I don't even see why this is an issue. Membership is free. You just need to make five posts. Shoop-da-whoop. At least you don't have to pay a monthly fee *cough*DeviantArt*cough* to have a fun and functional website. This place is the best doll forum, in my opinion, and if someone doesn't want to be a member here, then that's their loss.
If, say, Dolls Alive is a forum someone wants to participate in, then join, already! What do you have to lose? I'll tell you what you lose if you
don't register. Fun. And lots of it. Sure, fun is on 'the other forums', too, but not the TDF brand of fun.
For Doll's sake, I've been here just around 2 weeks now and have put in over 100 posts. I'm never,
ever this active on any other forum. Ever. I am a 'member' (the membership system is kinda unofficial) of some backwater 'hidden' social forum on Game FAQs .com and I'm not even as active there as I am here, and I've been on there since 2009.
But I digress...
What's the big deal if some forums here are members only? If anything, that should give impetus for people to register, which, again, is totally free.
A forum isn't a commitment. There is no posting quota. There are no time expectations. You can be as bloody active or inactive as you like. So, I don't understand why people complain. The doll-owning community is an easy target for trolls, and I for one don't want trolls being drawn here. If the membership criterion were less restrictive, this place would be Trollsville.
In closing, there are websites that are even more restrictive about membership. Pink Essence, a transgendered website, requires a load of information and a picture before you can even access the forum to read. So, people, stop complaining and register here, already...
*Passes out and falls off of soap box due to oxygen deprivation*
Edit:
Oh, and if people think the moderators here are bad (I don't), then check this link out:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... id=2579358
Game FAQs is the other site I pretty much live on. The moderators there are known to be among the worst on the internet. What other website has two pages and fourteen entries dedicated to the 'quality' of their moderators?
/rant