Maybe this just highlights one of the drawbacks of communicating via postings/emails/electronic messaging or whatever.

It's very diffcult to convey tone. Unless your very good with the written word it's easy to type something quite innocuous that gets taken the wrong way.

I'm sure that if most of the contributors sat round in a circle and started this thread again there wouldn't be half as much aggression or emotion.

But hey, maybe this is what some people prefer?