I'm not cool enough to get into some clubs. Most clubs. Too old, wrong clothes, insufficient bling.

And that's right.

People who run clubs, even public ones, have standards for entrance.

Bouncers I'd like to run on public chats:

Captcha. Are you human? No bots but the host's bots.

Language. Parlez vous français? The chat room asks you a question in its required language. Can you answer it?

Expertise. Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Enter only if you can explain the difference between Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo. Or solve a programming puzzle. Or list three reasons Governor Bill Richardson should be the next President of the United States.

Age bracket. Too old. We could be discussing retirement homes and don't want any youngsters in the room. Or just people within a year or two.

Social proximity. It's who you know. You have to already know someone in the room. This might be automatic, via buddy list. It might also involve your name being flashed to the membership and someone saying they know you.

Authentication. Prove you're not a muggle. Perhaps OpenID. Or your employee ID.

Queue waiting time. Not so fast, buddy. Everyone must wait an hour before entry, just to prove you care. And aren't still angry.

Bring a gift. Tokens of  respect. Maybe it's a link to hidden gem on the Internet, a snippet of code, or a PayPal payment.

Read a disclaimer. Just so you know. Rules of the road, that we are insane about Harry Potter,

Subject to a Vote of the Membership. Probation. Any member can whiteball/blackball a new member in the first n minutes. 

Think of these barriers as defending the tribe, shaping the mix of people in the group, and a rite of passage for those joining it.

We need an API construct, I think. An event between applying and joining. In theory, you might have a whole new class of Skype Plug-In or Extra.

Thanks to Ants and the people he ejected from Skype DevZone Public Chat for Inspiration. Thanks to the Skype 3.X Public Chat for the play-by-play commentary on Ants' moderation. And thanks to hoggardb for the photo of the Chelsea bouncer.