Mudcat is an internet forum, not a living room where a party is taking place. I'll make a WAG that 99% of the people who ever have posted here, have never and will never meet each other face to face. The social dynamic online is different from a face to face dynamic, no matter how badly the club members wish that weren't true. It's that apples/oranges thing.
If the club membership is so desperate for a guest free forum, why not start one of their own, and solve the damn problem right there?There is nothing stopping anyone in Mudcat from forming a membership only web forum for themselves and their Mudcat buddies, just as Jon Freeman did. That is the only way you are going to get to talk with one another and only one another (which seems to be what it is you want anyway) the exact way you want to, because Max has said he won't make this forum member only.
Joe Offer started this thread because a couple of the usual suspects started whining loudly, as Lepus Rex pointed out more than once, to start a "flame the guest/troll" thread. I rarely rise to that sort of bait from members, choosing instead just to ignore those comments as if they hadn't been made. But Joe Offer escalated this whole thing by bringing in his new rules just for the posters he dislikes, or who post on subjects he doesn't want to see discussed so much in this forum. So, how many anti-war threads are "frivolous" and who's thread was deemed the "one too many" by Joe Offer? Surprise, surprise. One of the posters that little Mudcat club loves to cyber-stone.
I've already spent way too much time and energy on this bullshit. I post the way I like. Max is free to stop me posting to this forum if he wishes. My suggestion to those of you who are so deeply disturbed by my posts--don't read them. It has always been that simple.