In my view the qualification required for any 'moderator'...

If that was aimed at me, you misunderstand - I'm not a moderator at all. I'm just your average bod, with no more rights than you had *before* you started mass-mailing across unrelated threads.

But perhaps you would accept that there is currently a determined attempt by the Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team to try to selectively limit these views?

And perhaps we wouldn't.

Your "right" (however much of one you have) to express your views has not been affected. All that Joe has said (and he's said it many times) is that expression of the same view simultaneously in more than one thread is redundant and so will be merged/deleted.

just to accept the fact that they are being made.......

See, that's the thing. Certainly it's a fact that you're under restrictions. But the reason - well, let's see. Have you, or have you not, carried out mass off-topic postings and copy-paste postings? Were you, or were you not, been told not to do it, under penalty of sanctions taken against you? Did you, or did you not, continue to do it after warnings?

And given that there is ample evidence that the answer to all three of these is "yes you did", why do you now complain about sanctions being taken against you?

Posts from back in 2004 show that Joe was perfectly civil to you. Back in 2004, he had no problems with you at all. Two years later, after causing him untold hassle and wasted time, are you surprised that he doesn't like you? But even so, he's said explicitly that you're allowed to post what you like. You're just limited to how many threads you can do it on. Does this sound like the actions of someone dishing out arbitrary punishments?

but would you judge the closure of the Affected by the Licensing Act 2003 thread

There's a thread by that name which is *not* closed - still very much active, and you posted to it today. Searching back three years, there is no other thread with the same name. Has an old one been renamed? Or was it reopened after having been closed in error? I asked this earlier, and you never answered.

Graham.