Well, we can always get Hamlet to post another provocation question along the lines of "How do I learn how to read?" :-D

brb - I need to change for church.

Stack Overflow dealt with this problem years ago: they were getting a lot of questions which were somehow relevant to programmers but not really about programming. It culminated with a question along the lines of "how do I program while living on a boat?", which attained some level of notoriety and is (IIRC) one of only two questions ever to be hard-deleted from the system so it's not even visible to 10k users.

In summary: not everything related to a Stack's topic is on topic for that Stack, and this is good.

Others will probably know more than I about the details of what went down there, but you can read about it on this meta question:

I agree that there should be some more meta discussion on author questions. I disagree that it's obvious such things are on topic.

I agree that it's not obvious. It's also not obvious that it's not on-topic.

You know what story-id questions are sapping energy and attention from? Meta-level discussions about more important and fundamental issues like the above.

They're a tiny percentage of mainsite presence but taking up a ridiculous amount of our behind-the-scenes attention.

@FuzzyBoots Absolutely it's not obvious. I think it's inevitable, but not obvious.

@BESW What attention are they taking up, really? I haven't seen any big meta discussions about them recently. It seems to be just a couple of people getting their proverbial knickers in a twist about them here in chat, and a few more people engaging in a debate with those first people.

@Randal'Thor Well, yes. That's why I said meta-level, rather than meta.

It'd be silly to pretend that just because chat discussions are ultimately thirdspace chatter which shouldn't impact main site policies, the time and energy spent here isn't drawing on the same user resources that meta and mainsite also draw on.

Whenever someone pops into chat to whinge about how [thing] is going to destroy lit.se, that concern is NOT being fed into a channel that'd actually get things done about it.

Sure. But I think (or at least hope) that story-ID discussion of the kind we've been having today is more of a one-off thing than something that's going to become a protracted debate and divert our attention from more important discussions for a long time.

FWIW, the only answer to the question of whether we can ask about the authors and their work was a positive "Sure, you can ask about authors as long as it relates to their work". meta.literature.stackexchange.com/a/152/96 If we're going to say that that is not valid to ask, we probably need to amend that.

@BESW And we do have a meta question about it. We just never came to a consensus as best I can tell. :)

@FuzzyBoots keep in mind that meta posts can get out of date as site consensus changes

@FuzzyBoots Then the next question is if that C.S. Lewis homosexuality thing actually does relate to his work.

It doesn't seem to make much of a point of showing that it does.

I just asked a meta question about the Lewis question, feel free to direct all of your thoughts there :)

It feels a bit more like that "What is JKR bad at" question.

@Hamlet Indeed. :) And I know you dislike the SF&F comparisons, but one of the things we've done is amend those posts as the start of the art advances.

@FuzzyBoots Ooh, that's one of the very few Lit meta questions I've somehow missed voting on.

I would've answered it if I'd seen it earlier. I actually answered the same question way back on Area51.

Hello folks, is there a dedicated room for poetry discussion?

@FuzzyBoots Trivially bypassable as phrased in the meta: "Does JRRT have a favourite sandwich and does he mention it in any of his books?"

@anuvaramban Not specifically for poetry, but this is the room for discussion of all literature including poetry. Welcome!

@anuvaramban We haven't had a need for one yet! Feel free to bust in with your commentary here.

@BESW Thank you for the enthusiasm, i was wondering if this was the appropriate place to discuss original poetry

@Randal'Thor Thank you again

@BESW Right. But if you ask whether Charles Dickens had an opinion on workhouses and if it was mentioned in his works, we're right back on topic again because he did have a lot to say, and he said it.

@FuzzyBoots So clearly it's not a useful criterion and we need to look deeper, if the judgement of topicality can only be made based on answers and not on the question itself.

@anuvaramban For writing poetry, you may find Writers's chat, The Overlook Hotel, more useful.

@BESW Tks, looking into it now

I'm personally very fond of The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. But, then again, my tastes lie more towards limericks than great works. :)

@anuvaramban Whenever I've been working with lit.se too much, it's "Introduction to Poetry," by Billy Collins.

There's many nice things, but as with everything in life, pinning down a single definite favourite is hard to impossible.

@NapoleonWilson I apologise, one of your favourites to start with! :D

@FuzzyBoots I'm gonna venture you like dark comedy as well :)

@BESW Indeed. And I'll certainly yield that it opens us to a multitude of "Did X talk about Y" questions. But as it stands, we don't have a clear policy other than "Is this question about literature?"

But I'm also fond of Roger White's gently chiding rebuttal to TS Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

@BESW Never seen this one! thanks for the link

"To a Mouse" by Robert Burns is one I also enjoy for its evocative language and the way it just kind of meanders around the question of what role humans have in nature.

@anuvaramban Hmm, some of the classics, I guess, like The Raven or the Erlkönig. I don't read poetry too often.

:-P Well, and Shel Silverstein is hard to ignore when it comes to poetry...

@BESW Also a good one.

I'm fond of that Dickinson poem about going to the beach with Carlo... [rummages for link]

"I started Early – Took my Dog –" by Emily Dickinson.

I like The Waste Land. I also like Finnegans Wake

@NapoleonWilson Nice! My knowledge of classics is limited to Dance of Death by IronMaiden

;)

(Dickinson named her dog after the dog in Jane Eyre.)

Anyhow, duty calls. Good discussion, friends.

@anuvaramban Which...isn't a bad choice either, though.

I really admire Robert Hayden, but I wouldn't say any of his poetry is exactly favourite material. It's beyond such things.

@NapoleonWilson My square favourite is shelley, Ozymandias is just beautiful

@anuvaramban Though, if you want to combine classic poetry with Maiden, take The Rime of the Ancient Mariner instead (which I also think is a better song). ;-)

@NapoleonWilson Yes! RotAM is very epic indeed

@NapoleonWilson Have you heard of the Mariner's Revenge Song by Decembrists?

No.

@NapoleonWilson There you go -> youtube.com/watch?v=lEmy2DBaeTc

@BESW @FuzzyBoots Hmm, this is an interesting point, and one which I should possibly incorporate into my meta answer.

@anuvaramban If I had to name a single favourite, I'd probably go classical and say "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. But there's a lot of poetry out there, the vast majority of which I've never seen or read or even heard of, so it's hard to judge.

@Randal'Thor agreed, we will probably never read the vast majority as well.

...

I keep hitting enter instead of backspace o_o

...What the heck am I still doing awake? It's two AM.

I'll be back in the morning. I'm expecting blue, green, and red notifications :P

... and the wizard departed, in a shower of coloured stars.

There are also some poems I've read years ago and mostly forgotten, but just a few lines have stuck in my memory.