Should we let foreigners in as members?

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They already do that on other international forums. OzFormers is meant to be an Australasian forum for Australasian fans, and I don't see any problem with keeping it that way.

There are plenty of other board communities which are regionally exclusive such as for Nordic fans, Dutch fans, Transformers New Zealand, Transformers Hong Kong etc. - most Japanese boards have a policy stating that users can only post in Japanese (posts in other languages are expressly disallowed).

If people want to go on a more international community, then there are plenty of international boards out there for them to join.

Ok people i hope your sitting down, I 100% agree with Gok!

What about if it is allowed, but it is recommended against or discouraged unless they really really want to?
And maybe have a maximum quota as well to make sure we keep the discussion local (like 5 or 10% non-local fans)?

What do you think, a quota system, or a vote on each applicant?

Mate i have to say no thanks, if i want to speak with foreigners then i'll post at another site.

As Gok said, there are international board. The reason for this boards existance is an Australian focus.

If someone from (say) Canada has a specific reason for joining a forum with an Australian focus, ie they're looking to migrate, they're an expat or they lived here for a while and have a lot of friends within the Australian fandom, that's different to someone who just wants to join our board.

The person who is joining specifically because of the Australian focus has a case - because their inclusion wont dilute the local content.

I don't think we should say "lets allow 5%". What if that 5% are vocal troublemakers banned from international boards?

As for a vote, I'm happy to leave griffin to make the call. I don't know that calling public vote and having someone publicly voted against is the way to go

Simply put if it opens up to the world then it will not have the appeal that it has for ME now.