Ponder This / George J. Dance

George J. Dance

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Sep 13, 2022, 2:10:59 PM9/13/22

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Ponder This

Alas! Alack! Oh, woe is me!
I am in Mohit Misery.

I spent good money on a book
of poems without a preview look

then found, when I had ope'd it up
row after row of silly coup-

lets, half of which don't scan
(though the poet gets a rhyme in whenever he can)

while the other half make zero sense;
a carpark often has a fence.

In life there's many a tragedy,
but none like Mohit Misery.

I'll even pray to heaven, please
relieve us from Mo Miseries.

- George J. Dance
from Ponder This, 2015

General-Zod

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Sep 13, 2022, 6:10:01 PM9/13/22

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Quite interesting... would like to hear the back story...!

George J. Dance

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Sep 13, 2022, 7:01:27 PM9/13/22

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I don't want to dox the guy, but I see Corey's already done that. So,
first: it's about this "Mohit Mis--" who'd published a chapbook and was
spamming ads for it all over usenet, including groups where he was being
begged and flamed to stop.

So I spent a month doing some kook-busting. I wrote this poem as a copy
of his style. Then I began daily searching usenet for his spam (in those
days, it was possible to search usenet, not just one group, using
google), and post my poem as a reply to his ads. It did put an end to
them, and a few people thanked me for it.

Second: it went into the April section of "Doggerel," which you may
remember me talking about posting into aapc this year. That's been a bit
derailed, and I welcome the chance to get back to it.

Third: this was a good way to get back to the above project, due to the
ongoing discussion of how and when to use the word "Alas" making it
suddenly relevant. Notice how my use tells the reader, right up front,
that it's a comic poem.

W.Dockery

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Sep 17, 2022, 5:09:13 AM9/17/22

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George J. Dance wrote:

> On 2022-09-14 10:29 p.m., Michael Pendragon wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 8:02:56 PM UTC-4,
> george...@yahoo.ca wrote:
> >> On 2022-09-14 3:50 p.m., Michael Pendragon wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 12:43:35 PM UTC-4,
> george...@yahoo.ca wrote:
> >>>> On 2022-09-13 7:59 p.m., Michael Pendragon wrote:
> >>>>> On Tuesday, September 13, 2022 at 7:01:26 PM UTC-4,

> >>>>> Pity you couldn't have a adopted a similar tack with regard to
> Will Donkey's spam.
> >>>>>
> >>>> I've never seen any evidence of Will advertising his book on other
> than
> >>>> groups he was already posting on.
> >>>
> >>> That's good, because I was referring to *this* group.
> >>>
> >>> You'll note that you'd said: "spamming ads for it all over usenet,

> including groups where he was being
> >>> begged and flamed to stop."
> >>>

> >>> That fits Will Donkey and AAPC to a "T".
> >> Like hell it does. Posting, or even "spamming", to one group (that one's
> >> already on) is not spamming "all over Usenet", and you know it.
> >
> > I don't know any such thing, George. You haven't defined what "all
> over usenet" means. How many usenet groups constitute "all over"?>

> Oh, you want to start (over) with definitions. Great idea. Let's start
> with the definition of "spamming usenet". The Current Usenet spam
> thresholds and guidelines (posted here in March define it as posting a
> "substantively identical" message to an "excessive" number of groups.
> The latter is measured by the Breidbart Index, or BI (the sum of the
> square roots of the number of groups to which each post was made).
> For example, 2 posts of the same message (one crossposted to 9 groups,
> and one to 4) have a BI of 5, while posting it separately to the same 13
> groups would have a BI of 13. A message with a BI of more than 20 in a
> 45-day period is cancellable spam.

> As for "all over usenet", I'll stick with the standard usage:
> "1: over the whole extent
> decorated all over with a flower pattern
> 2: EVERYWHERE
> looked all over for the book"
> https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allover

> Here's the data:
> https://groups.google.com/search/conversations?q=%22Ponder%20Awhile%22

> If you have trouble with the definitions, you're of course welcome to
> offer your own.

> > How many usenet groups has Will Donkey spammed it to?

> Since you haven't shown yet that Will has done any spamming (exceeded
> the BI), you're begging the question.

> > I fully suspect that he's spammed it to a dozen or more usenet groups.

> > And whether he's spammed it to groups that he's already a member of
> is irrelevant. You did not specify that Mohit spammed it to groups
> where he wasn't already a member. You only said that he spammed it to
> groups after they'd begged him to stop.

> I don't think it's irrelevant to point it out at all. There's a
> difference between promoting something on the groups you already post
> to, and posting about it on groups you've never posted to before or
> since. As I said, though, it is a side issue; once you've shown that
> Will did any "spamming," we can talk about that.

> > The Donkey has spammed his book to AAPC dozens of times, even though
> he's been asked to stop, told to stop, and reported to Google for spamming.

> Oh, I'm sure Will has posted more than 25 OPs on his book to aapc in the
> past 3 years. If he's posted the same message to aapc more than 20 times
> in 45 days, that could be considered spamming, but I doubt he has. (You
> cannot count different posts with the same message in the backthread, of
> course; or different messages with the same sig line.)
> >
> >>> I doubt that you actually have any,
> >>>> but I'll point out the onus is on you to show some if you expect to be
> >>>> believed.
> >>>
> >>> I have ample proof to support what I'd actually claimed.
> >>>
> >>
> >>>>> Oh... that's right... you published it.
> >>>> I sure did. That's why your libelling of Will in this respect concerns
> >>>> me, because you're also libelling me.
> >>>
> >>> Actually, I would be "libeling" you (sp) -- if such were, in fact,
> the case.
> >> "libel verb
> >> li·bel | ˈlī-bəl
> >> libeled or libelled; libeling or libelling ˈlī-b(ə-)liŋ "
> >> https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/libelling
> >>
> >> Next time check it out the spelling of a word before trying a spelling
> >> lame. Just a thought.
> >
> > Doubling "l"s is tres passé.

> >>> However since I'd only implied that 1) Will spams AAPC with ads for
> his book, and that
> >> No, you "implied" that Will was "spamming all over usenet" just like
> >> the kook who inspired my poem.

> > As previously noted, I highly doubt that the Donkey has limited his
> spam to one group.
> > Let's see... an archive search for "selected poems 1976-2019" turns
> up 6,576 results. That's a shipload of spam by anyone's standards.

> Oh, indeed: 6,576 copies of the same post is a lot of posts. But you
> haven't shown that all 6,000+ are substantively the same, or even looked
> at the content. Some of them are replies by Will in threads where the
> book is being discussed; some are replies by him where the book is
> mentioned only in the backthread; in some he uses the book title and
> url as a sig line; and some weren't even written by him.

> > The archives also show that he's spammed it to alt.poetry,
> alt.arts.poetry, rec.arts.poems, rec.music.beatles, -- and that's just
> from the 240 most recent posts.

> According to my own searches, since October 2019 (when the book came out):

> - Will has made 7 posts to rec.arts.poems containing the phrase
> "selected poems":
> https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.poems/search?q=%22selected%20poems%22%20author%3Awill%20author%3Adockery&hl=en

> - He made one post to alt.poetry containing the words "selected poems"
> in that time:
> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.poetry/search?q=selected%20poems%20author%3AWill%20author%3ADockery

> - He also made one post using those words on rec.music.beatles (not the
> same post as the one to a.p):
> https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.beatles/search?q=Selected%20Poems%20author%3AWill%20author%3ADockery

> - and he has made zero posts to alt.arts.poetry that used that phrase
> since 2015:
> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.arts.poetry/search?q=Selected%20Poems%20author%3AWill%20author%3ADockery
> Your search probably captured the one post I made to aap that used the
> phrase:
> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.arts.poetry/search?q=Selected%20Poems )

> >> You may have learned something. (Two, counting my advice on making
> >> spelling lames.)
> >> 2) you were the schnook who published it for him, both of my claims are
> >> readily substantiated.
> >>>
> >> Of course I published Will's book. Stop whinging about it.
> >
> > Need I remind you that you are the one claiming to have been libeled
> (i.e., whining).

> You made a false accusation with malicious intent -- since we're on
> definitions today, I'll remind you that's the definition of libel.

> > You have yet to show any proof to back up your statement.

> Michael, we're not in court. We're on aapc (where, according to you, if
> you accuse someone of making a false accusation you don't have to prove
> it, remember?).

> > In fact, your *only* argument was that your original statement about
> Mohit (which I subsequently applied to Will) implied that he'd spam
> posted to an undisclosed number of usenet groups, whereas Will had only
> spammed a single group.

> No, I did not argue that Will had "only spammed a single group".

> > While that would hardly count for libel even if it were true, that
> simply is not the case. Will spammed it to at least 5 usenet groups (in
> a total of 6,576 posts).

> > You sir, stand corrected.

> You have shown that there have been a lot of posts about the book on
> aapc. That's all you've shown so far.

Well put, George Dance

Thanks again for correcting the lies and misrepresentations and setting the record straight.

HTH and HAND.

George J. Dance

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Sep 20, 2022, 4:18:53 PM9/20/22

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I hope it's enough to put the "spamming" nonsense to rest and get back
to the poem.

PT is a wicked, intentionally exaggerated, copy of the poor guy's style;
but it isn't the only one I wrote. My Martian poem, "Religions", was
based on one of his poems with the same name.

Victor H.

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Sep 22, 2022, 10:04:57 PM9/22/22

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Indeed... let us make it so....!

George J. Dance

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Nov 9, 2022, 9:09:44 PM11/9/22

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Agreed.

General-Zod

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Feb 1, 2024, 5:50:13 PM2/1/24

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Another good read of another good poem...