Originally Posted by jseal

Steph,

Your post above emphasizes my concern about how few registered users here post. Please take a moment to review this thread. Think of how it may appear to a registered user who has not yet mustered up the courage to start a thread. After removing the personalities, this is what she or he can look forward to:

1. The very first response is one challenging a base assumption of the thread.

2. After our thread starter defends the assumption, the next post advocates an alternative definition, which if accepted, denies the validity of the thread.

3. She accepts the debate, and challenges her challenger, but the response she gets takes the form that the advocated alternative is an opinion formed beforehand and which does not need back up.

4. Now Challenger #2 posts, also without substantiation, that “it's so obviously the case.”

5. The thread starter replies to this new post that there are an awful lot of opinions that were once obvious but are no longer, and identifies a few.

6. The first challenger mistakes this response and irately begins a reply with “WTF”, the common acronym for “What The Fuck”.

7. So now our thread starter replies that her reply to challenger #2 had to do with challenger #1, and opines that there seems to be different ideas about conversation afoot here.

8. Challenger #1, who initiated the debate, then criticizes the thread starter for engaging in a debate.

9. Now another – new poster to the thread, mind you – after the obfuscation is removed, advises the thread starter to eat shit.

… and it goes on and on and on with other personal attacks and insults towards the thread starter.


I think that an environment like this is very uninviting to anyone thinking about starting a thread for the first time.