Let me start by stating that usually I don't give out unsolicited opinions about facts that didn't involve my person, but after reading the discussion that came out about the "unfortunate events" I feel the need to add some thoughts.

> Rather than blame or credit the mediums, I'd rather blame and credit the people.

The *media* are never faulty. It all depends on how people use (or misuse) them.
Anyway, it's usual for chat rooms or mailing list to have "good" and "bad" periods; if RinkChat received many new participants, boredom is a direct consequence of it: not all people are so smart to get immediately confident with other people or to be immediately -or always- funny; they need some time to "get" into the thing.
Experience taught me that trying to revive a boring chat session usually leads to less than satisfying results; also taught me that pranks like that from you and Dave *always* backfire.

I understand (but not agree with) those people that had a dissenting opinion on your joke: they see RW as a "safe place" in which they meet the same (moral/ethical) values they trust; your prank scared them, because they saw something they didn't expect - coming directly from the people they thought were defending those values.

IMHO, I saw nothing more than a prank gone bad; the only criticism that you and Dave may deserve is that you can have much better ideas than that prank - and I say this with a smile :).

Respectfully,
Andrea