The Poet Sanctuary

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WRITERS WORKSHOP
Constructive Poetry Critique
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The Poet Sanctuary's Terms Of Service
Last Updated: May 2012

The Poet Sanctuary is provided as a free public service to you, the poet. As such, we reserve the
right to refuse service to whomever we choose. As a member of our website you are subject to the
following terms of service which may be updated from time to time without notice.

We do our best to make The Poet Sanctuary one of the best free poetry communities on the web.
However, as with many sites, there are certain rules that we ask our members and visitors to follow.
We've set aside our own guidelines that we'd like our members to follow while posting in the
community to keep things civil, interactive, and friendly. We ask our members to follow these simple
rules. Breaking these guidelines may cause your account to be suspended for a period of time by our
Administration depending on your offense and/or may even merit banishment from our forums. You
will no longer be able to actively participate at TPS.

General Forum Posting Guidelines

In order to keep TPS active please reply to at least 3 other writers' posts for every one that you make.

We all appreciate mild and supportive comments. Voluntary staff work hard to ensure that each post within
the forum receives at least 3 replies. When every member contributes replies at a 3:1 ratio, it helps with
reviews to your work, yours to others, and keeps the site running effectively.

Please limit yourself to posting 3 new pieces of work in a given board per day. We also ask that you
post your poem on "one" board only: we will delete excessive posts to avoid flooding.
TPS is a family oriented site: please refrain from posting overly explicit or crude writing. This includes
bathroom humor.

NOTE: The Poet Sanctuary is a free managed community. We reserve the right to remove, edit, or
move any messages for any reason. When this is done, we will notify you via Private Message.

To Those Of You Seeking Constructive Criticism

We provide a separate board for comprehensive critique. If you're interested in receiving advice on how to
improve your work, go to our Writers' Workshop. Please keep in mind that this particular board alone is
dedicated to overt criticism. Rules for using the Writers' Workshop boards differ from the rest of the
website so please take a moment to read them before participating! A mature attitude is required in this
section so you won't take offense at harsh reviews and re-write suggestions.

TPS Guidelines/Terms Of Service

Try limiting yourself to posting 3 pieces of work a day. Posting mass amounts of work won't necessarily
gain you more feedback but most likely, will ward members away from viewing your posts.

For each post you make, please leave feedback on 3 other writers' pieces. Giving replies helps you
and other members receive a variety of feedback. We welcome mild comments and reviews. The Writers'
Workshop is a separate board for members seeking harsher, constructive critiques.

Upon placing your work on our forum, please make an offline copy for yourself. TPS is not liable for
any lost work. Should you be banned from our forum we are not responsible, nor are we entitled, to send
you a copy of your posted material. This also applies to feedback, Private Messages, and any other
material or discussions anywhere on the website.

Respect each other and our differences. TPS is an international, multi-cultural site where members have
a wide range of differing principles. Should you post in a language other than English we appreciate
when you also include an English translation in the original thread.

Discussion topics that are found to be overly controversial, causing arguments between members,
offensive, and/or discriminatory will usually be removed from the site. These include, but are not limited
to, topics discussing religion and topics discussing sexual preferences. We no longer have a philosophical
debate forum for good reason. If unsure about suitability for posting, please send it to a staff member
before submitting.

Detailed criticism and suggested rewrites are not appropriate in the Realm of Poetry. Please go to our
Writers' Workshop.

We do not abide posts that denigrate members from other poetry sites or TPS members. Any posts
found containing this subject matter will be deleted. TPS is based on respect and we recommend you
acquire much of that same respect when posting. If you wish to speak of anyone in an adverse fashion,
please keep his or her identity confidential. TPS does not tolerate libel, defamation or harassment of our
members or staff, either privately or publicly.

Deal with personal disagreements off the site. If you conflict with someone on the forum, discuss it
maturely through private messages or email! Do not post disputes in discussion boards or continue an
argument in the thread where disagreement began. Should another person do so, please report it to the
Administrative staff. Clashes must be dealt with sensibly and privately.

FLAMING IS not acceptable! Soft critiques are welcome. However denigrating an author's piece simply
because you do not like it is rude and selfish. If you cannot be polite and positive, then please do not
reply. Please refrain from making unkind remarks towards an author. Flaming is not permitted on the
boards or in Private Messages. Anyone found leaving flaming comments will receive a warning and, if
these types of comments continue, we issue Account Warnings. After 3 Account Warnings, we ban the
account. If you simply do not like a write or disagree with expressed opinions, skip over it.

Explicit Material - We don't suppress creativity in what you choose to "write". Certain writing is not suitable
to post in our family-oriented community. When found on the forum, we will delete threads with the
following content: bashing any race, gender, age, sexual preference, social status, political or religious
view. We do not allow overly explicit material. Any sexually explicit material that we deem distastefully
written will be removed! You agreed to COPPA law upon registration, which means we try to keep all
content on our forum PG-13 compliant.If you post a write that includes tastefully written or very vague
explicit sexual references, please put a Mature warning in your title before you post it! We also do not
accept crude work: this includes bathroom humor, any offensive writes, and bestiality. If you're
unsure about suitability for posting, please send it to an Administrator for approval beforehand!

Picture/Avatar Restrictions - TPS does not allow images that display nudity or obscene vulgarity. TPS is
considered a family oriented site with our member age starting at 13y/o. We do operate under the COPPA
law. We remove any images found on TPS containing lewd material and Warn or Ban the person who
posts them.

Plagiarism - The Poet Sanctuary does not tolerate plagiarism! Any account found on the forum posting
plagiarized work (not your original material) is permanently banned immediately. This includes sketches,
paintings, and photos on the Canvas board and songs in The Songwriter's Block. If you use excerpts from
any other work, that is NOT your own, we strongly recommend that you give credit where credit is due.

Homework Help - please do not ask for help with homework or assignments. If you joined solely for TPS
member's feedback to assist you gaining higher grades, we will terminate your account.

Copyrights - The Poet Sanctuary IS NOT and CANNOT be held responsible for any lost or stolen work.
The author is responsible to keep copies and properly copyright their material before posting it anywhere
on the Internet. TPS is provided as a free service to showcase your work; we do not hold any legal rights to
your work. Note: We have set up the forum so that only registered account members may view authors'
postings however, this is the only security measure that we, and many other sites, have. We strongly
advocate that you copyright your material before sharing it on the Internet in any way.

Report TOS Violations! If you find a thread, comment, signature, or image that you find personally
offensive, or feel may be against our Terms Of Service, please report it to the Administrative staff.

Account Warnings - TPS has a "three strikes and you're out" policy! Upon major violations of our Terms Of
Service offenders receive a 1 - 3 warning on their profiles. The warning is viewable only to those
members with the warning and our Administrative staff. Should the member receive 3 Warnings the
account is then permanently banned. Also, warnings are a permanent fixture on your account; we will not
remove them! Please do not try creating a new account to rid yourself of these warnings: we monitor extra
accounts and the warnings carry over!

Banishment - Upon creating a membership with our website you agree that we may permanently
terminate your membership should you violate any TOS, written or unwritten, without prior notification. As
a free service we reserve the right to terminate any and all accounts that breach our terms; this also
applies to accounts with matching IP addresses. TPS is not and cannot be held liable for yours or others'
actions.

The Poet Sanctuary's Anti-Spam Policy

THE POET SANCTUARY DOES NOT SUPPORT SPAM/ADVERTISING! Please, do not spam our members
with your website links..

Be warned: if you joined TPS for the sole purpose of ripping and spamming our members, or for
advertising of any kind, your account will be banned from the forum without warning. Members may not
Spam here.

SPAM includes promoting your personal poetry site, blog, or myspace links, etc where you post poetry. We
also monitor signatures and thread posts so do not include links. Youtube, and similar audios, are
permitted only where the link is directly to a spoken poem or to a song, performed by you and posted on
TPS' appropriate board. Links to collections of writing or songs are not acceptable. We will be removing any
Spam found on the site or the Facebook group.

On The Poet Sanctuary, members may use their link as Homepage in their Profile. Please note that
member profiles and e-mail addresses are "private" and we highly monitor private messages through the
site's system. We will not support spam so don't do it here.

All text posted at this site express the views of the author, and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the owners and administrators of this site.

All submitted items are Copyright to their submitter/original author.
All the rest Copyright 2002- 2025 by The Poet Sanctuary
Please copyright your material; we are not responsible for stolen work.

All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owners.

FORUM STAFF
Feel free to send us a Private
Message if you have any
questions or need assistance!

Main Webmaster
Chelle

Other Administrators
Co-Administrators
Terence

We also have a handful of
Moderators who help us
around the board. They are
not listed here as they are an
ever changing, but greatly
appreciated, part of our staff.