Just like to make a brief apology - I posted a message here the other day and left it unsigned and, in view of all the discussion about anonymous trollers, I regret that. I'm an old Usenet head and haven't quite got my head round these new-fangled Web-based forums (fora?)

For what it's worth, what I see happening here is something I've seen many times before; a community gets established and in comes some troll firing off garbage all over the place. Some innocent souls engage the troll and the temperature soars. Regulars leave and the rest are left scratching their heads. As some have pointed out, restrictions are seen by trouble-makers as a challenge. Ultimately, the *only* effective way of dealing with trolls is to ignore them. It is all basically just a variation on attention-seeking behaviour and without that attention they die in the silence.

Don't let some infant with too much time on their hands get the better of you.

Incidentally, the reason I am not a member is that I don't use cookies.

Dick Gaughan