I don't know about the inner fraternity - I don't post very often - but some posts have been racist, facist etc etc and others just 'generally offensive'! There seems to be a fine line between debate and just sniping and bitching, which then leads to 'he said, she said' and a general breakdown in the original thread and subsequent debate.

When a thread gets down to just 3 or 4 people repeating the same thing with personal attacks thrown in, maybe it is time to stop the thread and let the people involved email or pm it out between them?

There are always people in every online forum who get their jollies by throwing spanners in the works, provoking arguments and trying to score political points: it would be wonderful if they were instantly recognised and ignored - but that isn't going to happen.

As several people have said, maybe sticking to topic, stopping a minute to think before posting, definitely thinking twice before posting in a flip/ironic/taking the piss style (of which I have been guilty) and not having a knee jerk reaction to inflammatory posts might work - or not - but at least it might keep the debate/interesting part going.

Whichever way out, Mudcat is a fantastic place, a great resource and I'm really glad to be part of it - good bits and bad!