I apologize, I thought it was. As is the wheel. ----- Original Message ----- From: George Bell To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2012 5:13 AM Subject: [access-uk] Re: Rationale for moderator decisions Hi Edward, Speaking as a former moderator, the key here is in the term "access technology". A cane is hardly technology, and certainly kitchen appliances could be considered more along the lines of daily living. Please also bear in mind that its takes human intervention to moderate a list, and it is simply not possible to do this 24/7. Hence some inappropriate issues may make an appearance for time to time. George. From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Edward Green Sent: 02 October 2012 23:01 To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [access-uk] Rationale for moderator decisions Hi Barry, I would be interested to understand more about the reasons for your closure of the long cane discussion. The description of the Access UK list at //www.freelists.org/list/access-uk is as follows: "This group is designed for blind and visually impaired computer users to discuss all aspects of their specialist software used to enable them to access their computer. It provides a support network where users and professionals in the field can help support each other and discuss and hopefully, resolve, issues or problems surrounding the access technology." According to the first sentence in the terms of reference, the group is therefore entirely restricted to the discussion of computer software. Why, therefore, have you not closed down discussions relating to the Kindle Keyboard, Penfriend, computer recommendations, braille displays or useful kitchen devices, none of which can be described as software? Given that you haven't closed down such threads, I assume you agree with me that limiting the group to software would neither be constructive nor useful. Are you therefore saying that the group should be limited to the discussion of high tech solutions? Discussions of the long cane, if you accept it as a low tech solution, would seem to be to be entirely on topic given that it helps blind people with access! I'm also not sure that people have had to read off topic emails if they don't want to. As far as I am aware, the subject line of this thread has made it clear what this is about, giving people the ability to skip over or delete messages that they are not interested in. This is what I have done with threads in which I don't have an interest. I'd be interested to hear your rationale. Thanks, Ed