If we go to members-only - and I believe it's inevitable - one of the reasons will be you, Roger. People who don't or can't respect a flexible, soft boundary, are going to make a rigid, cold fence a necessity. I can't say I'll miss way things are now. I DO miss the way things were, before the place was one big battlefield.

There would be something ironic about a general viewing lamenting about a battlefied - as if they had played no role at all in creating it.

I see nothing inevitable at all about our forum changing to becoming open to members only. And ffter being freely open to the public for so long - this would be a great shame.

But those who do not care for this and already treat our forum as if it were their own private members club and who wish to exclude and chose their fellow posters - can do so now - by starting a forum of their own.

It was largely my attempt to enable our forum to be informed and debate this proposal and the reasons for it, made by the current Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team and to obtain Max's publicly expressed view on this - that lead to the special treatment that I am now subjected to by the current Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team.

One wonders how long one can be continued to be punished for the same alleged 'crime'.