Noreen, I respect your approach. I think it's a good approach to take with flamers, particularly anonymous ones. I'm actually not adressing anonymous flamers in most of the posts I've been making lately.

I'm addressing Mudcat members whom I ordinarily respect and think of as friends. I'm asking them not to participate in, encourage, or escalate a flame war. I think sometimes we forget how the old flame wars happened. Sometimes there are anonymous flamers involved, but most of the flaming is done by those whom we normally think of as people we know and respect.

What I don't understand is why these people would have a problem with me asking them not to participate in, encourage, or escalate a flame war. Many friendships have been ruined by flame wars.

Ignoring the undesired behaviour in many cases leads to the extinction of that behaviour

I ignored the behavior last night when I went to bed. (Just as several people asked me to.) I woke up to two new threads dealing with Pol Pot, and during the course of the day while I was trying to ignore it, some more have appeared. So I don't think ignoring it was working.

So I am asking, once again, for people to try to be mindful of the long term consequences of their actions in this forum. I think that the Mudcat, and we, will benefit from it.

Carol