"Any of those who serve as clones are posting on the same footing as anyone else. If they started posting personal assaults their stuff would be messed weith jsut as surely as yours or anyone else's who did the same."

This is just plain wrong. Joe Offer, for one, is constantly posting personal attacks in his little colored letter inserts, against posters he personally dislikes. Because he hasn't done it to you Amos, doesn't mean he isn't doing it.

The same is also true of certain clones (catspaw and Big Mick particularly, though katlaughing and Jeri occassionally jump on the posters too), who personally attack/engage in name calling of the poster they feel they must "deal" with--they rarely keep their personal animosity towards that poster to themselves, which is what good forum moderators always do.

Their behavior only aggravates and escalates situations that could easily be controlled without creating a negative atmosphere, if anyone here just understood how to moderate a discussion forum.

As to the public space thing, the only notices I've seen posted at shopping malls/public spaces that are privately owned, are on solicitation, leafletting, and banning guns. It doesn't say anything about management harrassing and haranguing patrons they decide "are a pain in the ass".

But so many of the regular members and clones here don't ever participate in any other online communities, they have no standards to use to compare this place with, which is also part of the problem.

For instance, I can't imagine the regulars at rec.music.folk or uk.music.folk, putting up with the likes of catspaw, much less giving him the keys to the house.