Guido Braem knows, and will always know, more about orchids than I know about the back of my hand. Yet I have seen his colloquies and suggest that the give and take of this forum is ill-suited to his temperament.
In fora such as this one, friendly sarcasm without the wink of an eye, inside humour, and a whole host of conversational norms suited for face to face conversation can appear as attacks. After all, Andy Easton only recently had the Australians taking up arms against the United States. To prevent misunderstandings caused by language and informal writing, I suggest that Guido develop a relationship with people on this board with whom he trusts. These people would assist Guido to differentiate bad jokes from attacks, collegial sarcasm from slander and plane old "trolling." By way of example, if Guido believes he is being slandered, he might get a "second opinion," off-board, from people he trusts. I'm not suggesting that Guido censor himself or be censored. He has every right to be "here" and to post anything he wants. Rather, I'm suggesting that Braem practice getting a second opinion BEFORE he responds in anger. I apologize if this sounds impertinent. It is my hope that Guido and others who have left will return and that we'll all learn to "get along." GWSheldon _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
