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I think its a mattter of maturity. When I was running a chat room years ago, there were always a couple jerks who wanted to come in and spoil evertbody's fun. They would come into threads were they had nothing particular to say about the subject a hand and start calling people names. The idea of the board was to have a free and open discussion, and better than 99 percent of the posters understood that there were certain rules of civility that came as part of responsible participation. We were willing to respect the rules because we valued each other's participation. The tiny minority who tried to spoil the fun were too selfish to understand that respect for others is a basic premise of civilized discourse.

These people were not always among the younger members of the group, so their age was no excuse for their abuse. We had a few thirteen-year-olds who played the game according to the rules and earned the respect of all. No, this kind of abuse can only be attribitued to a lack of maturity.

JDW