> 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.

Hmm...well, maybe...but what I've liked about this forum, more than practically anything else, is its informality. It is possible for anyone to put forward an idea or ask a question without feeling that it's getting too serious, and if they are posting rubbish they get deleted and no-one's harmed. Moreover, merely looking at a member list on a forum that I frequent, built along the lines you describe, shows that there are a heck of a lot of people who post once and then disappear, leaving their identities clogging up the system. Basically, the people who "step off the Google bus" (and I've always thought of that as a particularly insulting expression) are going to post if they want to. Those who do want to get involved might be scared off by formalising the process.

> 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.

Or possibly "make it much smaller and less rich in diversity."

Sigi