First, a disclaimer: I have little right to comment on this incident, except in general terms as a Rinkworks regular. I wasn't there when it happened, and so far have only heard one side of it. So feel free to regard this post as biased.

There are many things I could say, but what they all boil down to is this: offensiveness is not an absolute. Offensiveness depends only minimally on *what* is said. More important is who says it to whom, and why, and how, and when, and where. This is why you find joking insults or compliments from your friends humorous, when the exact same comment would get a stranger smacked in the head. This is why some people can hurt you deeply with a polite word.

My respect for a person is based on the sum of all my knowledge of that person: everything I have heard them say or do, everything other people have told me about them, all that I remember or know or think about them. All this, plus my own gut feeling about that person, is what decides whether I respect them or not.

If I had arrived in Rinkchat for the very first time while this was going on, I probably would have left before I realised it was a joke, and never come back. I would have thought, "Great, a typical stupid chatroom full of losers." And yes, if I had ever thought about it again, I would have had little respect for those people.

The difference is that it *was* a joke, however unsuccessful. And every single person who was in that chatroom has been around Rinkworks long enough that they should know Sam and Dave better than their reactions seem to indicate.

We all know this website has an unusually high standard of humour. I hope this whole thing was just a brief product of converging late nights, silliness, and conflicting moods and tolerance levels. I also hope it blows over quickly, because I couldn't imagine this site without Eric any more than without Sam or Dave. The same goes for the others who were upset. But if anyone is suggesting a Zero Tolerance Policy on any effort from our admins which falls short of screamingly funny perfection, I'll hold the door for you on your way out.

Brunnen-"hurt leads to anger...anger leads to hatred...or something...or the Dark Side...uh, what was that line? Gosh, I sound just like Speedball"G