[Chicago] sorry if this was already discussed... but why does the archive require a password (& only available to list members)?

[Jason R Huggins]

With the archive now "locked" way from public access:
        1) I can't send links to interesting discussions or post a link on 
my blog. This is very annoying.
        2) I can't google the list for previous comments or threads that I 
want to refer back to months later. This is very, very annoying. (Maybe I 
could get the cached copy of old posts, but not a solution going forward.)
        3) I can't google the list to see if this complaint has already 
been discussed.
        4) I forgot my password so I can't even login to manually check on 
#3. :-(

#1, 2, 3, 4 all tripped me up in the last 30 minutes... so I'm grumpy 
enough to rant at the moment.

Case in point, I was checking up on the TechCoffee site this morning... 
there's a link there to the ChiPy list about how it all got started. The 
link's busted now, because the ChiPy archive is now off limits to the 
public.

Was there a decision to "go private"... If so, why? 

If the issue is preventing people (or bots) from harvesting addresses, 
there's gotta be a better way to do this... For example, if everyone 
posted via Gmane it can anonymize emails addresses, but still make them 
valid for replies, somehow. I can't think of any other reason why the list 
could be private.... It's not like we're talking we're talking about 
planting snakes on a plane or anything.

If you make the Chicago Python Users Group archive private.... the 
terrorists win. Please, think of the Pythons.

-Jason