Nancy retreated because of the difficulty of carrying on a dialogue (we won't question the "quality" of the dialogue) with folks who wanted to read what she was sharing. During a "chat" there would be scores of "posts" by debunkers and detractors that had minimal if any cogent content, and that in fact were mostly just antagonizing spam - not so much aimed a Nancy, but at her READERS. Nancy had to spend almost as much time deleting such posts, and banning such posters, as she spent typing her own material. Her retreat to the Ning solved a real COMMUNICATION problem (again, we won't discuss the "quality" of that "communication").

:mutlogo: is not retreating from a compromised communication vehicle, but from an implied threat. Now I'm not excusing such behavior - implied threats are real ones, and should be taken seriously. But there is such a thing as THREAT LEVELS - and we as a society put different levels of severity, and tailor different responses to different types of "threats". There's a big difference between saying "I am going to do this if you do this" versus "You'll be sorry if you do this". The first is more direct and more severe than the second - and more likely to elicit a response from law enforcement. But that doesn't mean the second one is any less "important" - for the context of the statements are VERY important, as well as WHO is making them, etc. Now if Astromut is not sharing everything that's happened to him, that's one thing. But I can't take very seriously the threat he posted as an excuse for bailing on an activity, he to date has pursued with GREAT enthusiasm. If we take the incident he reported at face value, and substitute '***ZetaMax***' for Astromut, I'd blow it off without a second thought. (But again, that assumes he's not withholding information.)

Nancy did not leave because of implied "threats" to her well-begin - but because of very legitimate communication capability impairment. I'm sorry, but that is NOT the reason Astromut is retreating.