"Actually, I do thing that real names are a good idea too."

If that's the case, and assuming that Richard Bridge actually is your real name (bearing in mind that most of us, including me, don't know you from Adam), why then do you post under a pseudonym on the Mudcat FB page? Isn't that some kind of double-standard?

I'm of the belief that everyone has the basic right to protect their identity, for all sorts of reasons. If someone is comfortable using their real name on a forum such as this one, no problem, they can do it but, if an individual chooses the anonymity of a pseudonym (or as close to anonymity as it's possible to get), that's their right. Membership under a pseudonym still provides a constancy of identity.

"I do not support the suggested rule that one may not criticise a poster. If someone is posting stuff that is idiotic, why not call them an idiot? Duck, quack! (that is not a reference to Geoff the Duck who is always fun). It's only the people posting rubbish who object to being called on it."

Well, the problem with that approach is that, in stooping to insults rather than debating the point with reason and logic, you lose the argument. There are certain individuals whose views I find absolutely repugnant, but who wipe the floor with their regular opponents because those opponents choose to insult the person rather than challenging his arguments. The whole point of debate is surely to persuade an opponent that your views hold greater validity than his, and thus to move his standpoint closer to one's own, or to learn from one's opponent and modify one's own perspective?
Calling someone "Idiot" or some other insult won't persuade him of anything other than that the one hurling insults is himself an idiot, and serves to entrench his views, however misguided or repugnant they may be.

If you want to "Call" someone on the rubbish they post, you need to challenge the rubbish. An insult is just an insult, a release of testosterone, it's not any real kind of challenge.