You're right-- I have controversial opinions; and I  expect them to be opposed, attacked, criticized, and I am prepared to defend them-- and even change them, even find my views corrected and undone by the arguments of those who can successfully show me my mistakes.

 I posted at the Dailykos an "Update" on my diary entry in which I responded to the 31 comments it drew.

  I see that Jerome is correct, as are others there, who pointed out that the "problem" was due in the first place to the diarist's deleting his or her own diary and, with it, the scores or the hundreds of posts which were appended in reply.

  As we saw with FarEasterner's attempt to edit one of his diaries, such a deletion can occur through a simple mis-struck key; though he shows us, as well, how a responsible person reacts when that sort of thing happens.  Since he was able to do so, he restored all the almost-lost replies verbatim and explained to us what had happened.

  That is exemplary of the quality of the participants here in contrast to what is inevitably the case in a site where hundreds and hundreds contribute.

  I know how very much Eurotrib's contributors are to be valued for the differences they demonstrate.  The quality of this place is rare.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge