[iceman (Mike)]

I decided to start a new thread with my response, so that people who don't wade through the thread to find new replies can read it easily.
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I'm sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your concerns and comments, it was the weekend though and I like to spend time with my family - plus I needed some time to digest your input and formulate my response.

I knew that this new policy would receive some criticism, but to be honest I'm surprised and disappointed by some of the responses.

The decision to implement this policy wasn't taken lightly. In an ideal world, it wouldn't have been necessary. A bit of common-sense and self-moderation and it wouldn't have been necessary. Unfortunately there have been several incidents (recently and in the past) where it has now become necessary in order to protect myself and my family. As much as I'd like to take the high moral ground and make a stand on the behalf of you guys, it's simply not worth it. It's not worth it to me, it's not worth it to my family.

How many of those people critical of the new policy would make a stand in the event of legal action? How many of them would contribute to legal fees, and how many of them would move on and say "it's not my problem"? We can argue all day about the legal facts and what can or can't be proven in court - but it's very easy for people who are merely watching from the sidelines to have strong opinions.

I know that there are a great many loyal and generous supporters of IceInSpace who would want to help out, but it shouldn't get to that. It's not your responsibility. The time and stress that would be involved in any such preceedings is borne my me - cost is only one part of the equation.

IceInSpace is my hobby - I do it for the love of astronomy and to help advance amateur astronomy in Australasia. Being dragged into expensive, time-consuming and damaging legal action does absolutely nothing to help amateur astronomy or to help IceInSpace.

There have been a few comments here and elsewhere about advertising. I can assure you this has absolutely nothing to do with advertising or advertisers. All vendors have been treated equally, regardless of whether they are an advertiser or not. I challenge you to provide evidence where threads have been deleted or moderated because of negative comments about an advertiser. I don't expect any to be forthcoming because I know there isn't any. Anyone claiming such biased moderation is simply out to start trouble, spread rumours or are making baseless claims or assumptions with nothing to back it up.

Regarding good comments about vendors - I'm not going to make any policy regarding good comments about vendors. Why? Because good comments don't have the potential to get me in trouble. It's up to the individual if they want to reward a vendor by making positive comments about them, and if they want the "balance", then they can avoid making any comment.

I'm sorry that some people think that this policy reduces the usefulness of IceInSpace. In my opinion, there has always been and will continue to be a lot more to IceInSpace than this one issue. In almost all cases, this won't affect the day to day activity and discussions on IceInSpace one little bit. It's really not the end of the world and i'm surprised and disappointed by the pessimism and over-reaction of some people. I'm also grateful for and encouraged by the understanding shown by many. It's unfortunate if some people choose to not visit IceInSpace as a result of this, but I can't run IceInSpace to please a minority who may have been looking for an excuse to go elsewhere anyway.

Discussions about vendors and products will always be a part of IceInSpace, but if you're going to be critical then you will need to avoid statements that can't be substantiated such as personal accusations, emotional comments, generalisations and heresay. Stick to the facts. Discussions about products - that is, their good points and their bad, problems and shortcomings, etc will always be a part of IceInSpace and there's absolutely no problem with that.

This new policy is to ensure that IceInSpace is not used as a platform to attack a vendor, and posts which are intended to cause a reaction or have unverifiable or untrue claims is where this policy would need to be enforced.

Thanks