Please post your comments here and on the polls. Oh, btw, you have to be a registered visitor to vote(!) – please register here(click here)
I posted this poll because I haven’t found any solution yet to why the Unregistered forums require registration every now and then.
Please read this: http://oriented.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=7&t=000087
No. I think the demise if icered.com in HK is a perfect example of why registration is not the way to go.
Thank you for the news about icered.com, 3q. My immediate reaction, though, is that ORIENTED.org isn’t the business that icered.com may have been.
So long as we can cover the minimal monthly charges ([shameless plug] ahem, and there’s a donor box to the right of this page so that y’all can help us in this regards), this website will be around. Monthly hosting fees run to US$25 bucks a month.
Forcing member registration will hopefully raise the quality of postings on the forums. This is a matter that many have argued to us since we started the website.
For now, the plan is to upgrade the forum to Ubb 6.3 or to convert it into a phpbb 2.0 forum. This action will address the unregistered login problem. What I am certain about is that this won’t happen till at least August 2002.
Btw, both such moves will require money beyond the monthly hosting fees – $199 for the newer Ubb or $5 extra per month for the MySQL support for phpbb. (Hey, did you notice I just sneaked in another shameless plug about donating to ORIENTED.org? )
Back to your point, tho, I do not connect Required Registration with the financial viability of ORIENTED.org. Well, I don’t want to – the value of this website to us (founders) is not in its potential income. Indeed, our only financial interest for dot-org is that it simply meets its expenses.
quote:
Originally posted by Gus: Forcing member registration will hopefully raise the quality of postings on the forums. This is a matter that many have argued to us since we started the website
What a crock! Take a look at most of my (registered) posts and you’ll see why this statement doesn’t hold water.
Ah, yes, Sandman, you certainly do defy any sane reason for us keeping these forums up at all!
fwiw, I did say I was “hoping”
Cheers.
I have to agree with Sandman that registering everyone will not necessarilly raise the quality of discussion. Just by quantity, I’m sure there are more jackass comments from registered users then non-.
On the other hand, the registration process isn’t that difficult or time consuming. I know I registered before I ever posted. Do the unregistered folks: post that way long-term, post that way for a while and then decide they want a cool handle of their own like me and sandman, or do they post once or twice and then forget the URL? If registration is required, type one will register and type 3 is no loss. We might lose type 2 folks. Just a thought.
Two reasons why I htink unregistered posting is useful:
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Some people don’t want to give out their e-mail address. I think this is reasonable as newcomers might not realise that Oriented is reputable enough to trust not to give out this information. Fear of spam stops e registering for a lot of online stuff. I was lucky enough to register for Oriented before they rquired e-mail addresses.
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People might want to anonymously post with topics like “Where can I find extra small condoms?” or "What shall I do about that strange ooze coming from my ***** (oops, can’t say dirty words like ‘p-e-n-i-s’).
Some people just do not want to register. They feel that irregular, “anonymous” posting is freer.
You are more likely to get a wider range of people posting if registration is not required.
Registration can always be required for some forums not for others… the poll question assumes either ALL registered or NONE registered. No need to be an all or nothing solution.
I bet, though, that most people will post on the unregistered forum because it will be far more lively. And, yes, viscious. And sometimes childish.
But isn’t that the fun? Nothing more satisfying that seeing some poor poster hounded by a pack of baying hounds with their blood up. Ever since they banned fox-hunting, its the best form of entertainnment.
I have tried to post as an unregistered user and could not – keeps asking for my password.
Nuts!
There is no reason why anyone could not choose a nickname, open a free web-based email account, and still be as anonymous as they want to be.
If the bugs in this BBS system require registration then so be it, just put in a few links to the various freebie email sites that are around and that problem will be solved.
However, if you want the registration in order to be able to exert more control over the postings (like the ABCguy drama in the other thread) then I really do not see how registration could help you with that.
Like I mentioned in the other thread, the only way you could have a truly effective registration is to only allow those email addresses provided by your Internet Service Provider.
This would probably decrease your user list quite a lot. I for one use an Internet Cafe, so I don’t have an ISP email account, Even if I did I would not use it publicly, (it would only be for my family). I wonder how many other users are in the same situation.
I believe that the free web based email accounts offer the best protection when it comes to dealing with spam, viruses, and of course it allows one to be anonymous, to an extent anyway.
Hi John,
I agree with you about the apparent futility of using registration to “manage” discussion.
For managing discussion, we are placing our trust in the time and effort of the moderators and regular forum members to put people in place and get things rolling along.
I make a basic assumption about the majority of ORIENTED visitors: the typical ORIENTED visitor doesn’t have the time, or long-term interest, to screw around on this website. Since most of us are not interested in playing along, those who do want to “troll” will get bored and move on.
I hope I’m not being overly presumptious. I figure: if you came all this way to look for a website “about Taiwan” in English, then your needs and expectations are going to be pretty specific (or special, or unique). If you don’t live here, you may be planning to or have enough good friends to care about what’s going on here. You’re going to waste your time harrassing people?
Obviously, some people do this. now, let’s take ABCguy as a case in point. I haven’t read everything he’s posted. Sometimes I shook my head at what he posted, and sometimes I nodded my head. In my personal opinion, he wasn’t all bluster.
After I banned him from the forums, he re-registered several times. But I figured that he’d realized his having to register every time he’d want to post another reply would tax his effort. Now, I mean, I personally think these forums are pretty cool, but even I wouldn’t spend that much effort.
Which brings me back to the unregistered user problem. The “bug” in this forum is my fault. Please don’t ask me to go into detail, but I know that I made some big mistake about a year ago when I was modifying these forums. And this mistake has carried over thru several version upgrades
Now, I am deathly scared of losing EVERYTHING (ok, not everything, but A LOT) on these boards if I’m not careful. I’m terribly busy in June and July, but I’m aiming for August to have a real “fix” in place for this.
That said, there have still been many people who have said to me directly, “Require registration everywhere!” Let’s hear more from you guys.
Dear gus,
Regarding ABCguy you have a valid point. If you banned him, and then continued to ban him everytime he re-registered with a new user name then the banning would indeed be effective.
Like you said, it is unlikely that someone would continue to register everytime they wanted to post something.
I was not aware that you were keeping such a close eye on things
I have only just read the whole thread which led to his demise, and even though I understand the reason for him being banned, I have to say that there are a number of other users who tend to post 1 paragraph antagonistic replies who in that case should also be banned.
I remember an idiotic reply by a user when I posted my “Best Game” thread
Anyway, to ban or not to ban, that is the question.
I think these forums provide a goldmine of information, and it is entirely up to you to do what you feel is right to let it continue to do so.
Banning is subjective, but I think I’ve said it before: it’s your ballgame; if you want to take your ball home and end the game, that is your right.
People who are determined to be offensive will post regardless. The best that an administrator can do is make their cyberlife just a little bit more complicated and wait for them to run out of steam.
I’ve never felt that the “quality” of discussion here needed much improving. It’s an internet forum, so, registered or no, people are going to be less polite than they would in person. But at the same time, because it’s online it’s pretty easy to let it go by, recognize that the extremities are not that threatening. What I wish is that there would be more quantity of discussion… forcing registration would only make this worse. I wish the Legal Matters forum, where anonimity would be truly valuable, were not registration-only.
You’re always going to get a troll or two. You’ll even get Scotsmen and Irishmen! Why not have a flame forum to fufil the role that alt.flame.* does on usenet ?
I agree with some of the previous sentiments.
Trolls.
Insults.
Pettiness.
Vulgarity.
That’s the REASON people sign on in the first place.
have regi. if it makes the system better, also add login " anonymous" in the login screen, nobody loses that way.