Yes, I do believe it is expected that we will answer each others questions or
directly explain why we are not. Yes, I couched my demand for answers to
unanswered questions with a provocative term to elicit a response. They
were serious and fundamental questions that were essential to the
discussion. If they were not answered out of a simple debate strategy of
letting them fall aside and be forgotten, the I challenged that head on.
Hear, Hear, Greg! I have had this same thing happen to me on this very same list - in fact, the reply even stated something to the effect, I didn't bother reading
the rest of your responses/questions to me, because I think the discussion should now head in this other direction (paraphrasing of course).
While I don't think that people should actively attack one another, I too am more concerned with the lively exchange of honest ideas, than whether the phrasing is "nice" enough. Communicating in a purely written format is a challenge, as we don't have all the non-verbal cues to help us interpret tone and connotation. We could take this limitation and say that we need to be especially careful about how we phrase things, or we could just recognize the limitation and get on with the actual discussion in an open, honest way. I vote for the latter.
Ann
