Until there are more forums, and until there is a better interface to select forums, any forum you click on will get you an automatic membership. At the moment the membership is meaningless. When I implement "My Forums" and show in the sidebar only forums you've subscribed to, I will convert the membership lists to subscription lists, at which point you can unsubscribe to remove the forum from the sidebar.
Basically, I am collecting this list because when I do turn on the forum subscriptions, if you're not a subscriber to any, all forums would disappear from your sidebar. Which could be very upsetting if you weren't expecting it. :-)
After that is all implemented, only posters on the forum (or people who have explicitly joined a forum) will be listed as members. And in that case, membership will determine access to the forum-- that is, forums will have their own administration, moderators, and ban list.
Think Yahoo Clubs/Groups, or Delphi Forums, etc.
Trust me, there are 3 forums I never clicked on that are showing up on my sidebar. Another Wisconsin FReeper has complained of the same thing, a rather objectionable forum at that. Yet the forums I would like to find, seem to now be non-existent. HOW DO I FIND POLITICAL HUMOR - nothing I've tried works.
And I do have to admit, I'm now convinced you're a democrat because you are creating an incredible monstrosity of a bureaucracy on this site.:^) I was under the impression Free Republic Network existed to fill the wants or needs of these specialized forums. Man, you're really trying to take the fun out of this, aren't you?
Think Yahoo Clubs/Groups, or Delphi Forums, etc. I would caution you about proceeding too far down that path, John - We don't want to fragment our community, as those examples are.
Too restrictive, the reason I don't think delphi or yahoo, is FreeRepublic. Open forum where we chose from the available rather than restricted to topics of choice from the get-go. Your own choices restrict you from the big picture so to speak. Of course the sheer number of posts has increased with the increase in membership, and that may be the dilemma.