I try to steer clear of the interpersonal feuding that goes on hereabouts, and to maintain an ironic distance when I do venture into BS-land. Fortunately, I'm usually able to find the ongoing pettiness more amusing than distressing. Nonetheless, sometimes it's hard to remain completely uninvolved.

The only part of this discussion that concerns me is this: sometimes, at the bottom of a longish thread with a half-dozen or more messages from GUEST, I would prefer to know whether more than one person has been participating under that ID; if so, I would prefer to be able to distinguish between the arguments of one guest and another. That's all. That's it.

I actually prefer this old-fashioned forum software to that currently in use on other sites I know. Here, I can navigate through the messages almost as quickly as I can read them, and can see more text at a time when I scroll up and down to check out some previous posting.

The usual current-day interface with big wide pastel-colored margins, large type sizes, and bulky ID panels showing the contributor's handle, cartoon "icon," and (like in a high school yearbook) favorite quote, is much more cumbersome. Who needs all that bullshit? I much prefer being able to view more than one or two paragraphs at a time.