Originally Posted by
surreal
I think that this forum is ppl'd with folks who exhibit behavior that will dissuade "lurkers" or other peripheral participants from starting a thread, b/c who wants to start a thread on a forum just to have some clowns demand annotations for any/every assertion made in the OP? The tactics employed in these "discussions" are designed to stomp out any/every lively discussion before it even gets started. The only threads that last more than 5-10 posts are circular pedant-fests, typically involving 2 or 3 opposing blow-hards as they demand, produce, and shoot-down web links that are supposed to support their positions.
The short way to say that is, there's not a lot of room for "fun" on this forum.
I enjoy this forum more than any other I've participated in. The people are generally polite, open minded, and interesting. Almost every day I learn something new. Most days I find a good laugh here also. I love the wide variety of topics that fall into the area of carfree living.
I do hope more people will start threads, which would make the forum even more interesting.
Originally Posted by
surreal
I think that this forum is ppl'd with folks who exhibit behavior that will dissuade "lurkers" or other peripheral participants from starting a thread, b/c who wants to start a thread on a forum just to have some clowns demand annotations for any/every assertion made in the OP?
But you have sort of done that here. I mean, you haven't demanded annotations but you have disputed assertions made in the OP. And of course that's a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
I agree that people shouldn't have to provide links and citations for every assertion, although assertions are often much more convincing if some outside support is provided. Personally, I ask for citations in two situations: a) I want to do more reading about the assertion because I found it to be interesting or confusing, or b) I'm unclear whether the poster was expressing an opinion or observation, or if he was asserting something as an objective fact.