I insulted whom?
the op and the people who chose to defend their stance. in one post you admitted to giving the op flak because you disgreed with the use of the word vandalism.
I gave flak because the original thread title was "Trail Vandalized". That's bad, unlike 'mountain vandalized to make my trail'.
in this post you used a heavy dose of passive aggressiveness and cynicism.
I gotta run, I know the NSMB.com crew wants to debate, lynch, and string out a long and heated debate, but you'll have to do that to one another on your pious pedestals. Just as cute.
that said, i also don't agree with the attitude grumpy builder has shown you. they had no call to attack you the way they did.
Look - it was a tree. It wasn't vandalism. It's public property.
I really don't care what the North Shore trails come to, because of attitudes like yours, NSMBA, grumpy builder, mudhoney, Lee, etc or anyone that wants to publicly shame people when they think they own something they don't. Don't want people to touch your land? Then buy your own land.
the debate really isn't over the tree, it's abut the disrespect shown to the effort of the builder. i also don't see this thread as shaming, but a request saying "please don't mess with my work, ask me if you feel something needs help".
also, you still haven't addressed the question about where do you draw the line with your stance. if for example i feel that the new ramp to drop on trail xyz doesn't flow well am i justified in changing or removing it? how do you measure what's acceptable to change and what isn't?
We don't know what our limits are, so to start something with the idea of being limited actually ends up limiting us.
Ellen Langer