Russ,
your views and expertise on the matter are much appreciated.

I would also like to note that an important area of the problem lies in that the main form of communication with other members is written language, devoid of any other means of normal everyday communication and expressiveness (hand gestures, facial expressions, body language in general), save of the occasional "smilies". This alone, requires a certain level of command of the language itself, for an individual to effectively overcome the absence of the aforementioned means of expression, thus rendering some people incapable to communicate effectively. This mainly affects people from different countries, like myself, or people that are not used in this form of communication.

There are also cultural differences here as well, people from other countries with different customs or habits, even people from the US that are raised in different parts of the country, and last but not least, the age difference, evident in some of the discussions here.

In my short (less than 2 years) presence to this forum, I have seen members quitting (declaring that they will leave the forum for a reason, mainly because they had a clash with other members), and I think some members just quietly slipped away (maybe pursuing other interests, or not interested to announce their intention to quit). New members come in all the time, and the forum shows a "self-healing" capacity, somehow rejecting those that are either "unfit" (put in quotes in lack of a proper word), or unable to contribute in any useful way.

As time passes, some of us will eventually stop contributing to, or even reading the forum, for various reasons. I can understand that, I see it as a kind of life cycle. We are born, we live, we eventually die. But having to quit the forum abruptly, because someone is not behaving as he/she should, constitutes loss of life, a form of murder. Which is unacceptable, at least for me.

To conclude, I guess it is in our (mostly mature, at least in age) hands, to try AND succeed not to shoot each other. Drunken brawls are acceptable, at least in the Bar

Please (all of you, especially ianmcnll), have in mind that the aove are not in any way refer to Squeak's departure, are just my thoughts.

Just my 2 cents, some pebbles, my grandma's gold tooth, and some rusty brain cells in work,
Theodore