Thank you, TED and Hal, for helping me figure out what's REALLY at stake here. I truly appreciate you guys taking your time. And Jn, that post was very helpful.
I still see it as, originally, a problem with more than one interpretation of what the dumb forum was created FOR. If it was created for the resolution of serious disputes, then there you go... it's for the resolution of serious disputes.
Of course, some people seriously didn't see it that way. I never would have put either of those mock threads in there, because I didn't think that's what the forum was FOR. There's lots of forums around here. That one, to me, was for serious disputes.
Not that I ever, personally, cared a whit about (at least the second) mock thread being in there... my entire take on that situation was absolutely equal to
. I wouldn't have done it, but I didn't care that someone else did. I was briefly concerned that it was put there in the spirit of baiting other members, but I have learned that that was not the case. Soooo... there you go.
.
Some people here, though, cared a LOT. The different interpretations of what the forum was for was absolutely freaking people out. (On both "sides!!!) It was, and is, against any predictable level of reason, a
huge hot button.
We cannot have ambiguity about the purpose of the BR around here. People's heads explode like Mars Attacks! aliens' brains when there is ambiguity about the purpose of the BR around here.
So I guess I would lean toward defining it more closely to its original intent, because the ambiguity in the definition of the stupid thing is dangerous, apparently, and then let's all go back to marrying each other in Turf.
Sound like a plan?