Antiseptic:
"You responded to a perception of the tone of part of what I was saying, rather than the content of the post. Do you disagree with the 200 words or so that preceded my "Pomeranian" jest? If so, why? If not, how is my credibility reduced?"

No, I did not disagree with your first paragraph; in fact I found it most interesting.
However, paragraph 3:
"bingo. The trouble for those of a "delicate" disposition is that they tend to find all sorts of things offensive that are not, to the objective observer."
I contend your comments about Pomeranians were deliberately meant to offend.
I don't know about you, but I am generally drawn back to these discussions by email alerts. When I get an alert to a post from Oliver, Waterboy, Davidf, Frac.. SJF, Rhelda, Daveiy and a host of others, I am keen to see their latest contribution.
Others, however, like Runner or Sells, I generally don't make a special trip for. These people don't offer opinions, they offer FACTS.
Nor do they show any interest in opposing opinions.
There are others I don't bother to read, simply because it is too hard to decipher (under one god) or just aren't pleasant.
I found your recent posts unpleasant.

grim:"I found it most interesting"

So why didn't you respond to it?

grim:"I contend your comments about Pomeranians were deliberately meant to offend."

They were originally intended s a jocular commentary on the way in which the person referred to tends to join in to conversations between others with silly little one-liners that remind me of the yapping of a Pomeranian s it runs around looking for a leg to hump. How he perceives them is his problem. He may well share your view, to which I say "pfft".

grim:"I found your recent posts unpleasant."

What was it you found unpleasant, and why?

Antiseptic:

If there is nothing malicious in your posts why do you feel the need to defend yourself? If they are just ‘jocular comments’ then they should just stand on their merits. If a reader interprets them as anything else then surely it is they who have the problem and the forum is not the place for you to be helping them with their personal problems.

Why do you need to comment on the style of other posters rather than their content? None of us has perfect expression but we do not come here for English lessons. The only other reason would be to try and hurt them by belittling them.

You say that you cannot harm people on the forum even if you wanted to. It is true there are no words that can hurt us and if they do it is our problem but we all have problems and to take advantage of that is the tactic of an aggressive person. If you verbally attack someone that is obese you will probably hurt them since obesity is actually a problem for them. In fact there is no reason to criticise their weight unless it is to hurt them. You may not see the personal problems of other posters or maybe you can but if you fire enough arrows the chances are that some of them will hurt.

Then again if your arrows are, as you say, actually jokes then you will not need to respond to this post.

Antiseptic, I really don't know if I can make my point more clearly. I did not bother to respond to the first part of your post, because I found the second part unpleasant.
I am more than happy to trade opinions with anyone, on the basis of mutual respect. This is probably the most aggravating thing about fundamentalist theists; they are convinced they KNOW the truth, and the rest of us are simply wrong.
Correct that: it is not just theists, but all fundamentalists (if that is a word). I have had stoushes in these forums with fundamentalist Capitalists, fundy socialists fundy AGW denialists and fundy greens. On several occasions I learnt from these people, and modified my own views to some degree.
When it comes to trading insults, however, I believe I mastered that art in primary school. It no longer holds any interest for me, as a debating tactic.
As to your 'Pomeranian' remarks being meant as humour, may I suggest one of the 'fundamental' rules of jesting: don't try and use the same punchline more than once.
It gets old, really quickly.

Phanto, the pomeranian gag is from another thread, which you and grim may not have seen; that is why I explained it. In the face of a stream of silly, personally-directed one-liners from CJ Morgan, I had two options - either complain to GY, or deal with it appropriately. I could have been humourless, with a post such as the one I'm responding to, or I could use a little humour. I chose the latter and it seems to have struck a chord, albeit not necessarily the one I was aiming for. That's the thing with free speech - people are free to interpret one's meaning as well.

As for "style", a few here have taken it upon themselves to critique my own, in the absence of any apparent capacity to critique the content. I don't think I'll be modifying much in response.

phanto:"you will not need to respond to this post."

Oh dear, the old "when did you stop beating your wife?" gag in a new guise.

grim:"one of the 'fundamental' rules of jesting: don't try and use the same punchline more than once. "

May I suggest that you're quite wrong. A standard part of humour is the "running gag", in which the same them is reiterated ad nauseum. In addition, a standard tactic for dealing with hecklers is to categorise them as something risible and then flog the gag mercilesly. It is effective, because the heckler is usually unable to think up more than one or two ripostes before he runs out of steam, just as happened with CJMorgan.

Personally, I like a bit of argy-bargy. If someone has a go at me, I reserve the right to do the same back. I don't, however, intentionally start the ball rolling, as there seem to be plenty willing to take my clear and rational utterances in their own peculiar way and get hot under the collar.

I think it's fascinating that you have still not responded in any way to something you found "most interesting", while you've commented extensively on what is essentially a trivial irrelevancy. Why?

Antiseptic

To complement grim's and phanto's comments.

The problem I have with your style of commenting is not so much the abuse or jocular heckling, or the fact that you mostly disagree with me. I enjoy parrying with people whose views are diametrically opposed to mine, and sometimes abusive heckling can be quite entertaining.

What is most frustrating is that your commentary style has a knack of throwing the actual discussion off the rails. It stops being a discussion about Topic X or Y and, instead, becomes a discussion about you.

If you don't believe me, look back at the last 10 or so comments on this particular thread, and others you've participated in. You're certainly not alone in doing this on OLO (and I won't name names), but you are definitely one of the worst offenders.