Marty doesn't operate a forum privately for you and your friends, he operates a public forum on the internet, which everyone can access. That is the basic idea of a forum, whereas private discussions tend to take place on more private platforms, such as MSN or yahoo groups. If he wants to grant you your little village then fine, but I think it's a load of crap that you want to convert a public discussion board into a private one, when you have absolutely nothing to do with the management and financing of the site. I'm not argueing to keep my place, I'll stop posting there right now if you want, I'm just pointing out that it's pathetic what you want to do with something you really have no ownership over