It's a funny thing Belly, but I've thought about this and think that often the people who I clash with most here are the ones I would most likely enjoy a night out with.

Contributions here suffer from not just name calling, but sometimes with too much earnestness, and too little humour.

Irony is a hard thing to communicate in a few words, and often comes across as crassness. It's a bit like a joke, if you gotta explain it it just aint worth it.

Satire is all but non-existent here.

Provocation can be gamesy(sic), and not just of bad intent.

My pet peeve is how some insist on 'proof' to justify what are only opinions. Key words here are 'insist' and 'opinions'. Each of us experiences the world in our own way.

So all the best for '08 and keep on truckin'.

Palimpsest I agree, I truly do, but if you think about it you will find a few who you could not sit down with for a single minute.
Do not look for the average poster to find those who concern me, look for those who claim ownership of ideas.
Owner ship of crusades, strangely you will find an intent to own issues and a failure to understand that simple idea, any one can have the answer to any problem.
As evidence for your idea of that cup of coffee or meal let me tell you my closest brother votes conservative.
Hates unions, has the IQ of a garden sparrow, yet he and I can have a drink and a fight together and love it.
As a point of interest my once boss in the union movement, now dead had a few beers with John Howard.
He had also had one with every Labor leader, he reported he would rather drink with Howard than any of them!

Interesting thread.

Part of the discussion has concerned the value of stepping in or leaving it alone.

None of us can hope to address everything that happens here. We will pick up on some stuff and miss other things, we all have post limits, most have limited time and limited capacity to follow the nuances of a discussion which becomes heated or the shared history of combatants.

Having said that I've poked my nose in several occasions when an attack on a poster seems really unfair or way out of line. I've nominated a number of posts for deletion but those have been for serious breaches of forum rules - one was advertising, another was straight flaming with no attempt at article content and I think the others were all proposing violence.

I've appreciated it when other posters have spoken in my defence.

I've been truly glad of my use of an alias when I've been involved in heated discussions with individuals who give the impression that they have no respect for boundaries. Those who might use whatever they have to hurt you if they feel aggrieved. People who I would not want contacting me or my family, my employer or friends.

I know of posters who've left the forum because of the abusive nature of some posters. One in particular I sometimes disagreed with but counted as one of the best.

Belly thanks for starting this and for the other posters who have made serious and valuable contributions (especially Romany) - thanks.

R0bert

I am very glad to see you are still around RObert, I have not seen you in print for a while.
You do set a standard here in my view and while we are on different sides of the fence you have my respect.
I started the thread after considering leaving the forum.
Just as honest as that , yes I went a bit too far in rebutting a barbed and insulting series of insults, I flamed.
Yet it was not aimed at the person I was charged with.
The thread had to come I was forgetting my own posts in rebuttal of my target, some are unable to understand others have the right to their views.
I can do better than that!
It is a shame some do leave forums after such things , I have done so before,but maybe reviewing the events and being a refugee from some posters is the answer.

It was really difficult when I first joined this Forum to learn that not everybody went by the rules of an "academic debate or discussion."
In other words, some people stooped to personal insults. And I was quite taken aback at the sheer venom coming from some of the posters.

It was hard not to react when someone attacked you personally and made assumptions about you that you knew were wrong.

These attacks usually came when you were feeling the most vunerable.
You wanted to shout, "But I'm not like that!" Then you felt the need to explain and justify yourself ...

But with experience, I am learning not to react. I now try not to get involved in personalities - but there are times when the right buttons are pushed and I will "spit the dummy,"( and be ashamed of it later).

I'm not suggesting that we have to agree with each other - What I would like to see is for us to "be civilized," in our discussions.
Just because someone has a different opinion to yours does not make them wrong, or deserving of a "label."

Is this one of the examples we are discussing here?

http://www.atheist-community.org/atheisteve/index.php?id=1

David