> Over the years I've stopped visiting a couple of sites ever since they went subscription-only. I didn't particularly feel like paying $70 for a one-year subscription to one particular site. I figure that setting up a subscription system might scare off a few visitors.

However, I think that having a subscription system for the forum -- or at least requiring people to register a username before posting with e-mail confirmation (here, I'm thinking the multi-page forms you have to go through to sign up on a UBB-run site) -- would be beneficial. You'd keep people who just come off the Google bus from posting a quick "please help me with my homework" post. You'd get people posting here who really want to join in with the community, not just some random One Post Bobs.

I've noticed that a lot of people who used to post here around the time when I started on the forum don't anymore. I've had a chance to talk to one of them recently -- she said that when she used to post here, even though it was in a public place, she would post because there were ten or twenty people she thought would like to hear it. But now, with the ability of everyone who wants to post not having to do anything more than make up a name, she doesn't post. Why? It's like talking to strangers now.

Forcing people to jump through a few hoops to join the message forum would allow the message forum to suck less. Charging people a dollar or few to have access to post here would be even better. Either of those options would make the rinkworks community more closely knit.

On an entirely different note:

> I don't want to come off as a skinflint, but I've always figured the Internet to be a free place of expression.

Of course. And you're always able to start your own website to express yourself freely.

-FP