Timing has a lot to do with it. If you come into a thread late, after most people are losing interest in it, it's less likely anyone will even read your post.

You say, "other things I say seem to stop conversation stone dead." I really don't think that's possible. More likely your post came at a point where the thread was about ready to die anyway. In every thread, SOMEONE has to be last.

Spelling is important if you're posting something that someone else is likely to search for. Therefore I think it's important to get names and places and the words that define your topic spelled right. And if every third word is misspelled, it makes it awfully hard to read. But it's obvious that Mudcat is very tolerant of misspelling.

Someone once told me my style of writing was too formal for Mudcat. I guess some people equate formality with arrogance and take offense at it. Well, I can't comfortably change my style, so now I just try to stay out of controversies.