Humor can be tricky at the best of times but especially in a forum setting where people from all walks of life and backgrounds who have never met are trying to interact in spite of what kind of day they happen to have had. Although the humor can be softened by the use of the emoticons it can also convey a possibly erroneus impression of being laughed at instead of along with. As a straight faced humorist I know this from experience but I feel that humor ceases to be funny when it is directed at someone in order to hurt their feelings and so if people take humor the wrong way it is important to clarify and reassure that no offense was intended.
The forum has been a little bit dearth of constructive input lately and so the 'humor' has tended to dominate and possibly weigh more heavily than normal. I miss the prolific input of people like Cactus and Bob and others who possibly after coming under constant criticsm seem not to participate anymore thereby leaving the forum that much less interesting. Particpating in prolonged 'Argumentum ad hominum' ie. attacking the individual personally instead of constructively countering only their point of view has never been acceptable in any debate format and only leads to a collapse of the debating forum.
The forum is only as good as the input from everyone out there whether we agree or not and so I would like to encourage everyone to try to disagree without being disagreeable so that the forum can reach its full potential as a terrific communication tool for current events on the border.
The forum has been a little bit dearth of constructive input lately and so the 'humor' has tended to dominate and possibly weigh more heavily than normal. I miss the prolific input of people like Cactus and Bob and others who possibly after coming under constant criticsm seem not to participate anymore thereby leaving the forum that much less interesting. Particpating in prolonged 'Argumentum ad hominum' ie. attacking the individual personally instead of constructively countering only their point of view has never been acceptable in any debate format and only leads to a collapse of the debating forum.
The forum is only as good as the input from everyone out there whether we agree or not and so I would like to encourage everyone to try to disagree without being disagreeable so that the forum can reach its full potential as a terrific communication tool for current events on the border.