"Minimalism"? Yeah, right. (Page 1 of 3)

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

Someone was talking about trolls earlier ...     

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

"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.

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