I don't think anybody in the thread wrote about walking around flashing people for fun, Steve. As for those who report threads being whiners, of course that's not necessarily true. I've written in threads that deserved to be reported, and took my medicine reasonably well, I think. When I'm wrong, I THINK I'm OK at admitting it. I STILL reflect on the fact that in six years, I've never seen anything so horribly offensive on this board that I felt a need to report it... so does that make me a coward, while those that DO report threads are the brave ones?

I know that you did not mean to imply that. Certainly SOME people who are reporting threads are making a stand and so on. But they do so anonymously, there is no backlash associated with reporting a thread. There sure is a backlash for speaking your mind in "public" here at X Marks, with your known handle attached to your words.

CDN Sushi... the logical extension of what you wrote is for each of us to consider our words so carefully, that if we might conceive of any possible way that someone who doesn't really speak English and who doesn't live in a Western culture and doesn't understand Western humour, and who happens to have been brought up in a really strict household might possibly be offended in any way by what we have to say, then we mustn't say it.

In which case, the forum will devolve into something so utterly bland and devoid of spark, that it makes week-old milktoast look like 30 year single malt.

I don't know, guys. I already actively avoid 2/3rds of the sub forums on X Marks. I NEVER go into the traditional forum, the heraldry forum, any of the kiltmakers forums and so on, so that I don't get mad or annoy others. I stick to athletics, general kilt talk, pictures and the DIY, with an occasional foray into Miscellaneous. Is this place really THAT uptight?

We must always err on the side of the extra-cautious when it comes to offending people. Believe it or not, I actually understand that, because erring on the "lax" side will piss off even MORE people than going the other way. I get it. I don't like it, I think it's stupid but I GET it. I understand why, in a huge community like this, that it'd necessary to err on the "delicate" side.

I have to say that I hang out with kilties who are a WHOLE lot ruder and more "earthy" than what I ever see here, and most of those people are good people. They are kind, honest, hard working people who will never participate here, because if they did, they would offend way too many people who simply can't handle an offcolor word or an opinion that disagrees with their own. We lose out on their insights and laughter.