badabing -

I have to respectfully disagree with your suppositon that a ..close knit group have made an attempt to stiffle these opinions and have used whatever means necessary to thwart the free flow of an open forum." I have been here since last November and it is just in recent weeks that things have began to degrade. By that I mean that I think that I have seen personal attacks, unfounded criticism, and a "close knit" group who seem intent on "recommending" each others posts in order to give an air of authencity to their comments. This sort of behavior was rare prior to the recent period.

IMO, the free exchange of ideas on this forum calls for respect of differing viewpoints and genuine evaluation (via "stars and recommends") of the points presented by all of the participants. That also means that no one poster (or group of posters) should attempt to monopolize the board. IMO, the lack of respect, coupled with fawning evaluations and the monopolization of the board by a few is what makes SH so reprehensible.

- Panamax