Okay, this is very good. You broke down the BS and made some logical statements.   There are actually three points to your last post that COULD be open to discussion.

1.) "Those of us who do consider our forum is still a pleasant place to hang out and goof off or have a good discussion, who like our forum and who don't see merits in a change to members only forum, may be disapointed and confused about the current and future direction of our forum. "
Granted.   Is there anyone else out there who may be confused? I would ask that anonymous guests do not reply to my question because it would be very easy to make acccusations that those replies are coming from one person.   If you are a MEMBER of this forum, do you agree with Shambles statement that you don't see merits in a change to members only forum?

Personally, I would welcome a change to members only forum.

2)"They may question if the 'best efforts' of our 'moderators' are really being made to continue to make Max's posting policy work, or to show that it cannot - in order to serve their own, quite different agenda."
Does anyone feel that the moderators should not be participating?   

Personally, I think they should continue to be involved as much as they wish. I don't think that there is a problem here.


3)"Especially as the current Chief of the Mudcat Editing Team - who made the following (for the record) statement and despite its lack of implementation since then - is still publicly posting about these changes being his required solution to the sad situation he describes (but will not solve for himself, and other, by going elsewhere)."
Does anyone feel that Joe is causing a problem?

Personally, I don't feel that there is any problem and Shambles is taking this out of context.


Now, without all the hyperbole and comments directed at Shambles I would suggest that people give LOGICAL answers to the very direct questions that he has posed.   Perhaps a REAL discussion will indeed put this issue to rest.

I also caution that Mudcat members respond. While guests are free to post their comments, it is impossible for those of us who are reading this to figure out if it is one person who is "stuffing the ballot box" when you sign in as a guest.