so apparently you can't critique things and discuss ideas without going personal. this is the theme I see in a lot of "critiquing" that some poeple do. Not everyone and I wasn't saying you specifically are a nazi critiquer either. I wasn't talk about you at all. in fact I barely ever see you post in here let alone critique anything, sooooooooo for me I haven't had any complaints or issues with how you critique. but to say that negative critiquing is helpful is so far fetched that it's laughable. It can be if done right, and I have never said don't give someone something to work on but the way most people who do it is not helpful. IT tends to scares people away and makes them not want to share their poetry again-at least not for a long time, which is not helping them but giving them a complex. there is two ways of approaching life-well 2 main ways anyways I am sure there are others but most I have seen fit into this. There is something called the medical model-that is where you look at what a problem is and try to fix it. you don't look at the person, the whole picture or what other compounding factors may be involved. For example you see a poem that doesn't flow or have structure or rhymes or what ever and you pick the poem apart based on those flaws. Most people don't seem to pick on just one of the flaws but find many to dump onto the writer. They don't look at the imagery or clever word combos or the metaphors they used. Then there is the strength based model. Where you acknowledge that there is issues but there is also strengths. You tell the person what they are doing well and what their strengths are, then you help them work on their weaknesses or where they need to improve. ie: I really like the image that these word combonation created, however it seems to break up in the next line and I lose the meaning of the poem. In strength-based model you look at everything, not just what the problem is. One thing that needs to be kept in mind here is this is not a magazine or a publishing place-you are not the editors, and this is not a classroom so leave your issues with how you learned to critique poetry and what your professors said to crush your work at home. You don't need to provoke people or personalize what their area for improvement may be because you were forced to give up on that form of poetry or style when you were learning. And if you have concerns with how I mod take up with me in PM's or with a super mod, it doesn't belong in here.