Hi all

Many thanks as always to our signers, sharers, donators and social media defenders - you are wonderful!

Let's keep sharing and getting more signers.

As always you can email us at:

cemeteries4all@yahoo.com

Sadly, in our last post misinformation Monday update we thanked the other petition for their free advertising - often when they mention us we see more signers. 

Unfortunately, this did not happen in relation to their Misinformation Monday post - hardly misinformation by us as they stated this week. 

We expected something, it didn't happen - not misinformation just a change in normal patterns which we didn't foresee - our crystal ball is at the laundrette - yes, this is a lie (feel free to use it for next weeks feature) but also a bit of light heartened humour in sad times.

However, we do thank the other petition for their posts on social media which bring us some supporters, as stated in their own update:

"Thanks Andrew. We have signed the counter petition because you raised it."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/1b72z8s/pass_a_law_making_exercising_a_dog_in_a_cemet

Such open discussions and social media platforms are great as they allow everyone to share and see others thoughts on the matter thus being more able to make an informed descion on matters discussed.

Sadly, the other petiton don't appear to be as keen on such discussions or democracy (a word they use often) and informed descisions as they have decided to have a private group where there will be no sharing of views, thoughts or feelings unless it follows their views. Last week they welcomed us to democracy but apparently they've decided against democracy now. 

In relation, to the supporter who attempted to join the group this is hardly misinformation on our part or indeed misinformation on anyone's part - no information was given.

Perhaps they were wanting to be part of a democratic society and try and have a discussion and find out others views? Perhaps they were wanting to view the chat as they were curious and considering changing their point of view? We'll never know as they weren't given the opportunity to join this select group who discuss matters which affect all public members. 

As mentioned by the other petition the person was acting out of their own free will doing something they have chose to do. They may have legitimate reasons we don't know.

We're not sure that this person attempting to join (for unknown reasons) their discriminatory group should really sully our petition but we'll leave that up to you.

https://www.change.org/p/halt-the-petitioned-ban-on-dogs-in-edinburgh-cemeteries/u/32346414

We have no control over what our supporters say or do just as they don't over their's, however, unlike the other petition we have asked our supporters to be courteous and polite to the other petition - that's all we can do.

As stated the other petition has made no such request of their suppoters - this is related to the reason we blocked comments on a nextdoor post as the opposition were writing untruths and actually seriously upsetting mourners - we posted a request not to do this but it continued so to protect people we stopped comments, you can see this here:

https://nextdoor.co.uk/p/kxxh-kNGPJNW?view=detail

They mention a commenter on reddit stating:

“I see OP is spamming this on Nextdoor (sic) and deleting the rival petition posts.”

We're not entirely sure what this relates to but we think it may be this comment:

"I see my comment is not showing" - we're still not sure what the person posted as the comment never showed up and they have declined to post again.

https://nextdoor.co.uk/p/KkC3x92mRHsm?view=detail

It may of course be the reddit commenter (now one of our supporters, thank you other petition) was referring to something else we don't know but again we're not sure why this is in Misinformation Monday as it is not written by us and do we know it is actually misinformation?

As you can see from the post on nextdoor the other petition states they have blocked and muted us.

We would like to state for any confusion we have never private messaged them - so they had no need to block us.

As for muting that merely means they can't see if we post, not great for open discussions.

All communication we do is out in the open to discuss points with people and provide the transparency that is useful for making informed decisions - unlike their closed group.

I think when quoting such comments as misinformation the other petition should maybe think about how this issue affects EVERYONE and does so on many levels from those who have an opinion and can manage this calmly to those this really really upsets and who may speak very passionately as they and their supporters have done at times.

In relation to this they wanted us to cite dirty tactics - does calling us liars in an open forum then refusing to cite their reasoning count? They do it three times on this post:

 https://nextdoor.co.uk/p/34Ls_JLwYz7N?view=detail

Does blocking one of our supporters from a discussion so they could no longer see their own comments then posting quotes from the discussion count as dirty tactics? What if our supporter wanted to send us quotes to use but they couldn't as they were blocked, what if they misquoted our supporter who couldn't check what had been written?

Does writing a strongly worded incorrect public message to one of our supporters about information we write count as dirty tactics?

https://www.change.org/p/halt-the-petitioned-ban-on-dogs-in-edinburgh-cemeteries/u/32336818

Please remember people the core question here is not what you think of us or even the other side.

The core question is whether you believe that people who act responsibly, respectfully and in keeping with current rules should be penalised for a minority.

Remember everyone pays for cemetries and at somepoint anyone may have a loved one in a cemetrey so everyone should be able to access them as long as they are responsible, respectful and in keeping with current rules.

Let's keep cemetries4all x