Well, it got tiring playing cat-and-mouse with Shambles, so I decided to let him have one complaint thread where he could say whatever he wanted - and where others can say what they want, even if it is critical of Shambles. I instructed the Clones to leave this one thread alone and not to use their editing buttons on this one thread - and I don't delete or edit anything here, either. I generally stay out of the discussion, although I do respond with factual information when Shambles or others post something misleading or untruthful about Mudcat editing actions.

And one weekend, Shambles had a campaign that implied that we were deleting all sorts of things that we don't delete. So, that one weekend, instead of deleting messages, I transferred ALL to-be-deleted messages to the previous Shambles "closed and deleted" thread, as evidence of what we actually do delete in a normal weekend. It would seem if I'm accused, I ought to be able to present refuting evidence, no?

Past experience has shown that public discussion of individual controversial Mudcatters leads to nastiness, so we don't allow it. As I have explained before, I delete threads about Shambles, Martin Gibson, Clinton Hammond, and about anonymous Guests as a matter of course - whether or not they start out innocently. No, it isn't worth explaining each of these deletions, or to do much explaining of any of our editing. Most of it follows common sense, if one of our guiding principles is that we want to keep the peace here. No doubt, there's going to be a few who will condemn our actions and want to make an issue out of anything we do. It's a shame that we can't discuss our editing policy more frankly, but there are people here who turn any such discussion into a kangaroo court.

Are our solutions to these problems perfect? No, certainly not. Keeping the peace in a place like this is a messy job, and sometimes there are inconsistencies and mistakes. But we try to be honest and to do as well as we can.

-Joe Offer-