""If everybody made it clear that this will not be tolerated, posted a huge STOP!!!! after any post where that is happening, let the poster know that this insulting name is not acceptable, then refused to engage with this person in that post or any other post until they apologized and promised to cease and desist from such behaviour..........my guess is that this kind of behaviour would become rare.""

One of the joys of this forum is that it is not hedged about by the restrictive oppression of those whose aim in life is to make everybody conform to there own idea of what is right or wrong.

The best way to decimate the membership would seem to be curtailing the right of free speech.

The bottom line is that there are two sections. The most important being upstairs, the folk music section.

The BS section down below is a freewheeling snake pit of conflicting opinions, but I'd venture to state with conviction that regular contributors would, almost without exception, admit to having learned, from the discussions, things which they hadn't previously known.

And guess what?......Nobody is compelled ever to open any thread in that section.

And BTW, it seems that you have chosen strangely mild epithets to moan about.

Goofus? I've been called much worse than that and I'm still here. So is Goofu...er....GfS!

Don T.