So, everyone who agrees with Curbstone and Huey on this issue, please cast your vote publicly. In the event that you vote strongly and openly enough by defending Shannon and criticizing Paul, and in the event Frank doesn't want to create a wholly competing moderated thread, I just might create it myself.
Creating a moderated thread is one way to keep out the annoying taunters and others who have no interest in the subject of this thread, only in the rise they can create or the self-promotion which they believe they can accomplish. But, on the whole, this thread has been remarkably unplagued by that sort -- if they come, they generally don't stay long. Personally, I think that is because the response to them is generally polite and restrained and the inclination is to ignore them if they persist, rather than continuing the contest.
John Shannon doesn't fit in that category. He strikes me a bit like a character in one of John Mortimer's Rumpole stories who was an owner of a garage who had become substantially expert on the subject of wine, but was completely irreverent about the wine elite and whose language was, well, more like a garage owner than an oenophile.
When I first remember him coming on this scene, there was a great fury about his brusque language and many people who wanted him to go away. With some guidance, he moderated his language a bit and was more readily perceived as a contributing member. Once one set aside the issue of the language, I don't think there has ever been a question of his posts having substance and offering an opinion which was well formed, whether or not one agreed with it.
It sounds to me like Paul Philip has become sensitized to this language. This happens.
Rather than ignoring John or chasing him from the thread, I believe we would be enriched if we tried to help him to avoid those uses of the language which trigger such impassioned responses or, if he slips, to do our best to ignore them ... rather like someone who has had the misfortune to produce a loud fart at an afternoon tea ... and focus instead on the content, returning the tone to the one we prefer. Keeping the tea metaphor, I see Paul as encountering someone with whom there is some particularly emotional history ... someone who eloped with his daughter, perhaps ... and the need is to direct the conversation away from that history to topics of mutual interest, suggesting perhaps that Paul go get another crumpet and choose to be in a different part of the room, i.e., put him on ignore. |
