I'm not saying that is right, far from it actually - it is just the way things are.

It certainly would appear to be the way things are or the way a few now wish them to be. But in reality the majority of posters (if they are allowed to) still tend to respond to my posts as they would any other poster. Without knowing that the current Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team has fingerered this one individual poster as our forum's current public enemy number one - why would they not?

It would be nice to get these restrictions on my posting lifted but apart from that - my own treatment is less of an issue for me. I have always realised that trying to continue expressing my honset views was hardly going to make things easy.

The concern is the way posters are now generally treated and he attitude now shown to them by those few who have always ignored the reality of our host's open invitation for the public's contributions and have always treated our forum as if it were their own private club, to be shaped to their reqirements.

If I were Max - I would consider the attitudes, actions and wishes of these few posters to be the main problem now to enabling and encouraging new blood and to continuing free and open discussion on our forum. As these few do not really appear to see this (or every poster's happiness) as our forum's main purpose.

The difficulty is that many do have (or now feel they) have a personal relationship with Max. And many do have regular contact together outside of our forum and as a result of this, tend now to look inward in posts on our forum rather than outward.

What is referred (wrongly in my view) as the Mudcat Community is both our forum's biggest strength and its biggest weakness. This aspect is fine but in reality it tends to limit what is an open invitation from Max to the whole world - to the level of an exclusive (rather intolerant and bitchy) private club.   

Actions to reinforce this concept are counter-productive and most of the conflict is with and from those posters who feel intentionally excluded by these actions from this cosy club or have no wish to join any club that would have them as a member. But mostly because common sense tells us that an open invitation for the world's views - will NEVER produce a cosy like-minded group. Again, this is both a strength and a weakness for our forum. I see it mainly as our forum's strength and what makes it special.

I really think that the answer IS for a private online members only forum to be created to accomodate those who publicly express their wish only for this.

Our forum could then continue for those who can still see the value in Max's open invitation for everyone to join the party and for new posters who may wish to. And for every poster to largely be left to decide for themselves what to read, respond to or ignore.