I'm sorry we can't keep a better lid on things here, Unfortunately, whenever the future of the C&TS is in doubt, this place gets ugly and I'm really not sure of the best way to handle it. We do, however have some options.
As things stand, the board is essentially completely open, and we simply to try to monitor things and try to respond, via e-mail, whenever we see things start to degenerate This works extremely well
if we are able to find a problem thread before it gets going. Essentially everyone I've ever contacted about a potentially explosive thread has been receptive. The catch is, that we have to - well - catch it, before it gets out of hand. Also, we don't require e-mail addresses, so we can't always contact someone who may be loosing their cool.
As an alternative, we can move to "Gentleman's club" mode, as is done at the Gote. For those unfamiliar with that system, the way it works is that in order to post you are required to create a profile and provie a valid e-mail address. Once you've done that you're sent a password which is required before you can post anything. Of course, if you forget your password, you're hosed, until you create another profile, and that may require that we delete the old one first. The advantage here is that nobody would be completely anonymous.
This brings up a second option, regardless of whether we require e-mail addresses, we are able to "blind" out whatever e-mail address is provided. In that case, the actual e-mail address is not displayed with the post, in it's place is "send e-mail", which brings up a form you can then fill out which will then be converted to an e-mail and forwarded to the person you want to contact.
So, in the name of being democratic, I'll ask two questions. First, should we move to "Gentleman's Club" Mode? And / or should we "blind" e-mail addresses?
I suspect that we've already got "yes" and "yes" vote from Jay.
Don
