Simply being a human being can and does lead to being insulted and verbally abused. In fact you wouldn't even need to be a human being.

Some people are like that. Most people aren't.   I'll bet that for every instance of verbal abuse any of us has had here there will have been ten, twenty... God knows how many, polite and respectful responses.

Best thing is to ignore the others when they come, as they do come to anyone who posts.
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Yes, Jerry, that's the kind of thing I was imagining. The fine details involve stuff I don't understand, but I'm sure there are people who could work it out. And more than that.

I dunno - I read about all this virtual reality and avatars and all that, and I come across amazing looking things every now and again around the net - except that though they look fine the content generally seeme - to me - rubbish. And I envisage someone putting together a "real" Mudcat Tavern where we meet up and listen to each other...

This is drifting the thread though. Right now what is needed is for a few more threads started up and nurtured the way little threads sometimes need nurturing. Threads about, for example, some of the American music that hardly ever seems to turn up here - Cajun, and TexMex and Italian-American... And about people in America who are writing good songs and singing them so they get sung, and who don't deserve to be written off as "just another of those singer-songwriters".