Should Theatre Australia Members Only be allowed to post

I've held off contributing to Alan's topic because I've wanted to see how it pans out but it's worth adding some more to the discussion.

Firstly, this is not the "ITA's website" as such. In recognition of the much broader community that it represents and serves, in 2001 the site was relaunched as Theatre Australia:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010924174201/http://theatre.asn.au/ 

The ITA represents something like 5% of the people and companies contributing to this website. In response to concerns and a request from the ITA committee, four years ago I set up a separate site specifically for the ITA to communicate with its members but it was never used.

http://web.archive.org/web/20040729145343/http://web.theatre.asn.au/ 

Restricting contributions to "members-only" is being touted by some as a panacea for perceived problems. While I appreciate the effort Labrug has put into setting up a poll on this topic, I'm afraid it's a little like conducting a poll on how best to go about brain surgery. I'm not convinced that all the people voting fully understand the problem or have much idea of what they're voting for and I know that some have unrealistic expectations about the outcomes.

Please don't fall into the trap of thinking that registration in some way equates with identification or verification. As noted by others elsewhere, it is none of these things.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html 

Registered members have amply demonstrated that they are just as capable of being offensive and rude as unregistered contributors. 

I share some of Skybe's concerns and think it is worth distinguishing between people who might have an occasional outburst or coarser way of expressing themselves and the individuals and posts that fall into the categories of trolls and flamebait:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamebait

Don't feed the trolls. Don't respond to flamebait. Ignore them.

Trolls have very limited attention spans when they can't get a response out of anyone. Leave them alone and they'll go home. Feed the flames? You reward and feed their pathological behaviour. They'll return again and again. Nothing will keep them out.

Trolls love a challenge and are incapable of turning one down.

Feed the trolls, moderate or remove their posts, delete their accounts and you're offering a challenge; one they won't refuse. Trolls will respond in an increasingly inflammatory manner, posting faster than you can moderate, creating new accounts with dummy email addresses faster than you can remove them and in no time at all, you're in a race to the bottom.

As Alan has noted, it is relatively trivial to create any number of accounts with temporary, effectively untraceable, free email addresses. It certainly won't stop trolls.

It will however stop most of the people who might otherwise quickly and easily make valuable contributions to this community.

Requiring registration puts a barrier in the way of casual participation and ultimately will put a stop to the 16,296 unregistered contributions, most useful and many invaluable, that have been made to this site over the past decade.

The conference paper I wrote on this topic is getting a little old, my contribution to the debate on portals makes me wince, but the section on micro-investment and building social capital is as relevant as ever:

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/conference1/2001/malcolm/ 

Cheers
Grant