"Though often enough, whilst he/she exercises the same ol' tautology, there appears to be some incertitude apropos what exactly, Ginx is endeavouring to dispute and convey ?"

Good grief!! upongo;-you go from the subslime to the ridiculous!

I do have to ask, Ginx: was 'subslime' a brilliant typo or a clever play on words? I'm impressed.

................................it wasn't a typo................

SEE what I mean ? how could we get through a day without some interesting (though vacuous) input from dear Ginx :)

Why would Graham ban someone so entertaining?

Sadly Steph (if you're still watching), this is the natural evolution of the kind of thing I was talking about (though I honestly forgot about it because I tend to avoid these threads).

A thread can go two ways:

1
Enough dumb people rigorously reject and debunk stupid stereotypes until they (quickly) cease to exist in the thread because everyone who holds onto them has left realizing they are really out of their league, and take the issue to a more advanced level of debate until all major relevant points and topics are exhausted and the thread concludes.

2
Most people ignore what the smarter ones have said (doesn't matter which side of the issue- or both), and keep repeating the stereotypes until they effectively dominate the thread because the people that know better give up trying to teach the children and leave.
After the stereotypes have been exhausted the thread deteriorates into some superficial stance (eg Australian 1800s prison colony somehow being a factor), and from there it becomes a childish namecalling match, at which point the 'winner' is the person who held onto the dead topic for longest and the last to stop making posts.
(the worst part is, some people reading this sincerely make this their plan)

Steph, in conclusion you assumed more logically-sound people would approach the topic- the sad truth is that from experience, the smart people have to get there first and set a standard- and a lot of them have to do it or else they get quickly obscured by rubbish.

Thank you Bruce. What a brave and incisive article. Please keep at it.

Some years ago I had one article published in OLO, about Corby lighting up the remains of White Australia. There were some 150 comments, the majority of which were of the same nature as those attracted to your article. However there was support from some solid citizens. Sadly they are not here any more. I wonder why? You see, I was not able to have two other articles accepted after my first one.

cheers

Chek