On Saturday 12 July 2008 00:47:47 tildemark wrote: > Jikjik, you were right, i tried to search the term "forum without a > login" at google.com and i didnt find any. i guess forums really > need a username and a password before we could read whats inside.
it's possible to have anonymous-postable forums. usually though you don't want that since you'll get spammers and trolls who pick fights or post unsavory messages, links or messages. it's still possible to create bogus username/passwords and make a mess of things, but it's often not worth the trouble. it's easy to ban usernames, and most logins will require an email address, so the need to create an email address, pass the captcha test, then create a login, wait for the email, then click on the link to validate yourself makes it much less worthwhile to engage in trolling and other online stupidities. the purpose is not to make doing bad things impossible. the purpose is to impose a speed bump so that doing bad things becomes expensive and not worth the trouble. > On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 5:33 PM, jikjik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > it's an online forum. it needs a username and password before we can read > > whats inside. i think you know the purpose of that. On the other hand (note, i haven't visited the site, just responding to the text of your email, if the text does not accurately describe the situation, well, this is a case of severe miscommunication), having a forum that requires authentication for *writing* makes some sense (as discussed above). having a forum that requires auth for *reading* is a bit bogus, IMO. if you want people to participate in something that doesn't actually benefit them much, then you should lower the barriers to entry so that they'll be encouraged to do what you'd like them to do. having to create a login in order to read what's in the forums is a barrier to entry. I'm not going to create a login to read what's in there since, frankly, i doubt if i'd learn anything from that forum. and i'm lazy. if you notice, i haven't even surfed over to the forum to see if, in fact, a login is needed to *read* what's in there. if a login were needed, i certainly wouldn't register because it's more work. does your forum site let google in, at least? i've entered some forums before because i saw something from google and it brought me to the forum. if the need was important enough, then for login-to-read sites that had important content i needed, sure, i'd register and login (although, generally, i'd only use the forum for what i needed, after that, i'd never go there again). a site that requires login just for reading feels like experts-exchange.com to me (did that used to be expertsexchange.com until it became an internet joke? or was that a different site?). google for experts-exchange.com and (apart from the experts-exchange.com site itself), see what people say about it :-). tiger -- Gerald Timothy Quimpo [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bopolissimus*blogspot*com http://monotrematica*blogspot*com When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs. -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4566526.stm _________________________________________________ Kagay-Anon Linux Users' Group (KLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (http://cdo.linux.org.ph) Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
