Soon as I started regularly reading Mudcat, I pretty much took a version of that pledge in my own head anyway. It's an approach that can really cut down on the flamage, depending on just how motivated/angry/unhinged the flamers are. Nothing I've seen here compares, really, to what I saw happen on my favorite Internet BBS which was pretty much driven underground by hacking from a couple of people who really went postal when we started "shunning" them after months of abuse and threats that would curl your toes. (Of course, we discussed and agreed on the pledge on a message board that was open only to old-timers, if you wanna talk about elitist cliques in online forums).

I think such a pledge would go a long ways here at the 'Cat. Sign me on.

Christopher Hoover