> ...to comfort someone? to show support? *shrug*

Point.

> I *like* the personal threads, but what I'm hearing is that they do not belong here . . . . I would hope there was room for both personal *and* idea driven discussions here.

I'd like to think the two aren't mutually exclusive, and I'll use you as an example. wintermute's baseball post was primarily a personal one, and so was your reply, but they're great stuff for this place, because each post expresses a distinct and personal perspective about a staple of American culture, one from within and one from without. It's obvious that both of you put thought into your words and found an interesting way to convey a view of something in the world around us. Perfect.

I think the problem Stephen was addressing back when he said that originally is not much of a problem now. I think the concern for the present was that conversation just wasn't happening at all (something already remedied, it seems!), whereas back then I think the issue was more that people were using the forum for "I had cereal for breakfast today" posts that just did not have anything to offer anybody. I honestly don't even remember any specific examples, just the sense of this general trend.

I do know, though, that I've absolutely never seen you post anything I haven't found worthwhile at minimum and sometimes invaluable. Even though you don't particularly come into chat, you do crop up there once in a while when people make off-handed comments about a current forum thread. More than once I've heard people say that you particularly hit one out of the park. Sometimes it's me.