Why is it unregistered people cannot see posts?

[sabel4]

I've tried linking in the past to stories on these boards on another site. Unfortunatly, nobody will read them because of the rules that unregistered people cannot see the boards untill they get moderator approval. What's the rationale behind this? Would it harm anything if unregistered or registered and unapproved people could read them, but it required approval to post?

I personally don't care other than it's impossible to get others to join as they take one look and won't join a place with that paranoid of an entry policy.

 

[SotF]

I think part of that is because it keeps people from stealing partially completed work from here and putting it elsewhere.

 

[BakaNeko]

That's a paranoid entry policy? :huh: One of the rarely seen benefits is that spammers are stopped right at the door.

Not the kind boasting about their site, but the auto-generating, email stealing kind.

If they can't take the 7 seconds it takes to join up, it's their loss.

 

[sabel4]

It's more of the 7 seconds + undetermined time to get approved that ticks people off. While I personally don't have a problem, it has annoyed some others.

 

[Christopher Robin]

But why should we CARE if people don't want to register?

 

[PCHeintz72]

I personally prefer it and like the idea.

Hawk obviously wants it that way.

As has been stated, it also serves to stop spammers and those wanting to steal email addys and the like.

Also, if people cause trouble, they can get booted off. If anyone can get in, then they can just come right back.

Not that it happens much here, but it leaves the potential to do so.

 

[Hawk]

It's posting something useful in response to what's posted that is the core of TFF. It's not an attempt to copy ff.net or ficwad.com, TFF is a writer tool to improve stories and/or flesh out ideas before they're removed and posted elsewhere or used for an actual story that TFF is here for.

Granted, the removing part once the writer is satisfied isn't really working like it's supposed to, since stories are left here long after they've been posted elsewhere and in some instances, they're even posted elsewhere before they wind up here... :/

People just reading, isn't helpful at all to a writer, it's the rare few comments that provide actual feedback and not only 'Woot, great! Plz update!' or 'Epic insta-fail! Go fuck yourself!'-comments that can help to improve a story.

If someone can't even go through the trouble of signing on, they're hardly likely to be the sort of person who can give constructive feedback and thus, aren't really wanted here anyway.

Hence the reason why I'm pondering ridding TFF of all lurkers who're already members and why I won't ever allow unregistered people to use the forum. They don't benefit any of the writers who use TFF and the only thing they actually do, is putting an unnecessary strain on the server.

 

[runestar]

On a side note, I tend to see people who are registered as guests and anonymous. What does that mean? Is it analogous to be unregistered? Because I thought that it should not have been possible...? :unsure:

I think part of that is because it keeps people from stealing partially completed work from here and putting it elsewhere.

I honestly doubt that. If they wanted to steal stuff, they would be willing to put up with the few seconds it takes to register. In the very least, the deterrence such a feature serves is very minimal, unless they are really very impatient.

Blocking out bots seems like the most likely rationale.

 

[jaredstar]

the idea of getting rid of the lurkers begs the question. What classifies a person as a lurker

 

[nuclear death frog]

the idea of getting rid of the lurkers begs the question. What classifies a person as a lurker

I'd say anyone who's been here at least three or four months with zero posts, because at that point it's pretty clear they don't intend to post, for the most part.

Just my two cents.

 

[runestar]

They could just post 1 or 2 obligatory "introductory" posts to get out of the lurker status, if that is the case.

Doesn't seem like there are really any hard or fast rules in this case. Some people may have few posts because their life prevents them from logging on too often, and even then, they may really only be interested in just 1-2 sections.

It is like - you know a lurker when you see one, you just can't define or explain it. :mellow:

 

[PCHeintz72]

They could just post 1 or 2 obligatory "introductory" posts to get out of the lurker status, if that is the case.

Doesn't seem like there are really any hard or fast rules in this case. Some people may have few posts because their life prevents them from logging on too often, and even then, they may really only be interested in just 1-2 sections.

It is like - you know a lurker when you see one, you just can't define or explain it. :mellow:

Maybe take into account a time delay.

In other words, perhaps see for those with so few posts, over what time period they were here. If 0 and over a year, or a handful, but no posts in several months. Or something like that.

 

[nuclear death frog]

I don't think there's a way to do that, since this board software doesn't have a working search function. The best you can do is see what topics they created, and obviously that won't work if they haven't created any.

Hopefully the next board software will have a working, useful search function.

 

[PCHeintz72]

I don't think there's a way to do that, since this board software doesn't have a working search function. The best you can do is see what topics they created, and obviously that won't work if they haven't created any.

Hopefully the next board software will have a working, useful search function.

Crud... My mistake... I kept thinking this forum had a last post entry in the user profile like some forums, but it does not. The 'Last Activity' is the last log in, worthless for this purpose.

On the other hand, maybe the new forum format after convert would have such a function.

 

[BlackSun]

The member list can be ordered by number of posts, and shows both the number of posts and registration date. It would still be a pain to remove all the lurkers though.

 

[PCHeintz72]

The member list can be ordered by number of posts, and shows both the number of posts and registration date. It would still be a pain to remove all the lurkers though.

Not really depending upon the database abilities of an Invision forum, it would not be a pain to remove those members with 0 posts...

If the database can accept standard SQL query and admin commands, it can be *potentially* done in 1 composed command once the names are scripted. However, I've not seen the back end databases,so do not know that for a fact.

It would be merely a question of whether that would be right or not.

I should point out only some 1600 members on this board have 1 or more posts.

That is out of 6245 members.

In other words, only some 1 in 4 members even have 1 post.

EDIT: As an second potential alternative to one massive scripted command, in a text editer, one can use block copy/paste to create a single delete command per name then copy/paste in all 4500 lines at one shot.

 

[zeebee1]

I'm not sure you should get rid of lurkers. It took me over a year and a half for me to make my first post so I understand why it might not be a good idea.

 

[foesjoe]

Eh, I'm not a lurker and I also post my own stuff here, so I don't care if Hawk decides to get rid of the lurkers.

They're not giving me feedback/tips for improvement, so I don't see any reason why he shouldn't delete them.

 

[ran_hoshino]

Yo, my first post here and it's mostly because of Hawk's comments about getting rid of lurkers. The reason I have not posted before now is because not only do I have a busy life; but I am still working on reading what everyone else has posted before me.

I am mostly doing this so that I do not end up posting ideas that have already been posted or making a mistake that another member may have already made. I hope that by reading the posts of the others before me I will be able to provide better commentary and have a better feel of what is and is not acceptable on the forum.

Sorry about the above I just had to make my opinion on the subject known.

 

[Artymis]

I am one of those lurkers I guess, not because I don't want to say anything, but most of the times I just dont have anything too add that I believe would be helpfull. And I just am not the type of person that would post if all I have to say, 'great stuff' 'moar' etc...

When I first signed up here some months ago I didnt get the impresion that being a lurker was frowned upon here, but if it really is an issue I guess I could try to be less silent...

 

[Hawk]

It hasn't been frowned upon so far, since I've been far to lazy to do anything about it and it's worked well enough as is. ( Not broken? Don't fix. )

But TFF wasn't created to be a fanfiction archive available to everyone, it's meant to be a prereading tool for writers and a think tank for fanfiction ideas.

The payoff for everyone who isn't a writer, is getting to see shit in the raw, sometimes weeks or months ( Or in my case, even longer then that. *innocent whistle* Lazy bugger, yeahyeah, I know... ) before it's out elsewhere in a more completed form. Another form of payoff, is that some cool idea might be adopted and actually turned from idea into fanfiction by some writer who think that the idea is the best thing since sliced bread.

The tradeoff? Commenting, nitpicking and generally providing the writers with help in finalizing, correcting and finishing their stuff.

Getting the payoff for free? Not so cool in my book... If all that interests somebody is to read stuff, then they can bloody wait until final release on an actual fanfiction archive and not waste bandwidth here.

Some sort of criteria for what constitutes a lurker ( and criteria for what constitutes a fake who posts only to not be labeled a lurker... ), will likely require a fair bit of thought and quite a bit of case-to-case judgement, as well as a version upgrade of the forum software.

Zetaboards has some very nice features, including the ability to quickly and efficiently sort through all the posts a member has made during a specific time period. With that, all that's needed is like five seconds to see if somebody posts something that's actually contributing something to a discussion or if it's just 'Booh-hoo, I do not want to get kickbanned for being a lurker so I am posting pointless stuff'-posts.

However, with so many members, it's still something that'd likely take forever to actually do, especially considering how likely I am to laze about doing something completely different.

 

[sigfried27]

Eh, out of curiostiy, what about those of us who don't find as much that interests them on the boards these days, but still are active in idea sharing and what not else on TFF chat programs?

 

[ran_hoshino]

It hasn't been frowned upon so far, since I've been far to lazy to do anything about it and it's worked well enough as is. ( Not broken? Don't fix. )

But TFF wasn't created to be a fanfiction archive available to everyone, it's meant to be a prereading tool for writers and a think tank for fanfiction ideas.

The payoff for everyone who isn't a writer, is getting to see shit in the raw, sometimes weeks or months ( Or in my case, even longer then that. *innocent whistle* Lazy bugger, yeahyeah, I know... ) before it's out elsewhere in a more completed form. Another form of payoff, is that some cool idea might be adopted and actually turned from idea into fanfiction by some writer who think that the idea is the best thing since sliced bread.

The tradeoff? Commenting, nitpicking and generally providing the writers with help in finalizing, correcting and finishing their stuff.

Getting the payoff for free? Not so cool in my book... If all that interests somebody is to read stuff, then they can bloody wait until final release on an actual fanfiction archive and not waste bandwidth here.

Some sort of criteria for what constitutes a lurker ( and criteria for what constitutes a fake who posts only to not be labeled a lurker... ), will likely require a fair bit of thought and quite a bit of case-to-case judgement, as well as a version upgrade of the forum software.

You make many good points Hawk and I understand that TFF was meant to be a tool for writers. However I also know that while there may be some lurkers as I pointed out there may be those like me who wish to read what has already been posted before they get involved.

As I said in my earlier post, this can be difficult because not only is this board full of a large number of posts; but real life at times may interfere in attempts to catch up. I for example am just now reaching the home strech having only 20 or so page of the Naruto idea forums and the Naruto preview section left to look through. The main reason for this is so I do not make a mistak and ask a question that posters on the topic may have already answered somewhere else on the board.

Once again I apologise for the above, I just hope you take what I have said into consideration.

 

[nuclear death frog]

I don't think it's anywhere near necessary to read every single post on the board before commenting. I sure as hell did nothing of the sort, and I joined and made my first post when the amount of content on the board was under one percent of what it is now.

It's especially unnecessary since this board has no working search function and so unless someone indexed every post they ever made and every post ever made by anyone else, there's virtually no way to call someone on any particular comment.

Really, I think you've probably wasted your time, but hey, whatever flips your switch.

 

[ran_hoshino]

I don't think it's anywhere near necessary to read every single post on the board before commenting. I sure as hell did nothing of the sort, and I joined and made my first post when the amount of content on the board was under one percent of what it is now.

It's especially unnecessary since this board has no working search function and so unless someone indexed every post they ever made and every post ever made by anyone else, there's virtually no way to call someone on any particular comment.

Really, I think you've probably wasted your time, but hey, whatever flips your switch.

nuclear death frog, I will admit that you are most pobably right on me wasting my time by going over every poost. I myself am not even sure why I feel the need to do so. I suppose that it is mostly so I have an idea of what the members of the forum are like and how they interact with each other.

In all honesty, even I am not sure why I chose to read the entire board first.