The e-mail is current, but I don’t check it as often as I should.

I remember when you first came here. You posted as “JMS” and confused me a bit. In those days, the system was completely wide open. No registration; you just typed your name in a box (over time, many different ways, advertant and inadvertant).

I don’t think that kind of openness is feasible any more. In fact, in today’s climate, I’d go so far as to say that solid access controls are necessary to keep an online community habitable.

And with bands of virtual brownshirts, anti-intellectuals, religious zealots, and assorted axe-grinders, patrolling the Internet spoiling for a fight, science and reason need strong defenders with strong defenses.

Not that asking for an email address is exactly rigorous. It just establishes a tenuous relationship which allows for communication and continuity of identity through a consistent login. Back in the days of complete openness, we could never be quite sure if the person posting a message under a name was the same person who’d previously posted under that name. Remember how much time we wasted trying to trace IP addresses and other chicken entrails? Point being, assurance of identity is a social need, not me being a control freak.

Speaking of email addresses, is the one on file current? Do you check it?

I which we lived in the kind of world in which it’s safe to open up a web site to unlimited anonymous posting. That world went away at least a decade ago, I’m afraid.

But on balance I think things will get better.

Agreed, the wording is old and has errors and should be updated. And I like the statement: “Science and Reason matter.”

All I really want is to make it easier for people to post on the Space Board. Like it was when I came here. Anybody. As long as the founding principles are kept intact. Free of ads, pseudo-science, and moderated. A place for people to discuss Science and Current Events and their interests and yes, from time to time, to “spit on the floor and call the cat a bastard.”

I was struck by the short phrase “Science and reason matter” in President Obama’s farewell address. It’s short and dignified, and draws a line in the sand. I think it’d look good on the front page. More important, I think, is that it’s a reasonable standard for other parts of the Zone, not just Space/Science. CurrentEvents could benefit for some respect for science and reason. Wadda ya think?