Good advice, Mith. I applaud your heroic efforts to keep this discussion in line with the usual Downs tone. I will chip in to add a few points: both this thread and its progenitor would probably have lived a bit more comfortably in one of The Books forums. Topics that seek to address complex, controversial, and/or philosophical arguments and inquiries are probably better started there.
Also, if you feel compelled to address a provocative issue in an aggressive manner, don't be surprised when you provoke a strong response. Making general accusations about the membership of a board being everything from boring to bigoted to unread is not likely to keep a discussion focused on the issues.
Finally, the Downs has a history of entertaining just about any line of discussion and allowing temperatures to rise as long things don't devolve into flame wars and personal attacks. If the mods decide that someone needs to take a walk (a rare thing indeed up to this point), we'll take steps in that direction. The hosts of the party reserve the right to give a guest the boot, so if you have a strong complaint against someone, please take it to one of us (Barrow-Wight, Sharkû, Mithadan, myself, or the more elusive Gilthalion) instead of showing someone the door yourself.
Now then, let's talk Tolkien.
|