What I can't understand is, if some people don't like what is written in these threads, why they even bother to open them, much less take the time to abuse the person who starts them. I'm guessing they like to get their jollies by bullying easy targets. Or maybe the only way they are able to feel good about themselves is by belittling others

If people set themselves up as something, relentlessly promoting themselves and their life's work, then they are openly inviting and actively encouraging criticism, often entirely negative. But it's not a matter of bullying easy targets, rather one of fighting a particular ideological corner that has been breached and otherwise affronted by ideas as odiously inhumane as we find expressed in many of these poems. The only truly offensive thing we find in these threads is the reactionary ideology of the poet coupled with his seemingly desperate need for a platform for a relentless self-promotion which in itself will be regarded with various degrees of suspicion by many here given our own involvements with creative work, on whatever level.

Apart from anything else, Mudcat is a place of recreation; a place to sit around and chat, with a little bit of self-promotion here and there, but for the most part we're just getting on with what we do in our creative / professional lives and coming here for a bit crack on topics that interest and amuse us. There are other places for self-promotion and publication - and, personally, I would dearly love to see an end of it on Mudcat.