Last word on the subject.

Apparently Fertility Friend has put up a wee missive on the subject of them abruptly and without warning making their bulletin boards the demesne of only PAYING (VIP) members.

I'd link to it but I can't get over there since I've been BANNED.

But they say in part:

This week saw a big change as our boards became a VIP feature. We understand that this was a difficult transition for many members ... [snip]

... How and why did it happen so suddenly?Although it may have appeared to you as a sudden change, for the technical staff at FertilityFriend.com it was an ongoing issue. We have been increasing the bandwidth budget monthly to accommodate the ever increasing traffic. A few weeks ago we started experiencing load issues on our servers. It went to the point of small blackouts for some users. We carefully analyzed the situation and determined that the free boards were the culprit ... [snip]

...FertilityFriend.com is not a fly-by-night operation. We have been operating for the last seven years online. We have extensive experience in online applications and their management, however, like any other business we also have financial commitments... [snip]

...We have seen a lot of anger and hostility directed towards us lately without being able to respond to it. We would like to take this occasion to present our point of view. FertilityFriend.com has been helping hundreds of thousands of people achieve their dream over the past seven years, most of them for free. We have a long track record to prove it. We fund free charting, an extensive chart gallery and produced a very large body of educational documents- all available for free... [snip]

... It is really time for all of us to move on and regroup. We can now rebuild a community around what FertilityFriend.com is there for: sharing the experience of trying to conceive, charting, pregnancy and growing our families... [snip]

Very pretty. But I honestly think this is horseshit. The 'tone' of the boards began changing ages ago. They started getting paranoid and banning people. They encouraged reporting of posts. They came up with the obtuse points system to pit us against each other and separate the good little girls from the bad, bad, evil ones. So was the growing number of 'cooling off's, warnings, suspensions, and bannings a method to decrease bandwidth usage? Was the rash of alienations of good members just prior to this 'technical problem' a coincidence?

No. They want to make more money and be ultra-exclusive like a posh little club. They had been having 'trouble' with us regular board members for awhile - speaking our minds and helping one another instead of paying for their flaccid assistance - and had had enough. Like the spoiled toddler they took their ball and went home.

Not a problem. Their perogative (as I said before) but I would like to offer a humble warning. If all of this was, indeed, due to growing technical problems then they 'solved' it in the most unprofessional way possible. And exclusivity may sound nice but without the beautiful cross-section of folks from all over - those who can afford to be VIPs and those who can't - their 'service' will be next to useless. Nothing compares to assistance and advice from ladies who have done it or are doing it. Nothing.