You can make all the claims you wish that PELs should be discussed on the forum, but when you following these up with the following judgmental comments, as you do. It all makes no logical sense. .

HOWEVER, this is a problem that will be cured by logic, persuasion, and negotiation - not by burying Mudcat or Parliament or anyone in a flood of words. Mudcat is a perfect place for discussion of this topic - but not a place for propaganda.

There are no buts. This subject is no more or less valid than any other music concerned subject and presents exactly the same problems as any other well-supported subject over a long period.

Who is qualified to judge what is or is not 'propaganda'? Even if you could define it, where is it so written that it is forbidden anyway? Propaganda is usually what the other side will claim you are spouting and in any campaign, the views you express are always propaganda.

But the above judgement Joe is only your opinion, as valid as any other, but still only an opinion. Sadly you have grumbled on for so long, some folk assume that the PEL threads do present particular problems. But you also claim that it is a practical problem, but still prefer for some reason to grumble on about the number of threads - rather than address it.

 Click here for the entire list of PEL threads. Even Shambles complains about the length of the list, because it appears at the top of every PEL thread. I last counted sixty, but now I think the number is 115. There's a lot of good information there - but you have to wade though a lot of repeated information to get to the new stuff. So yeah, I think a little moderation would be nice. And yeah, I think it would be good to post chiefly to existing threads on the topic.

Again the comments again are not confined to PEL threads, but are a general problem. The linking of related threads at the top of each thread was not a bad idea. However, having 115 links, on top of say 400 poster's names, means that another idea for well-supported subjects needs to be found. I have not complained about this but I have requested, as independently have to two other posters, that this be addressed.

So where is the logic in Joe's argument? There are already 115 threads listed, even if no more threads were created and all future contributions were contained in these, there would still be (practically) too many listed at the top of each thread!

The only practical response so far was the token effort to un-link the single, 'Then they came for me thread'. So we now only have 114!

I can't really see that removing or placing a single link to this full list presents a difficult practical problem. Perhaps Jeff could clarify this? From what I have read, I suspect the list remains because Joe does not trust the poster's ability to use the existing links, if the full list is not displayed.

[In brown]
Roger, I don't like the way thread grouping works when there's a long list of threads, either. It works quite well in most situations, but the PEL list and Woody Guthrie and a couple of others don't group satisfactorily with the system we have. Jeff is toying with alternate ideas, but has not yet come up with an alternative that is satisfactory. Be assured that your request has been heard.
Still, it's nice to have all the related threads visible, in hope that people will post to the appropriate existing thread instead of starting yet another one. We haven't found the perfect balance yet.

The down side to this, apart from the length of time it takes to open is that, I gave out a link to one of the threads, and the person gave up, as they saw the list and then the list of posters and wrote back to say that the site was broken.

I suppose there could be a vague connection between the saying and the PEL issue, but "They Came For Me" is usually understood to refer to the Holocaust, not to Public Entertainment Licenses. To me, linking "They Came For Me" to PEL's is a sacrilege. PEL's are a serious issue, but the Holocaust is the most awful thing that has happened in the history of the human race. To lump the Holocaust and PEL's together is to cheapen the importance of both of these serious issues.

Again you are welcome to your opinion, but not to act on it without first obtaining the consent of the originator, or acting out of spite, in direct conflict with the wishes of the originator.

To put the Holocaust in a box and to assume it happened because of a few human monsters is dangerous. Most of the human beings responsible for this and all the other terrible acts of genocide and inhumanity are sadly just like us. They screwed-up then just as we too screw-up every day.

'They came for me', is relevant to every aspect of our lives, and should always be in our minds, to hopefully prevent any reoccurrence. For these issues grow from small beginnings into the huge atrocities we abhor, they don't come clearly labelled.

To change the subject a little, when a issue arrives, people often ask if you believe it was cock-up or conspiracy. I find it is usually both. A cock-up occurs and people conspire to cover it up, or call it by another name.

It may only be a little tiny piece of censorship – but it is censorship. Let us call it by its name. Then we know how to control it before it controls us and becomes beyond our control. Let's find honest practical solutions for practical problems and not confuse our well-intentioned judgement, with these practical problems.

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Explanation of thread grouping: the way Jeff designed the system is quite clever. I enter a list of thread numbers on a page, and the page is programmed to put a list of crosslinks at the top of each interrelated thread. I used to have to put crosslinks into each thread by hand, but this automates the whole process. However, the system wasn't designed in anticipation of somebody starting 115...er, 114 threads on the same subject. It works well in almost every situation but the PEL threads. Accommodating the PEL threads will require some major changes in programming.
-Joe Offer-