputes don't occur because all opinions are enclosed in their own little sterile rooms—as I'm being told I can go to now.


The group site to which I'm directed

( “Edward De Vere and The Shakespeare Authorship Mystery” | A group to share research, theories and maybe books about the Authorship of the Shakespeare plays. Focus on Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.)

was created by “ biblioarchy, who hasn't been seen or heard from in that group's threads since—uhm, January of 2009 if we're to judge by current data there, for there are no extant posts at all from the group's creator.

As for what it does have: since December, 2008, (12 & 1/4 years of existence), for all we know, the approximate time it was created, there have been (not counting those threads/posts deleted since)) all of

12 members, with “Requesting Evidence about the Oxfordian Theory
Stats:
” Total posts : 2 (prior to this matter's appearance ) post # 2 Podras. Sep 30, 2014, 3:43pm,

in the sole example of a post-&-a reply for the entire 12 years.

The latest of which, my own, in February, when I posted a link to a post in which I catalogued sites of interest for any and all about all matters “Shakespeare” (prior to this current matter's promptings) apart from that, the next most recent was?...

five months shy of 11 years ago

Next we have:
“Do you people think that Shakespere could not have written any plays..?”

(1 Message ; 1 Participant )

by JesikaParker Feb 5, 2010, 12:08am

11years, 2 months ago, still unanswered.

Followed by :

“all quiet on the Eddie deVere front.” (dormant)

5 Messages ; 2 Participants
The latest of which,
5 by Porius on Apr 26, 2009, 1:58pm

Followed by :

“The Birth of Merlin” (dormant)
7 Messages ; 3 Participants
(the group's creator makes an appearance here! with three posts —“O.P.” on the January 7, 2009, 2 on January 8 and a final on January 9. Active lifespan of the thread: 7 to 9 January, 2009.

Followed by :
Fisher's Folly and the Birth of Euphues while bowling (Dormant)
4 Messages (of which the last was deleted) ; 3 Participants
Active lifespan of the thread: 26 to 29 December, 2008.

Followed by :
Fischer's Folly (Dormant)
1 Messages (which was deleted) ; 1 Participant

Active lifespan of the thread: 26 December, 2008.
The thread was obviously an aborted effort, superceded by a second one ( “Fisher's Folly and the Birth of Euphues while bowling”) apparently just to correct a misspelling of “Fisher” in the title.

What your approach, attitude and arrangements deserve then, is what you've already got in the kind of arid, "dead-air" which 'Pro' & 'Con' " group has become. That's apparently not a “bug,”, it's your idea of a “feature”: bland conformity to orthodoxy as determined by intolerant majority-opinion.



__________________________________________

>21 proximity1:

Yeah, we can look at the group and see what's there, no need for you to run it all down for us.

Btw, biblioarchy has been active on LT at least as late as July 2019 when he entered some books.

Why don't you apply to become the admin of the De Vere group? Then you can exercise your rights to be a persecuted minority, and lob your bombs over the wall at us? We will maintain a referral link to you on the real Shakespeare group so that your fellows can find you.

>22 Crypto-Willobie:

"Yeah, we can look at the group and see what's there, no need for you to run it all down for us."

Not done for you. You clearly aren't interested in the facts which undercut your views. The details are there for others to see. It's a "service" and I present it as part of what's called "supporting evidence" of my argument. The details show that as a place to discuss Edward Oxford, it has failed utterly—finding and holding nothing of the immense interest in Oxford as central to the "authorship question" which virtually everyone interested in would spontaneously turn to look for in fora called or including the term "Shakespeare" —as though you weren't aware of the whole point of sending off those whose opinions you despise and reject to the equivalent of deserted isles.


"Why don't you apply to become the admin of the De Vere group?"

I have already thought I might. But doing that tends to subscribe to, to acquiesce in this site's administrators' ill-considered plans, as I interpret them, to sanitize and police discussions according to the whims and prejudices of the majority-mob. The participants, outnumbering me, as Stratfordians inevitably do, could apparently object--where my objections make no difference here--and simply have me removed or replaced.

Why don't you? You do seem to favor monopolizing and controlling public discussion fora where a topic or person (author) of keen interest of yours is central to the place. As administrator there, you could apply your narrowed views to prohibit any discussion of the name "William Shakespeare" as part of any "Authorship Question" within a group devoted to Edward Oxford, precluding, in that way, all comparison, all, critical theory, all history of it by the thousands, amateurs and lettered academics, who've spent years of attention to the issues.

I think I'd prefer not to take on a role as an group administrator at a site which I regard as intellectually juvenile, a bastion of much "Woke"-ist damn foolishness and a prime example of much popular intolerance.

>14 AnnieMod: "But there had been people discussing in these threads whose messages will be either lost or removed from context when the big cleanup happens."

Speaking for myself, I don't mind that much. I have been semi-active on the anti threads and so will be affected by the new policy, however it ends up being implemented. I intend to cull through my posts over the next 62 days and either move them to the Edward De Vere and The Shakespeare Authorship Mystery Blather group, preserve them some other way, or allow them to go away.

As I pointed out to Prolixity1 over there, he hasn't been posting in very many threads, so finding his posts shouldn't be that hard. With a good-faith effort, 62 days should be ample time.

Closing threads to new posts over here but otherwise keeping them in place is fine with me, too; especially the closing part. I'm still going to cull through my posts and save the most valuable ones.

So, again, I ask:

what is the site's administrators' decision on the objection to this restriction?

So far, there's been open (and rude) hostility from the site moderator—just for my having posed the question—but no clear "yes" or "no". Which is it to be? I'd like an open and definitive answer to whether you, the site's authorities as administrators, are ratifying this censorious stuff:

and, in particular, this part of the following notice:

"As of June 30 2021 older posts on this subject will be deleted."

"In order to keep our discussions on point, the group will not allow posts concerning the so-called Shakespeare Authorship Question. As of June 30 2021 older posts on this subject will be deleted."

If the matter is still under consideration, then fine. But if you've decided it please state that decision somewhere so that it's clear and known.

Otherwise, you're defaulting to this—which amounts to de facto approval of it without openly taking a position.

The clear implication of your doing that is to implicitly indicate that groups' administrators can take any censorious actions they see fit to impose—including barring minority opinions at their whim when they see (or safely suppose) that their views are sufficiently shared by the site's authorities.

That's a new departure at Library Thing (other than at the Feminist Theory group, where censorship of this sort was, to the best of my knowledge, first made official at this site) ; other than that, it has never been the case here before and a clear decision on it is the least we should expect from this place.

Query to the administrator here:

Do you intend to remove this thread in its entirety or do you find only some selected posts within it offensive?

Teaching about the person and work of "Shakespeare" as done today amounts to a "crime"

if the latter, are any of these specific posts
in your cross-hairs for removal? :

https://www.librarything.com/topic/286187#6613422

and this one?:

92 proximity1
Edited: Feb 3, 4:20pm

with the following posting-history behind it :

Originally posted on Friday, 23 November, 2018
( updated / additions ) 29 November, 2018
(Updated / additions ) 27 July, 2019
(Updated / additions ) 03 September, 2019
(Updated / additions ) 05 September, 2019
(Updated / additions ) 06 November 2019
(Updated / additions ) 26 January 2020
(Updated / addition ) 15 October 2020
(Last Updated / addition ) 03 February 2021
________________________________________

Some (Internet/WorldWideWeb) On-Line resources for Shakespeare study: ...
...

What's to be your "litmus test"? Shall you strike out every post containing the terms "Edward Oxford", "Earl of Oxford", "authorship" etc.?

"This group is for discussions about the life and works of William Shakespeare, the actor-playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon, as well as other playwrights, poets, and prose writers of his time: Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Donne, Thomas Middleton, John Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher and many others. "

Why leave out Robert Greene and Edward, Earl of Oxford?

Are they included among "and many others"? Or do you intend to strike out all mentions of him and as author, acting-company patron, associate of others of these-- the Herbert brothers, Mary Sidney?

Do you intend to remove all mention of them?

Is your plan to ignore--except to remove them--all my posted queries to you?

As a reader/lurker rather than contributor, I’ll say I’m in favour of the changes going forward, but I, like a few others above, think deleting previous posts is a step too far. Eventually they’ll end up beyond the first page or way back in threads, and they’ll provide some explanation for current rules for newcomers. I certainly won’t revisit them myself, though.

..."posts concerning the so-called Shakespeare Authorship Question. As of June 30 2021 older posts on this subject will be deleted. Posters ignoring this rule will be removed from the group."

Even to just remove these, you're going to have to apply some criteria by which you choose/select these offending posts--
but you're going to refuse to indicate to us, so we'd know which these are?

That's your "plan" as administrator? Ignore, refuse, requests for clarity as to what shall be your yard-stick for selecting the "authorship question" posts?

What, then, prevents you from removing, on such an unstated basis, every single post of mine in the "Globe" group? on your claim that you only removed the "authorship question" posts.

... " I didn't start this crusade in order to push people around, or to force them to believe anything they don't want to, or just to get on proximity's case." ...
... "We're trying to free this group from this kind of blather: framing the question in terms of religion and free speech and liberty, when really it's question of history and evidence and common sense. ...

In that case, you'd readily supply the common-sense criteria you'll apply selecting the posts you'll remove; surely you're not leaving it up to each of us to decide what common-sense says is acceptable. If you were doing that, there'd be no planned removals.

We have to guess what's intended by ... "We're trying to free this group from this kind of blather ?

No, of course not. That would be absurd.

I have to guess.

So, when you wrote, above,
"I didn't start this crusade in order to..."
you were aware that this is a "crusade" you're on. Those are your own words: "this crusade".

Your administrative judgment is on display here. This is what the group has to look forward to with you in the seat. Those who you detest get ignored. Even when you make them dependent on guessing your intentions.

And you claim you're not a censor?

You ought to consult a dictionary:

Cen-sor : (ˈsɛnsə) / noun

1) an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds ; a person authorized to examine publications, theatrical presentations, films, letters, etc, in order to suppress in whole or part those considered obscene, politically unacceptable, etc

2) any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.

__________________________
(https://www.dictionary.com/browse/censor)

When censors who have ambitious designs refuse to set out clear criteria of what is objectionable to those under their purview, it's because they intend to act arbitrarily and they want to preserve that capacity.

Just calm the fuck down. I'm busy just now. I'll get back to you soon.

OK, so here’s my current proposal…

In response to the input of various people no older posts will be deleted, and any that might be hidden can be viewed with a click. (Of course you always can hide or delete any post from your own view). This group’s prior history will be safe.

However, posts and threads concerned with anti-Shakespearean conspiracy theories will be Closed to New Posts. The Closed warning will appear in both the thread title and as the last post in the thread. Some individual posts might be hidden, though as I said you can always click to see them.

Any anti-Shakespearean postings added to these closed threads, or added as new postings or threads will be deleted without warning.

To the extent that there is room for debate on the subject of Shakespearean authorship, the need can be filled by the already existing LT group “Edward De Vere and the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery.” proximity1 has complained that this group is too old and not robust enough for his purposes. Nonsense. Just get in there, sweep out the cobwebs and post away. I suspect the reason he doesn’t like this alternative is that from the De Vere group it will be more difficult for him to directly troll the real Shakespeare group and disrupt its regular business. By the way, Shakespeare-related posts from proximity1 that do not touch on his conspiracy theories will be welcome.

Are we unfairly picking on proximity1 and his alternative belief system? I don’t know. If you were in an American History group how would you feel if one member was obsessed with Q-Anon conspiracies and brought them into any and every subject? Would it be unfair to restrict or reject Q-Anon postings in your group? What we have here is Ox-Anon. When this group was founded it was for the discussion of what might be called the ‘traditional’ Shakespeare. ‘Conspiracy-Shakespeare’ (a fictional construct) does not belong. So as not to infringe on free speech and free access to information we have a sovereign group just for Conspiracy Shakespeare. The Traditional Shakespeare group will post prominently a link to the De Vere group for those who are interested.

Random notes:

- prox complains that I have been hostile and rude towards him. This would be funny if it weren’t so… funny. An unnamed LTer remarked to me the other day that a certain De Vere advocate (not to be named) is possibly the most hostile and rude troll on the entire site. Of course that’s a judgement call, so I have no comment.

- prox complains that my list of Shakespeare’s contemporaries is not complete enough for him, although I added the phrase ‘other playwrights, poets, and prose writers of his time’ so that I would not have to name dozens or hundreds of writers in a brief introductory sentence. He appeared particularly dismayed that I did not name Robert Greene. Why would that be? Could it be because he believes that De Vere also wrote the numerous prose pamphlets and handful of mostly mediocre plays that the sublunary world believe to be the work of Greene?

Even if I refrain from any other comments concerning the above ( >31 Crypto-Willobie: ) with its numerous references to me personally, I certainly feel entitled to respond, at the very least, to this:

... "By the way, Shakespeare-related posts from proximity1 that do not touch on his conspiracy theories will be welcome."

So claims your group's administrator under the new dispensation.

The fact, to the contrary, is that he presumes to determine at his sole personal whim exactly what this "Shakespeare-related posts" means in actual practice.

You see, that is going to mean, practically, just what and only what Crypto-Willobie happens at any given moment to decide that it means. I certainly have no means to accurately guess what that (potentially-shifting) definition may be.

Nina Green is an accredited professor of literature and is notable for being one of the few of her profession to dare to openly express sympathy--and more--for the Oxfordian case.

I must assume that nothing of her views is welcome to be discussed at all, let alone excerpted or otherwise cited or referenced here.

Does that mean that mean that this post falls afoul of the administrator's vaguely put welcome? We're about to find out.

To be fair, I do not believe I should be mentioned unfavorably in any post in this groups thread's by its administrator where I find my views are no longer tolerated--pretending that, outside some supposedly "small" area of interest, that they are both tolerated and welcome when this is manifestly not the case. In these circumstances, I should be left alone and unmentioned in groups and threads where I am not welcome to think, write and post as I see fit to do. When he desists from denigrating the views I share with certain well-established scholars of literature, then so may I desist from sometimes obliging with a reply.

I could cite dozens, scores, of long-respected and staunchly orthodox Stratfordian scholars' work here and, without ever mentioning the names, "R----- G-----" or E----- O----- or any other conceivably objectionable name or term, present a large and wide-ranging body of opinion which, without any intention of doing so on its authors' parts, never the less gives powerful support to the case that William Shaksper as Shakespeare does not do and never has done the historical record justice.

Meanwhile, as I now must with everything I contribute to this site, I'll be saving my own copy of the record. This part and parcel of the still-raging mania of "Cancel-culture", now come to Library Thing and subscribed to by the site's authorities.

OK, then. Don't contribute. And we won't mention you.

Good riddance to the xxxxxxxx noise-maker.

I'm thinking of reviving old posts here in new topics that were originally responses to the Rude-a-pest. For example, one was about some of the texts that were used in Tudor grammar schools. The title of the topic would be something like "Shakespeare's Education", but the content would not make reference to Ox-Anon. It would just be about what we know from the historical record of the times. Might there be any issue with that?

>35 Podras.:

I like that idea, Podras. Many of those threads actually contained interesting information, but never got much discussion on those points because it all got mired down in the controversy. So bringing them back as new topics makes a lot of sense.

>14 AnnieMod:

Well, there are rules and there are rules. This group never had a need to have hard and fast posted rules. I also don't have a sign on my front door saying "Don't poop on the porch" -- not really necessary because people of sense just understand. Now we've been more or less forced to have a small set of rules concerning a specific subject, but I don't expect that that we will be having other rules such as plays only, no sonnets, no post-modernism, British spellings only, or whatever you may fear or imagine. This is really just the same un-evolved group it was 15 yrs ago, just now without the fifth column.

>33 Crypto-Willobie:

"OK, then. Don't contribute. And we won't mention you."

>37 Crypto-Willobie:

"This is really just the same un-evolved group it was 15 yrs ago, just now without the fifth column." (empahsis added)

Refers to whom?

This is what I mean when I say that you interpret terms and phrases to suit your blatant and censorious prejudices.
So, >37 Crypto-Willobie:, according to you, doesn't violate what you wrote in >33 Crypto-Willobie:.

I gather I've just been described as "the fifth-column" at this site by your view of things.

What does the dictionary tell us about the definition of "fifth-column"? :

fifth column
noun (C )
uk
/ˌfɪfθ ˈkɒl.əm/ us
/ˌfɪfθ ˈkɑː.ləm/
a group of people who support the enemies of the country they live in and secretly help them.

_______________________

(https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fifth-column)

_______________________________________

fifth column noun

Definition of fifth column

: a group of secret sympathizers or supporters of an enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within defense lines or national borders.
_______________________
(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fifth%20column)
(emphasis added)

Never mind that the term is used metaphorically. Right "behind" are these unstated but absolutely plain presuppositions:

there's a "war" going on;

this group ("the Globe") assumed as a given a loyalty (though signed pledges weren't a condition to participate, maybe that's to come) to a particular point of view, namely, the centuries-long contested Stratfordian view of Shakespeare as author-identity;

any who didn't conform, any who posted comments deviating from that assumed set of facts were to be regarded as "the enemy" here and, it goes without saying, "enemies" aren't welcome. They're to be fought;

Worse: a Fifth-column, typically refers to organized opposition--so, apparently, all by myself, I've been labelled as not just hostile (for expressing unorthodox opinion here) but an organized force which operates clandestinely on what is generally its home-ground and does this to "undermine" the "established authority" or "order." And, by the nature of the term, I'm supposed to be a "secret" agent of "disruption".

All these things are carried implicitly in the comments in >37 Crypto-Willobie:--- which, as its author shall protest, don't contravene a pledge in >33 Crypto-Willobie:.

This is what we've come to here.

I never gave two cents' credit to the pledge made in >33 Crypto-Willobie:. That's because it has never been other than crystal clear here that its author has, from the very first, hated my views on "Shakespeare" from the very first and, in tandem, hated me for having tried to express them here as if they were just part of a free and fair open debate of literary history.

Literary history!

That's what's involved here. No lives are at stake. And, yet, what I contend is now formally disallowed (and this is with the tacit conniving support of this site's administrators above the group administrators).

When I contend that the current moral climate's censorious character is a creeping threat to all free thought and expression and that this has now installed itself at this site for all (with eyes) to see, this is a prime example of what I mean.

And yet, the objections are very few and very meekly offered.

The pledge in >33 Crypto-Willobie: didn't last a week. That is anything but a surprise to me. This comment is in keeping with a right-of-reply I'd previously asserted would be used.

>31 Crypto-Willobie: Could you let us know in advance which topics/threads will be closed for new comments? Some are easy to guess, but there might be others that are less obvious.

I'll go thru them as soon as I can...

>40 Crypto-Willobie: Thanks.

Specific input welcome on which threads to close, not-close.

I many cases it will be obvious, based on % of Auntie Strat content.
Also 'good' posts can be repatriated to new threads.

Hi, just new here. Just my 2 cents...won't be staying if we aren't going to discuss the plays/sonnets.

>43 Tess_W:
We can discuss anything. Just no posts on the so-called "Shakespeare Authorship Question".