Thought I'd kill two birds with one stone here - respond to a question raised, and solicit the opinions of forum members on the subject of the suppression by certain individuals of discussion of opinions which are inconvenient to them.

Charmane - the thread which evoked your curiosity appears to be an indirect consequence of an attempt to censor this forum by a small group of individuals who wish to minimise discussion about Harry Judd's limitations as a dancer, and about the alleged efforts of the SCD judges and program director to conceal Harry's limitations from the public, to make him appear to be a far better all-round dancer than he actually is.

I set out the main argument in the following thread. As you appear to be new to this discussion I'd be interested in your thoughts -

Did the BBC pull the wool over our eyes? Is this why Alesha has walked out? -

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1609242

I haven't received a single response to date which in my view offers a logical explanation as to why, when we must surely have seen at least a thousand celebrity performances over the course of SCD, Harry's Charleston was the only performance with regard to which we didn't hear a single analysis from the judges.

Certain individuals have argued that there wasn't time for the judges' analysis. In my opinion the format of a live show like SCD cannot but offer the flexibility in the program schedule necessary to cope with unexpected occurrences - so that they can always find time for the important bits such as the dances and the judges' analysis, at the expense of the relatively unimportant bits such as Tess's post-dance interviews.

I offered links in a subsequent thread to videos of five Charlestons from this last series, so that anybody interested in my theory could form their own opinions as to what the judges would likely have thought of Harry's Charleston. Regrettably the thread has now been locked, but it may be of use to you in forming your opinion -

The SCD semi-final - a tale of two Charlestons -

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1612188

Those same individuals objected just as strongly to my invitation to discuss the extent to which the professional partners in previous series have bent the rules in delivering choreography which disguises the limitations of the celebrities -

Appropriate choreography - how much cheating goes on?

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1615756

I strongly suspect that even if I was inclined to bow to their will and offer opinions in only one thread in this forum - they would still object to whatever I posted. The 'Not an Appreciation Thread' now includes an extraordinary number of thinly-veiled attacks on my credibility. Apparently I'm a "WUM" - whatever that is.

But what is the view of others here? Is it appropriate for a group of like-minded individuals to react in that manner to opinions with which they disagree?

Harry's limitations as a dancer were the least of the whole line up this series.......

Whilst I don't think he was the runaway winner some people think he was - as far as I'm concerned - ANY of the 3 finalists deserved to win on the basis of their performances through the series, and Harry had probably got the biggest fanbase going in to it and was given the boost of his bandmate winning i'm a Celebrity the week before...

I don't think there was any conspiracy at all either on the show or on here....... Jason peaked too early and Chelsee's nerves got the better of her on the night - Harry was consistently improving all the way through the series and held his nerve on the night - hence he won... his final performance s probably caught all the non comitted voters too!

You seem to be reading far too much into the situation which gave a result you didn't like.

(Just for the record - I thought Jason was robbed!)

I appreciate your response - but what is your explanation for the omission of the judges' analysis of Harry's Charleston?

de-ja vu!!!!!

again!!!!!

Look, if we all have a whip-round, would you consider a long holiday?

There isn't one - and TBH I couldn't care less.

Its a live show and with Sir "I'm in charge!" Bruce determined to shoehorn his crap jokes into the time they simply ran out of time on that show!

There isn't a conspiracy - honest - Harry won, and it really isn't going to cause World War 3 because the judges didn't comment on one of the many dances he did (he danced all of them competently!)

If you believe your opinions are being stifled or that you are under attack in some way, then the appropriate response is to alert the moderators of this forum to the offending posts.

According to my interpretation of forum etiquette, it is not appropriate for you to re-hash your opinions in yet another thread in an effort to elicit a different response. Quite simply - you won't get it. All you are doing is winding people up unnecessarily (by the way, that's what WUM stands for - a Wind-Up Merchant).

You have expressed your opinion on matters: other forum members have disagreed. End of.

Deleted. I subsequently decided the thread wasn't worth the effort of a reasoned response.

even if there were a conspiracy, it's too late to change the result now

True. But what I hope to achieve is to give this enough publicity as to make these people think twice about displaying the same arrogance and contempt of the public this year.

Thanks for your response - but I remain unconvinced as to capacity of the moderators to respond in an appropriate manner.

Consider the vast number of DS forums, sub-forums and threads. The nature of 'free' forums such as these is that the moderators tend to be understaffed. When they receive a complaint about a post which includes a clear insult one imagines that they simply remove the offending post together with any adjacent posts which are in any way inflammatory. But I seriously doubt that the moderators are adequately staffed to take the time to undertake an appropriate analysis of instances where more subtle ploys are involved.

Speaking purely hypothetically - what if a group of self-appointed censors were simply to clutter any threads intended to address opinions they would rather were suppressed - exchanging idle banter between themselves which stopped short of clear insults? Such a ploy could deter or prevent any meaningful discussion of the issue the thread was intended to address - but would be very difficult for the moderators to address.

p.s. May I just point out that the intended focus of this particular thread is intolerance, leading to the suppression of ideas and opinions. The threads for which I provided links are intended to offer examples. If anybody wishes to discuss the actual examples I offered then they are free to do so in the appropriate threads.

My opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnTmBjk-M0c

Instead of which what you are doing is displaying arrogance and contempt of the majority of the members of this forum by continuing to rehash the same comments in thread after thread after thread..... I'm losing the will to live.:yawn:

:
About sums up my opinion

You remain unconvinced that you should actually read any of the posts people have previously put on various threads in response to yours - quite clearly, since you keep repeating yourself.

Intolerance yes - certainly - there is nothing wrong with someone having an opinion, and in the 6 or 7 years I have been on here, the forums have been very well moderated - and people have held on to their opinions whilst listening to and respecting those of others.

Nothing wrong at all with you having a different opinion to others - nothing at all - but BANGING ON AND ON AND ON ABOUT IT WILL NOT MAKE PEOPLE ANSWER YOU OR AGREE WITH YOU - IT IS NOT FORUM ETIQUETTE.

Does putting it in "shouties" make you read it?

People have actually lost the will to live with your arrogant and misplaced posts - you really do not have a grip on SCD AT ALL.

If you had a bit more humility in your posts like most people do, then perhaps people would listen to you.

For now, I am certainly one who doesn't - but I'd LOVE to see the back of you!

Priceless!

And do you really think that the judges or anyone concerned with the show take any notice of what people on a forum (particularly a non-official one) think?!

The furore surrounding Arlene being sacked and replaced by Alesha would seem to answer my own question there - no, they most definitely do not. If they did listen to this forum, the show would still be the wonderful dancing-focused show that it was in 2007, not the mess of props, 'comedy' VTs and lack of proper pro dances that it is now...

Now, if you'd be so kind as to provide me with a reasoned response to my reasoned argument that the producers do not care about what people posting on a forum think, I'd be happy to consider it, though I'm afraid I can't promise not to ignore it or be disparaging in response if I don't feel it agrees with what I'm convinced is correct. Oh wait, that seems to be your philosophy, not mine...

Please, for all our sakes, stop posting threads about the same thing and instead recognise that people do not agree with you. You've had the chance to air your views repeatedly, you've heard counter-arguments repeatedly. The debate on this issue is going around in circles, so multiple threads aren't going to help the situation at all.

This thread has been closed. There are a number of other threads regarding the same topic to which you can add your thoughts.