Yup. Locking Bitches? Why? 900 complete strangers can read it. It's the internet, and we're not private. If you're sensitive, don't post it. We can't protect you.

Also, protecting B'cy doesn't stop any of the issues described -- are people really holding back or feeling threatened?

Like they said. If we had more restrictions on membership, I might think it was a good idea, but as it is, anyone can register as many times as they want, so it wouldn't actually keep anyone from reading, except the most casual of lurkers, and we don't care if they read it anyway.

Been only able to visit the right column here the last few days due to craziness that is called life.

My initial instinct when I read the proposal is that the several of the newspaper websites I visit require registration to view their articles and I didn’t have a problem with registering although my participation is only as a reader. I will read the discussion over the next few days. I have a pretty solid notion of the arguments on both sides. Still not sure which way I will go.

I really think the reason this has been proposed is to disprove the theory that we will always vote Yes on anything proposed.

I am opposed enough to this proposal to actually SAY something, which is telling for me! My reasons are those posited above: making threads restricted to registered users would not prevent any of the problems that have arisen, and might inculcate a false sense of security. Further, as a former long-time lurker, I think one lurker mentality needs to be mentioned - I am not a "joiner" so was very reluctant to actually register and include myself in the community even as a non-posting member until I had lurked for long enough to feel that the community was a good one for me. Okay, maybe that means I'm a freak, but I'm a nice, non-harassy freak!

FWIW, I'm certainly not advocating that we close the show threads or natter, or any other thread, for that matter. My proposal is do we want to have the ability to do it if we feel it's necessary?

I agree that there aren't very many teeth. My main concern is with the second incident, not so much to prevent the lurkers from reading what the poster was saying about them, because it wasn't just in Bitches, but that once the lurkers decided to start threatening people, we had no forum to discuss the threats without resorting to backchannel. That cuts a lot of potential viewpoints out of the discussion. The same argument holds true with the discussion we've got going on over in WX Bureaucracy now. There are certain matters that it would be nice to discuss out of the view of prying eyes.

I'm against it. It just doesn't feel right to me--for the reasons others have posted.

If I happen on a board that required me to register to read, I'd be out of there.

But that's not really on the table is it?

As far as locking certain threads, I don't like the idea. I don't think it will accomplish anything, and since it doesn't actually fix the (perceived) problem, why go down that road?

There are certain matters that it would be nice to discuss out of the view of prying eyes.

But there's no way to actually do that. I mean, if I'm an Evil Lurker and I want to read the locked threads, all I have to do is register. If I'm banned, I just have to come up with a new name.

But there's nothing stopping people from registering, lurking, and reading. If people were trying to cause problems and were that interested it wouldn't be that hard for them to register and start reading.