Good idea, Seed. I'll move my comments over here.
We've kept a nice, friendly, interesting tone to the discussion here for two years now. The recent vitriolic discussions we've seen may seem harmless to some, but they give an air of unpleasantness that taints the entire forum. Mild-mannered people tend to shy away from discussions where there's a lot of nastiness - they don't want to cause anyone to take offense, and they don't want to get jumped on themselves.
This forum is here for people to share their love, knowledge, and enjoyment of music with others. Most of the time, there has been a wealth of good, accurate information in almost every thread.
Lately, though, the tone has changed. It's not just in one thread, either - there are a number of threads running right now that are just plain nasty. I'd like the people who enjoy flaming to take their nastiess somewhere else - the newsgroups, for instance. I'm here to have a good time, to meet nice people, and to learn more about the music I love. I have to deal with nastiness everywhere I go nowadays, since "in your face" attitudes seem to be the fashion and people seem to think they have a right to be offensive to others. Not here, please.
Let's keep this a friendly place - an experiment in harmony, if you will. Maybe, if we all work on it, we can show that people CAN live in peace.
-Joe Offer-