As of March 31st 2010 only registered users may post on the AALBC.com discussion boards. The easiest way to register is to use you Facebook account (facebook connect). You facebook credentials are not shared with AALBC.com. Facebook just provides the ability to use their validation to logon to other websites, like our discussion baord.

Of course you may also register to particpate without a facebook account.

That should cut way back on yahoos throwing up offensive posts. Any person who's obnoxious enough can still do that, but the drive-by types won't have the patience to create accounts.

I think it's a big mistake, however, to require people to register to merely read the board. Who will register for an account on a board they've never read? This particular move will have the same strangling effect as the old practice of not registering any new users.

It will be interesting to watch the stats from now on. Several posts on this new board have tallied 1,000 or more views. Will that ever happen again now that free reading is not allowed?

Good move to allow deletion of posts until someone responds. An even better move would be to allow people to delete their accounts if they want to. I can't imagine what the rationale is for not allowing people to cancel their registration. I've never seen that anywhere else. At very least, there should be a warning on the registration page that lets people know they will be creating permanent accounts.

Hey Bookfan that was actually a mistake on my part not allowing unregistered folks to read posts here -- it was not my original intent. I shothink I've alread corrected that -- please let me know if appears that i have not.

I did not realize you could not delete your own account here. I'll have to check that out.