Guest posting is now disabled. Please log in or create an account to post. Thanks.

[WorldTraveler]

I think it's just a way to get a lot of extra spam, but maybe we'll actually get something good.

[Winston]

@HappyGuy
Please STOP abusing the guest posting system by posting crazy random comments. I can see that it's you because of your IP. If you continue to do this, I'm gonna have to disable guest posting because you are crazy enough to abuse it and not mature or rational enough to control yourself. I'm serious man. I don't know why you are mind F-ing us by posting anonymous comments with it. If you don't stop, then this trial will be over and we will disable this feature. I never expected crazies would abuse it.

It appears from reading your guest posts, that you are using this feature to attack/mock/insult people here without any accountability or identity. That's sort of abusing the feature don't you think?

[Winston]

Attention Everyone:

Guest posting is for people without an account who are too lazy to create one. Not for those who already have an account. If you have an account, please use your account to post. Thanks. Don't post anonymously just to bash someone anonymously without being accountable for it. That's sort of abusing the feature. The guest posting feature is not meant for that. It's meant for those with no account who don't wanna create one or are too lazy to create one. It's not for existing members to post anonymous comments for fun with impunity. If you guys start abusing this feature, I will have to disable it.

Thanks,
Admin

[Cornfed]

Attention Everyone:

Guest posting is for people without an account who are too lazy to create one. Not for those who already have an account. If you have an account, please use your account to post.

The trouble is that it you may not realise that you are not signed in and therefore accidentally post as a guest. I've accidentally done it twice now. Feel free to delete any posts I accidentally post as a guest.

[HappyGuy]

Please STOP abusing the guest posting system by posting crazy random comments.

Give me a break I made some joke posts but I'm not the only one. Like it or not they'll help bring attention to the feature since visitors would not have read your announcements to know they can now post that way. Even if they hit reply it still says username in the box so they would assume that a password is required to post.

If guests want to bully Cornfed and PAG then let them! You should have read my suggestions for how to keep Guests in line: viewtopic.php?style=1&p=338452#p338452

Reading and approving posts must be a pain in the butt for you so no wonder you're mad at me. Guest posting was supposed to be without moderation and Winston-approval and the posts were supposed to be monitored by the group and not delayed by the moderation approval of one person except in certain circumstances like a raid by spammers. You always come up with excuses for never changing anything but unless you try something you don't know how it will work out.

[Winston]

anonymous comments have to be checked/requires moderation before allowing them to appear and this takes time - who will do that?

Members will be given moderation powers over guests and be able to move their posts into the trash and to call them names with no recourse, similar to how high school freshman used to get bullied by the older kids.

Even now moderation is often very slow and it takes days until spam is removed...

Moderation here allows obvious advertisers to make several spam posts and if they are eventually banned their posts are not removed. The provisional period does not filter out a lot of spammers but it does slow down posting for members trying to join so they are less likely to stay.

To do that I'd have to make everyone a moderator here. We can't do that. That'd be a disaster. Even if everyone became a moderator here, they'd still have to visit the moderation queue. And they could ban each other too. It'd be chaos. This forum platform does not have unlimited powers to do that. You're asking for too much. Some of your ideas are toxic and not well thought through man.

[HappyGuy]

And they could ban each other too. It'd be chaos.

@Master would love it

"Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. Become An Agent of Chaos."

[Winston]

What do you all think of the guest posting thing so far? Cast your vote or re-vote above if your opinion has changed. I've allowed re-voting in the poll above so you can change your vote if you change your mind.

I think I'm going to disable it. It seems to be a bad idea because some members are posting as Guests by accident and not realizing that they are not even logged in. Then they look like Anonymous users, which is confusing when people are replying to them. Plus some members are using it to insult and flame other members without accountability and with impunity, kind of like throwing rocks at someone from a hidden area so no one can know who threw the rocks. Kind of juvenile and delinquent. lol.

Plus if a poster is sincere and a good quality poster, then he would take the time to create an account, which only takes a minute. If he won't even do that, it shows what he thinks of this forum, which is very little or nothing.

Don't you guys agree? What do you think?

[Winston]

Guest posting has now been disabled for the reasons above. Please log in or create an account to post from now on. Thanks.

[HappyGuy]

What do you all think of the guest posting thing so far?

It's great but you need to stop judging their posts so harshly and being so paranoid of Guest posts. Not everyone is a troll and even the ones that troll a bit usually provide a useful post. It might take months until the really good posts come along. It takes time.

You should include an option for Guests to upload or link an image for their avatar or select one from the list. And you should allow them to link and embed video and image hosting sites because it's unlikely spammers would link to those.

Cast your vote or re-vote above if your opinion has changed. I've allowed re-voting in the poll above so you can change your vote if you change your mind.

Voting participation on this forum is low because people feel there's no point. You never throw us a consolation prize when you disappoint us by ignoring polls so for all intensive purposes polls are pointless.

A recent example is PAG and DanC. People wanted something done, they started polls, it was unanimous, nothing was done, @MarcosZeitola left and others decreased their activity here. That is why polls are mostly ignored because voting results are ignored.

I think I'm going to disable it.

The ratio of good posts for Guest is higher than members but you have some weird bias against the concept. I doubt you would be happy unless Guests have a perfect 100% record of good posts while you wouldn't be bothered if terrible posts in the rest of the forum exceeded 90%. It hasn't even been a month, it's been what 1 week since you allowed guest posting? We don't even have a 40% rate of good posts among members. What is the rate of PAG's good posts, 0.1%? And remember he has what 5 accounts or is it 10 with over 50 posts for each account? So why don't you allow 5 or 10 guests a week to post 1 or 2 posts each if you allow PAG to post 100s of posts of garbage?

It seems to be a bad idea because some members are posting as Guests by accident and not realizing that they are not even logged in.

There was some confusion the first week. We've gotten used to it so it will happen less and less. If Mods would check the thread and not authorize double-posts or quickly delete double posts this wouldn't even be a problem.

All users have to do is hit back, then repost the identical text after login. Fortunately the text isn't lost when they do that. If anything the anonymous posting feature prevents posts from being lost.

I think it's worth keeping the option to post without an account around just for that even if you are very strict and you don't approve most Guest posts because you are bias against them and there is a big delay of up to a day or two between them making the post and it appearing on the forum.

Some members are using it to insult and flame other members without accountability and with impunity, kind of like throwing rocks at someone from a hidden area so no one can know who threw the rocks. Kind of juvenile and delinquent. lol.

Silly guest posts by existing members are harmless but they let more people know there is that option. First you have to let the jokers post and give them confidence that their posts are truly anonymous, then the people who make better posts will come.

PAG is allowed to have over 5 accounts, each one with at least 50 posts and not a single one of those are worth reading. But Guests aren't allowed to make contributions? Not even 5 or 10 posts per week because that sets a bad precedent? Winston let your forum grow in the right direction for once.

Plus if a poster is sincere and a good quality poster, then he would take the time to create an account, which only takes a minute. If he won't even do that, it shows what he thinks of this forum, which is very little or nothing.

That's not true the purpose was to attract a few great comments here and there by passers-by who won't make an account here for personal reasons but they would be ready to share with us anonymously. Guest posting allows people who will potentially register for an account to first get their feet wet or those who don't have a lot of free time and don't want the commitment or addiction of an account to post some relevant info in a thread. You need to let Guest posting run long enough to reap the benefits.

[Winston]

HappyGuy suggested that we create a separate board for guests only. What do you all think? Would any good come out of that? CE told me that it may be a good idea because some of the guests in the guest board may migrate to the regular forum after a while?

[Winston]

What do you all think of the guest posting thing so far?

It's great but you need to stop judging their posts so harshly and being so paranoid of Guest posts. Not everyone is a troll and even the ones that troll a bit usually provide a useful post. It might take months until the really good posts come along. It takes time.

You should include an option for Guests to upload or link an image for their avatar or select one from the list. And you should allow them to link and embed video and image hosting sites because it's unlikely spammers would link to those.

Cast your vote or re-vote above if your opinion has changed. I've allowed re-voting in the poll above so you can change your vote if you change your mind.

Voting participation on this forum is low because people feel there's no point. You never throw us a consolation prize when you disappoint us by ignoring polls so for all intensive purposes polls are pointless.

A recent example is PAG and DanC. People wanted something done, they started polls, it was unanimous, nothing was done, @MarcosZeitola left and others decreased their activity here. That is why polls are mostly ignored because voting results are ignored.

I think I'm going to disable it.

The ratio of good posts for Guest is higher than members but you have some weird bias against the concept. I doubt you would be happy unless Guests have a perfect 100% record of good posts while you wouldn't be bothered if terrible posts in the rest of the forum exceeded 90%. It hasn't even been a month, it's been what 1 week since you allowed guest posting? We don't even have a 40% rate of good posts among members. What is the rate of PAG's good posts, 0.1%? And remember he has what 5 accounts or is it 10 with over 50 posts for each account? So why don't you allow 5 or 10 guests a week to post 1 or 2 posts each if you allow PAG to post 100s of posts of garbage?

It seems to be a bad idea because some members are posting as Guests by accident and not realizing that they are not even logged in.

There was some confusion the first week. We've gotten used to it so it will happen less and less. If Mods would check the thread and not authorize double-posts or quickly delete double posts this wouldn't even be a problem.

All users have to do is hit back, then repost the identical text after login. Fortunately the text isn't lost when they do that. If anything the anonymous posting feature prevents posts from being lost.

I think it's worth keeping the option to post without an account around just for that even if you are very strict and you don't approve most Guest posts because you are bias against them and there is a big delay of up to a day or two between them making the post and it appearing on the forum.

Some members are using it to insult and flame other members without accountability and with impunity, kind of like throwing rocks at someone from a hidden area so no one can know who threw the rocks. Kind of juvenile and delinquent. lol.

Silly guest posts by existing members are harmless but they let more people know there is that option. First you have to let the jokers post and give them confidence that their posts are truly anonymous, then the people who make better posts will come.

PAG is allowed to have over 5 accounts, each one with at least 50 posts and not a single one of those are worth reading. But Guests aren't allowed to make contributions? Not even 5 or 10 posts per week because that sets a bad precedent? Winston let your forum grow in the right direction for once.

Plus if a poster is sincere and a good quality poster, then he would take the time to create an account, which only takes a minute. If he won't even do that, it shows what he thinks of this forum, which is very little or nothing.

That's not true the purpose was to attract a few great comments here and there by passers-by who won't make an account here for personal reasons but they would be ready to share with us anonymously. Guest posting allows people who will potentially register for an account to first get their feet wet or those who don't have a lot of free time and don't want the commitment or addiction of an account to post some relevant info in a thread. You need to let Guest posting run long enough to reap the benefits.

What guest posts did you find to be high quality? I didn't see any that were high quality. Which ones?

Almost all of them were either from you or posters who forgot to log in. It just looks messy seeing anonymous comments all the time, especially if they were made by accident. How can we know who we are replying to when replying to guests? It looks weird. Come on. You aren't thinking clearly. You seem to just like to shock people.

When I do polls it's just to see what people think. Of course I care what members think, that's why I changed that 1996 theme early because many found it unbearable. So users' opinions are a factor to me that I take into account. But of course, just as a king has his advisors, I don't have to listen to everyone's advice. Sometimes I feel the advice is wrong and will make a different decision. No king is obligated to take the advice of his advisors if he doesn't think it's the best choice. Come on. You are assuming that everyone's advice is wise and good and better than mine. Just because I ask for advice or feedback or polls doesn't mean I will go with majority opinion. Majority is not always right. There is bad advice too. Like the expert advice I got to move my website to VPS. It's been nothing but trouble on VPS, it's increased my costs and my site ranking went down after I move to VPS. So that was BAD advice from my expert webmaster friend.

Why should I wait one month to test out the guest posting? If I can see it's a bad idea after a few days, that's enough. No need to prolong a bad idea. You don't make sense man.

The consequences and benefits don't favor guest posting. What you say about writing a long post and then losing it is bad habit. You should always copy your long post before sending it. I haven't heard any complaints like that lately. You can always save a long post as a draft for later too. These things are your responsibility man. It's not worth it to enable guest posting just to prevent accidental losses from losing long posts. You are way out on a tangent man. You seem to anally nitpick little things and you don't see the big picture. You speculate a lot too.

I disabled it because all these anonymous posts looked weird and unaccountable. You used the guest posting to throw rocks at people from hidden bushes. That's not very good. It's juvenile.

We could have a board for guests only. But what would be the point? It's weird answering anonymous messages.

Btw, notice in the poll above that most members here don't like the guest posting feature either.

[Yohan]

What I have seen so far, it is getter to operate this forum with Guest comments DISABLED.
People leaving a comment should be required to sign up. Otherwise guests are writing comments to guests and this is confusing, you don't know who is who - one guest is for it, the other guest is against it....