Well, Roger, you've made your rebuttal. I think I'm satisfied with what I said in my initial summary (click) on 08 Aug 05 - 12:49 AM, and I don't have anything to add.

You haven't changed my mind and I'm not willing to accept the rules you seek to impose on our volunteers. We will continue to operate by common sense and consistent practices, not rules, sparingly augmenting thread titles for the purpose of clarification; and we will continue to leave message titles and content unchanged.

And yes, I will acknowledge that Bert is a volunteer and has been since the beginning of Mudcat, and that he has expressed a differing opinion. He is the only volunteer who has done so, and many of our volunteers have spoken up in this thread. Perhaps he would like to step forward and explain more fully why it's wrong to add a song title or songwriter name to the countless threads titled "lyrics required," or a location to a gig thread, or a date of death or "Obit" tag to an obituary without going through an approval process. As far as I can see, Bert is the only individual who has expressed any agreement with your proposed rules at all.

I do think you you need to study English grammar and usage a little more deeply, so that you understand the use of the first person singular and plural pronouns. Proper use of first-person pronouns requires the writer to establish initially the identity of "we," usually by stating "such and such and I" in the first usage - as in "The volunteers and I." After that, the first person plural pronoun "we" may be used. To continually use the term "The volunteers and I" in a statement would be redundant, since the writer can easily and clearly replace it with "we." Of course, you have made it quite clear that you believe in redundancy as a way of life. You have repeated your arguments on I-we and thread title changes ad nauseam.

I realize that you have a compulsion to write rules for the behavior of others, but extending it to their use of grammar is a bit extreme. I prefer to follow conventional rules of English usage, and not to emulate your style of prose or attempt to follow the rules of Shamblesgrammar.

So, our policy on thread title changes has been stated. If you don't like it, your next step is to go to Max. I have nothing more to say on the matter and you've had your chance. Please stop back and tell us how Max responds.

-Joe Offer-