Should Guest Posting be allowed?

[ErikG]

Originally Posted by Blether

Registration - giving an unknown website your e-mail address - has its issues. There again, as a visitor to a forum site, you read around to assess the content and level of discussion, maybe coming back a few times.

When the 'join in' urge hits, you don't want to wait while you complete online forms, wait for an e-mail, complete the registration and go back and log in - you want to get that thought down !

Does your forum let you make it compulsory to enter a name for your message, as an unregistered poster ? As a standard-issue lazy guy, I know that'd gradually bring me to register. And unless I've some evil intent, I've no reason not to use the same, intelligible name.

Allow unregistered posts, require a name.

Even though Jeff is a good and clever fellow he can't change stuff in the forum software as he pleases, this software is a commercially available software that can be controlled in many ways but only in the ways intended by it's developers (or so I believe).

Wheteher an Email adress has to be there on the signup form I don't know... I believe this can be configured by Jeff either way.
As a side note, this forum, as most forums that are run by people with a serious interest in a specific subject, would never sell or use it's members email adresses in foul ways. That would damage the site so much that he'd never get anyone to go here so don't worry.
If you are a registered member, I can't see your email if you don't want me to. I can still send you an email (as long as you allow it in your profile) but I would not see your adress per se. The oly way to get your adress would be if you responded to my email directly, until then I would have no knowledge of your actual enail adress. And if you dont want us to be able to send you emails you can turn that off and just accept personal messages (PM's) if you have recieved any new msgs it will say so on the mainpage until you read it.

So membership... GOOD STUFF!

Not to mention that you can edit your posts and have one page of all threads with new messeges just clicking on the new posts link. Great thing!

[Jeff]

or company policies not allowing to register anywhere

That's an interesting point that I had not fully considered.

Does your forum let you make it compulsory to enter a name for your message, as an unregistered poster ?

You know that's an excellent suggestion and probably not that hard to do. Edit: Now in place barring any problem reports; unregistered are prompted to login/register and must otherwise specify a name (though they could still type guest I suppose

this software is a commercially available software that can be controlled in many ways but only in the ways intended by it's developers

When you buy a license, you do get full unlocked unencrypted source code so you are free to modify it as you like. However, as you say, one large advantage of using the software as close to the original distributed version as possible is that you have 500,000 users or more testing it for bugs, browser issues, etc. so it takes a large burden off the webmaster and members of the particular forum. Also even if a simple modification might take only 1 hour to figure out initially, over the life of the software, that could easily require 5 or 10 hours to maintain and continually reintegrate, which if you make many modifications can add up.

As a side note, this forum, as most forums that are run by people with a serious interest in a specific subject, would never sell or use it's members email addresses in foul ways. That would damage the site so much that he'd never get anyone to go here so don't worry.

Thanks Erik. As you say, I don't think any legitimate site where members have a dialogue with each other and the webmaster would ever intentionally spam their members. It takes hundreds of hours to build a web site and community of members and almost everyone would rebel against such spam so it would be self-destructive for any site to do so. I also hate spam.

A valid email address is required because it’s the only way to reset your password if you ever forget it.

Also most people appreciate the option to receive an email when someone replies to their question. If anyone does not however wish to receive email notifications of new replies to their threads, you can easily set this to “no” under your user control panel.

So membership... GOOD STUFF!

Maybe that would be a nice replacement for the current nag screen

[MarkC]

Good grief! There are 5 registered and 59 Guests viewing!

[gonzo]

When I first access the site it is as a guest. My internet is set up to delete all cookies and files after logout. If there are any answers I want to post, then I log on. Even if all these guests were unregistered, it would mean there is a lot of interest generated by the site. I see it as a good thing.

[ErikG]

Originally Posted by gonzo

When I first access the site it is as a guest. My internet is set up to delete all cookies and files after logout. If there are any answers I want to post, then I log on. Even if all these guests were unregistered, it would mean there is a lot of interest generated by the site. I see it as a good thing.

I'm starting to understand that some folks do what Gonzo does, clears out the cookies pretty often.
I just wonder why??? It totally defeats the purpose of having cookies...
Cookies in themself normally aren't dangerous. But if you are worried about them, there's a setting "ask for each site" in the prefs so that you can block out cookies from sites you don't trust and accept ONCE the cookies you trust.
Then there is NO need to clear the cookies at all IMHO.

Gonzo. If you aren't logged in when you enter the site you have to manually remember what threads that are "happening" and also remember where in the thread you last looked at it. I would go crazy if I had to do that. Keep the cookies and when entering the site just click on the "new posts" button, great function I say.

[ErikG]

hmm... I guess it could be necessary if you work for a mean bastard company that tries to check you up. But deleting on the puter is useless for that, any decent firewall or router can keep logs of where you've been anyway. There's no way to hide if they really want to find out.

[gonzo]

Some websites won't work unless you set cookies on accept.

[Corpus Skipper]

I'm starting to understand that some folks do what Gonzo does, clears out the cookies pretty often.

So my boss doesn't know where I've been goofing off at!!!!

[Corpus Skipper]

But deleting on the puter is useless for that, any decent firewall or router can keep logs of where you've been anyway.

We don't have one, the company's too cheap!

[ErikG]

Originally Posted by Corpus Skipper

We don't have one, the company's too cheap!

Well then. Empty your history but keep the cookies!
As long as he's not seriously out to get you he wont be viewing the info about every cookie on the computer, even if he did it would only say what server placed a cookie on your computer [stay away from porn ] and when the cookie expires. It doesn't say that youv'e been there today.

And if he really looks into your computer to check what you are doing there are a number of ways to keep stuff like this hidden.
Get one extra browser get a password protection program or a program that can "hide" files and folders. Keep the browser in there along with its support files. Use the other browser for serious work browsing.

But if he IS checking you, you either spend to much time online or need a new job! [JK]

Erik

I think anyone should be able to post becasue like me , i only have one thing i watned to post about (and this) i don't build boats, never have , probably never will. i just have to build a tiny one for a science project and was just asking some advice. I'm glad i didn't have to register because its a waste of time if you arent planning on coming back like me (no offense)

[Jeff]

Due to some bad apple spamers, guest posting has been disabled for now.

[Raggi_Thor]

I voted for the opposite...
This thread is called "Should Guest Posting be allowed?".
I clicked on the link and voted "No".
Then I realised that the question in the poll was turned the other way around...