Make registration mandatory

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 3:05 pm

How about making it so that users have to register before they can post? It's kinda hard to keep track of things where you have 700 people called "Guest" and some guests that just post under 20 different nicks, a different one each time. Especially when some times they just add dumb posts with only smilies.

Post by **dosraider** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 3:40 pm

You've got my support.
If they want to post, register is a little step,and maybee this anoying idiot smilies post would come to a end.

Dosser · Post by **Dosser** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:53 pm

I agree 100%

Especially since my favourite forum ( Game Creation ) is full of guests posting row upon row of smilies and asking the same questions over and over ('How do I make Commander Keen?': 'Where's the source code for Duke3D').

Post by **Wally** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 9:17 pm

I agree aswell.

Instead of baring them out of the whole forum leave a little spot for them to play around in.

Post by **Dogbreath** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 3:18 am

This is interesting...

Guests are actually barred from most of the "community" forums. However, it's very obvious to me that the people who post in the Guest forums (Find Old Games, etc.) don't have any interest in the community here except receiving help for a certain problem and then leaving immediately afterward. Only around 1% of even those who actually registered stayed around, so forcing all guests to register would just cause a needless waste of bandwidth and disk space.

There's also the problem that the accounts here are fairly secure (stop laughing! I mean in a general sense) so we require e-mail verification, passwords, etc. Around 90% of the people that come here looking for help are probably too lazy to spend the extra 5 minutes getting an account.

While you might think "well screw them! Ungrateful bastards...", the main point of dosgames.com (the forum host) and the Dosgames Network in general is the proliferation and appreciation of dos based games. Part of that includes helping people find, run, and understand said games, as well as contacting and chatting with other dos junkies. (Which you need to register to do) Forcing one time visitors to register only lowers the amount of people actually helped by the forum. And face it; we're not nearly large or mainstream enough to assume such an arrogant posture anyway.

Which isn't to say your suggestions can't be used. For instance, cookies that force guests to enter a username to post (as only some guests do now) would be helpful in sorting them out, along with the possibility of giving as much or as little information as a guest wants to make his post "unique." (For instance, allowing guests to attach their e-mail, MSN account, etc.)

Wally*Won_Kenobie wrote:I agree aswell.

Instead of baring them out of the whole forum leave a little spot for them to play around in.

What would the point of that be? (Other than to waste valuable space)

Post by **dosraider** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 3:32 am

That's not a bad idee that Wally*Won_Kenobie had,you could restrict posting for "non"registred users to certain area's and allow it in others.
This happens on other forums, it seems to work pretty well.
I wonder how many "emoticon dumpers" there are,my guess is that there are only a few idiots around.It's like in real life, one or two morons can screw things up.

Dosser · Post by **Dosser** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 5:11 am

Perhaps if guests had their IP addresses posted to members it would dissuade them a little (I don't mean it in the evil way: it would just make it easier to identify the problems).

I personally am of the opinion 'screw them all', simply because the bulk of the guests are posting random crap, but I do understand why guests are allowed.

Post by **CPT Worm** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 10:27 am

There is a reason moderators exist.

If guests are going abuse their freedom, the mods should record the IP and delete the post. The admins can determine if an IP-ban is in order.

The forums are fine the way they are.

Kazer0 · Post by **Kazer0** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 2:04 pm

Moderators can see ips, even guest IPs.

BTW: DB- Guests actually use more space and bandwith than regged users. Think about all the times the database has the name "guest" or similar printed into the database, meanwhile our regged names are connected to a unique ID, which is under 3 characters long, so our ID is printed rather than our full name.

Joris · Post by **Joris** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 2:19 pm

It's not a good idea. We will have more and more registered users with less than five posts or only one single post. We now already have too much them :\

Post by **Dogbreath** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 3:23 pm

@Kazer0

I mean for the guest itself... the amount of space used by one guest post is less than the amount used by a full blown account. As the # of posts go up, that obviously reverses, but the vast majority of visitors only make 1 post anyway...

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 4:11 pm

Dogbreath wrote:For instance, cookies that force guests to enter a username to post (as only some guests do now) would be helpful in sorting them out, along with the possibility of giving as much or as little information as a guest wants to make his post "unique." (For instance, allowing guests to attach their e-mail, MSN account, etc.)

I think that might actually do it. That way they will not only enter a username, but it will also appear by default the next time they try to post from the same computer, and chances is they'll stick to it.

I fully understand your position regarding the guest policy of this forum, and I see its benefits. That's why it took me so long to bring up this issue.

Post by **emmzee** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 4:51 pm

I'm not going to make the entire forum reg-only, for the excellent reasons DB cited above. However, I previously considered making everything except the main three non-community forums (namely "Find Old Games", "Get Games to Work" and "Game Help, Hints and Tips") registration only. It seems that locking everything except these three to reg-only users would be a good idea, since it seems like most of the guest posts in, say, Game Creation are useless.

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 6:38 pm

How about Dogbreath's cookie suggestion that I quoted just above you? Is it possible?

Post by **emmzee** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:33 pm

If there's a pre-existing mod that does that, then sure ... if not, it would probably be beyond my expertise to create such modifications, as they'd likely be very intensive. (ie. I'd screw up the whole board).

I'd guess that most guests just post once and then never again anyways?