I can see how in many ways this would be a nice feature to have, but I believe one bigger downside to it could be making new(er) members feel welcome on Teamspeak. If private/locked channels were to be allowed more than the LoL Locked channel we already have (Let's face the facts here, half of us that use that channel don't even play League of Legends) then I'm pretty sure we'd all be in those channels all the time. Why? Well, because it's more convenient and there's less risk of having someone else join when you're having a private conversation.
I see this is where many people automatically jump over to "Then use Skype." but the truth is, Teamspeak is generally much better in communities such as MeepCraft. With Skype, you must add the person/people you want to talk to and then call them, with the chance they won't answer and whatnot, whereas in Teamspeak you can simply join the channel and start talking to groups of people, vs having to figure out who is having Skype calls with who and when to see if they can add you, dealing with background noise and then for the younger ones, other people having their cameras on and whatnot that possibly prevents them from even being allowed to use Skype. Also, from what I've seen, Teamspeak is generally much safer too.
Back to what I mentioned earlier about making new Teamspeak members feel welcome, if you have everybody down in locked channels it can make it seem like we are trying to conceal something, and are generally less.. friendly? If this doesn't make sense let me know and I can try to explain better, but just as an example; I used to go on another servers' Teamspeak and they did have to it where everybody could control their own channels with passwords and such. It makes you feel unwelcome, left out, in a way. What do you do? Poke someone and ask to join, hoping they don't take you on as rude or interrupting? I've had many cases where I poke someone and they generally don't respond because they're afk, playing a game or just forget to altogether. Having everybody in unlocked public channels just seems more inviting, I believe is what I'm trying to say.
So, in the end, Skype is too/more "private" than Teamspeak in a community-based server, and having locked channels doesn't give off a very welcoming sign either. I think things are fine the way they are, honestly. When someone joins the channel and you are having a private conversation, you can either move to another channel and ask the new member to leave you be for a minute or so, or ask them to leave for a bit either way. I've seen Teamspeak servers where if you are around for a considerable time and prove not to have troll intentions where staff rank you up to "Member" to join a replicated channel list that only these "members" can join, but once again.. I don't see much of an issue with how it is now. It was a good idea, but -1 from me.
