Topic: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

When I have to go to http://www.bugmenot.com/ , input the name of your forum, and possibly have to complete a signup myself, in order to post, that is the exact opposite of minimalism.  It's a hassle. It's annoying and stupid.

There are many reasons why not to use registration:
http://shii.org/shiichan

and no reason to use it, except maybe to give special privileges to certain users who are your friends.

So, my feature request is to stop making "Username" a required field to post (it's easy... just make it replace a blank username with Anonymous), and to enable guest posting by default.

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

if you dont want to use a user name, than use "Anonymouse"

3 (edited by Smartys 2005-04-11 01:21)

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Or you can use Firefox and get the BugMeNot extension tongue

Seriously though, PunBB offers the option of allowing guests to post. These forums choose not to allow it though (neither do PHPBBs, as one example). The test forum allows it though wink

Oh, and since when is registration bloat? If you want "minimalism" go write up forum software with no registrations, no user accounts, no moderation abilities, etc: that seems to be what you're suggesting, or at least the logical extension of it tongue

4 (edited by sverrir 2005-04-11 03:01)

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Someone was talking about trolls earlier ...    wink  tongue

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

bugmenot wrote:

When I have to go to http://www.bugmenot.com/ , input the name of your forum, and possibly have to complete a signup myself, in order to post, that is the exact opposite of minimalism.  It's a hassle. It's annoying and stupid.

oh no!!! 4 boxes to fill in

bugmenot wrote:

and no reason to use it, except maybe to give special privileges to certain users who are your friends.

so why do most forums have it? surely its stupid to all post as guests? then you have to enter your name every time (rather than once for registration), you don't have a profile, you can't set permissions

6

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Connorhd wrote:

so why do most forums have it? surely its stupid to all post as guests?

No, it's because most forums are evolved from the old telephone-based "BBS" concept, where you had to enter your full name to log on. But this is totally unnecessary. Posting as guest is much more intelligent than registering an account.

If you want "minimalism" go write up forum software with no registrations

That's what I did, but I'm no good at PHP, so instead I'm requesting a simple change of the default settings for this software.

7

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

shii: Wouldn't it depend on how the forum is being used. Your arguments hold water if the software is being used for open public debate where people can dip in and out of the forum whenever they see a subject that interests them or if they have something they wish to contribute. However, forum software isn't always used like that. Some people see a forum a being "community" software rather than "discussion" software in which case the aim is to build up a group of people with similar interests who have an online personality. In other cases PunBB might be used on a corporate intranet as a bbs system in which case its essential to know who is who.

There is one downside to not having usernames for guests. How do you know which guest you are replying in a thread containing 30 posts by anonymous guests some of which are well off topic. All the multiple quoting or citing of post numbers seems like a lot more hassle than having people enter a username.

Having said all that, I can't see that it does any harm as an admin option though somebody will no doubt tell me why it's not a good idea.

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Paul: you mean to have a default Guest username, or to disable registration wink

9

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

I mean you have an option to allow guests to post without entering a username just like there is an option to let them post without an email address. Personally it doesn't bother me but it seems harmless.

10

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

I am just as much a conservatist in BBS software as anyone else.  That is exactly why we migrated to PunBB.

On the other hand, there is a huge difference between minimalist and perceived/relative security.  I can safely tell you we won't be allowing anyone to register to our forum without having a valid email address and user name. [and most likely enforce entering their first and last name at registration.]  Of course, this is just in our setting, however I am sure anyone who runs a large board will agree.

When you have a board that becomes reasonably popular, it only takes one baffoon to bring it all down through hacking at worst, to lurching profiles in the least.  In the later case, that pisses people off to know they had their email address screached off what is supposed to be a reasonably secure community.

We used phpbb.  At the time we started using it was years ago; it was the second version released and those days was the cat's meow.  Everyone loved our new digs.

Today?  Phpbb is the most hackable software on the planet, with script kiddies figuring out new ways to break in and do bad things every day.  In just one short year, we were hacked three times.  Not due to stupidity on our part, but due to security issues with that software.

In short, it's gotten to the point where browsing Phpbb's forums is a necessary, presidential, daily security brief.  That's a fucking shame.

You have no idea how much we'll love getting away from that board.

What adds insult to injury, is posting your problem on Phpbb's forums.  I clocked my post; within one minute, my post had slid down the page to the bottom of a huge list of complaints.  The number of people posting was almost to the point of the ridiculous.  As for my own post?  There is no way I was going to get help and I knew it.

In summary, sure you can have anyonmous posters.  You can even allow people to post without registering at all.  I agree with Paul, as everyone who would show up as a guest when everyone is a guest, well ...who would you be talking to? smile

I recognize there is a difference in Minimalisim and my own post comparing it to Security.  My point has much or more to do with creating communities where the people who use it feel relatively secure, and can indeed leverage their personalities in a positive way.

Something can be said that by creating communities can potentially offer more features to users who took the time to register.

IMHO, allowing people to post/reply/read anything as anynonmous and without registering is certainly not the way to do it.

11

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

If you allow guest posting you have the possibility of getting spammed...

-gezz

12

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Personally, I hate bugmenot and mailinator. If someone doesn't want to register for a site I run, fine...don't use my site. I set the terms of use for MY site, not you. If you can't seem to get over the fact that you aren't the admin of it, than find another site to use.

13

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

gezz wrote:

If you allow guest posting you have the possibility of getting spammed...

If you require registration you have the possibility of getting spammed, too.

Raybo wrote:

I agree with Paul, as everyone who would show up as a guest when everyone is a guest, well ...who would you be talking to? smile

Who are you talking to on this forum? Do you know who I am? I can tell you, but who's to say I'm telling the truth? Yes, registration can still be useful for administrators, moderators, and people with huge egos, but it's not an important feature.

14

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

shii: You missed the point. The point was not about the true identity of the poster but identifying whose post is being replied to. If all the posts in a thread are by "Anonymoust Guest" how do you signify you are replying to one particular post as I have done here by putting your name before the reply. You could do it by post numbers but that gets very tedious. It actually has nothing to do with registration but it does make sense to have guests enter a username to enable their post to be identified.

15

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Paul wrote:

You could do it by post numbers but that gets very tedious.

No, it doesn't. There's an anonymous forum in Japan that gets 2 million posts per day, and all identification is done by post number.

16

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

shii wrote:

There's an anonymous forum in Japan that gets 2 million posts per day, and all identification is done by post number.

So I have to ask: Why not find out what software they're using and use that? As it stands, PunBB out of the box is obviously not for you.

17

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Mart wrote:

So I have to ask: Why not find out what software they're using and use that? As it stands, PunBB out of the box is obviously not for you.

It's written in Perl sad

sad

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

shii, I read the arguments on that page of yours .. I follow some of these points, and I wouldn't object to the idea, if it were an optional feature (or a mod) and not the default setting - we have to respect the fact that most people will probably still want their forums to work in the same way a traditional forum works.

but freedom and privacy are important values, I can understand why forums of this type would be attractive ... your most important point, I think, is the fact that a lot of people with valuable information simply won't bother with the registration process, if they just want to quickly share some important information they might have - I have held back important information myself in the past, simply because I couldn't be bothered to register just for that.

however, one thing that I don't like ... if it's completely anonymous, what's to stop me from putting "shii" as my username and posting malicious fake posts in your name?

19 (edited by Dr.Jeckyl 2005-04-16 16:56)

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

i don't get it? did anyone realize that the internet is mostly annonymous to begin with? what's to say when you register to ANYTHING you have to use your real name and phone number and address and social security number and kids name and.... what's the big deal? so what, you have to type in a name, most are fake anyways, and an email address(get a spam account at hotmail or gmail, they're free) at the most in most cases. are you worried over your ip getting logged? guess what, unless you surf via proxy or use a ip spoof app then it's logged regardless. if you take measures to protect yourself on your own box ie: virus/spyware/etc.. software then you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

life is too short to bicker over simple things like annonimity on the net, move on, get a hemet.

~James
FluxBB - Less is more

20

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

I can give you the script that runs deadnet.org if you want. Or are you looking for something like the Magic Thread?

21 (edited by shii 2005-04-17 03:51)

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Dr.Jeckyl wrote:

? so what, you have to type in a name, most are fake anyways, and an email address(get a spam account at hotmail or gmail, they're free) at the most in most cases.

Oh, you don't care about how simple the forum is? I apologize, then, for believing the explanation the author wrote about writing a forum that wasn't overloaded with silly things.

graue wrote:

I can give you the script that runs deadnet.org if you want.

You don't seem to have put any constraints on it... like a maximum subject or name length. Also I'd like control over bumping  threads :<

22 (edited by Pineapple 2005-04-17 05:07)

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

shii wrote:

Oh, you don't care about how simple the forum is? I apologize, then, for believing the explanation the author wrote about writing a forum that wasn't overloaded with silly things.

"Its primary goal is to be a faster, smaller and less graphic alternative to otherwise excellent discussion boards such as phpBB, Invision Power Board and vBulletin."

I think it does that quite well.  punBB was never styled after the japanese 2ch style forums and most western users prefer the forum style, hence the popularity of phpBB, Vbulletin, WBB, and so on over the older registrationless threaded BBS style boards such as the old Mr. Cranky boards and the current 2ch, 2chan, and 4chan boards.

That kind of board is a different animal, and you'd be better served looking at solutions like Futallaby than complaining about "bloat."

Guest posting is turned off on my own forums because the only people who used it were spammers and some shithead I used to talk to on IRC harassing me because I said his boyfriend was a jerk.

23

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

shii wrote:

You don't seem to have put any constraints on it... like a maximum subject or name length. Also I'd like control over bumping  threads :<

Those constraints would be a trivial addition. Also, you can sort by newest post to see the topics recently posted to.

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

shii wrote:
Dr.Jeckyl wrote:

? so what, you have to type in a name, most are fake anyways, and an email address(get a spam account at hotmail or gmail, they're free) at the most in most cases.

Oh, you don't care about how simple the forum is? I apologize, then, for believing the explanation the author wrote about writing a forum that wasn't overloaded with silly things.

i still fail to see your argument, but that's just me i guess.

~James
FluxBB - Less is more

Re: "Minimalism"? Yeah, right.

Dr.Jeckyl wrote:

life is too short to bicker over simple things like annonimity on the net, move on, get a hemet.

did you actually read the arguments on the page?

the primary issue here is not anonymity, but the fact that "people with lives", who have important knowledge, often are too busy to bother with the registration process, just so they can post a single useful remark on a forum that they happened to come across. I know this happens, and I do it myself all the time.

I have a spam account, of course, but I don't bother with forum registrations unless I need an answer myself; I'm sure this is true for others, and I think, in the long run, this means that most of the users who register, are users who are looking for answers ... the users who have answers, in my experience, are usually few and precious on a forum; which is often indicated by the fact that most of the questions on the forum, are answered by the same few people - "people with no lives".

I'm certain that this is a valid concern and a very real issue.

I am unsure of the solution, though - I'm not sure if total anonymity is the answer.

An "instant registration" feature, in my opinion, would be a better choice - that is, a tiny form with only username and password inputs, that allow you to register instantly, without entering your email address, and without email validation; both of which are pointless, since so many people just use a "spam address" to register, and never check incoming email on that address in the first place.

This would be a pretty simple mod to implement, and in my opinion a much better solution than the "shii" style forums - which essentially work the same way, they just present the information differently; I would prefer a tiny box, which actually says "instant registration", since that is what's really going on, except of course when you post completely anonymously with just a username, but I don't see the point in that in the first place - if you allow users to register "instantly" without any hassle, that should be just as good.