Examples and full details of the all the later censorship actions that Bert refers to are already well-documented elsewhere on other threads. The most important aspect that he mentions and which is largely ignored - is the increase in the number of things that are being subject to censorship on the grounds only of personal taste and preference. The latest example for public judgement being so-called copycat threads..........Which as with every other contribution from other posters - no one is being forced to read or respond to.

The following is the public explanation of the personal judgement made and resulting imposed action re the PELs threads. Remember this is only one person's account of this. The point being that such public explanations of this imposed judgement encourages other poster to post only to judge this judgement as being correct or not.

I suspect that in response to this - we will see even more post expressing whether these judgements were correct or not - which we could argue forever, when in fact every poster's judgement is as good or as bad as everyone else's.

The most important thing is that all this avoids the main issue - which is the problems involved by the imposition of any posters judgement upon another's contribution. Especially when these are based on purely subjective concepts like what they may consider to be 'too much' or 'too often' etc etc. If such judgements are to be imposed - they should not be by someone who is and wishes also to remain as a poster themselves and whose impartiality and motives will be under question in these dual roles. Especially when some who are able to impose their judgement can do so anonymously.

Subject: (thread title change complaint)
From: Joe Offer - PM
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 01:19 PM

Well, I suppose it depends on what you think of the Forum Menu. Shambles believes in a right to free speech - and I think most of us do. He thinks that the Forum Menu is a vehicle for self-expression and that the right of free speech should extend to the Forum Menu, and I think the Forum Menu is merely an index.

Shambles is a pioneer here, because he was one of the very first to attempt to use the Forum Menu as a platform for expression. When he started his PEL campaign in 2001, he worked hard to ensure that several PEL threads were visible on the Forum Menu at any given time. He'd refresh several PEL threads, all with the same lengthy message, to keep his PEL campaign in the people's eye. He even started threads that had the sole purpose of directing people to other PEL threads. He worked hard to fight for "turf" on the Forum Menu, making sure his PEL campaign stood out above all other topics of discussion.

His PEL campaign was a very worthy cause, but his technique got to be too much. He was flooding the Forum with words, crowding out others who weren't so wordy. He often titled threads with deceptive titles like the ones you find in virus and advertising e-mails - the ones that try to trick you into opening them.

So, a number of things were done to hold Shambles back a bit, since he didn't seem to be able to control himself. His PEL threads were given PEL tags, and they were crosslinked so he wouldn't need to keep repeating things that people could easily find in other threads.

So, yes, many of the Shambles threads were retitled - they had a PEL tag added to them. Some (but not most) of the lengthy duplicate messages he posted were deleted - but one copy of each message was always left intact, and only the duplicates were deleted.

Shambles went overboard, and kept on going overboard for months. Finally, he was subjected to a few controls - although not one of his words was deleted unless it was a duplicate of another statement he posted.

So,Shambles has been having a tantrum since 2001. And as he went overboard on the PEL campaign and actually served to make his issue look ridiculous by the outrageous quantity and exaggeration of his remarks, he also does the same with his campaign against the editing work done at Mudcat. Gee, he even compares me to Hitler, and that's SO unfair. I have much nicer facial hair.

So, that's the story.

-Joe Offer-