OK, I've read the whole thread and being now aware that some people use threaded mode, I'm coming back to the
beginning to reply!
Most important point. You can't legislate. Mav started off suggesting we hold jokes and wordplay out of Q&A. They ended up in this thread. Personally I think that's the right way to go. If I had to sit at work all day doing the 'serious stuff' and not having a joke along the way, I'd resign or top myself. (I might anyway, but that's another issue...)
Secondly, I haven't posted in two-three weeks or whatever it is because I haven't had time. There will be times in everyone's life when they can't keep up. This happens in real life too. You're busy at work, or away on a trip and life in your group of friends goes on without you. You rejoin the group and you hope you still fit in, but you can never ever catchup on every single little thing that happened while you were out of the loop.
The trouble with the net is that all those little things are recorded, so you can catch up. Worse than that, you feel that you should! And then you end up so busy catching up that you have no time to contribute.
I've been thinking about this in the time I haven't been posting. It got to a point when I couldn't face going back on the board because I knew how much reading I'd have to do.
Now I've decided that I'll just never catch up on those weeks and it doesn't matter. I'll have to pick and choose, not read everything. Sometimes I won't understand what's going on or get a cross-reference. Guess what? That happens to me all the time in real life too!
What is the point of all this long-winded drivel?
The Board isn't perfect. Neither is real life. The difference may lie a lot in our expectations.
