This is a great message for you have just posted now, tanem, as a few people -- I among them -- got ourselves into a wee lather. It is good to be reminded that lots of forum users find the information offered here consistently useful even when the tone is not consistently civil.

I will just point out that, as I understand it, the discussion you reference was precipitated by a specific incident. With an eye to a house she wanted to buy, a newish forum member asked a question about the utility of replacing a 30" range with a 24" range, so that she could create extra landing area. After some inconclusive postings, a more established and generally respected poster (GRP) gave the OP the strongly worded and totally unsolicited advice to buy a different house if she didn't have more than $10k to spend on messing with what was in fact a working kitchen.

I absolutely believe that GRP would not buy an otherwise enchanting house without having the money to then create a perfect kitchen right this second. I found the obvious assumption that this line of thinking was the only one possible for any rational being breathtakingly bone-headed. More to the point, it was mean. The was no "were I in your position...," just "buy a different house!"

So I think the discussion you reference was warranted, but I am thankful for your peaceable initiative.

Sorry Honorbiltkit - I disagree with your words "mean" and "uncivil." The OP led with:

"Still new here and looking for some expert advice :) We are thinking of putting an offer on the house we want - 1907 Old Portland / Foursquare with a really strange kitchen - so whether or not we make the offer kind of depends on what I can do with the kitchen as it stands."

The GRP wrote: "If you are looking at a house like that and starting off by saying the range "can't be moved," then I'd run away as fast as possible. The layout is completely dysfunctional. There is no landing or prep space, traffic runs right in front of work, and sorry, that oven is tiny. I have a 27" right now and I find it completely inadequate for baking--the air circulation is terrible. I've had ranges with no landing space before and ended up putting hot pans on the floor or burning myself when I turn around to find a spot for them. Just because somebody knows someone who knows someone who can cook a great meal in a dysfunctional kitchen doesn't mean you can, or want to.

Speaking as someone who bought an old house with a hard-to-fix dysfunctional kitchen."

Not to keep the drama alive, but I thought it was a perfectly legitimate opinion, stated clearly and with civility. Even later, when the GRP stated that the kitchen is "tarted up" it is still a legitimate opinion on a thread posted by an OP who has not yet committed to a house. That is EXACTLY the time that I would invite lots of frank opinions.

I really feel strongly this sort of discussion - exchange of frank opinion - is the real value of this forum. So I guess I will keep defending it :)

Like the OP, I haven't participated in the recent contentious posts, but I too am VERY grateful for everything I've learned here the past 6 months as we've renovated our time capsule MCM home. And I don't think I would have learned nearly as much from this forum if there weren't open discussions, diverse opinions and yes, even heated debates. :)

I understand the gist of your argument, sallysue, but your excerpts left out some key elements.

The thread is titled "Space-Making Questions," and the OP never sought advice on whether to buy the house or whether anyone else thought the kitchen would be preclusively dysfunctional without a $50k redo ASAP. Nonetheless, GRP was stuck on a shrill "don't buy that house" even after the OP had said she really likes the house as a whole, and kept on badmouthing a kitchen that could not even be seen in its entirety.

I have no problem with anyone candidly encouraging a newbie to think about tradeoffs or to recognize potential problems, especially before a contract is signed or work has begun. It is the bullying absolutism -- e.g., the implication that trying to live with a 27" oven constitutes a character flaw -- I find inexplicable.

Other posters also misunderstood the reasons OP stated early on that the range could not be moved, and we responded with possibilities that turned out to be irrelevant, at least for the near term. That said, we were mostly helpful rather than didactic in tone, and we had clearly read the entirety of OP's posts. I think GRP may not have.

I may not agree with what you say, sallysue, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. I will also reserve the right to object to pointless mean-mindedness in a public space.

You and I will just have to agree to disagree.

Here's a link to the thread. Cheers

Here is a link that might be useful: Space-makng questions.

All the fuss was started over that thread? (the thread was obviously quite beside the point) What a let down. I have certainly said worse on here in a far more pernicious tone. The OP didn't seem phased and held her ground fine. What a tempest in a teapot. I might lack the requisite sensitivity but I think you have to go pretty far out of your way to be offended by anything in that thread. For the record I didn't find anything in the posts in the "good vs perfect" thread warranted such an intense response either but my sense is it was things happening off the board that led to that blow-up. I have no knowledge of that situation and zero interest in taking a side.

Honor - I will always agree to disagree :) I read the thread again and still cannot see a personal attack anywhere in there. But since you say my excerpts left out some "key elements," I sure don't want to appear to have cherry-picked to defend my position. Here are the rest of the words posted by the GRP on that thread:

"I vote no on this house for you. Your budget is small, you are "new" to remodeling (no DIY?), and this kitchen has lots of layout issues. That is a bad combo. The issues are fixable but not for free--things like adding 8" next to the stove is not worth the bother. (What kind of pan can you set down on 8"?)
This kitchen wasn't really renovated, it was just tarted up."

The OP did not own the kitchen, nor did she renovate it. She said she is looking at putting in a bid on the house depending on whether or not she can live with the kitchen. She is looking at buying a house with a kitchen that another poster thinks would be impossible to cook in based on his past experience with tiny kitchens. He felt strongly about that - she ended up feeling strongly that the kitchen layout is not that big of a deal to her. I thought it was, all the way around, a very satisfying discussion with several points of view well-aired. To frame the GRP's attempts to communicate his concern about the OP getting into a bad situation as "mean," "uncivil," and "mean-minded" is, well, kinda mean. Imho.

I'm going to second everything sallysue said. I am tempted to just let this thread die, but at the same time it also bothers me that a thread that someone posted with positive comments to try to point out all the good in this forum was turned into yet another attack on a poster who doesn't HAVE to post comments, advice or opinions but yet who does post a lot to help people.

Quite frankly, I'd prefer knowledgeable advice from anyone with experience on a subject I am asking about, regardless of whether it is phrased with sugar and spice or whether it isn't, and I think that calling people out for not posting their opinions with the requisite political correctness that is deemed necessary could be discouraging to people who might not want to post for fear that they will be publicly called out if their own posts will be taken the wrong way. Especially when a person's posts sharing personal experience are dissected in public and criticized. I could understand agitation with a post calling someone an idiot or lambasting a finished kitchen or otherwise being phrased as a personal attack on a particular poster, but I don't think that this was what that was.

Just my two cents, not trying to stir up trouble!