Poll: Unregistered Posting

[Von]

Andy,
I feel that your argument about having too many passwords holds no water for me, I use the same password on any sites like TBN that I am registetered to. Only have one password to remember. I think that your beating a dead horse on why you choose to not register. I have never had a bit of spam from TBN, and I have been with this site since the very begining. (that was at least four sites back) I think that we would all like to see your photos and have you contribute to the brain trust that makes TBN so great. So please give in and register.

 

[Rch]

For those leery of using their home/work email address ( spam,privacy issues) I suggest establishing an off-site email address with hotmail, mailcity(lycos) etc and use that to register on TBN. This insulates your home email address. I've had good luck with mailcity(lycos). My kids have hotmail email sites and there seems to be increasing spam on it; Bill Gates's business model seems to sell your privacy for his gain.

RCH

 

[PitbullMidwest]

I'm relatively new to TBN, and posted for a maybe a month before registering. I had no intentions of staying around, I was simply waiting for the CTOA to get back online so that I could continue my research into the Chinese made tractors. Funny thing happened though, Bird and Harv and MChalkey, along with many others, responded to my posts, answered my questions, corrected me (gently I might add) when needed and encouraged me to register.

As you might have guessed, I voted no. This is how I view it:
If I heard about a wonderful church across town and decided to visit, I would probably not return if told that I could sit in the pew, listen to the Bible study, soak up the teaching and comments of others but could not participate unless I became a member. Don't like church? insert Moose Club, Eagles Club, Boy Scouts what ever.

I don't know how these things work but maybe the number of posts per day could be limited for unregistered "visitors".

BTW, CTOA now requires registering to post and the number of new users/posters has dropped considerably from the old board.

In the end it's Muhammad's decision, but it's still nice to be asked.

 

[TWINKLE_TOES]

Early New Year resolution.

I will not reply to antagonistic posts from unregistered users.
I will not reply to antagonistic posts from unregistered users.
I will not reply to antagonistic posts from unregistered users.
I will not reply to antagonistic posts from unregistered users.
I will not reply to antagonistic posts from unregistered users.
I will not reply to antagonistic posts from unregistered users.

I will take more cold showers/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Al

 

[looch]

I voted "yes," but maybe some "store front" forums could be left unrestricted in order to attract new members. For example, I'm guessing that the majority of unregistered users post to the "Buying a ..." or "... Pricing ..." forums. Leaving these areas unrestricted would give unregistered users an opportunity to sample the fountain of knowledge that flows here - not to mention the camaradery and respect. That's why I chose to stick around.

 

[LazyK]

Bird...I believe you are a certifiable phenomenon of common sense, good manners and consideration of others. There's no, "Who-shot-John," in your response to the Registration Question. Thank you for the logical approach to this and many subjects posted on this forum. I wish you would run for office. There'd be a tractor in every garage...

Lazy K - Chip

 

[MChalkley]

Paul - That's a good point. That's also why the proposed change would still allow unregistered individuals to look at any post on the Forum - they can see what's here and know exactly what they're getting themselves into before they "commit" to anything, if you can call the TBN registration process "committing".

On the other hand, I'd venture to say that 90% of the questions you speak of (those posted to the areas you mentioned, and by unregistered users) have already been answered at least 7 times, but they didn't look at any of the existing posts to see.

MarkC

 

[Anonymous Poster]

<font color=blue>...I'd venture to say that 90% of the questions you speak of (those posted to the areas you mentioned, and by unregistered users) have already been answered at least 7 times, but they didn't look at any of the existing posts to see...</font color=blue>

Yep... seems to be lots of redundancy and idle knowledge... maybe a redesigned Search Engine and ease of use would help... /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[dass]

I feel that there are good points on both sides on this issue , but not everyone can have his or[her] way ! So I think it should come down to a final vote and in our system you have to REGISTER to vote . In my opinion "case closed" . dass

 

[MChalkley]

John - <font color=blue>seems to be lots of redundancy</font color=blue> And, to continue the point further, I believe this is a case where more posts actuallly makes TBN less useful. Certainly, it is useful to the one-time poster who got his question answered, but it has the net effect of dilluting the material here (in some sections of the forum, at least) to noise level. I suspect I spend more time than average on TBN, but I don't have time to read all the posts in the aforementioned sections. I open them to reset the number of new posts counter on the forum list page, scan the titles to make sure nothing jumps out at me, scan the names of the posters to see if it's someone I, from experience, know contributes useful posts, then move on. I realize this is a form of discrimination, and I'd prefer to read them all, but when the number posts that have been discussed many, many times before exceeds the number of useful ones, and given less-than-unlimited time resources, what choice do I have? I know, from the posting patterns of others, that they are doing the same thing, and I think their reasons are the same as mine. If there were fewer meaningless posts overall (and I'm not talking about "Off Topic or Just For Fun", either), we'd all have more time to get exposed to something that might be of benefit to us. For example, even though I've never owned the smallest class of tractor, which just happens to be the one that occupies most of the attention of this board's members, I still find much of benefit by reading the posts of those who own and use these machines to their fullest potential. I suspect the reverse is also true, and that those who own the smallest of tractors could find something of relevance in the usage and enhancements of TLB's much larger than mine even, but there's only so much time for the participants on this forum to spread between all the messages. (Maybe this is a very valid argument for my making more effort to shorten mine.... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif)

Some of this is unavoidable, I realize, but much of it would, I think, be avoided by requiring just a tad more of a "committment" before posting - in fact the "registration" page could encourage new members to use the search feature before firing off an otherwise intelligent question that makes the poster look dumb because its been answered 3 times this week. (And I'm really glad I was able to express my sentiments in this matter in so brief a posting... /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif)

MarkC