The thread was closed because there was a more recent thread on the subject with almost the same title, and having two threads caused confusion.

Is the possibilty of confusion like this, really grounds to impose censorship? I suggest that such drastic action is not proportionate to the problem (if having more than one thread on similar subjects is really to be considered a problem at all). It may well be generally judged desirable only to have one thread on each subject - automatic imposition as the means by which this end is achieved, may not always be judged quite so desirable.

Regular contributors to this long-running thread (containing much useful information on the Licensing/PEL issue) were fully honouring the past requests made for this subject to be confined to as few threads as possible. But despite being fully aware of these efforts (mainly made in an attempt to keep him happy) - the Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team, without consulting any of the thread's originators or providing any explanation - and despite there being no cause to rush into anything - decided that the thread that I orginated must be subject to immediate imposed closure.

By using a bit of style - instead of using the same old blunt tool of imposition at the slightest excuse - exactly the same end could have been acheived without imposing closure on any thread. There would then, have been no question of any personally motivated censorship - because no imposed censorship would have been imposed.

It was pretty obvious that the new thread was started because the poster did not understand how the forum works. They were unaware that they did not have to load the whole thread - and waiting for it to load was the only reason they started a new thread. Time could have been taken to PM this thread's originator to explain all of this and I am sure that had this been explained - they would have had no objection if the suggestion to combine it with the original thread was made.

Instead of this - the originator of the new thread was upset when their thread was later removed and combined and the originator of the original thread was forced to ask the Chief of of the Mudcat Editing Team if he would so kind as to re-open the long-running thread. This, I think was the first request that the current Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team has ever agreed to. Possibly explained by the fact that he may not have (then) been aware that it was me making the request (on the Help forum).

Some posters may not judge this imposition to have been personally motivated but some may consider that there may be some question that this may well have played a part. But more may judge this imposition to have been possibly more than a little heavy-handed?