Because I now maintain the Trimarian Arts & Sciences Web site, I keep an eye on the referrer logs, especially the error messages. When I find someone linking to an invalid page, I'll usually send a message informing them of where the information can be found.

Earlier today, I got an error message, showing the link had come from a Yahoo! group. I went to check out the message, to see if I needed to post a correction.

The group was marked "Archives for members only". Because apparently, they're discussing some top secret costuming information they don't want anyone else to see. Anyway, it was "open membership" — not requiring moderator approval to sign up — so I joined the group and checked out the message, which didn't look like a correction was urgently needed.

I noticed from my referrer logs that an owner and/or moderator of the group checked out my Yahoo! profile a short time later. The IP address was quite familiar (being one of the people who despises Karen, Lisa and me but can't seem to stay away from reading our blogs).

I went back a couple hours later, out of boredom, to see what was being discussed on the list (since costuming is among my interests). Lo and behold, access had been changed to "Archives for moderators only".

Surely the moderator isn't so afraid that I might read something on there that all members of the group have been denied access to the message archives! No, a rational person would have just revoked my list membership instead of inconveniencing every other list member — so it must simply be a wacky coincidence that a couple of hours after I signed on, archive access was changed to moderator-only.

But that raises the question of why, apart from sheer incompetence, a list moderator would choose to do such a thing. Hey! I know you're reading; what's up with that? And why were you so desperate to find this post of mine?

Highly amused inquiring minds want to know!

Update: after the moderator read this entry (and obviously lacked the courage to answer the above questions!), archive access is back to "members only" — but now membership is restricted, so the moderator has to approve new additions to the list, and the member list is still hidden. Well, I guess some people just love their secrets! Heaven forbid anyone should know who else in the kingdom is interested in costuming; the earth would shake and cities be laid waste, or something.