Rick said

Oh PULEEZE! "Too clever?" Well then, how about: Too knowledgable, or too funny, or too emotional, or too profane, or April Fool's jokes that are too mean spirited? Plain old "STUPIDITY" offends me more than all the others put together, and I have found far less of that on the Muscat than in the "real" world that I reluctantly inhabit!

And asks

What exactly WAS the "tonal change" in threads while Joe was gone? Please be specific, and tell me what would Joe have done to change that "tone".

I will try to answer, bearing in mind that the "too clever" was not my observation. I think what they were trying to say and it is what I mean by the tone, was that during that period they appeared to be more effort made to be clever or smart or witty about and in the threads than there were to reply sensibly to them. An example of this and where I was guilty (if that is the right word), was the Thread Name Game. Which I thought at the time was good fun, but on reflection I think could have discouraged less robust people from posting.

You ask what Joe would have done to change that tone. Well I note that Joe is unhappy about being singled out here and I would like to apologise to him for that. It was done only with the best intentions but I can understand his discomfort and will not add to them by answering your question for him. Happily, he is back with us now and if he wants to he can answer. I didn't actually say that he would or could have changed the tone. My thinking went something like, things are a little strange here, I have not seen a posting from Joe, where is he, is he well, and are not things a little bit the worse when he is not here? I missed him.

It is a subtle thing, this balance between the music, the humour and the serious stuff, but Rick, it is still the "real" world here. We have to do the same things here, to get on with each other as we do in that "real" world. Maybe it is that perception, of this place being not "real" and that we can behave in a different way and if others don't like it they can leave, that is the difference between us?

And.

I don't want the Mudcat to be SO inclusive that the brilliance, the silliness, and the cutting edge are forced to leave.

Surely it is either inclusive or it is not, there are no degrees? I don't want the non-brilliant, the non-silly and the 'blunt' edged ones to be forced to leave either. It is not, fortunately, up to you or me to decide though. That is up to all of us, in every part of the world, that form that strange and precious entity we call The Mudcat.

Joe's short posting in this thread spells out exactly what I in my long-winded way I was trying to say.

Alison

I think all the things you said about that period were spot on, we do go up and down. Like wise words from another Galaxy! *smiles*

I suppose I look at it from someone who was forming an impression of what the Mudcat was during that period. A little bit like going into a restaurant to find only pasta on the menu, you may like pasta but after a week of only pasta you would probably find another eating place. We just get a little unbalanced sometimes, I think but you do have to stay around long enough to know that.

There were and are still, some pretty awful things happening in the world too, which also had a bearing, we all deal with them in different ways.

Maybe I am just a idealistic throwback? I think and desperately hope that there is a better way to do things and I honestly believe that this place is a start. Maybe we are not up to the challenge of The World Wide Web, maybe we are just not big enough yet to take in the full implications and opportunities that it offers. Maybe we only feel happy when we surround ourselves with people like ourselves?

The early pioneers of internet communication surrounded themselves with jargon an 'in' words, to create a new world in which excluded the majority of their fellow travellers. They used the same techniques as those that call genocide, 'ethnic cleansing', by calling insulting people, in a way that they would never do face to face, 'flaming'.

It appears that it frightens us to deal on global terms and we try to reduce it in size to enable us to order it. We form smaller groups, that we feel more comfortable with and we use the Net to find out who is on-line that lives in the same town.

Let's try not do that here, this something else but still, the "real" world, THE WHOLE WORLD.