[tlug] Open archives are bad?

[Dave M G <martin@example.com>]

TLUG,

I was wondering why the tlug archives are password protected. So, 
confident this had come up before, I looked up the discussion in the 
archives:

http://www.tlug.jp/ML/0512/msg00309.html

Even after reading that discussion, though, I didn't understand why 
having the archives be password protected was a good thing. Maybe I 
missed a post, but there seemed to be a quantum leap from the idea to 
make them open, to the idea of making them open only to humans.

Having the username and password publicly visible there means any human 
(who is capable and willing to read English) can immediately access them.

So the only thing the password stops is search engines. And that, in 
turns, stops a lot of people from benefiting from the TLUG body of 
knowledge because they might not ever realize TLUG exists.

I understand that there are some other concerns, like people making past 
postings with a certain understanding of how it was archived, and the 
privacy of individual emails. But, actually, it looks like those 
concerns were addressed and resolved in the thread linked above.

So, I guess I'm wondering if there existed then, or exists now, a good 
justification for the public password system.

If not, I would vote for the archives to be opened that much more for 
the search engines, so that the knowledge here can be put into the 
larger pool.

Is good, no?

--
Dave M G
Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
Kernel 2.6.20-15-generic
Pentium D Dual Core Processor