Thanks for the link Brian.
Maverick, you do have some very good points there, but here's my reasoning for wanting the club to grow:
1. I think there is a happy medium. At some point, you start getting too big and everyone doesn't know each other and the manners are lost. At some point, you're too small and the interaction hasn't met it's potential and there aren't enough divers of similar skill levels to help each other out or to have buddies at a similar level. How do we know when we've reached the right size? Read on.
2. Each new person we've added recently has been a great addition. The club became a little better for Nailer99 when Maciek joined (though they haven't met yet), since now there are two potential buddies in the same boat (pardon the pun). Grateful Diver is a terrific guy to have around to help guide others like me and you along. Sheri seems to be a very enthusiastic new-ish diver and kgdiver, aside from being an old friend of mine, is a gear-o-phile. So, the same argument could've been made for not wanting new members a couple of months ago, but I look at our recent additions as great folks to have onboard.
3. We have yet to encounter our first asshole. When we do (and we certainly will), we can look at this again. Who knows, maybe we'll close registrations at some point.
4. Lastly, if we don't have decent placement on the Web, we won't get to meet cool folks like Da-Jab (Janne) from Finland, who found us by way of a web search, looking for dive buddies while he was here in Seattle on business.
I think you and I are on two different ends of the spectrum when it comes to the growth of the club, but we want the same thing: to grow the club at a reasonable pace by adding cool peeps to dive with and get to know. Saying that we shouldn't do this by getting our site out there is like saying we shouldn't wear the dive club shirts in public, or make use of those long-delayed stickers. An asshole can find out about the site just as easily from walking by you on the sidewalk and reading your t-shirt as he can from coming across us on the web.
Don't worry, I'm not trying to turn this into Scubaboard (which I like for some reasons, and not for others), we will always be a tight group, if only as a result of geography.
I'm glad you spoke up though, because it makes me think about the potential downside too, so don't take this as a message that I didn't like what you had to say, I am just contrasting that with the other side of the coin.