>I do understand you're point Marcia - one can always simply not subscribe to the chatter section or just not read certain posts - but it's supposed to be a tech forum - why turn it into a forum of chatter when there is facebook for that type of thing? The website owner can do whatever they want with it so no reason to take a vote on it - it's not up to us, it's up to the owner of the site.

I'll miss the chatter section for sure, but I guess with the recent wave of outpouring from Marcia I was largely skipping most of it, jumping in only at random and when something catches my eye. Like the graying out of Walter's name - is he banned or what? - or some posts where I thought I could add some viewpoint missed by others.

And no, facebook is not for this kind of chatter. It's for tracking personal info and advertising, which is why I wrote a total of about 200 bytes there, five years ago. Then someone hacked my name there and I left it so. Never went back. For the twitter, even less - just created my username there but never wrote a thing, nor read anything that anyone had to say.

Chatter on UT is (was?) a horse of a completely different color - it's us foxers, who know each other for years, not some random illiterates you find on fb. We have all helped each other at some point, learned from each other, and that's what makes it different. The dispute is always between friends, or at least between longtime acquaintances.