I believe there's the potential for DT to feel that way, since the way we're setting things up will put some of the most substantive discussion in private, invitation-only forums.

I'm not sure if that's a problem that should be prevented or fixed.  I'm not sure if it's a problem at all.  I'm not sure if that's how the site will evolve to feel.

Anyway, Something to think about.

Yeah, I don't know what to do about this, really.  As a writer, it's valuable to me to both have those substantive discussions with a group as I'm writing, then later to get opinions from a larger group that are coming to the work completely fresh.  Helps me find out if what I was trying to do works for people that don't already know my intentions in advance. 

I suppose the question is whether this forum's focus is function, enabling artists to use their private areas in the ways that best serve their purposes, or if it's more to build a creative community.  Not that both can't happen either way, but different goals are going to favour different approaches, you know?

Could always have a subforum intended for any discussions that creators don't mind opening up to a wider audience, but are likely to influence people who see their work later on down the line.  I actually dithered over whether to do something like that for my last private thread, the one you commented on, since most of it makes sense even without having read my stuff.  So if others want to aim more for community building overall, I don't mind adapting my forum use to some degree; anything I really don't want in public I can always put in a separate, private thread as an addendum.

Yeah, I think at the very least it'd be important to think about fostering discussions, as possible, outside the "owned" forums, to keep the place lively for all comers. 

Speaking for myself, pretty much anyone (other than googlebots and creepers) is welcome to join my subforum. 

I wonder if there might be some way to obviously indicate whether particular owned forums are open to new audiences or not?

I could put "open to membership requests" in the member group title, and also put it in the thread where I'll keep the list of private forums.