Careful reading of Wolfgang's post will reveal the following – which seems to have been overlooked in the general surprise expressed - that Wolfgang has a very good sense of humour.

More seriously, with the possible exception of (3) (with a generous dose of twisted perception) I see nothing in Mudcat which is remotely similar to Fascist tendencies.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. Let us not forget how JoeO tries to unify us against innocents who only insist of their right to double or triple posts. How dares he to decide that multiple postings of identical words is not done with artful purpose?

My perception may indeed have become a little twisted over the years I have been contributing to our forum, but the view of your own police force is coloured by which side of them you personally come into contact with. If, for example you can produce the video evidence of your beating at the hands of the LAPD – it may be just about possible to convince many law-abiding citizens that such abuses do happen. Although it would appear that many people still seem determined to ignore any evidence that contradicts their deeply held view or is that it is OK as long as the abuses are happening to others? No one is saying that the fact that these abuses DO happen - makes all police bad people.

The point I would make here is that there is only one punishment for any crime. And that this punishment is used increasingly and not just by Joe. Is it really proportionate that personal attack using foul language from an anonymous poster will receive exactly the same summary justice as a duplicate or an incoherent posting?

There seems to be many more than these two examples of what is not allowed and that will receive this one punishment and these would appear to be increasing. However, the questions that are not at all unreasonable to ask - must be:

1 Should the punishment fit the crime and does it currently?

2 Are all the volunteers authorised to administer summary justice and censor other's postings – without the poster's knowledge or permission – based only on their value judgement?

3 Is there to be no difference to be seen between an abusive post and say an incoherent one?

4 Is a sensible and responsible example being to set when our volunteer police force also indulge in making abusive posts themselves and start calling other posters names?

5 Is it really too much to ask that those that would volunteer to judge (and punish) us – can be expected to always set the standards and be judged themselves by these standards?