You know, the more I think about it the more I think that, in a text environment, people exist only inasmuch as they post. (This is thunderingly obvious to everyone else, I'm sure.) The reason why "the lurkers support me in email" is a joke is that lurkers are not people, not as far as the board is concerned. They don't post; they're not part of public discourse; they -- bluntly -- don't matter. They're as useless a concept as Nixon's "silent majority".
So...? I guess what I am saying is that, if you want to be heard, you must speak. I'm pleased that so many people have come out in the past day or so to say "I'm intimidated", because now we know that people are intimidated and maybe we'll all take that into consideration, consciously or unconsciously. But if you can't bear to say publically, "Hey, I'm intimidated", then as far as the board is concerned, it isn't so. Until you say it and make it so.
While adhering to the resolution to say your feelings without stepping on anyone else's feelings, which is the big mistake I think Rafmun was making all of yesterday. It's hard to listen to a plea to be more sensitive from someone who does not seem act sensitively at all!
Also, I realized in the course of the discussion that there is no public link to the Cheese Butt Book of Buffista Lawspeak anywhere. I compiled it, with assists from Sophia and Deena, and everyone seemed to like it, but it never got anything like ratified or formally accepted or put in an easy-to-find place on the site. It needs updating now, but once updated, what would you all like to do with it? I think it would be useful to have a formalized history of what we've decided on some of the major rules, not least to short-circuit the tendency towards confused summary in the middle of a het-up debate. But you know, I am also the one what wrote it, so of course I want you all to love it and call it George.