I was recently sent a link to a website that ran a discussion on a subject on which I have considerable axes to grind.

I sent off an application to join so I could express my opinion on the matter and was rejected because I had a "web based email address".

Well....

So I contacted admin to tell them I was a real person, including my full name and received the following reply.

Hello,

XXX is privately owned by a small group of people. This group bear enormous

risk on behalf of our members due to the nature of the site. In order to

minimise those risks XXX can only accept ISP email addresses

As well as the reasons stated in the Forum Rules, this prevents the less

honest from hiding behind an anonymous email address and also from signing

up endlessly in order to skew the stats against a particular company.

Kind regards,

The XXX Team

So is this discrimination? Are us Gmailers and Hotmailers totally beyond the pale?

It looks like someone is sick of the hateful w*nkers that frequent so many websites. However, they certainly lost a good member in your case.

Yeah, it happened to me as well with some bar site in Pattaya.

Water off a duck's back in these cases.

Well, if I'd realised that I was associating with people who belong to, or even worse, get refused entry to Pattaya bar websites I'd have had second thoughts about contributing here...

Well, if I'd realised that I was associating with people who belong to, or even worse, get refused entry to Pattaya bar websites I'd have had second thoughts about contributing here...

So true. Do the websites one wants to join indicate a bit about the nature or interests of the want-to-joiner? Probably.

To the OP.... and following on from the above comment.......I can understand a website only wanting ip-based members. A forgiveable discrimination.

I would suggest that the forum you write about may be worth joining on that basis alone. There was a time whem a "discriminating taste" was a mark of status.

Do you not have your own isp (and therefore a non-web based email)?

I went to my Australian phone companies website and logged in and lo and behold, there was a free email address.

I promptly used it to try join again but only got snarled at in some obscure manner.

Sod them, I was only going there to poach members anyway.

As I move from country to country every so often and have done for over 35 years, I use only thr "hotmail", "Gmail" and "Yahoo" providers as otherwise I would have to inform my entire mailing list of a new e-mail address a dozen or more times since I started using the thing.

I too have run into this discriminatory selection process on several occasions, but just say 'Bugger 'em' and get on with life.

(Except with Andy of Misty's - I told him to his face )