Mr Hoppe said:It seems that nearly everything is defendable under statements like "Everyone is entitled to their opinion and their right to express it." Yet most reasonable people have boundaries that they won't cross out of respect to one another.
This is a public forum, and there are very, very few rules. Here are a couple that most people tend to adhere to:
1) Avoid posting disparaging remarks in a for sale thread. If you don't like the product or the terms just move on. If you want to make such remarks to the seller, do so using a PM. The seller is trying to make a sale, and in many cases here, his personal household income can be adversely affected by uninformed comments made by others who didn't listen to their Mother when she said "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."
2) Don't hijack someone's thread. Relative to a For Sale thread, this means don't chime in and say "Yeah, I've got one of those for sale too." If you have something that you'd like to sell, start your own thread. Relative to open discussion threads, this means taking the discussion in a direction not consistent with the intent of the thread.
Aside from that, I think we should all hold ourselves accountable for what we say. It's easy to get carried away typing our thoughts on the keyboard while staring at a screen. Ask yourself if you would choose to say that out loud in front of others if you were face-to-face. It's also easy to misinterpret what a person has written if they haven't thought it out properly, or written it up clearly. Most people can be given the benefit of the doubt, but you quickly see a pattern with others who's typing fingers tend to move more quickly than their brains.
Respectfully,
Mr H <--- No better than anyone else, and still learning every day.
Greenie for you. Well said