In a message dated 2/22/01 4:44:22 AM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner@tesco.net writes:

<< Actually I have no problem with this per se, since a valid point is a valid point regardless of the terms in which it's couched. However, such posts are likely to be character-oriented, and as such pull a non-character oriented thread off-track. >>

Well, once again, you're trying to impose *your* idea of the direction a conversation should take upon a whole list of people. I don't know how many people are on this list these days... it used to be a few hundred. It would be an exercise in futility to assume that you could possibly control the flow of conversation amongst that many people. And, frankly, you don't have a right to. If you want to have *private* conversations "over in the corner", then why are you posting them on a huge mailing list?

Annie