You weren't banned! We'd have said so if we did that.

Being called a rude name is bad (though I think the commenter edited it out?), but like every user here, you still need to follow the rules regardless of what someone else does.

The core issue is the flamewar thing—by which I mean high-quantity, low-quality controversies—which is the essence of what we're asking people to avoid in comment threads.

Fair enough, I do see this as high quantity, low quality - although I do wish people would understand the point. I didn't realise that equalled a flame war. I just wanted to stand up for myself and an obvious truth. I didn't really think it was a flamewar until there was name slinging and the arguments deviated away from a reasoned rebuttal. The snark level was definitely escalating, so apologies if I contributed to that - my karma was duly punished :)

THat thank you was actually directed at dang, anyway, why am I not surprised that even that comment was downvoted. I am truly amazed by this conversation and fail to understand how those commenting here pass the bar for civil conversation.