Those are some wise words Laura, thank you. I did recently have a read of the Conflict and Kindness message and it is very relevant and well written.

I was just thinking . . . some people here want to stick to discussions about mercury. Others like myself enjoy having conversations now and then which are off topic. I can understand why these might upset some people, particularly if they are struggling with their health and feel unable/unwilling to deal with those topics and the disagreement they sometimes provoke.

A number of other forums have a main list for on-topic threads, and another list for off-topic threads. That is sort of the case here. However, what I see is a lot of other topic-specific areas, which seem to get little or no traffic compared to the mercury forum. I wonder if Russ would be willing to merge most or all of these and make one, two or three other areas where people can discuss what they want? For example, there is an area to talk about creationism, but no area where people can go to talk about religion, philosophy, conspiracy theories -- just to name a few things that have come up recently. So they appear on the main forum (the mercury forum), and some people don't like this.

I also find that some interesting discussions do happen in the other areas here but I wouldn't know it if I didn't go hunting over there occasionally, and I'm sure I'm still missing a lot. I would find it easier just to scan through the topics on an off-topic list and pick the ones I want to read/talk in. Maybe this division of the entire list into "mercury forum" and "all other topics" is not what Russ originally had in mind, but it does seem to be the case that here is where most of the interest and discussion seems to be.

My thoughts <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Linda.