It appears that there was a particular thread title change that got Shambles goat, last straw so to speak. So what was it?

From what he wrote I took it he was objecting on principle to the addition of a place indicator to threads about events, to indicate what part of the world they are hap-pening. That seems to me a very sensible thing to have done, and if ever it happens to some thread that I've started I'll be grateful. It very likely has. I'd call it a service rather than an imposition. Complaining about it strikes me as way over the top, and in fact ungrateful, and I took it that was what was being objected to.

However when it comes to changing other thread titles for other reasons, I think that needs to be done with tact and circumspection, and only where there are very good reasons for it. That's not so much because there is a need to get the consent of the person who happens to have launched a thread - I don't accept the idea that somehow starting a thread gives one any kind of property rights in it - but out of consideration for other people who might be following it, or who might want to find it again some time in the future. Changing titles can make it harder to keep in touch with a thread, especially when there are Mudcat outages to live with.

So complaining about those kind of changes, if they have been done clumsily or inappropriately, might be a reasonable thing to do. It doesn't seem to me thatthey have been, but maybe I've not been reading the right threads.