with so few posts these days. But maybe it's just the time of the year and not very many people are around.

With profile registration being required, I can see the board becoming a very boring, quiet place with yet another "what's the best anchor thread" "guns on board or not", and no zing or vitality or personality. Which probably means little exchange of ideas and opinions, whether inflammatory or not. One need only visit the Cruising World magazine forum on their site to see what happens when a forum atrophies due to user-unfriendly format (registration and not a user-friendly threading format). That forum has participants, but it's pretty stale. It's like a Leave It To Beaver perfect house in a safe, respectable neighborhood surrounded by a white picket fence. Boring and predictable and, ultimately, fenced in. This forum has qualities of that white picket fence house, which is fine, some rules and structure needed of course. But it also has some unruly weeds in the garden that need to be trimmed from time to time, a crazy uncle who lives in the attic, a mad scientist of an uncle who has his lab in the basement, some pimply-faced hormonal teenagers full of angst who sulk in their bedrooms, a homemaker Mom who makes meatloaf and mashed potatoes for family dinner every single friggin Sunday but who also is secretive gin martini lush in the daytime while father is away at his respectable job in the city, and so on. In short, this place has personality, but also it just works as a forum for a lot of cruisers everywhere to share information in a friendly and informal way. Registration would probably significantly alter the flavor of the place.

Oh well, the CSBB was good while it lasted, I guess.

Thanks for hosting all these years, Phil. But, in my opinion, Keep It Simple Sailor.

Bob