May I have acess to the downloads section?

[StayPuft]

Tragic,

I can definitely see what you mean, and definitely understand your points. I appreciate how politely and constructively you offered your thoughts, so I certainly hope nobody takes offense.

I'm also not one of the admins or anything. I am merely a member myself. So, I cannot really comment on why this was done, or how it effects the site.

However, I have to admit that I am much in favor of it. I don't know about anybody else, but I see it more as a way to reward permanent members of the site, not punish those who may come and go. It is not meant as a coolness/acceptance test, but merely meant to help us become a community and not just a random website. Though I don't know if this was at all intended, I also see it as one good way to attempt to weed out trolls who may just want to cause trouble. They are not likely to stick around and play nice hoping to get access to the downloads section. As result, I have yet to run into one person on this site who wasn't super friendly and awesome, and I have yet to see one immature fight, or childish name-calling session. That is an awesome accomplishment for a message board, as that stuff is almost unavoidable.

Also, it isn't as though the whole forum, or even large parts of it are unavailable until you gain access. It is merely one small section. So, personally I saw no problem with the process as I came here to discuss LNOE and Flying Frog in general. So, in doing what I planned to do anyway, I was also getting myself known and the board and earning my chance to get into the downloads section.

So, long story short (too late, LOL) I can understand where you are coming from, I just respectfully disagree. As I see it, I cannot see why anybody would be offended enough by the process to never come back. The worst thing I see happening is that somebody came by the site only wanting to find custom content, and therefore didn't bother to join. That is a shame, but I'm sure most people who have created content have put it other places (such as BGG) for others to share as well anyway, so it isn't like this would be the only place they could find stuff.