"Heh -- I was totally oblivious to having had such an effect, Jen!  It was strictly unintentional on my part, let me assure you......."

snicker

"Some people can handle the typical give-and-take of a heated debate without batting an eye in the process.  Some people are secure enough in their own skins not to feel personally insulted (and run off pestering the mods about it via IM) when a forum debate opponent starts in with the standardized name-calling, or with the usual tack of questioning the personal motives of their debating partner(s)......... "

Most members of this site don't bother with the forums. Of those that do, most would have no problem with a wide open OT forum where one could speak ones mind. If they were offended by it they would simply stay out. However, a few thin skinned individuals would go running to admin screaming that some horrible poster was being mean to them and instead of telling those few to cowboy up or stay the hell out of there the forum would be closed.  Happened before, it would happen again.

"You'll see less of me in the 'heated' threads from this point forward.  Not because anyone's instructed me to keep out of them (they haven't) -- but frankly: because such hot-topic threads in the Poser forum are -- generally speaking -- a good way to waste of gobs of personal time.  Time which could be much better spent doing something productive."

"Heated threads"? This site hasn't seen a heated thread in many years. Those were banned long ago, along with anyone that refused to embrace the disneyfication.

"So folks, IMO the mods deserve the support of the community.  Even when they do or when they say things that might happen to irritate you.  In no way, shape, or form are you personally belittled -- nor is your life in any way changed for the worse -- because a forum thread gets locked, or because a post gets deleted."

The Mods are quite good at enforcing the TOS. As Ironbear would say, "hearding cats" .