Quote Originally Posted by Flybye View Post
As a side note, I completely agree with #2 on Mr. Silver's list. Nothing was ever gained by criticism - it is a fruitless venting of emotion and frustration UNLESS it is done in love with good intentions, which I don't believe that it was.
Having met Mr. Mimitabby in person, I believe that his post was given with nothing but good intentions. His tone may have been different/more forceful than what we are used to here on TE. This is the same as a person raising their voice to get their point across. To someone like me who was raised in a quiet family, raising one's voice comes across as confrontational (until I learned otherwise). In the household of many of my friends with different backgrounds, it's a totally normal expression of intense feeling about the issue and can still be very constructive.

And I'd have to argue that criticism can be very useful. If it's given with ideas of how to address the issue, it can be thought provoking and become the catalyst for change. Criticism that is nothing but negative feedback without suggestions for how to correct a situation is useless. My impression is that Mr. MT provided the former not the latter.

Mr. MT took time to compose 2 posts on a forum that he does not visit because he has specific expertise in the area. Perhaps it could have been done in a better way. But I would like to see us leave that issue to Mr. S and Mr. MT to deal with independently, as suggested by Mr. S.

Again Silvers, good luck, we're thinking about you.