Darren:
You keep mentioning Sons of Sam Horn, and that is a great site - I read it from time to time because I am a big fan of Bill Simmons - but that has as much in common with this as I do with Donald Trump. It's really apples and oranges, because "golf course architecture" is necessarily vague, and "Boston Red Sox" is necessarily narrow. That is, a LOT of things can be construed to fall under the former topic, but only the Sox mean the Sox. So off-topic is VERY easy to keep out in SOSH.
It also works because there are nutcases there willing to spend 16 hours a day doing monitoring.
So while I too feel that if such an "insiders only" off-shoot of this site was created, it could work, and Tom Paul would be a wonderful candidate for monitor... BUT... I assume Tom does also have a life. I've played golf with him walking along.. so I do know he spends SOME time away from the computer.
I do feel another danger would be that insiders-only misses the voice of the consumer, thus creating a worthless ivory tower with very narrow focus...Which is pretty much what Lou just said!
(And Lou, good call re that picture... the world will never know for sure...
)
And I also feel that Jeff Fortson is correct in every word he says. If people want to find it and ruin it, they will, no matter what amount of monitoring one does. MANY discussion groups have already had this occur... the history of many of us participating here now includes several of them...
So you either have a tiny group up in an ivory tower that works, but achieves little... or you just deal with things and make the best of it.
Oh well, in the end this is all just more mental masturbation. The best point made here is that this is Ran's site and whatever he chooses to do is his decision and his alone and there sure as hell isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it one way or the other.
I kinda like the site as is, but I've made that pretty clear. Nothing Ran has said, or hasn't said, would make me think he's dissatisfied with it.
TH