Wolfgang makes the point!

"....no poster has (or should have) any control over what another chooses to post."

If, Roger, you mean what you say, then 'no control' would mean NO control....which would mean that you are breaking your own version of what the rule should be by asking people to stop posting to 'your' threads or to stop 'thread drift'.

You seem to be asking for universal VOLUNTARY adherence to a concept of NO censorship, NO 'personal judgements' by anyone OF anyone, NO irrelevant posting on a thread, and NO moderators, open OR secret to oversee the voluntary adherence to this Utopian concept.

Read that last paragraph again...can you comprehend how absolutely impossible it would be to implement such a system in ANY practical way? There is an old expression..."doing that is like trying to herd cats"...and what you seem to be asking for is very similar. Hundreds of individuals, all with different ideas of 'relevance', 'judgement', 'censorship' and 'imposing', with minds that see things differently during a thread, and whose thoughts patterns DO drift in ways that yours may not.

   That is why some folks keep re-posting that message "The Mudcat Cafe reserves the right to edit, move, combine, rename, or delete all threads and messages posted in the Forum".....it is the ONLY way to have ONE rule that covers the situation...even if it doesn't make everyone happy all the time!

It's too bad that some of the applications of the rule jars YOUR notion of how things ought to run...but there it is....it's Max's place, with HIS staff interpreting the rules in the best practical way they can manage. It seems to be ok with a LARGE majority.....

I will refrain from a lengthy metaphor here on "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"