Indeed you are imagining things: that 75% of threads did not involve people insulting each other 3 or more days ago ;-).
> I'm a relative newbie here myself, but I'm quite delighted by
> the combativeness of this list. So many mailing lists have a
> preposterously constipated notion of decorum -- like a tea
> party in some little-used petty-bourgeois parlor, ...
I'll take the constipated decorum, please. For the diarrhoeic, uncouth toddy party there is still Usenet (and the grand example that it provides) available today entirely in write-only mode.
--ravi