The problem with EVC

You want evidence for personal insult? evidence for unanswered questions? evidence for snide comments?have a read... it's all over the place, you yourself have been on the recieveing end as much as anyone.
(iano thinks: indeed I have mook... indeed I have! )

Believe it or not, back in the day when the PNT etc format was being discussed on the board, a fair amount of us used that same argument. The majority, however, came down on the side of the current format. Several people left in a huff (for that and other reasons), a few of whom have since returned. I'm personally still undecided (after all this time) as to whether I prefer the PNT or the more "open" format of a board like IIDB. Not being one of those who've had problems with it, I guess the PNT thingy hasn't really affected me much. OTOH, I agree that some PNTs that might have been interesting haven't been promoted. However, overall I've noticed that the mods are pretty reasonable about reversing their decisions if you whine about it enough on the Consideration of topic promotions from the Proposed New Topics thread.

Well, if we want to follow the analogy - no. In the sense that graduate students are not qualified to be journal editors and referees. Unfortunately the peer review system is a tiered system where experience and qualifications determine your ranking. Given your own comments, would you want all members of the forum to have equal ranking to pass judgement on the posts of others (other than simply not replying)? The only qualification to show up here is a computer and an internet connection, so I think we need some qualified and impartial moderators to pass judgement once in a while. You could look at it that way (no offense taken). I prefer to consider it comparable to the satisfaction one derives from teaching a good lecture - you just don't see all the student's faces. You shouldn't let the attitudes of some of the creo's upset you or color your learning experience.
Pick your debates carefully and ignore the pedantic crap.
I would also point out that learning anything complex can be a daunting process and a struggle. Sometimes we only learn something because we have had to deal with problems that seem very annoying and frustrating at the time. That's normal in science as well. Chin up and keep posting

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so to address challenges to my own conceptual framework that may be posed by the more educated and intelligent of the membership.

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And I would imagine that there have been times when you have come to a different understanding of subjects that you thought you knew cold when you have had to explain the concepts to others.

Absolutely.
As a researcher, I don't do much teaching, but there is no better exercise for clarifying your own concepts than having to explain them lucidly to someone else - especially when you meet with some resistance

An early mentor always insisted to me that you don't really understand something until you can explain it to a bright child.It's a pretty good test.

I don't disagree with the sentiment of what you say mook. It can be frustrating. But from my position I expect it to be that way so it makes it bearable for me (John 15:18 is the bread and water of a web evangelist). There are some who really push the boat out and whose goal it is to snipe and undermine and frustrate and absorb energy. It seems to be a sport for them whereas the majority are here for honest-as-can-be reasonsBut you don't have to engage them. They are easy to spot. Check out the post history for suspected snipers and you'll inevitably see that its always one or two liners and always intended to prise the lid open on a facet of us all: pride. We want to be taken seriously, yet see someone who manages to duck under Mod radar and dig in the ribs. Pride gets us into responding to try to 'win'And so we lose...It depends on how dear you hold your views. In the measure that you do then take the hits. You have a view and the hits just help you to keeps the arms tucked into the side. But don't let them consume you(if you feel like it you can always poach them: they do come out to play now and then and their inexperience usually leaves them wide open )

What do they recommend when the kid ain't all that bright?

Send them to church.

In other words, turning the other cheek does not mean that one is not fighting, then?

Thanks for understanding how that was meant.

Well, we COULD have them listen to a few episodes of Quirks and Quarks Better preaching, usually! Here is a better link.Edited by Phat, : add better link

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Do Christians come across THAT tight arsed? Maybe I should blow hte dust off "iano's testimony - the Gorey Details" one of these days.I'm reminded of those Tommies stewing in the muddy trenches of Christmas 1914. "Hey NaziNed..fancy a game of football?..." BBC NEWS | Special Report | 1998 | 10/98 | World War I | The Christmas truce

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In the Crimean War British, French and Russians at quiet times also gathered around the same fire, smoking and drinking. In the American Civil War Yankees and Rebels traded tobacco, coffee and newspapers, fished peacefully on opposite sides of the same stream and even collected wild blackberries together. Similar stories are told of the Boer War, in which on one occasion, during a conference of commanders, the rank and file of both sides engaged in a friendly game of football.

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It would make you cry...

All the children are above average.