Uh, hello?

Yeah, we do ask for a confirmation message when people join the Saloon. It helps keep out the hit-and-run posters, the unconscionable hotheads, the people just coming on to promote something, and other people we don't want there. This process has worked very, very well for us for over 4 years now. The Saloon is small becuase we LIKE IT that way. We form bonds and build a community, and we don't get the nastiness that plagues most other such forums.

In this case, I've been embroiled in an online war with Frank Zhang...a war in which Choatle and I have been allies. Frank is a guy with a long documented history of using a multitude of names online.

Under these circumstances, when I saw the name 'Choatle' as a sign-up it did not seem unreasonable to ask him to write a few words about himself. It gave me a chance to look for Frank's visible-with-the-naked-eye-from-the-moons-of-Neptune fractured English...and it's really the same task we ask of all memberships applicants. 2-3 sentences is enough.

However, I got a really angry and outraged response instead.
OK, whatever.

We have members from around the world at the Saloon, and being a native speaker is NOT a requirement for membership. I simply don't want Frank (or any of his multitudinous sock puppets) wiggling in over there.

But based upon the response I got, I can understand that asking him to write something in reasonable English was a touchy subject. I honestly thought it WAS from Frank Zhang until I saw the post above.

Either way, I consider the outcome to be a confirmation of our appliocation process...and a bullet dodged.