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

 

[Muhammad]

What improvements would you like to see made to the search, John?

 

[Harv]

I'm curious to hear what John had in mind, too, but in the mean time...

I think the basic search format is pretty darned good, although I at one time voted for making "All Forums" the default. There have been times, however, when I wished I could narrow the given results down to "only messages with attachments" or "only posts by GatorBoy" (for example).

On rarer occassions I want to search only the thread titles (not the message body). No need to mention searching profiles 'cuz I think you're already onto that one. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

The one we all want, of course, Muhammad, is the "search for the message I'm thinking of" option. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[Muhammad]

All forums will be the default ... that's been done, just not published yet.

As for the rest ... they all make sense and would be nice features. There really is no limit to what could be done. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Change Search Defaults -

Words/Subject/Title to search for
Forum to Search –All Forums
Search options-and
Date Range-All
Number of results to show per page-99

In all searches, exclude common words such as when, why, who, the,etc., unless inside “quotes or a phrase”.

Upon search results, show at the top of the screen:
Search results for query: Muhammad Found 1 to 999 of 13152

The more a member continues to use the “Search Features”, let his “status” change as ex: new, member, Knowledgeable, Smart, Professor, Genius, Know-it-all… similar to the new, member, gold, silver, veteran status you now have for posting…

Have a phonetic spelling search as looking for “kar” will find “car”…

Promote the use of “Search” and benefits at the top of the screen… there is a ton of information on TBN just waiting to be tapped into… maybe have a survey and ask people if they have ever used search, how many times, if never… why not, what would make it easier for you the user to use…
{a few things off the top of my head, I'll add others when I remember... also go to the successful search engines on the web and compare them...}

 

[glennmac]

I guess I'm missing something, but I still don't understand clearly what the benefit of registering is. One reason is that I don't understand who the beneficiary of registration is supposed to be. It seems to me there are three potentential benificiaries. Of which are we speaking?

1. The Webmaster. If registering is some benefit to him, then he ought to be inclined to require it. So be it. It's a time consuming job, and our webmaster does a terrific job. But I don't know what the benefits are to him. If this has something to do with trolls, I guess I don't understand why an unregistered troll is easier to prevent than a registered troll, given that anyone can register with false info. Moreover, I have never noticed any significant problems with trolls here. Most of the censored posts I've seen are from regular, registered members, including myself.

2. The individual (Jane). There are certain technological benefits to registering, but that's simply because the webmaster chooses to do that. I guess registering here allows private mail and supposedly something with photos. (I dont understand this latter since I have never posted a photo and JMIII posts great ones all the time from an unregistered position.) In short, to me, it is Jane who should decide whether these technological registration benefits are worth it to her. Obviously, all of those TBN participants who have chosen to remain unregistered have made the decision that something outweights those benefits. And I, personally, don't care if that is the decision Jane or they reach; nor do I care how they do their decisional calculus--rationally or irrationally.

3. The rest of the group. Are we talking about requiring Jane to register, even if it is of no significant objective benefit to the Webmaster and of no perceived subjective benefit to Jane herself? Just because we like to read profiles of Jane and others. Because we are curious about Jane's background. Because Jane's address helps us decide whether we should dig in our own ground. Because disclosing personal information via registration is consistent with our view of the proper etiquette of internet forum citizenship. I say that such reasoning--Jane should register because it benefits me/us/the closed tribe--inherently smacks of political correctness, exclusionary arrogance, and coercion. Moreover, I say such reasoning is self-contradictory, since the very same people who advance this argument for registration admit that Jane can register by giving little information or no information.

My view is that Muhammad should require registration if, but only if, it benefits him significantly in administering this site.

 

[Muhammad]

1. Fortunately, we are able to remove the posts that are undesirable before most people see them. Obviously, this is one factor that has increased our administration load, and part of the reason for the topic to be brought forward for discussion.

The benefit to us (actually a benefit to the users just as much as it is to us) is we have a much lower rate of completely useless posts from people looking to, well, troll. Also, users who register stay here longer and help build the community.

2. The benefits stretch quite a bit further than private messaging and the ability to upload photos. E-mail notifications; new message statuses on the home page and on all post and post listing pages; time offset change to adjust the times to your local time zone; user profile; color theme options; forum home default preference (categories or forums); default sort order preference; default display mode preference; default thread view preference; total threads and posts to show per page preferences; header placement preference; preview post screen preference; text box size configuration, and more. This list will only get longer with our upcoming upgrade, and trust me when I say we get dozens (if not hundreds) of requests for features, and if we starting taking features away, I'm sure we'd hear first from those who don't care if the features are there or not about how they want them back... so the reason the features are there is because the users want them, and use them.

3. Members encourage other members to do certain things ... none of this is required just because you register. All that is required is you enter one e-mail address, secure your username, and login. it takes 10 seconds and if you so choose, you reveal to the forum nothing more than you did as an unregistered user.

The bottom line is registration keeps the forum more organized, more responsible, and ultimately benefits the community as a whole over any one person or type of user.

This isn't to say we're going to require registration.

 

[Muhammad]

Search defaults will be changed.

The current search works well with entire phrase/and/or options. I'm not sure why one would enter common words on the search here ... like "the 4300" ... or what benefit excluding those common words would be, for that matter.

Counting search results is something we'd like to add, in time.

Status changes based on any variable you wish to name, is going to be extremely complicated and server intensive, and will in the long run most likely be more trouble and possibly harm, than it's worth. Sure ... we could say that x member status is reached after 50 posts, 500 logins, 5,000 views, 200 searches, etc ... but then we would be putting ourselves (or rather our technology) in a position to certify that the said member is a x level member or is at x degree of knowledge because they viewed a bunch of messages, logged in a bunch of times, and searched the forum a bunch of times. It would be incredibly easy to work around the requirements, which surely we'd have to make public (since users would be curious /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif) ... and then the users who were sincere and genuine in their contributions, would probably never reach the different member levels. I think our current post-based system is going to stick, as it simply indicates a member's level of participation, not a level of knowledge or expertise. We could use a time variable to help prevent a member who posts 500 messages in one month from being a veteran member ... but even that is going to be a more complicated feature to add, that will take development time away from things we have higher on the list.

The spelling brain thing isn't going to happen, either... unless someone wants to design the module. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

More promotion of the search can be done, for sure.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Glennmac, Thank you for expressing a view point similar to mine in a better way than I have been able to.

I agree that Muhammad should do whatever he wants to, it is his forem, I only spoke up because he asked for opinions and I might not be able to post in the future. The forem started out as an "open to all" discussion and I hope it will stay that way, but that is entirely up to Muhammad.

I realize that some people think not wanting another password does not mean much. I am required (if I want to keep my job) to have many passwords at work. Last time I counted it was 14! These passwords expire and must be changed every 30 or 60 days depending on the password. The passwords each have to be a minimum of seven characters long and be a mix of both numbers and letters. At least 4 of the characters have to change each time the password is changed, numbers can not be sequential, and old passwords are remembered and can not be used again. To maximize the user annoyance, with some of the passwords, a reminder that your password will expire is issued each day starting 14 days prior to expiration. Each time a reminder come up you have to change the password or say you will do it later. For security reasons, it is against the rules to keep a list or even write down the passwords. Only a large corporation could devise such such a system.The result of living with this stupid system for years, is that I avoid new passwords whenever possible. I do not have a password at any other discussion group.

Andy

 

[cowboydoc]

Boy I hear you on the password at work thing Andy. When I taught at the University they did the same thing. I regularly forgot my password and had to call the network administrator to get a new one. They weren't too happy about that. Problem was you ran out of everything that you knew after awhile and had to start coming up with stuff that was not easily remembered. To tell you the truth I can't even remember my password for here. Luckily I am logged in everytime I bring up this site either here at home or at work.

 

[billboe]

Yes! Passwords are a big pain! However, I try to minimize the hassle by using one easy to remember password (that I never change) for all my "low security" items...

For me, usernames are more difficult because they can not be duplicated on the given system. So, you can use "billboe" for one site and then to go to the next site and "billboe" is taken, so, you must use something else... That is where I get really confused!


Billboe