re: Members only. Shambles suggests that it would be somehow a problem...unfair, cliquish, restrictive, exclusive....etc.
But, membership is NOT restrictive. Anyone may join. All "members only" would do is require one to show their card at the door in order to post. It would simply be a way to keep track of which members were posting when. It would **NOT** even require real names, or even identify where one lives....all it would do is reduce the confusion that occurs when 23 'guests' are all posting at once...(or is it one guest with 23 agendas?) It would also allow private responses to some issues when it would better if everyone were not reading the details. I suspect THAT is one of the major reasons many folks who take contentious positions don't join. I don't know what to say to those who just have a phobia against being recognized, even by a pseudonym!

Note again the point..***ANYONE*** may join and participate....the only rule would be that NO ONE may do absolutely anything they wish. Management of a site like this always has the right to exclude anyone who is deemed disruptive, dangerous, or generally offensive.
   There have been only 2-3 of these in 10 years.....that is a pretty 'open' attitude by internet standards. (Martin Gibson was banned for repeated offenses, and even he was given the benefit of the doubt and warned many times first!)

As guest 'Partridge' indicates above, it has become really difficult to discern exactly what Shambles wants. He doesn't want "judgments imposed", but even the oft repeated phrase "impose their judgments" has lost any clear meaning when he uses it to refer to ANY editing done. He certainly doesn't like having moderators, but he particularly doesn't like having any of them being unknown to Shambles....despite the fact that Joe has explained that 1) There WILL be moderators, and 2)that it may be best if some of them remain anonymous. This policy is approved by Max!

In short, The Shambles crusade to have some idealistic "totally free & open" forum where everyone is responsible for their own posts and everyone respects everyone else is inviting anarchy. When 95% of all posts were music related, it was close to the ideal, but once we got 'found' by the general public, it was just no longer workable to be without moderation.

One suggestion is to allow 'guest' posting in the MUSIC threads, and require ID to kibitz 'below the line'....I don't know how technically feasible that is, but it might be worth testing. In the meantime, we can either keep debating Shambles, just for the humor and practice, or we can ignore him, like he suggests. Would that it were possible!