Bob - As I've publicly stated, I don't have an interest in collecting 4", and under, tools. Given that fact, I wasn't exactly 100% into your thread on establishing a collection "club". It never occurred to me this website would have an exclusive zone where only certain members were provided a view access, or that you were suggesting such. If that thought/suggestion had occurred to me I would have spoken against the idea much sooner. At the point where it was clear to me this was no longer a matter of simply being part of a 4" club, but that information restrictions were being imposed that impacted me, I got involved.
Having thread information on this website available without authentication and authorization (guest or otherwise) has been a "spot" for me since the day I arrived here. I believe there is good and bad in the practice and I have, until now, chosen to keep my opinion to myself.
As an example: The "Thorsen Tools" thread where I had posted with a list of tools needed had to be pulled because "joe public", who is NOT a member of tooltalk, has decided he would view it as "guest" and leverage his understanding of what I needed to hike prices on Ebay. I don't believe for a minute a registered active member of tooltalk would have done that. I strongly believe that issue would not have existed if the website required unique authentication and didn't allow broad guest access.
Why allow free, open, access as guest to all of tooltalk (with no requirement to login to view the information) EXCEPT for this certain little area (pun intended) where the 4" club is? Now if you want to see that, you not only need to be authenticated to the webiste with a login - but you must be authorized by nature of membership in the club.
