[MaggieL]

Offensiveness (or what's also been described here as "intolerably annoying", if memory serves) is of course a completely subjective judgement. We've been happy with how UT has managed it so far...and he's been doing it for a long time now. I know he's found it to be a tightrope walk at times.

I think UTs even-handedness and reasonable and fair judgement about such things is a key value proposition of The Cellar, and likely the central reason it has survived as long as it has.

So if you're in favor of a completely objective standard (something I consider mythical, but that's just my opinion), you should probably start your own board that implements one...where you can no doubt listen to such objections from others about your own style. Given how many free blogging engines there are, that's fairly easy on the "no-brainer" scale.

Of course then the task becomes attracting eyeballs, which brings us back to that "key value proposition" business again, and one reason attention whores get such rough treatment when they decide exploit the success of The Cellar to implement their own personal "Tragedy of the Commons".