I'd never describe this place as "bitter." I disagreed with the use of that word to describe the place back in, oh, maybe it was '99, and I disagree today. I'm not bitter, nearly all of the folks I know personally aren't bitter, and I don't see much bitterness in the posts I DO read.

I think some folks seem to have a hair trigger, and some folks post out of anger without considering or possibly caring about the impact of their words on not only the target, but all who read their message. These incidents bother me, but I'm bothered by individual posts by indiviual people.

Others are "literal thinkers." They see what's basically irony, and think the poster is flaming someone. They probably don't ask or try to understand, they just assume. This has been responsible for at least a few flame wars around here. To take this to an extreme, someone who's acting offended after seeming to have taken an ironic statement literally may also be being ironic. If I'm not sure, I keep my mouth shut. Sometimes.

There are folks all over who'll just barge in somewhere without finding out what's going on first. When people take exception to their behavior, they get their shorts in a bunch because the group won't adapt to their way of doing things. That's going to happen, but it doesn't make any sense to react to their anger with more anger. At the end of the day, the group the barger is pissed off at will not have changed to meet their demands. The only unknown is how many of the group members will allow the barger to bunch up their shorts for them.

There was a time when it seemed folks were more concerned, not with their rights to say whateverthehell they wanted, but whether their thoughts were appropriate here. Maybe it just seems that way to me. I tend to write long, angry posts, and then usually hit the back button before I submit them. I think others probably also don't say everything they'd like, but a few of those angry posts DO escape. We've got more folks here now, so probably we probably have a greater number of escaped flames.

Oh, and there is no "us" and "them" within Mudcat. Every single person who posts here determines the overall feel of the place. People don't spend time in the threads about Mudcat unless they want to be a part of the "community." They wouldn't troll unless they needed recognition from other Mudcatters. It's just a shame that some of them crave abuse. It's more of a shame that some of us can occasionally let ourselves be provoked into abusing them.

Oh well, time to climb down from this horse and go practice guitar. Now where'd I put that ladder...