bumble tazman: You miss the point of my question, whether or not it seems like a secret society has nothing to do with it. As you well know, a lot of fellowships have been formed just so people can have a forum to talk about things that aren't covered in the regular public discussion boards. I am wondering if there are fellowships that non-members could read the posts. I had in mind the Big Boss having the abilty to allow non-members to read the posts, but not let them post to the fellowship's discussion board. Also, allow the Big Boss to allow non-members to post to the fellowship too. It'd be the Big Boss's choice when forming the fellowship.
It'd make a semi-private type of group. You could have it in various degrees too. The most restrictive would be Big Boss only, followed by managers, then members of the fellowship, selected members of BrainKing, all paying members of BrainKing, and the most open,
all members of BrainKing. I would have it so the Big Boss could allow each type of BrainKing Member to read the posts or not and to be able to write a post or not. The least restrictive of these fellowships would be almost identical to these public discussion boards.

I think these would be a good thing to have. With the merging of some of the boards that happened a few weeks ago, some members feel that the remaining discussion boards are to general for their particular game and their posts get lost or pushed aside too easily. Since an open fellowship would be just that, open to all, it could serve as another type of public discussion board. It wouldn't be advertised on the big list of public discussion boards, so a person interesting in finding a fellowship with his interest would have to search the fellowship list or hear it by word of mouth. In the list or when you visit a fellowship's home page, the type of fellowship posting and reading allowed would be stated. A completely open fellowship would allow an interested person to read the posts and see if they wanted to join the fellowship without having to ask first. If the Big Boss allowed non-members to post also, then it wouldn't matter if they joined the fellowship and the fellowship's discussion board would serve as a type of public discussion board. Though it might be wise to have it set up so that if non-members may post to one's fellowship, they would only be allowed to do so while the Big Boss was online. Or you might return to find your fellowship a mishmash of posts from outsiders. Do the managers in a fellowship have editing abilites? If so, then this wouldn't need to be a worry.

I have the feeling that the answer is no fron your replies. I'll wait for a day or so, just
in the case that the answer is yes, that the Big Boss can allow non-members to view or write posts. If it is no, I will visit the Feature Request board with a proposal.