With an editing comment from the Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team like the following inserted into this thread - should it really be much of a surprise if I were to sound more than a little paranoid?

In a word, yes. You've gone out of your way to waste the time of the "Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team". If you're then surprised that the "Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team" imposes restrictions on how much of his time you can waste, then you really haven't grasped cause and effect.

But special treatment to individual named posters or groups (be it preferential or discriminatory) cannot.

Rubbish - of course it can. A moderator is someone who's proved themselves reasonably sensible and able to be trusted with the job of filtering out the crap. Every functioning forum (with no exceptions) has them. So that's your preferential treatment right there, because Joe and Jane Newbie don't get that ability. Every functioning forum (again, bar none) also has the ability to block known spammers - there's your discriminatory treatment too.

Oh, about your earlier post. I apologise unreservedly for saying that Max and Joe told you to fuck off and get a life. How stupid of me to paraphrase them that way, when they were less crude and more expressive. Joe actually said "I'm sick of your shit" and that you were a "buffoon" - since you're so insistent on exact words, I presume these are accurate descriptions of you and the content of your posts? And Max actually requested that you should leave the Mudcat, his precise words to you being "you too should bid farewell", which is not capable of any other interpretation. If you think there's some other interpretation, I'd really love to hear the logic behind it. Otherwise, given how much you previously attached to the exact text of Max's "Rules", I'd equally love to know why you've not followed that request.

Graham.