Thread infestation has never been an offence under TN rules.
POINT 1.
A poster who, by and large, manages to dodge pretty well all infringements but continues over a long period to infest and undermine divers threads, walks free.
Worthy threads that have been abandoned in despair by highly qualified posters as a result of thread infestation have left us a legacy of - yes, you’ve got it: unfettered, uncontrolled, unrestricted thread infestation.
TNUK has always allowed us one way of stemming this cancer: the Random Crap rule. If posters hit the Report button and flag up ‘random crap’, certain posts can be - and have in the past been - removed.
POINT 2
I notice that attacks on the poster, rather than on the post, have increased enormously in recent months (mostly on the political threads). Again, hit the Report button and the Mods will respond.
The truck threads are fine; it’s only on the political threads where some folk are straying too far into the realm of personal abuse. I’m not on the receiving end, so I merely make the observation.
Ok guilty as charged.
I have always been (also) guilty of speaking direct and speaking my mind…as in real life.
If anybody is offended as an observer …ok I am (nearly) sorry, but I can not think why they would be tbh.
We are supposed to be hard assed macho truckers ffs
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So the way I see it if you are offended over something as trivial, maybe a forum with those sort of people on aint for you.
On other hand if I get a yellow card from Dave I will apoligise and comply, if I am deemed to have overstepped the mark…but still in a bewildered and amazed sort of way.
I do think the status quo of the forum is better than some tame beige sanitized version…we have lost too much interest and activity as it is.
I do not say anything to anybody on here I would not say to them in real life, and that is my criteria…maybe that is my problem, but at least what you see is what you get.
I look and equate this forum as a bunch of ‘blokes in a pub’, some you like, some you dont,.and there is always gonna be a personality clash, and maybe a fight.
That is my take on it anyway, I apologise if my zero tolerance to d/heads comes across a bit strong, but that is just how I am.
Cheers
Good post. Frank and honest. I get what you’re saying. I too am a forthright person in real life and after years knocking about in transport and education I’m not afraid to speak my mind.
I’m never offended by the personal slagging off in these threads and I certainly can’t be arsed to get offended on some strange bloke’s behalf!
However, I get really frustrated when – as so often happens on the politics threads – I find myself in firm agreement with what someone is saying, only to discover that by the end of the post he has squandered all his intellectual leverage by attacking the poster instead of the ideas that poster has espoused. I find it incredibly tedious to the extent I just don’t bother to read on, or to participate. None of it offends me, but shouting at the poster simply impoverishes the debate. So I graze on and find a thread about lorries instead.
He says opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. But opinion isn’t any form of knowledge; it’s a view or judgement not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
Saying that opinion requires no accountability, no understanding is a meaningless statement.
He says the highest form of knowledge is empathy. No it isn’t, because again, empathy isn’t a form of knowledge in the first place; it’s a process.
And what on earth is the self kind of understanding meant to say?
Quotes are often like poems.
They may make no actual sense in themselves, but can act as a catalyst for thought along different lines.
I often like Oscar Wilde quotes, I certainly don’t always agree with them, but many do have a very pointed message.
“It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always absolutely valueless.”
Which is witty and clever, and might provoke thought, but continues…
“The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing.”
Which although witty, is IMHO nonsense.
Edit to add. One of the plus sides of long ferry crossings and weekends off in the winter…I did read a collection of all(?) of Wilde’s plays. The biggest surprise was finding that a “stand out” line from a Pretenders song was actually a line from “Lady Windermere’s Fan”
“we are all of us in the gutter,
some of us are looking at the stars”
Sorry just an excuse for this:
Yes.
Someone with no opinions at all is likely pretty boring.
But opinions, interesting as they are, should be based on facts, not on fictions.
It is difficult / impossible to resolve complex problems, such as political and economic ones accurately because we cannot predict the myriad outcomes from choices made.
So, we can only offer an opinion as to the best actions to take now, for a better future.
We may even want the same better future but differ in how we agree that future can be reached. Back on track.
So, I do get annoyed a bit when someone (often politicians etc) with opinions about how to achieve what is best for the country, accuse others of not being patriotic etc. because their opinions differ.
Likely both want what is best and may agree on better jobs and better wages. But how to achieve may be seen through very different routes.
More than that, opinions are more valuable when based on provable facts.
Supporting an opinion or an argument with a false fact, is risible. It is so easy to do a little bit of fact checking before saying much today.
Yes, I agree with most of your post. The hard part can be distinguishing basic opinion from belief. It is possible to hold the opinion that fairies exist because one has always believed in them; and because no one has proved that they don’t exist. That is a valid opinion.
The other fly in the ointment is that in my opinion, society has in the last five years become significantly less able to recognise that another person can hold a different viewpoint from one’s own. Respecting, without necessarily accepting, another’s opinion - however cranky or belief-based - seems just too difficult to an awful lot of people. It’s here that we need Bullard’s empathy plea!
I started writing a reply but realised that my use of opinion and belief might not be very accurate. Maybe it is just me mixing them up, but can we agree on a definition of the terms we are using?
This from Opinion - Oxford Reference
A proposition (1) that is accepted as true without compelling grounds, therefore falling short of being a belief and far short of constituting knowledge
But there are those who cannot follow logical arguments, and those who refuse to accept evidence, so what is a provable fact is denied as such and logical argument is impossible.
Yes, I recognised those salient points but focussed on the language of expression. Perhaps I should have starred them as you have done.
Empathy is the important word here, rather than ego (IMHO!). The need for empathy is central to the business of holding one opinion whilst recognising someone else’s opinion (even if you don’t agree with it).
Ego, I’m afraid, is a bit of a red herring, as a variety of eastern philosophies and religions has brainwashed us into thinking the ego is a thoroughly bad thing to be squashed at all costs.
I love my ego. I happen to think that the ego is a vital part of our evolutionary tool-kit going back millions of years to protect us and keep us from harm.
In being empathetic, you are automatically keeping your ego in check. So all good then.
Absolutely right. It was modern psychologists in the late 19th and early 20th cen who turned it into the p sycho meaning we use today. [I had to split the word because Americans are not allowed to use it ]
In my opinion, it is our job to use our egos wisely. I look upon the ego as a power-tool which can be used constructively or destructively (like a chainsaw!).
…ok I am (nearly) sorry, but I can not think why they would be tbh. 
…not googled btw honest guv.