Actually that wisdom is found in many threads and posts, gnu. Joe distilled the conventional wisdom down to a very succinct piece of wisdom. Your post and PM speak volumes and I agree. By way of explanation, there are many of us from the really neat days of Mudcat. We get so angry over certain folks that take pleasure in tearing down the thing that we were part of building, the thing that has spawned so much good, and so many friendships. And eventually we break and start attacking. Sometimes I look at my own posts and wonder what the hell I am doing, yet I watch these folks keep up what they do and I get angry and respond.

I was thinking about starting a thread like this, but I am glad you did. I have pretty well decided to ignore all provocation and ignorance, and just go on with my normal posting. I am not going to respond to certain posters at all.

My wish is that others will quit responding as well, but given how hard this will be for me, I know it is too much to ask of others. I have seen one of these monsters even make light of one of the most personal tragedies that a person can suffer. But they do these unspeakable things in order to receive a response. I am not going to give them what they want.

That is not to say that when something is untrue I won't respond. It certainly won't stop me from engaging in debate on issues. But those people whose goal is to feed on making people dance won't get sustenance from me.

Mick