I understand. The best thing is to take it slowly and get to know who's who. You can get to know something -- not everything, certainly, but enough to create a pretty good idea of who someone is -- about people through their posts.

In a lot of ways, this is like a big gathering with lots of conversations going on at the same time, and people drift from one discussion to another, and then back again.

I'm not the trusting type myself, so I can sympathize with your position. But there are some really great, really decent people here. And they're worth looking for.

And there are some of the other kind too, but you get to the point where you can basically figure out who's who after awhile....