A NEW day or mending fences or DUers never let me down

[PatrickforO]

16. Two things in support:

1. though one person above me in this thread says you've got to remember this is an internet message board and not your family, what I say is this: DU is a community of choice. We are all here because we want to be, and who is to say the people we've grown fond of on this site are not sort of an extended family.

2. as to the increasing number of alerts on your posts, it's good to remember that we are part of a culture that still values free speech. So for all of you posting, remember that you should only use the alert function if the person is engaging in an 'ad hominem' attack - example: instead of saying "I disagree with your position and here's why..." someone who deserves to be flagged will say something like, "You are a (fill in the blank)..." That is what an ad hominem attack looks like. We should not be using the alert function is someone, for instance, drops the 'f-bomb' during a post or uses some other curse words that may offend some.

The exception to this, of course is slurs. No one should ever be using any kind of racial, gender preference, sex or ethnic slur, ever.

Yeah, I know I haven't been here long, but I had about as many posts as OS on Huffington Post, but I left that because of their increasingly OBTRUSIVE censorship. We need to stay away from that, I think, because it sucks the fun right out of posting on threads like this!

OS, I'm sorry you are terminal. I really am. My thoughts and prayers are with you.