How "Public" Shall This Blog Be?

My first question is this: How shall this blog be listed/categorized on the Web?
Specifically, shall this blog be categorized as "Public", such that blogger webots et.al. can have easy access?

• This would mean that non-Branch 214 members, and non-NALC members, in fact, ANYONE WHO WANTS, can find the web online, and can post comments to the blog.
• It also means that Branch members and other NALC members may be able to more easily find the blog, by doing a "blog search".

My second question is this: How shall comments be posted?

• So that anyone can comment?
• So that only those who register on blogger.com can comment?
• Or so that only those who are invited, and accept the invitation, to be part of this online NALC Branch 214 members conversation about the election campaign for 2005?

Which raises a third question: How shall people be invited to join this blog?

This blog has been set up as the type that Blogger.com calls a "Team Blog" (as opposed to being just an individual's blog). That means, it is open to new members "by invitation only". How, then, shall those invitations be extended? So far I've invited just a few who I know have interests and/or skills in developing and using the Web to improve Branch communications. Clearly an invitation should also be extended to all candidates for Election 2005, and to all current Branch Officers, and to all stewards, and to any Branch 214 member who wants to join! But how?

Currently, anyone wanting to join this "Team Blog" needs to email the blog administrator: mailladymartha@yahoo.com.

Along with that - how shall comments be posted?

• As a pop-up window?
• Directly on the page?

In the process of writing this post, I added the following guideline to the top of the blog title - "anyone can comment; any Branch 214 member who joins the blog can post to it directly ". Is this sufficient? A good idea?

The other day, I made the decision NOT to have this be a "public blog". Within minutes of my first post, someone made positive comments - but clearly, he was not a letter carrier. It seemed to me, for the purposes of this blog - about our own Branch 214 election - that we should NOT have the blog listed for all other imaginable users.

But - what do YOU you think?

Italic sentence was revised 10/06/05 at 9:22AM