What is it?    It is now necessary to register with this site in order to vote or comment. The registration requirements are minimal. A user must supply a valid email address and answer a few profile questions about their oboe-playing, but the site does not ask for, or want, personal information. Only the username is displayed, and this may be chosen arbitrarily. The registration requirement has one exception: the Suggestion Box page is open for comments without registration.

Why did I require it? Some concerns have been raised about reliability of the information  here.   A reedmaker might wonder if their product is getting a negative rating for fraudulent or malicious reasons.  A customer might wonder if a particular reedmaker is being hyped in a dishonest way.   I’ve watched the traffic on the site enough to share some of these concerns. Registration is supposed to mitigate that problem, by providing a bit of accountability for participants. It won’t stop anyone who is absolutely determined to cheat, but I hope that it will be a small nudge in a positive direction.

What do you think? So far, it seems to have nearly shut down the site. Very few people are willing to register. I hope that this changes– time will tell.