DougR,

Having a private mailing list or moderated newsgroup doesn't have to prevent others from reading the posts. In some kinds of moderated newsgroups, one can read all the messages, but posts are reviewed by a moderator to insure the post meets the criteria of the forum, before being posted.

Some private mailing lists are archived and can be read by anyone too. Some Mudcatters seem to only be familiar with Mudcat, and don't understand just how many technical solutions really do exist to the types of problems/complaints we see regularly lodged here. It is done all the time to create a decent, reasonable atmosphere for people who don't want to put up with the volume of BS, the amount of rudeness masqueraded as "humor", and needless, pointless bickering over how a poster logs in to post here, we see ad nauseum here on Mudcat. Some of us with more extensive discussion forum experience (going back to the BBS days all the way up to the present instant messaging options), know it doesn't have to be this bad at Mudcat. There are some very simple technical solutions which, up to now, we haven't seen implemented here, for whatever reasons Max has. Particularly the member/guest log-in thing. It is a simple thing to change, and make it so everyone who wishes to post has to log-in the same way. How many stupid threads, posts, flame wars, whining about guests would that eliminate do you suppose? Wouldn't that make Mudcat a more livable place? It is pretty clear that swapping stolen identity problems for member/guest problems didn't solve much of anything for anyone, did it?