[Karl]

My point is – are new members (or any others) actually authorised to start discussions in the public forums, and then set restrictions as to who can reply? I don't think that such a precedent should be permitted to become established, it would not benefit the forum discussions in any way.

What I am trying to say, is that he is free to start discussions on any topic in this forum, however, I do not see the point of him attempting to set restrictions on who can reply, based on nationality, geographical location or any other criteria (as he has already tried to do in another forum, using this identical thread). In the other place, he went so far as to request that other nationalities refrain from replying further to any of his posts (since the majority of replies were from other countries), and that is not a healthy trend to start in any discussion forum.

Why should an exception be made in this case? Sorry, ethics01, you will need to find some other means of conducting your "research"...