Only you will decide that. For my own part, I believe it would be a great service to those men who want to learn something useful from this forum, to confine interpersonal fighting to threads like this one.
You are obviously in touch with Ralph. This is not the first time you brought him up. I asked myself many many times why he came after me. It has never happened before for "no reason" and it has not happened since. I asked him more than a few times when he was here. He never gave me an adequate answer. I therefore came to my own conclusions, and it is not good.
Why would I be attacked for no reason? At least with Danny, Martin and so forth, I understand. Yes, it is important to me. It was not just the name calling. It was the cussing and hounding. If I do anything wrong, I want to know about. I will not be attacked just because.
Even a man shouting in a little boat in the middle of the ocean is sometimes heard. That's not even me. You heard it, and you are in touch with Ralph.
How do you know? You have the power to know what he will do each time he goes into his computer? Did you read my post above yours? Go look for it. That's exactly what he said. If he is gone, good. But, you don't know.
You are wrong about the topic, which is the reason why your statistics stinks. I was talking about the thread and therefore it is on topic. It all depends on whose opinion it is.
A. The way these things are usually understood, a thread topic is given by the thread title, and the original post. That hundreds of posts are off-topic doesn't mean that the topic somehow magically changed. It means that the forum is not effectively moderated.
B. Of course, we could make a different interpretation, that a thread is about the majority of posts. In that case, hundreds of threads in the past 5 years on this forum are on the topic "a gang of less than 10 guys who love to slap each other". By this definition, most of the bickering posts are on-topic.
Now, you are complicating things, as usual. What we are talking about is not what leads to a better forum. We are talking about one post in which I was talking about the thread. Talking about the thread is off topic about the thread?
By analogy, a bunch of guys go to a nice little clearing in a park, to discuss some questions of mutual interest.
After a while, some of them pull down their pants, and start relieving themselves all over the clearing.
When other men try to return to the subject they started with, the bare-assed guys say, "what's the matter with you? Are you stupid? Why are you trying to hold a meeting a latrine?"
I apologize, for being so slow to understand this. Sometimes I'm just stupid.
Durak & Rb,,, I read the beginning of the Calamity thread, Rb simply expanded the topic of the thread, and Ralph or now “Harvey” pounced. Ralph was the first one to start with the name calling.
Durak,,, you always come down on one side! Between danny and I, you chose danny. Between Jet and I, you chose Jet. Between Rb and his many tormentors,, you chose the tormentors! It takes a lot of gall to blame a victim!
Durak,, you always claim to be open minded,,, try using your eyes and your mind at the same time! Go back to the first 3 pages of this thread and look and see who is doing the taunting,,, it’s your good buddy danny! Look at the $hit he is posting! And you can’t understand why people retaliate against him??
Durak:
“It still seems to be important to you, that Ralph called you names. I think he has made about 5 posts in the last couple of years, and it's a year or so since he last posted. I very much dislike his name calling, but it was a long time ago now.
He is married to a woman he is delighted to be with. He is earning an excellent income. He is doing things he enjoys and cares about. He is making the most of life.
What do you say, guys? How about following his present-day example?”
I used to be Ralph’s friend too,,,, but he had a short fuse!! I simply mentioned to him that I corresponded with martin and he turned on me too. I “ unfriended” him from fb because of it. Today,,, his fb relationship status is “single” and all of the photos of him and his wife are gone!! Why?
I do like something Ralph posted though:
“danny40 -- what is your problem with EVERYTHING? grow up already.”
Thanks LR. Sometimes it is difficult to have a proper perspective of what is right and what is wrong in this forum. Everyone was against me on that thread. I happen to believe that no one who is part of a conflict is innocent. Once you retaliate, you become part of the problem. But, I am no saint.
How can one show Ralph or anyone as an example because he is earning an excellent income and married to a woman he is delighted with? If that is the criteria, then Ralph is small meat. Follow Donald Trump.
Ralph got into it with Martin. Martin then went into the internet and posted that Ralph was once convicted of drunk driving, a felony. Felonies are public records. Post any felony you want on the internet, and you will not get in trouble. I explained that to Ralph to his dismay. He wanted his information private.
I should have taken that cue back then because Ralph continued his tirade against me. Then I decided to threaten to go into his criminal records. That is when he left the forum.
I do not wish anything bad with Ralph, Danny or anyone else. But, I am just exercising my right to be in the forum. The success of one should not include the bringing down of someone else.
Rb, Ralph had a legitimate reason for wanting his privacy, and it wasn’t to hide some deep dark secret.
Why would durak say that Ralph is a good example, because he is making good money? There is always someone who is making more money,,, or someone that is younger, or more handsome. That’s one of the reasons why I won’t take women on vacations for a first meeting. Of course they are interested in you when you are paying their way,,, but what happens when the non-stop good times end?? Poof
Rb,,, almost everybody was against you on this thread, that’s why they created it. I started the “All danny” thread to confine all of the bickering. Members were sick of all of the bickering, so I thought confining it to one thread would make a difference,,, it didn’t! The people that were sick of reading all of it,,, followed the thread. They didn’t have to read it,,, but they did! It’s now one of the most popular threads ever,,,, why??
Durak wants to start up the forum police again! He’s telling you how to post and he was telling me what is relevant or pertinent to FSU dating.
Durak says that he hates lies,,,,, well I hate hypocrisy! On the same day that he is dictating to you, what you can and cannot post,,,, he starts a thread that has absolutely nothing to do with dating.
He is concerned about the people that come here to learn about FSU,,,,, and wants everyone to “stay on topic” then he posts about his rolling over in bed the wrong way?? His rolling over in bed only effects one person, gun control will have an impact on the whole nation. I sometimes think it would be very ironic,,,, to have a woman who has dreamed of coming to America and starting a family her whole life,,,, to finally make it here, only to discover she has less freedom than where she came from. This won’t happen any time soon,,, but gun control is the start,,,,, and that’s why it needs to be fought!
LR, I don't care what Ralph's secrets are. I only care that that I have that weapon of deterrence.
Look again. I didn't say this thread. I said that thread. If one was off topic, and I still believe that I was not, how does that prompt name calling and cussing? That was not the only thread it happened in. Ralph was supported by a few. Durak was quiet, but we now see his thoughts.
Did you notice that there are many people here in the forum that could be lectured about the hazards of FSU dating? Durak, by and large has always been the analytic one - explains things in detail, and never lecturing. That is, until the gun thread of all places. He lectured you, not just on guns, but also how you are desperate and lacking in critical thinking about FSU dating. Strange.
I didn't say much on the gun thread because I didn't want to put in the time it required. I did make a couple of posts in which I thought if Durak agreed, the argument would be over. Durak agreed with one and ignored the other. He used the word, "but" and kept on.
To be clear -- my observation (and I think it a really important one) that in the FSU, it is vital to be able to tell genuineness from fraud, was ABSOLUTELY NOT directed specifically to lonely, or any other individual.
If I have something to say to a specific man, I do so by name.
It is a caution, that every man who is serious about seeking a relationship would do well to consider. To all: if you keep falling for lies, if you keep "buying snake oil," if you give your hard-earned money to fortune tellers and medical quacks, then you are at extra high risk for really miserable (maybe life-changing) experiences in FSU dating.
Some of us keep buying iron pyrite, thinking it's gold. It doesn't mean we're bad guys ... it just means we'd be better off keeping out of high-risk markets.
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By the way, my recollection from the early days of lonely's posting is that he gave up on the whole FSU dating thing after some rough experience. This being my understanding, any recommendation about FSU dating is specifically NOT for lonely, but only for those still in the hunt.
OK. I looked at your post at the bottom page six of the gun thread. Of the thirteen posts above yours, two are yours and eleven are LR's. You did address, "men" instead of LR, but you did not address LR specifically. I can accept that. I just thought it strange that the thread is so off topic and goes into so many directions on gun control that you would pick that thread to make that point about FSU.
I thought, and still think, that 'Gun Control' realistically has nothing to do with the purpose of this forum. lonely's defense: it IS relevant, because an FSU woman will be terribly disappointed when she comes to the USA, only to find that it is turning into North Korea. To a man who knows ANYTHING about US history, FSU history, conditions in FSU countries today* ... that is simply stupid. I don't think lonely is stupid, he just loves to go on about domestic politics -- other men have done so on this forum before.
But I DID see a genuine relevance to the purpose of this forum, when I saw obvious fraud -- there are lots of grotesque frauds put out about political controversies, that in some ways are quite similar to many dating websites and marriage agencies.
The common element, is that cynical and exploitative people use techniques of psychological manipulation, to convince their victims of "facts" that are absolutely false (for example, a ridiculous "quote" from Admiral Yamamoto, or that stunning girls dream of domestic bliss with ordinary blokes twice their age). And these fraudsters aren't sophisticated -- most of what they do is very crude indeed -- because their victims WANT to believe the message (that is, the lie).
So by accident, the Gun Control thread turned from something that has NOTHING to do with FSU dating, to something that gets to the very core of the difference how to survive in that environment.
As far as I know, none of has needed a firearm in the FSU -- but many of us have been "shot through the heart" by liars of one kind or another. That's why I took the time to write posts on the subject.
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*Just one example: The major FSU countries have gun restrictions much stronger than 99.9% of the USA. So if your Russian love happens to be an Annie Oakley, the US will be her favorite western country.