Wolfgang wrote:


Engaging in insult and invective puts one in the company of (if not
necessarily on a par with) the likes of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift,
Clemens, Wilde, Shaw, Mencken, and innumerable lesser luminaries, and
that's just the ones who wrote in English.

****! You must be VERY special. None of those guys ever insulted me.


Maybe it is just Darwinism in play.


That metaphor has long been stretched way past the breaking point. No
one has to participate here. Darwin had nothing to say about such a
world.


I
disagree with your comment about wording, I don't think the

discussions

would be any less lively if people were nice to each other because I

think

more people would participate and more ideas would come forth.


There are plenty of moderated fishing fora on the web. How do they
compare? More to the point, if they are better why would anyone
interested only in talk of fishing even WANT to be here?


That one too "has long been stretched way past the breaking point". If
someone complains about personal attacks, the lack of fishing related
talk or some of the other behavior on ROFF, the assumption is
immediately made that the person ONLY wants to talk about fishing. That
MAY be true but maybe that person is just commenting about some things
he doesn't like. For example, it seems to me that if it is OK for
someone to be called an "asshole", it's also OK for that person to
complain about it.

Willi