Skipper wrote:


Do you believe your admonition will moderate his behavior, Chuck? Does
he *ever* post about boats or boating? Do you really think he has the
capacity to ever 'get it'? The sad reality is that some are not here for
on-topic discussions. The cruising NG has found the right answer for
these mindless trolls...and that should be the goal for this forum.
Simple solutions are best, IMO.

--
Skipper

I'm pretty distressed to hear that my philosophical disagreement with
JimH about the best course for rec.boats to take reads as an
"admonition". It wasn't intended to be. Jim has every right to express
his opinion. I have every right to disagree. As he points out, as long
as we avoid personal insults and name calling, that's not such a bad
thing. The problem is that history proves again and again that the mix
of personalities in rec.boats (and in most NG's if you look around)
*cannot* discuss a wide range of subjects without devolving to some
pretty nasty behaviors. Perhaps its a sign of the times, and there are
a lot of muddy skirts around in this regard.....certainly including my
own.

Are we a chatroom, or a newsgroup?

As I have said all along, if we want a chatroom we've had a dandy and
there is no need for anybody to change anything from the late November,
early December model where the majority of threads were OT, and even
the on topic threads quickly devolved into flame fests. If we want to
be a useful newsgroup, we may have to settle for fewer total posts per
day in order to attract a greater number of particpants and posts. As
we were, we were seeing example after example of new people coming to
the group, making a post or two, and then (presumably) running for the
exit holding their cyber noses. Who can blame them?

Why are OT threads a problem, even when the original poster avoids
calling names, etc?
In my opinion and observation, it's because 99% of the bitchy behavior
in this group occurs in OT threads. People then carry those personal
disputes into the on-topic threads and we suddenly have the Hatfields
and the McCoys all over hell. It's because I know darn well, (or
should), that even posting "George Bush did this yesterday" in as
objective a manner as I could manage, to *this* group, is going to
rally a half dozen people to declare that Bush is an idiot who stole
two elections and another half dozed to proclaim that he will be
remembered as the greatest president since Lincoln, at least, and given
the remainder of his second term he could easily eclipse ol' Abe. Who
needs that?

Don't they say that futility is the practice of continuing to do the
same old thing while expecting different results?