If you happen to have registered a username on this site, you’ll notice that if you are logged in a new gray bar appears at the top of the page. This was an addition that came with WordPress 3.1, which was installed tonight. For most of you this bar won’t have any functionality because you are by default at the “subscriber” level, which means you don’t have the ability to do anything other than make comments. As I mentioned in a previous comments thread, I intend to open things up for users to make their own posts at some point. I haven’t given it too much thought and I’m still figuring out how such posts would be integrated into the site. Some level of editorial control has to be maintained, and until the A’s political and city/site situation is determined I don’t intend to open things up. After that point commenting should be less prone to flame wars. If you have anything to say or ask about this policy, feel free to drop a comment.
I don’t intend to get rid of the anonymous commenting that’s currently allowed. IP’s continue to be visible to the admin (me) so that I can easily identify spammers and really bad trolls. The comments system will remain in house, so you won’t see a wholesale change to a third party such as Facebook or Disqus.
If you are interested in becoming a registered user, click on the Login link on the right and click Register. Then complete the extremely short form. You should be warned: there are no inherent benefits other than the fact that you’ll have a unique handle in green.
newballpark.org 
To at least 50% who post here, the team name is the most important issue. The 49’ers move to Santa Clara generates a tiny fraction of the controversy we have here because they’re going to be the “San Francisco” 49’ers no matter what.
ML: currently your handle is the only green one but if all registered users also have a green one it would be hard to distinguish admin/moderator from everyone else: would it still be possible that you keep having a unique color as moderator/admin ?
@erw – Afraid not. It’s only “registered” and not.
I registered and i’m still not green… do need to do something else?
@David – You need to login every so often. Your browser needs to set a cookie to remember your username and password.
@ML–could I get my name in Gold? I like to stand out amongst the crowd on here.
georob – why does the team name matter? Would it be proper to cite the Philadelphia or KC A’s in Oakland? Sure you’re attached to your city and you’re making it a vendetta of “us vs. the world”, but really why not root for the team?