We have some other options for chat, but some of them involve a purchase so I'll weigh the options and see what the right answer is. I've never liked the chat implementation in Drupal, but the one we have is free.

Wm

I can but imagine how comprehensively I shall be undone with you offline for a week or two, Mr. Scherk.

I am hardly succumbing to "woe is me." MSK, according to what you post here, draws the line at "asshole." I have been called far worse than that, routinely, including, probably by you. But in itself there's nothing meritorious in putting up with unjustified abuse, self-sacrificially. Jason Q is probably right in saying I should just boot your snide ass off here. But some perverse part of me senses a lingering decency that I want to tap into and exploit. Of course, the same impulse led me astray re Lineberry. Hmmmm ...

To be continued ...

Lindsay, I'll be offline for a week or two, and hope you can bear up under the abuse you attract for hosting a free-wheeling site.

I think you sometimes mistake criticism for abuse, or tart satire for abuse. And sometime the real verbal abuse has nothing to do with what you host, but with the distemper of the basement-dwellers: viz Beck and his feeble slags and baboonish teeth-baring. Beck's name-calling is of the slovenly variety: it avoids pertinent detail, and careful, thoughtful dismantling of arguments and statements that stand on weak warrants.

Don't fall victim to the woe, me stance of the woebegone, woeful MSK. In a thread over at the ruminant sister-list devoted to TAS, gloating, nasties and woe, he comments on the Catholic thread's litany of snark and epithet, but then runs on darkly about the nameless Thems and Theys who have attacked and abused him . . . **

Gah.

Man up, as the lovely Olivia would say, and deal with your 'abusers' straight-up. It does wonders for your site, and makes your arguments sharper and more coherent. Doing a Beck and trading one 'evul pomobanger' for each 'slugbait fatfugg' is feeble.

WSS

_______

** Woe One | Woe Two

I personally will not host this kind of disrespect to me. People can do that elsewhere, not here on OL. When I gave up drugs, one of my first items of priority was to distance myself from things that had hurt me. I was sorely hurt by too much toleration. So I decided that if a person wishes to disrespect me, I will not put up with it to my face using my resources. I have ticked some people off with this attitude, but I am at peace with myself. Only once did I allow a poster to call me "asshole" on OL and not delete it or demand a retraction. I learned over time this was a bad mistake. It will not be repeated. (Keeping posters respectful with each other is another can of worms with other problems, the least of which is that I do not wish to control anyone's life, but I have to keep the forum reasonable in many directions. That is another discussion.)

I am on Safari at home in NZ, but Internet Explorer here in Cali. As a guest Chez Lanza I can't readily change that. So I'm glad Wm is onto it.

And this place will never ban dissent. I'm just amazed at the abuse I cop personally for hosting it.

William is on the case. It's a bit of a puzzle, but the obvious solution for those who are victim of the timeout boot (like Lindsay) is . . . if you are using Internet Explorer, change to Apple's Safari or Google's Chrome.

Chrome is at present only for the Windows OS. Safari works on both Mac and Windows.

I let William know who was having the disconnect problems tonight (including you, Lindsay).

As for the dissing, only me and Billy Beck got slagged heartily. Although Jason told me I was a pain in the ass and that he would kick me off SOLO in a heartbeat, let's face it -- a dry, inbred, dissenters-to-the-dustbin place loses readers and clout; a 'I am not a dummie, I am Emperor!' place loses readers and participants; a dissenters-banned-and-deleted mid-thread place becomes cultish and defensive; a pre-banned and shrink-wrapped place becomes small-hearted and irrelevant . . .

WSS

I think he has been notified. And not a lot of dissing out there.

Guess I'll have to try that. As it is I get on just long enough to see who's dissing me now, then I get booted off.

But I'd remind folk that the webmaster's address is at the bottom of every page.

Safari browser works very well with SOLO Chat. IE and Firefox did not work for me. Might be time to try a different Chat implementation; the PHP Free Chat message board has a lot of comments indicating that users are having disconnect problems.