especially those who are far away and don´t want to pay telefónica. just reading these messages once, i already think: what? and too many possibilities. but that is just the first impression.

i don´t feel like signing up, when i post a comment in a specific weblog. i simply don´t want to have a window popping up in front of my nose, when i just want to write my text there. and what i don´t get: if i am a member i am an admin??? i think there is confusion. i am eager to read more about the ideas of kris - yesyesyes.in the meanwhile i will read everything again and think about it more precisely, i promise.

just to make things clear: i'm thinking of a simplification ... so to say: antville consists of two groups of users: lurkers (aka surfers) and registered users. the latter can (beside creating their own weblog) "subscibe" to a foreign weblog, and they can be "invited" by admins of an antville-weblog to participate as contributors or even admins. that's it. nothing more.

beside that "subscribing" to a weblog at first hand just means that this weblog is added to your "my weblogs"-list, but there's a list of features one could think of that could be added (i.e. notification etc.) and, of course, there should be the possibility to unsubscribe too.

it is confusing that members of some other weblog can contribute to my site without being member. as an admin i have no chance to see their email address, to make them contributors or to block them (if possible), because they are not on the membership page. i really like the current behaviour where everybody can comment on other sites so easily. my suggestion does not mean more complexity for the user, but the admin will have more information about the site members.

my idea was: in order to clear things up you do not permit non-members to comment or post. if they want to they have to sign up. the sign-up process should be as simple as possible, i.e. users with no antville login have to fill in the form. antville members do not have to send all these information, so they could sign up with one click.

i think it is pretty convenient to automatically become a member by creating an object (comment, story, ...). it even makes sense when you connect it with the "my weblogs" features, because if you post a comment, you are interested in the replies and you may want to follow the updates on this site. i don't see any problems in this, especially if you allow an "unsubscribe", because if you post to one site you do it delibrately, automatic signup is one click (posting an object) and "deliberate" signup is two (signing-up and posting).

support the scheme robert is describing, but I agree with kris that it's awkward that somebody may write a story on your weblog and you have no idea who you're dealing with.

I would make the division between posting a story and posting a comment: To post a comment, you don't need to be(come) a member of a site, to post a story (on sites that allow that) you do.

all i have to add at this point is that becoming a member should not be an irreversible process. and i should be able to get a list of weblogs i am a member of including the member status.

update: that's simply for reasons of forgiveness and transparency. i surely want to know where my e-mail address is loitering around and eventually want to stop it from doing so.

i suppose the avarage user doesn't really want to know whether he is member or not when he posts a comment or story. he wants to post easily. that's what he does now and that won't change in either way.

i think everyone who writes a comment should automatically be a member, because the memberhip page is the only place to see the email address of the user. it makes also sense in long term if you intent to add a feature to block trolls.

i personally don't care which other weblogs i am member of. this doesn't mean that i don't want to see tobi's feature, it means that it doesn't make a difference to me if i am a member (and not admin or contributor) of a blog or not, as long as i can post easily.

Well, membership as subscription will become important and useful for users (it isn't right now). So if it's just for the purpose of seeing people's email addresses, I'd prefer to make them accessible on the spot (at the story or comment the user has posted) for viewers logged in as admin or contributor, as opposed to automatically forcing membership.