I think it's important to pick up and reinforce some of the following:
As Yithian says, it's the extrapolation and application to an entire ethnic group to which we object. The traveller detail was important within the context of the narrative of that particular story, but the tacit "Better get your washing in and the bikes out of the yard" implication certainly is not. Racism is racism regardless of the target, and it has no place on this forum.
Absolutely.
Again, we do not allow this as a rule beyond the obvious. We have had people espousing bizarre and often potentially disastrous "treatments" for various ailments. We have discussed this a few times over the years, so maybe a reminder is called for. A while ago we had a discussion about why we differentiated between a thread where someone who was drunk was about to make a purchasing decision, and it was asked why we let that ride whereas another where someone quite clearly struggling with a serious illness and obviously quite confused was shut. I gave the rationale that people in a vulnerable mental state haven't elected to get themselves there, unlike people who have got drunk or taken hallucinogens. They can be in a highly suggestible position and not able to make lucid decisions - therefore any amateur advice given, however well-intentioned, can be dangerously counter-productive (ok, same can be said of the drunk or stoned, but chemical effects wear off). Even professionals never give "blanket" advice - they deal with individual cases on their own merits.
If you get wired and follow someone's advice on thread to the effect that setting fire to your trousers is a fun thing to do, then that's your problem. You put yourself there (and if you're addicted, get professional help): the only reason we have (very few) thread about mental illness in particular still extant - such as the one that deals with Munchausen's Syndrome, for example- is that they are mainstream Fort threads that happen to incidentally involve direct experience on the part of a poster (or someone close to them) - in the latter case what started as an objective discussion of a mental condition in a Fortean context only became subjective when a poster announced that they themselves had the condition. In each case the poster were advised to go and get professional help, pretty much unanimously. The threads then continued as the subject was the condition itself rather than the poster, ie they could thrive as abstract discussions without the necessity for direct personal testimony, and of equal importance have a significant Fortean angle to them. This goes for both physical and mental illness. People with serious maladies are often vulnerable, suggestible and desperate for any glimmer of hope, and I've personally seen such people absolutely heartbroken when led up a blind alley with false hopes. This, again, is not something we would ever seek to encourage, and so all such threads are monitored closely.
