Iucounu, I disagree completely. If the OP doesn't feel censored, you don't get to say that she has been! That's patronising of you at the least. She had the option, after all, of telling whoever PMed her that she disagreed, and leaving it at that. As you say, it's unlikely the moderators would have taken action, and if they had, we'd have had a different position. She chose instead, as was her right, to ask what people thought. She chose, on hearing a variety of points of view, to change her signature; there too, she could have respectfully disagreed and kept it as it was. You disagree with her choice, but that doesn't make her coerced.
You lay great stress on the idea that we have no evidence that anyone was in fact offended. That's true, but neither do we have evidence that nobody was. We don't know. [Incidentally, you hypothesise that it hadn't occurred to anyone that the signature might be a problem until this thread. That's not true: it had occurred to me on multiple occasions, although I hadn't felt so strongly as to say anything about it until I was directly asked.]
The trouble with a signature, in general, is that it lacks context, and is too short to provide its own context. There's clearly an art in choosing signatures that add value to one's posts.
I strongly want this forum to remain a place where people can say what they think, thoughtfully and politely, even if many others will vehemently disagree. I think discussion about whether what someone says is really what they mean goes along with that, rather than contradicting it. Discussions in which people may change their minds tend to be the interesting ones.
Last edited by ColinsMum; 08/24/11 06:36 AM.
