The purpose in requiring registration is to protect the content of the forum and your privacy. Through password protection, email extraction bots cannot extract your email address to be redistributed. In accordance with the current US Federal COPPA laws, you must be over 13 years old to register or have your parent register on your behalf. For your privacy you may use an alias, first name with initial, or "handle" as your user name when posting messages. When you login you will use the email address and the password that will be instantly mailed to you.