Banjo - yes, that's what it's about, and it's often a very sensible way of proceeding, to step back and try to understand what is going on, and why something seemingly trivial is causuing such grief.

But it has to be done tactfully and cautiously - what I was referring to in my crack about getting pissed off is the way it can be done mechanically, and even aggressively as a trick, way of upstaging the other person, and winning the argument.

The real time when it comes in useful is when you apply it to yourself. "Why the hell am I getting so angry about this?" And when you do that you'll likely identify siomething competely out of the picture that is stirring things up.

Some of the upset that has been is and currently being expressed, about the various flaming and anonymous posting spats on the Mudcat strike me as fitting into this kind of context. The depth of feelings and anger being expressed seem out of kilter with what has actually happened, so perhaps other things are feeding into the cauldron.

But saying that kind of thing in a thread which is directly about those kind of things would just be stirring. Maybe a meta-thread like this might be a better place to talk in that kind of way, try to woerk out why it is tese uopsets upset people so much... Except that I can see that all backfiring.

Quakers are often good at this - when a discussion gets overheated, someone will be likely to call for a couple of minutes silence, probably without giving any reasons. It often works wonders. But there doesn't seem to be an equivalent for the Mudcat. Pity.