This 28B destination isn’t.... great:

https://flic.kr/p/2kG4zat

(01 Mar 2021, 8:11 pm)ne14ne1 wrote This 28B destination isn’t.... great:

https://flic.kr/p/2kG4zat

Looks a bit squashed together to me, like the blind isnt big enough #seaoforange

(01 Mar 2021, 8:11 pm)ne14ne1 wrote This 28B destination isn’t.... great:

https://flic.kr/p/2kG4zat

The 28B?
Surely you mean the 28 to Bchester-le-Street

(01 Feb 2021, 4:33 pm)ne14ne1 wrote London uses small letters on Night & Express services but their destinations are much clearer being either blinds or digital paper screens, along with having the numbers to the right, no via points, and maybe often approaching at slower speeds too:

The revival of this thread has prompted me to suggest that you may be on to something regarding the London layout. That's if we take the second comment on the linked photo as the company employee that programs all of the displays and not as the enthusiast making a comparison. 
Go North East: 6363 / NK70BYN | Daniel Graham | Flickr

Wider context of Dan's response is in regard to the double height display, but the offside route number and smaller variation letters are also featured.

Worth re-acknowledging the MD's argument that having the number on the offside reads better so it doesn't seem as if I'm suggesting that all of the changes made have been done purely because it matched what bus operators in a city ~280 miles away do/used to do.

(01 Mar 2021, 8:31 pm)ASX_Terranova wrote Looks a bit squashed together to me, like the blind isnt big enough #seaoforange

I saw the 28 to BChester le Street at the Coalhouse Roundabout a week or two back. 
It's absolutely horrendous.
At least there isn't a C variant. Would be thinking someone's fingers had developed some sort of stutter!

(01 Mar 2021, 10:09 pm)Andreos1 wrote I saw the 28 to BChester le Street at the Coalhouse Roundabout a week or two back. 
It's absolutely horrendous.
At least there isn't a C variant. Would be thinking someone's fingers had developed some sort of stutter!

You can also get the 35 to ALow Moorsley on a Sunday when there's streetlites on it, hope it's a nicer place than Low Moorsley.

(01 Mar 2021, 10:09 pm)Andreos1 wrote I saw the 28 to BChester le Street at the Coalhouse Roundabout a week or two back. 
It's absolutely horrendous.
At least there isn't a C variant. Would be thinking someone's fingers had developed some sort of stutter!

Arriva Durham had a similar situation years ago that drove me insane with the 7/7A to the Arnison Centre where it ended up being:

7Arnsion Centre
7A Arnison Centre

Shame this is now being brought around again, although not seen them in person yet, from looking at photos at least and my past experience it just doesn't sit right with me and I say this as a concern as opposed to being a nitpicking spotter.

(02 Mar 2021, 3:02 am)Jimmi wrote Arriva Durham had a similar situation years ago that drove me insane with the 7/7A to the Arnison Centre where it ended up being:

7Arnsion Centre
7A Arnison Centre

Shame this is now being brought around again, although not seen them in person yet, from looking at photos at least and my past experience it just doesn't sit right with me and I say this as a concern as opposed to being a nitpicking spotter.

It's definitely not a nitpick, it's a genuine readability issue. 

Even as someone who has fairly good vision I have issues figuring out where the route number stops and the destination begins, I can't imagine what it would be like for those who are visually impaired.

(01 Mar 2021, 10:52 pm)deanmachine wrote You can also get the 35 to ALow Moorsley on a Sunday when there's streetlites on it, hope it's a nicer place than Low Moorsley.

ALow Moorsley sounds like a spin off from a 1980s Comedy, set in wartime France!

---

(02 Mar 2021, 3:02 am)Jimmi wrote Arriva Durham had a similar situation years ago that drove me insane with the 7/7A to the Arnison Centre where it ended up being:

7Arnsion Centre
7A Arnison Centre

Shame this is now being brought around again, although not seen them in person yet, from looking at photos at least and my past experience it just doesn't sit right with me and I say this as a concern as opposed to being a nitpicking spotter.

Believe me, if it was nitpicking there would be a whole load more mentioned than the 28 to BChester le Street. 
It looks horrendous and I don't see how it makes things any easier for passengers, particularly with all the guidance and best practice that exists.

Then there was the whole issue of getting rid of the suffix letters to simplify things and now they're being positioned in such a way that it's not obvious which service it actually is. 
If they were in Wales, they could probably get away with the 28L to Llandudno. BChester le Street and ALow Moorsley just look wrong.

(02 Mar 2021, 3:02 am)Jimmi wrote Arriva Durham had a similar situation years ago that drove me insane with the 7/7A to the Arnison Centre where it ended up being:

7Arnsion Centre
7A Arnison Centre

Shame this is now being brought around again, although not seen them in person yet, from looking at photos at least and my past experience it just doesn't sit right with me and I say this as a concern as opposed to being a nitpicking spotter.

Not nitpicking at all, believe me its just raising very valid points, personally i dont like it, i wear glasses and even i struggle to read the new display, i mean its alright if you have decent knowledge of what the bus is supposed to look like and know where the bus goes to,but if i spare bus is chucked in and it turns up, and you cant see the destination then its gonna generate the response of 'what bus is this' then it ends up potentially sailing past the bus stop

(02 Mar 2021, 8:58 am)Andreos1 wrote Believe me, if it was nitpicking there would be a whole load more mentioned than the 28 to BChester le Street. 
It looks horrendous and I don't see how it makes things any easier for passengers, particularly with all the guidance and best practice that exists.

And would be totally avoided if the route number was placed on the nearside. I've raised the point before but nobody has ever provided a tangible benefit to having it on the offside, whereas there are numerous to following best practice.

(02 Mar 2021, 2:30 pm)mb134 wrote And would be totally avoided if the route number was placed on the nearside. I've raised the point before but nobody has ever provided a tangible benefit to having it on the offside, whereas there are numerous to following best practice.

I've seen comments that it 'reads better' and 'passengers can see it better at bus stations'.

I'd argue neither of those things are actually accurate. 
There's the whole discussion about the 28 to BChester le Street or 35 to ALow Moorsley. 
Then there's the fact that the proportion of bus stations to bus stops is massively in favour of bus stops and punters will potentially struggle to see which service is approaching.
The whole 'can see it better at bus stations' line seems to contradict all the comments we've had from drivers about passengers struggling to see short-running services - despite it being in the apparent prime viewing spot on the offside of the display in the past.

Whereas all the best practice (as you mention) has many positives.

(02 Mar 2021, 4:37 pm)Andreos1 wrote I've seen comments that it 'reads better' and 'passengers can see it better at bus stations'.

I'd argue neither of those things are actually accurate. 
There's the whole discussion about the 28 to BChester le Street or 35 to ALow Moorsley. 
Then there's the fact that the proportion of bus stations to bus stops is massively in favour of bus stops and punters will potentially struggle to see which service is approaching.
The whole 'can see it better at bus stations' line seems to contradict all the comments we've had from drivers about passengers struggling to see short-running services - despite it being in the apparent prime viewing spot on the offside of the display in the past.

Whereas all the best practice (as you mention) has many positives.

Aye, what a load of tosh that is. Ideological preferences being put ahead of what is practically better. Then the bus stations thing - isn't that the entire point of the nearside destination display?

Looking on Flickr, many services still seem to have the route number on the nearside. So you could have a situation where someone gets off one bus where the number is displayed properly, then the next bus in the journey has it on the offside. That won't lead to any confusion. 

Yes, this may seem like nitpicking to some, but small little inconveniences to punters can quickly add up - people can be very fickle.

Just as a comparison, these are the standard destination layouts of the rest of the "big 3" in the NE:  
https://flic.kr/p/2kGrzGK
https://flic.kr/p/2kF5WDY

Both, in my view, are very easy to read and understand. Not cluttered in the slightest, route number easily visible at all times. Compare with this: https://flic.kr/p/2kGmX1J. The Elite i is as uncluttered as the ANE/SNE examples, but has an o/s route number. Then the Streetdeck is, again in my view, quite cluttered and possibly hard for irregular bus users to understand. 

None of those photos were handpicked or anything like that, just the most recent photos in a Flickr search for each operator that had a reasonably clear destination capture.

(02 Mar 2021, 4:37 pm)Andreos1 wrote I've seen comments that it 'reads better' and 'passengers can see it better at bus stations'.

I'd argue neither of those things are actually accurate. 
There's the whole discussion about the 28 to BChester le Street or 35 to ALow Moorsley. 
Then there's the fact that the proportion of bus stations to bus stops is massively in favour of bus stops and punters will potentially struggle to see which service is approaching.
The whole 'can see it better at bus stations' line seems to contradict all the comments we've had from drivers about passengers struggling to see short-running services - despite it being in the apparent prime viewing spot on the offside of the display in the past.

Whereas all the best practice (as you mention) has many positives.

I personally do think that it reads better having the number first, but in just about every other scenario it's worse.
Potentially, in some bus stations where the vehicles are parked on an angle and the door mechanism is in the way, I can see it being easier to see. But in my experience front blinds are impossible to read regardless of the location of the number due to the poor design of the bus stations!

(29 Jan 2021, 8:37 pm)S813 FVK wrote Appreciate that this thread may only get a few replies, but I was struggling to fit it in to one of the already existing threads so was left with no choice but to create a new thread entirely.

In essence, they've been fiddling around with the destination displays. Again.

This time it seems to be to make the route-varying letter smaller (see here: https://flic.kr/p/2kw3c9k). I've seen a couple of other photos this evening of a couple of 1As of which both had the smaller number so they must be seriously considering rolling this out.

What's the theory behind this one? Is there a small glimmer of evidence that suggests that passengers may find it easier to read the *full* route number when displayed in this way?

Nevermind the destination, I am surprised no one has mentioned the state of that panel yet 

In all seriousness though, I agree with most of what has been said already. There seems to be a desire to constantly tinker with the display format, which I think some customers will find confusing and to be honest, I don't see what the rationale is behind it. It feels a bit insignificant, in the mist of a pandemic. 

I think mb134 has probably put it best - 'Ideological preferences being put ahead of what is practically better.'

Transdev appear to do similar on a regular basis too. I've lost count of how many variations of the Coastliner destination I've seen, but this one (taken in 2017) is pretty similar to the current GNE X1 format - https://flic.kr/p/ZXBG61

(02 Mar 2021, 6:35 pm)Adrian wrote Nevermind the destination, I am surprised no one has mentioned the state of that panel yet 

In all seriousness though, I agree with most of what has been said already. There seems to be a desire to constantly tinker with the display format, which I think some customers will find confusing and to be honest, I don't see what the rationale is behind it. It feels a bit insignificant, in the mist of a pandemic. 

I think mb134 has probably put it best - 'Ideological preferences being put ahead of what is practically better.'

Transdev appear to do similar on a regular basis too. I've lost count of how many variations of the Coastliner destination I've seen, but this one (taken in 2017) is pretty similar to the current GNE X1 format - https://flic.kr/p/ZXBG61

I'd rather they get all the tinkering over and done with now before people start using the buses more. At least the people that are using the buses now *should* only be using it for essential travel so I'd guess probably already know their way around.

(02 Mar 2021, 6:55 pm)streetdeckfan wrote I'd rather they get all the tinkering over and done with now before people start using the buses more. At least the people that are using the buses now *should* only be using it for essential travel so I'd guess probably already know their way around.

Surely that 'tinkering' should be network tweaks and improvements?
Get the headway/balance of services through Chester on an evening sorted, improve connections between trains and buses or buses and buses etc. The sorts of things that will surprise, impress and actually improve the passenger journey when people return after lockdown. 

Those things have got to be the ahead of all this titivating that is going on. Surely?
If they're not going to treat the important stuff as a priority, punters are just going to be going back to what they had prior - except the blind will look slightly different to before, there may be a new table inside and possibly a green leaf on the outside.

I'd imagine someone getting off a 21 in Chester and seeing they've only got 10mins to wait instead of 50mins because someone jiggled the timetables around - may be more popular than the different blind, replacement table or green leaf. 
Ditto a handful of peoole realising they can ditch the car and use the 71 to/from Seaham station and use the train without too much hanging around at the start or end of the day. The knock-on effect means seeing less cars holding up the 60 as it chugs along Stockton Road. 
Heck, fewer cars on the A19 - might mean there's less chance of one of the regular crashes and subsequent social media posts about the X9/10 being stuck in the associated road-closures.

As it is, the blinds, tables and green leaves are the talking point. I'm not sure the commercial and planning teams have used the last year as productively as they could have done.
They've had an entire year to look at the network and make the tweaks and adaptations that could benefit punters. They could have improved connections to places of employment, study & health which ultimately could take cars off the road, keep existing passengers and increase the possibility of attracting new ones. 
Instead of talking about network improvements and how passengers are going to benefit from them on their return - we are chatting about destination blinds, replacing tables, green leaves, the 28 to BChester le Street and (inevitably) Stennings designs. 
But aye, priorities... 

As a side note, I was doing some work with a toc a few years back. They realised the importance of the journey being more than just the bit where the passenger was at the station or on board. It was all the bits before and after.
All sorts of work was done on improving the 'entire' journey - from the booking experience, to getting to the station, the time at the station and subsequent connections or journeys beyond getting off the train.
Although it didn't quite come off in the end, it emphasised the importance of getting every little thing right.
If the barriers in getting to the station or from the station at the other end were too big or insermountable, there wasn't going to be passengers - regardless of how luxurious the train was or how professional the staff on-board were. 

If we apply that same theory to those needing a 78 and an X21 to get to work on a morning and look at connection times. Ditto between an X21 and 78 on an evening when they finish work, it's not too feasible of a journey. 
Tweak the 78 timetable slightly and all of a sudden it works a lot better and it's not just one person who makes the journey. There's a handful of other customers who suddenly see the viability in using public transport and realise they can get to/from work a lot quicker than they could have done in the past. Repeat that exercise across the network... 
The blind, replacement table and green leaf sort of pales in to insignificance really.

Priorities...

(02 Mar 2021, 11:53 pm)Andreos1 wrote Surely that 'tinkering' should be network tweaks and improvements?
Get the headway/balance of services through Chester on an evening sorted, improve connections between trains and buses or buses and buses etc. The sorts of things that will surprise, impress and actually improve the passenger journey when people return after lockdown. 

Those things have got to be the ahead of all this titivating that is going on. Surely?
If they're not going to treat the important stuff as a priority, punters are just going to be going back to what they had prior - except the blind will look slightly different to before, there may be a new table inside and possibly a green leaf on the outside.

I'd imagine someone getting off a 21 in Chester and seeing they've only got 10mins to wait instead of 50mins because someone jiggled the timetables around - may be more popular than the different blind, replacement table or green leaf. 
Ditto a handful of peoole realising they can ditch the car and use the 71 to/from Seaham station and use the train without too much hanging around at the start or end of the day. The knock-on effect means seeing less cars holding up the 60 as it chugs along Stockton Road. 
Heck, fewer cars on the A19 - might mean there's less chance of one of the regular crashes and subsequent social media posts about the X9/10 being stuck in the associated road-closures.

As it is, the blinds, tables and green leaves are the talking point. I'm not sure the commercial and planning teams have used the last year as productively as they could have done.
They've had an entire year to look at the network and make the tweaks and adaptations that could benefit punters. They could have improved connections to places of employment, study & health which ultimately could take cars off the road, keep existing passengers and increase the possibility of attracting new ones. 
Instead of talking about network improvements and how passengers are going to benefit from them on their return - we are chatting about destination blinds, replacing tables, green leaves, the 28 to BChester le Street and (inevitably) Stennings designs. 
But aye, priorities... 

As a side note, I was doing some work with a toc a few years back. They realised the importance of the journey being more than just the bit where the passenger was at the station or on board. It was all the bits before and after.
All sorts of work was done on improving the 'entire' journey - from the booking experience, to getting to the station, the time at the station and subsequent connections or journeys beyond getting off the train.
Although it didn't quite come off in the end, it emphasised the importance of getting every little thing right.
If the barriers in getting to the station or from the station at the other end were too big or insermountable, there wasn't going to be passengers - regardless of how luxurious the train was or how professional the staff on-board were. 

If we apply that same theory to those needing a 78 and an X21 to get to work on a morning and look at connection times. Ditto between an X21 and 78 on an evening when they finish work, it's not too feasible of a journey. 
Tweak the 78 timetable slightly and all of a sudden it works a lot better and it's not just one person who makes the journey. There's a handful of other customers who suddenly see the viability in using public transport and realise they can get to/from work a lot quicker than they could have done in the past. Repeat that exercise across the network... 
The blind, replacement table and green leaf sort of pales in to insignificance really.

Priorities...

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they should be pissing about with the blinds, they should have kept them how they were! I was just saying at least they're doing it when they're at 25% of passenger numbers and not at 100%. Although I have little faith that they'll stop any time soon!

(02 Mar 2021, 6:35 pm)Adrian wrote Nevermind the destination, I am surprised no one has mentioned the state of that panel yet 

In all seriousness though, I agree with most of what has been said already. There seems to be a desire to constantly tinker with the display format, which I think some customers will find confusing and to be honest, I don't see what the rationale is behind it. It feels a bit insignificant, in the mist of a pandemic. 

I think mb134 has probably put it best - 'Ideological preferences being put ahead of what is practically better.'

Transdev appear to do similar on a regular basis too. I've lost count of how many variations of the Coastliner destination I've seen, but this one (taken in 2017) is pretty similar to the current GNE X1 format - https://flic.kr/p/ZXBG61

In some instances when a bus is stationary it can actually be easier to read the number on the drivers side but varies on the layout of the stop/station which in most of our bus stations is awful and have to rely on the side destination screen.

One plus to those Transdev displays like on them B5TLs is the text is really bold and text is large making it much easier to read whereas we seem to be going for small characters to somehow better distinguish the service when I'd argue it makes it more difficult. Just hope we don't start going down the trentbarton/Transdev route of putting the route brand on the destination instead of telling us where the bus is heading the whole time, bad enough when we had buses going to 'January App Sale'

(03 Mar 2021, 4:44 pm)Jimmi wrote In some instances when a bus is stationary it can actually be easier to read the number on the drivers side but varies on the layout of the stop/station which in most of our bus stations is awful and have to rely on the side destination screen.

One plus to those Transdev displays like on them B5TLs is the text is really bold and text is large making it much easier to read whereas we seem to be going for small characters to somehow better distinguish the service when I'd argue it makes it more difficult. Just hope we don't start going down the trentbarton/Transdev route of putting the route brand on the destination instead of telling us where the bus is heading the whole time, bad enough when we had buses going to 'January App Sale'

Definitely agree. And I'm not particularly hopeful that the new Durham Bus Station will be any better!

Actually, looking at the renders...
Assuming they've used buses that are to scale, it shouldn't be too bad as the doors are quite tall.

(03 Mar 2021, 5:38 pm)streetdeckfan wrote Definitely agree. And I'm not particularly hopeful that the new Durham Bus Station will be any better!

Actually, looking at the renders...
Assuming they've used buses that are to scale, it shouldn't be too bad as the doors are quite tall.

Christ. I get that lots of bus stations have the LED boards high up, but I'd have thought one designed in 2020/2021 would have came up with a solution that doesn't break folks necks. Stands G and, I assume, C look to be particularly bad. I'm surprised they haven't built them into the panel above the door, where the laughably oversized stand names are.

(03 Mar 2021, 6:33 pm)mb134 wrote Christ. I get that lots of bus stations have the LED boards high up, but I'd have thought one designed in 2020/2021 would have came up with a solution that doesn't break folks necks. Stands G and, I assume, C look to be particularly bad. I'm surprised they haven't built them into the panel above the door, where the laughably oversized stand names are.

On earlier renders they were exactly that, above the door. But comparing the earlier renders they've also made the doors higher (presumably so you can see the bus!)

I feel like this could say 97M as the capital M is roughly the same size as the new smaller letter format, also it is way too squashed together and looks stretched.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135164140@...otostream/

(03 Mar 2021, 8:08 pm)logidoodah wrote I feel like this could say 97M as the capital M is roughly the same size as the new smaller letter format, also it is way too squashed together and looks stretched.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135164140@...otostream/

Having the numbers on this side is just ludicrous. There was absolutely nothing wrong with them the way they were before. I agree with streetdeckfan saying that they need to get them reverted before more people come back to using the bus, because it's going to cause so much confusion. That infamous photo showing the 28 to "BChester-le-Street" (as it reads) makes it look ridiculous. 

This is all because Martijn wants to recreate the traditional London style format. What is the point? That format itself is now obsolete so there is no justification to bring it back and, like I've said over and over, it's upset the fleet seeing as half of the vehicles have a coloured route number section so they need to be kept on the nearside. Look what it's done to lettered routes.

Make the letters big again so that people can actually SEE them. The decision to make them smaller was laughable. It actually worked in London because of the clear paper blinds and spacing between the route number and destination. LEDs are a totally different story, however.

If I had my own way, I'd get rid of those hideous double-depth displays from the StreetDecks as well, given that every other vehicle in the fleet has a single one. Duh. Then there are the examples on the Yutongs, which are revolting.

All this messing about provides no benefit to people whatsoever.

(03 Mar 2021, 10:08 pm)BeachBoy99 wrote Having the numbers on this side is just ludicrous. There was absolutely nothing wrong with them the way they were before. I agree with streetdeckfan saying that they need to get them reverted before more people come back to using the bus, because it's going to cause so much confusion. That infamous photo showing the 28 to "BChester-le-Street" (as it reads) makes it look ridiculous. 

This is all because Martijn wants to recreate the traditional London style format. What is the point? That format itself is now obsolete so there is no justification to bring it back and, like I've said over and over, it's upset the fleet seeing as half of the vehicles have a coloured route number section so they need to be kept on the nearside. Look what it's done to lettered routes.

Make the letters big again so that people can actually SEE them. The decision to make them smaller was laughable. It actually worked in London because of the clear paper blinds and spacing between the route number and destination. LEDs are a totally different story, however.

If I had my own way, I'd get rid of those hideous double-depth displays from the StreetDecks as well, given that every other vehicle in the fleet has a single one. Duh. Then there are the examples on the Yutongs, which are revolting.

All this messing about provides no benefit to people whatsoever.

As I've said before, on certain routes the double depth displays would be genuinely useful, the X21 for instance where they legally have to show Durham as the destination even though it continues onto Bishop/West Auckland. With the double depth displays there's enough room to show both, especially useful if they bring back the extra Durham-Newcastle journeys.

I also really like the look of them, the regular displays just look pathetically small in such a tall space. They look alright when they have the extra 'foot window' like the demo they had, but not like they have them.

(04 Mar 2021, 12:20 pm)CookieMonster wrote Well said the number on the offside is absolutely beyond stupid. The amount of times I've been pulled in because a punter see's Newcastle on the screen and then waves me away again because the number is not on the nearside (near to the kerb they are standing). They just see Newcastle and that's where they are going then wave me away again because they then see the number and see I'm going the long we around. Passengers at bus stops can't see the number on the offside if the bus is following another bus or a wagon. In Newcastle city center this is particularly bad as one bus tends to follow another. Problem is these things are thought of by people in offices who don't drive buses often and in some cases never at all. If your on the road day in day out they would see how much of a pain slight changes like this make.

I hope you're feeding it back every time it happens, it's all well and good complaining about it on here, but if you keep pestering management about it, soon enough they're going to have to do something about it.
I'm not sure if you'd be allowed to, but I'd also tell the passengers to complain on social media about it, the more people complain, the sooner they're going to have to stop messing about with things and copying Transdev just because MG seems to have a crush on Hornby!

Anyway, that's my rant for the week...

Since the new display controllers allow them to change the display based on GPS, would it not be a good idea for them to change to an offside number when they're at a bus station like Eldon Square where it's actually easier to see with the offside number, but then change back to normal once it's on the move?

That way you get the best of both worlds

I'm not in the business of removing posts, but I'd suggest people tone down the language and stop the debate becoming personal...

(04 Mar 2021, 7:22 pm)Adrian wrote I'm not in the business of removing posts, but I'd suggest people tone down the language and stop the debate becoming personal...

 
Sorry, but it's called having passion about something; something that might make us annoyed. As stupid as it might sound, if we take it personal then that's our choice. Fair enough if there's unnecessary language being used, but everyone is entitled to their own view.

Not having a go — just saying.

(04 Mar 2021, 8:23 pm)BeachBoy99 wrote Sorry, but it's called having passion about something; something that might make us annoyed. As stupid as it might sound, if we take it personal then that's our choice. Fair enough if there's unnecessary language being used, but everyone is entitled to their own view.

Not having a go — just saying.

Debate will always be encouraged, but if you cannot make your points without getting personal, then you really need to reconsider what you're about to post. 

Becoming personal is unnecessary and from what I've seen so far, its largely without foundation.

(04 Mar 2021, 8:36 pm)Adrian wrote Debate will always be encouraged, but if you cannot make your points without getting personal, then you really need to reconsider what you're about to post. 

Becoming personal is unnecessary and from what I've seen so far, its largely without foundation.

Who's actually taking things personal anyway?