OK, Roger. You judge. I have undeleted every message the volunteers and I deleted in the last three days, and I have moved them all into this thread. Please tell the nice people why I should have to post an explanation for all of these deletions. These are normal examples of the messages we delete.

You will note that they are ALL porn or Spam messages from anonymous posters, except for one message from weelittledrummer that doesn't make sense without the porn present. I'm sure weelittledrummer won't mind.

As for a Licensing Act thread being closed, the only one I can think of, is Affected by the Licensing Act 2003. It was closed (with explanation and crosslink posted) for a few days in April or May, 2006, because somebody had started a newer thread with the same title. We do this occasionally when there are two threads on the same subject, to avoid splitting and confusing the discussion. Upon request from Shambles, I reopened the thread. I also combined the newer thread with the older one. Shambles, if this is the thread you are referring to, please be sure not to mislead the nice people. Be sure to tell them that this took place in April or May, that it was closed because there was another thread active on the same subject, and that the thread was reopened at your request within a few days. You might even provide a link to the threads you're talking about, so people will understand. But what's the sense in continuing to argue about the closing of a thread when that action was reversed three months ago?

Oh, you have continually challenged my "This thread is to be kept open, so Roger can say whatever it is that he needs to say" statement, and have even pointed it out to be a lie. Well, Roger, you are allowed one "complaint" thread at a time. As long as you kept your complaints in that one thread, that thread was kept open. Once you started posting your complaints in another thread, the earlier thread was closed. That's the breaks. Most people naturally confine their remarks on a subject to the current discussion on that topic. Over a period of a number of years, you continually posted the same information over a number of threads, all at the same time - so very moderate measures were taken to compel you to act as others do naturally. Let me repeat: no attempt has been made to control the content of your posts, but we have had to channel your remarks into a single thread, instead of continuing to allow you to post the very same thing in a number of threads at the same time. It's your constant repetition that's the problem, Roger, not the content of your posts.

I usually try to answer all questions the first time they're asked. When the same person asks the same question over and over again, I don't bother answering. These unanswered questions do tend to make it appear that I'm withholding information, but that's not the case. It does, however, make it very difficult for the rest of us to carry on a reasonable, productive discussion of Mudcat editing. The volunteers and I would very much like to serve the needs and wishes of this community, but not the petty paranoia of one individual.

-Joe Offer-