He apparently sent an offensive email to a member.

Oh Dear! Not good! Was it his decision to quit after a reprimand or was he deleted by the people upstairs? Such a shame - he was good fun.

I suspect the boys deleted him and rightly so send insulting pm's to other members is not acceptable. I personally never found him 'good fun' far too pedantic.

We've had members before who don't respect others. We are a community, and the Community Guidelines are there at the bottom of the page for all to read - and abide by. Sorry if that sounds a bit 'preachy'.

I thought he was completely out of order sending unpleasant pms like that. (It was more than one).

You are absolutely right, Mg. Never under any circumstances, either to other members OR privately. It really surprises me that he did that.
I DID enjoy his very quirky sense of humour, though, and I always thought that was all his pedantic style was ever intended to be.
Not "Preachy" at all, Spritz. I just didn't pick up at all on what had happened. Every one on here has always been, and has always sounded so lovely.

Obviously doing that was unforgivable, also to my mind cowardly, receiving insulting pm`s must be very distressing to anyone male or female.
Not at all preachy Spritz...

I know one member who received such was extremely upset!

Oh crumbs Mg, if it was me, I`d have been devastated...

Not surprised. So would I have been.

No need for that at all, We can do without this distressing behavour. unforgivable.

I found his responses rather 'argumenative' when others suggested answers.
sending nasty pm's is not 'playing the game'.

Oh dear..I didn't know that..how awful for the person or persons on the receiving end..I just couldn't make my mind up about him..and now I won't have to..but it was the right thing to do,in the circumstances..

One of the perils of forums I'm afraid..........

My opinion of him was that he was just a bit bonkers, which is why he could be construed as 'entertaining' - come across people like that before I'm afraid!

I don't think he was a 'troll' though, do you? I remember several of them! :-((

No, not a troll - just a bit bonkers...

Was his 'science' spurious? I had started to wonder!

I've heard of trolls - what exactly are they in the modern context? (and I don't mean the Billy Goats Gruff one, either)

I can only describe how they behave, Gattina - they join and more or less straight away start making unpleasant, aggressive, or offensive remarks on any threads they add comments to, and often send abusive private messages too, though most of their activity is public. They vary from being subtle and not using bad language through to swearing like troopers from the start, but all will be abusive, sometimes disguised as 'having a laugh'. We've had 2 or 3 on here in the last couple of years - trick is to recognise and flag as soon as possible, they seem to get off on stirring up a fight.

And Spritz, I don't know whether his science was spurious or not - I don't think I ever read properly any of his posts, just skimmed over them and, probably awful of me to say, didn't really take his comments seriously, having already marked him down as, at best, a person with social difficulties who was probably unaware he had any issues.

I must be very naive and innocent.

I thought you were just young, Gattina, aren't you? Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'an innocent abroad' if you're not, lol! Sorry, couldn't resist that...

OK GOY'S. It's time to put the black paint away and wash your brushes. Finis.

Oh Dear, Bamboo, I must given the wrong impression! But thank you, just the same. No, just immature with wrinkles and a bad back.

Black paint? Brushes? Dunno what you're on about, Ivoni thingy - no criticism or painting black intended here, just an acknowledgement and acceptance of other people being different. Well, so long as they're not abusive, which means they have to be rejected, unfortunately, can't be helped.

Gattina: I don't know if you're niave or 'immature' or not, might just be you've not come across people with difficulties in your life - I have, lived with a manic depressive husband for 12 years - we don't live together any more, but we're still mates, all the time he's rational anyway. And that means you pick up on things...

Well I am mad as a bag of spanners...I think I have annoyed a few on here without meaning to.

You're not alone, Pimpernel - I've done it too, but if told about it, a clear explanation usually sorts it out, lol! Its quite easy to be misinterpreted when all we have is written words.

Misinterpretation is another forum peril - I tend to ignore it as that is usually all that it is.
Offensive or nasty pm's are another matter. I've been offended by a couple of people on here and have sent them a pm to put my point of view across, but even then have been polite (I hope). But unsolicited nasties are out of order.

Exactly. It can be very upsetting.

I often go into internet chatrooms when it's late and I need cheering up - the prob with that, and with forums in general, is that all we have is the writeen word, sometimes posted by people whose first language isn't Englsh. there's no facial expression, body language, tones of voice to help us interpret what the person meant, all we have are the words which might be in a different language to the one the sender uses at home; it can be fatally easy to say the wrong thing, or express oneself in the wrong way, or not give a clera enough indication that one is only joking, and so have one's missaplied words taken seriuosly.