In reply to m dunn: I apologise to you if I have caused YOU upset or offence but but continue to feel nothing but contempt for the OP who chose to cast aspersions on a popular, likeable and prodigiously talented climber for whatever sad and malicious reason from the pusillanimous cover of anonymity. It would appear the anonymous profile was created for this reason alone when you look at the posting history. If they had a genuine issue to raise they could have named themselves and their reason and we could have had a civilised debate. I agree there is an issue worthy of discussion whilst personally feeling the RO behaved entirely correctly
I used to enjoy the banter on here and post quite often but gave up on it because of the unhealthy level of ad hominem attacks, often malicious attempts to stir it up by cowardly anonymous posters.
In the end the event that made me decide to sack it was a vicious argument between two identifiable posters, both of them generally decent, intelligent, witty middle aged men who ended up behaving disgustingly towards each other in a way that would never have occurred face to face. One of them, an alcoholic whose behaviour was most likely erratic due to this, was banned eventually and the other, a lovely and generally peaceful person, sadly became ill and died. Their online fight was really disturbing and enough to sicken me of the whole online persona business and I stopped posting but have occasionally broken my own rule as in this case. I will try not to do so again.
There is nothing wrong with posting anonymously per se*, but that changes if named individuals are criticised and at that point in my opinion the poster has to identify themselves or should be considered a troll or indeed "inconsequential vermin" - there are too many sad people who get their kicks this way. As Iain, no stranger to a good argument in his own name, kindly pointed out I have posted under my own name and am happy to stick by what I say and indeed to talk to anyone face to face. This is emphatically not the case for the trolling OP "big" Freddy.
I hope I'll see you on the hill some day and we can shake hands and have a laugh
cheers, Paul
*I did myself attract my very own stalking troll for some time who variously adopted heroic masculine names like braveheart, big somethingorother themightywhatever and gaelforce, as they do, but who in the end turned out to be a diminutive and effeminate shop assistant with a smattering of hillwalking experience posing as a mountaineer - this is the typical profile of the people who behave in this manner