When you put it That way..
What I see is - for better or worse.. the presence of a gadfly is a challenge to everyone's intelligence, discretion er maturity?
It really is possible to SKIP - and it is sooo easy, given the magnificence of this site design. (BTW dead-on: all legislation IS about some cockamamie impulse Bowdlerized to morality for The Masses, typ. by some hypocrite of the largest scale).
Call me Pollyanna. In the end, this flake needs to earn his way back-in to civilized society. If he CAN. Yet his 'personal' tools are limited, we see. Does he ever get a new chance 'here' via simple charity? POSTING the # of folks in shun-mode (say) is a perverse way of nyaa nyaa nyaa, IMhO - and it decidedly encourages creating the force of the MOB IMO.
Yes it's a PITA, but charity is about eating others' negativity without letting it stick, or so I've heard. (At least MM could occasionally evoke a sane techno-matter worth dissecting. And on non-M$ topics he was almost erudite - we traded e-mails a couple times.) Do we wish to become a class-graded society sans all auto-filtered misfits? (Maybe some do wish that)
I vote for maximizing the need for each poster to take responsibility for navigating around those addicted to senseless perpetuation of an inane thread: not Scott or Lectronic-Scott (save me from me). But that's only one vote, natch..
Ashton
