'The rules state no flaming which is probably more about how politely you can insult someone and get away with it?'

See this is why you were so missed.

'I’d rather see you call someone an idiot Pelican than listen to someone being called an idiot using 350 very polite words that culminate in the person understanding that they have in fact been called an idiot using the longest available process on OLO.'

Amen.
Now where is the pontificator...

Severin,

I'd just like to make note once again that I have never been suspended, whereas you have.

Poirot,

I've been struggling for some time. A good MTR article to ridicule every now and then is the only thing that's kept me tuning in.

Good grief... Pelly if you get sin binned for calling an idiot by his right name .... woe unto us.

I suppose you 'could' have called in a 'vocabulary challenged, emotionally maladjusted individual given to outbursts of primal action"..but...'idiot' sums it up much better.

Houly... come over to a couple of my threads and release your spleen :)

Have a rant at Socialism on the 'Monkey' thread.

Piper.. I maintain that life would be pretty boring (and unhealthy) if you could never let out what builds up inside. I get 'flamed' in a regular basis and only the last time did something get done about it...but I myself was sinned binned as was another (CJ) who flamed me.
*ouch*

Yeah, but the name calling thing can go too far and you have to ask what sort of site do participants in general want OLO to be. And there is a difference between a comment dripping in vitriole or malice, and one that might even outright call someone an idiot. (No, I can't imagine Foxy's posts to be of that type-I don't know the Foxy story)

Does everyone really want OLO to turn into a free-for-all when the intention is to put forward opinions about all things political, social and economic.

There has to be some rules even it sometimes those grey areas come under Graham's subjectivity as moderator. We wanted Graham to continue as moderator so we have to abide by the rules, this site gives a fair bit of latitude really despite the odd time when one might question the ruling. We shouldn't always expect everything to be perfect or to marry with our own thoughts.

Personally the challenges and comments that make you rethink your own attitudes are sometimes the best ones. Even when Col uses the term 'socialist swill' or Houlley resorts to his favourite 'latte' anecdotes...sigh. :)

What is fun about OLO is people's perceptions. I have been called a socialist, a latte drinker, a hippie, a prude, a nice capitalist, a feminazi, a tree-hugger and a self-righteous atheist. I can cope with the flak but never quite sure how to come back without using words like 'idiot'. TPP, I don't know how to call someone an idiot in 350 nice words even after working with a fair bit of BS in the public service.

I can say thus far I have never been offended nor reported a post except my own for various reasons.

Someone even called Peter Hume a socialist once (heh heh). Just goes to show how one's perceptions are highly influenced depending where one sits on the values/ideology spectrum.

I think all personal argumentation should be deleted, for two reasons.

It is very common for people, when confronted with views that challenge their own, to revert instantly to personal insult. It adds nothing of value to the discussion, it's off-topic and it's tedious.

The personal argument itself also tends to derail any further discussion. If allowed, you get a site where so many threads end in nothing but an ill-graced exchange of abuse.

On the other hand, if A is avoiding personal argument, but B is laying it on, why should A have to put up with the abuse, and forbear replying in kind, just to participate in the discussion?

But most importantly, personal argument shouldn't be allowed because it is precisely most often used by those who who, being proved wrong, have nothing else to reply, and who hope by personal argument to divert attention from the bankruptcy of their own ideas. They should stand or fall on their own merits without the foundation, or decoration, of personal argumentation (across this nation).

Al you do cop more flak than most (even from me occasionally) but you handle it for the most part very well. :)

I actually like rules, I like to know where I am at and what social norms inside a group are that need to be conformed to so that I can belong and not offend, or at least not waste my time wanting to be a part of something that perhaps isn’t for me in the first place.

I’ve come across a few sites where people have appeared to me to be on a slightly more delicate wavelength and balk at that slightest rebuff. Yes in those situations I do step it up a notch; I want to find out if they will actually read a message of mine and promptly faint.

Most would agree (cause I am saying they will) that when rules are vague people are inclined to get confused about what is going on and what should be going on and what is allowed to go on.

But I am trying to get back in the OLO groove.

Now I am sure Graham in his head knows exactly what the rules mean and others have probably been around so long that they gathered the information via osmosis. But I remember things differently, has OLO changed or evolved or de-evolved or shifted slightly or has my memory taken on a rose tint over the year?

Passion was okay, anger was tolerated, personal agendas regularly taken down with aforementioned passionate anger rather than the delete key.

See if someone called me a socialist I’d be like “wha…?” But idiot I can happily cope with. I think that circled back round Pelican into “abuse” being in the eye of the beholder/ abused?

I’m all for Personal Argumentation Peter, it’s a big multi-syllable phrase that I suspect you just invented but I’d like to think I was making use of it somehow now that I’ve heard it.

Al I do like the way you talk. Or did just then, didn't understand a word over in the thread about electricity. :P