WHAT A DILEMMA YOU'VE LEFT ME WITH!! >:-/

The large bandwidth-eating thread beginning with "Exasperations of tau" is full of what probably is useful venting BUT it is otherwise a waste of Forum resources AND SHOULD BE DELETED FOR THAT REASON ALONE.

Practical PatriotLad has no time for wading through tau's ramblings to find out what tau is trying to say. I "get" that, and PatrioLad is not the only one who feels that way - but Esclarmonde makes a good point in saying there might be something useful in tau's verbosity if we'll tilt our heads just right so we can find it. Esclarmonde thinks tau is coming from a place of spirit.

ZAPPER did, does, and probably will continue to think Esclarmonde is being too gracious about this, and that tau's problem is "flabby, self-indulgent rhetoric", like, "My thoughts are too high to be reined in by the needs of effective communication." In some circles this is known as "being so heavenly as to be of no earthly use"!

RogueButterfly "gets" where tau is coming from - but it's because tau and RogueButterfly are fixed on the same fundamental premise - which, as close as I can make it out, is "The Jews have done it all!"

THE BOTTOM LINE: tau (who seems to mean well) and RogueButterfly (who seems habitually overcome with emotion about her favorite topic) are IN DANGER OF LOSING POSTING PRIVILEGES HERE unless they can "shape up" and "tone it down" respectively.

TAU: It's clear you're TRYING to fit in. PLEASE KEEP TRYING. I can see you've started posting REPLIES as NEW SEPARATE THREADS - I understand that you're doing that to avoid the problem of having the complete text of the message you're replying to, in your own message. PLEASE LEARN HOW TO DELETE THE QUOTED TEXT - try Control-Shift-End, then Delete - AND DON'T "BREAK" THE THREAD INTO SCATTERED BITS by replying in a separated post.

TAU, there's a suspicion that you're "an agent" of some sort. Your rambling posts are like a Rohrshach Test - people see what they're likely to see in them BUT THEY DON'T PROVIDE A CLEAR ENOUGH POINT SO THAT PEOPLE CAN EITHER AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE SAYING. DARE TO STATE YOUR TRUTH AND MAKE YOUR CASE, INSTEAD OF AVOIDING THE RESPONSIBILITY OF DOING THAT, BY REFERRING TO EVERYTHING-UNDER-THE-SUN IN HOPES THAT OTHERS WILL DRAW THE SAME CONCLUSIONS YOU HAVE, ON THEIR OWN. Otherwise, your messages are seeds of discord - as shown by the recent long thread we're talking about.

ROGUEBUTTERFLY: Same thing, different "flavor" - IT'S THE _TONE_ OF YOUR POSTS THAT IS THE PROBLEM - THERE'S AN UNDERCURRENT OF "KILL THEM ALL AND LET GOD SORT THEM OUT!" THAT HELPS NEITHER THE FORUM AS A WHOLE NOR THE POINT YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE. PLEASE TONE IT DOWN. If you can, provide the substantiation for your conclusions, so that others can follow the trail and see if they'd agree with your conclusions. MAKE THE CASE for what you believe.

"I FEEL YOUR PAIN..." These circumstances are not at all clear cut, as the participants in the 'Exasperations' thread have demonstrated. I'M TAKING NO ACTION AT THIS TIME because of that - BUT I MAY HAVE TO TAKE ACTION FOR THE SAKE OF THE FORUM - AND, NOT TRIVIALLY, FOR THE SAKE OF RUMILL'S _CREDIBILITY_ IN THE EYES OF OTHERS - WHETHER I PERSONALLY WOULD LIKE TO OR NOT unless some creative, useful changes can be made.

FINAL NOTE: The _civility_ of the 'Exasperations' thread does credit to us all. In spite of some sharp differences, NO ONE GOT NASTY TOWARD ANYONE ELSE - INSTEAD, A RESPECTFUL SENSE OF COLLEGIALITY PREVAILED - AND THAT IS NO SMALL ACHIEVEMENT. "We" can be proud of that - there are many venues in cyberspace where it would not have turned out that way.

This place is special. Let's continue to pull together in allowing it to remain that way.

---- ZAPPER WHAPPER [out]