Kat - that's a difficult one. In a sense, even if you put in a post saying "don't worry about this garbage, the Mudcat really isn't like that" you are providing the garbage spreader with the agttention it's after. And of course you can't send a personal message to someone who isn't registered.

If the site was registered only, I suppose it would be possible in this kind of situation to send a personal message and hold to a policy of refusing to pay any attention to the wreckers, and that is an argument for registration only.

But the registration wouldn't keep them out, and wouldn't stop them stirring things up in ways which might be just as harmful, and harder to spot.

My feeling is still that the best way is to refuse to give them the satisfaction of feeling they've turned things upside down.

And when it comes to stuff like the example you mentioned, play it by ear, but in a way which as far as possible addresses the new friend rather than responds to the old stirrer.

It's a drag, but we've got to keep it in proportion. Most of the Mudcat is going along well. Most of the rubbish is being ignored by most people. I think the best comment on it all was given in this song by Tom Holt that Jeri loaded on a thread a little way back, which I've stuck on my website so I can find it any time I want. Like now.