The Forum - the future

[Phil K]

Anyone who successfully made it all the way to the bottom of my last post (!), will see that I'm leaning more and more towards implementing some kind of control on forum posts. The best idea I can come up with is that no-one should be able to post until they have first completed some sort of registration form that will at the very least require submission of a valid email address. Anyone just wanting to read the forum will be unaffected.

Hopefully this will discourage any opportunists who just try it on and waste everyones time, while at the same time it will give us something we can use to better identify any persistent abusers and, if necessary, ban them from taking further part. I imagine it would also drastically cut down on the time Alec, myself and woodgnome will need to spend moderating the forum as well. I'd like to think that those who genuinely wish to contribute won't have a problem with this and wouldn't be put off from registering.

This isn't something I can bring in overnight, though I think it can be done using the current forum software (more or less), but before I dedicate a lot of time to testing, implementing etc. I want to be sure it's the right way to go. So what do you think? I'm open to both sides of the argument.

[hmmm]

We spend far too much time in this country deliberating/trying
to be fair.
You'll probably get people asking for a public enquiry or a judicial review !

Your reasoning is perfectly sound re.pre-registration.
It won't effect either genuine people or your no. of hits.
What more is there to say ?

[Dave]

Im a member of 2 other forums,one breasts ,the other computers.Both need registering.
The computer forum tends to be a cosy club with a small number of people taling to each other.The breast forum i'm in does have a lot of members(i guess lots of people like tits)and registering hasn't put them off.
What registration will do is stop idiotic posting cos theres no annonimity.So if youre worried about idiots ruining this forum,go for registration.It may reduce the no of posts but IMO not by many.

One thing though.PLEASE let us choose our own u/name and password.

[Shaun]

I'm with the self selection of username and password, it will make life easier for Phil K & Alec no racking of brains for unique usernames.

[DAVE]

Its also easier for us to remember.

[Ian P]

It?s just that the only reason I?ve never given out my e-mail address is because it?s got my full name in it ? something avoided by all other contributors. For very obvious reasons.

So I guess I?ll have to get a special e-mail address just for this forum.

Hmmm?

The jury?s out on that one

[Phil K]

I'm not sure whether your email address will actually need to be seen in the forum as such. It may be we just keep it behind the scenes.

[Callipygea]

Many perfectly innocent people would no doubt wish to conceal their true identities, as they do now, for perfectly innocent reasons.
Any requirement for email addresses should therefore either accept anonymous ones, or keep real ones very private.

[the invisible man]

That's the only thing as far as i can see - people being a bit reluctant to have their e-mail address on public display.
If it's kept being the scenes as you say, there shouldnt be a problem having to register...unless someone wanted to talk s**t in which case they're not welcome anyway

[the invisible man]

er...kept behind the scenes, as i should have said