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Ed, Thanks for the response to my posting. It's giving me an opportunity to clarify what I'm trying to say. I agree with you that a forum is a public place or medium for open discussion. However, this particular forum is limited to "all aspects of railroading, from the freight railroads to Amtrak to museums and tourist lines. Post questions about the railfan hobby, comments on recent train trips, or anything else about railroading." Which by definition makes some of what is shared here off subject and irrelevant. Now, in any forum there is bound to be disagreement. The question then becomes, how do you handle the inevitable disagreement so that light, not heat, is shed on the subject. First of all, you keep personalities out of it. By that I mean no attacks against persons are allowed, period. For example, no one is stupid, lazy, etc. They may have their facts wrong, their logic on a certain point may have seen better days, but there is no room for personal attacks in a forum. Secondly, you deal with facts, not opinions. As admiralh pointed out, you cannot argue opinions. I like blue, you like orange. How do you resolve that? You don't; and what's the point anyway? Now we can have a lively discussion on what is the best electric locomotive. We can agree on a definition of "best", defining that term by agreeing on objective criteria (horsepower, tractive effort, maintenance record, etc) and then comparing electric locomotives to those objective criteria. (Little Joe, for example has a certain tractive effort, the GG-1 has a certain tractive effort. Which one's tractive effort is best? Same for the other objective criteria. Leave unobjective criteria like styling and color out of it; those issues can't be resolved. Yes, you can say that you prefer the styling and color of the GG-1 over any other electric locomotive, but you cannot say that the GG-1's styling and color are the best. Facts are what make the discussion go, not opinions. As admiralh said, it is perfectly acceptable and necessary to challenge folks on their conclusions if they don't back up what they say with facts. And I can't emphasize enough the importance of using the King's English correctly. You should no more dress your thoughts in error-laden grammar, spelling, and punctuation than you would go out in the world dressed inappropriately. Language, words, are to ideas what clothes are to us. There's a difference between a forum and a bull-session, and it's a pretty clear line. A forum has a moderator and rules, a bull session does not. And if Kalmbach wants a credible forum, not a bull session, they're going to have to step up to the plate and take responsibility for it. If they don't, they're going to continually get what they're getting now: a bull session. As for Kalmbach being the thought police. I don't think it's out of order to block posts that are personal attacks, just mere unfounded opinions, or couched in language that has spelling and grammatical errors. This doesn't mean that Kalmbach has to check the facts, just to see that there's something there to keep an assertion from being an opinion. Thanks for letting me share!
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