Thanks for the explanation. I was formulating a reply shortly after he made the post. At the time, Richard's post had a -4 karma, so I was actually prohibited from doing so (with my lowly karma ranking). I guess that is the system working as it should. As a newcomer in a situation where most reactions have been negative and none that I recall has moved beyond "grudging tolerance" to "friendly tolerance", it's easy to assume that any given opinion might be shared by lots of others.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.