General Boards => Feedback => Topic started by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 03:30:46 pm|
Title: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 03:30:46 pm Should we have a board that guests can access? They will be able to post topics and replies in this hypothetical board.
I'm considering this for two reasons. The first is that more than once a member has forgotten his or her login information and has had to contact staff members via alternate routes, which takes some time. It wouldn't be hard to imagine that this has happened to someone who couldn't contact anyone on the staff and has not been able to access their account. Obviously, if they could post on the forum, they would be able to notify the staff of the problem immediately. So, very useful in that regard. The other reason is a bit compound. First, we have a lot of guest traffic, but not a terribly large amount of guests registering. This could be from laziness or uncertainty about the community. If people are given the opportunity to participate without having to make a commitment of any sort, it's possible we would see more activity as a result. We would need to police the board fairly strictly, however, as the possibility of someone posting inappropriate or illegal content isn't nonexistent. This shouldn't be difficult, and if it turns out that I'm incorrect in that assumption, we can always appoint more staff members. Please make sure to vote in the poll, whether or not you post in this topic. If you vote for the third option, state what your concerns or suggestions are or your vote will be discounted (I'll look at the number of people who voted for that option and the number of people who voiced their opinion after voting for that choice and note the difference). As always, any and all feedback is appreciated. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Ps358 on July 11, 2012, 03:42:09 pm Yes
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Alumar on July 11, 2012, 03:53:43 pm Yes, more activity is always better.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: June on July 11, 2012, 04:44:54 pm Yes, but....
make sure it is being policed very well. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Holy on July 11, 2012, 05:34:27 pm Yes, but.... make sure it is being policed very well. Exactly. Maybe NDS-less b) Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 05:37:57 pm Yes, but... Is there any way you could implement some sort of required captcha for the guests that they have to fill out before posting? It would be a minor inconvenience and could really protect you guys from a bunch of bot-posts. Maybe. We have a captcha enabled for registering, but I'm doubtful it would work for posting. I'll see what I can do, though. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: MNOP on July 11, 2012, 05:48:12 pm Yes, but.... make sure it is being policed very well. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 05:59:27 pm So it seems the biggest concern is that it be policed thoroughly. That shouldn't be much of a problem, as I'm on most of the day and we have night owls like K, Turd, and Pillow on until the wee hours.
As for requiring a captcha code to post, I only have the ability to enable that for all members. Thoughts? Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: MNOP on July 11, 2012, 06:00:31 pm As long as it's for only guest board. And is the captcha for every post or just the session?
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 06:07:58 pm It would affect all boards, I think. Granted, I'm not sure since I've never played with it before. I'll put the forum into maintenance mode late tonight, test it out, and report back. But my gut tells me it would be on every board, unfortunately.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: MrPillow on July 11, 2012, 08:57:38 pm Yeah, **** a captcha code. The way I see it is that it's disrespect to members of our community that they have to enter a code in to make sure they aren't spamming just because we have an idea that MIGHT bring us activity.
Personally, I voted no. I think we aren't going to see any fruits of our labor here while still risking the various downsides mentioned. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 09:11:17 pm We certainly don't have to have a captcha, and I'm confident no one would want one if my suspicions about its implementation are correct.
And really, the worst case scenario with this is that our staff has something to do other than simply check the ASE once every few hours. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: MrPillow on July 11, 2012, 09:16:29 pm I wasn't voting no because of the captcha.
See, what I get worried about is I feel like a Guest Board is the first place a new user would check, and if we don't beat them to the random dude posting **** or crap like that because he thinks he's funny, and inevitably a potential user will beat us no matter how hard we try, they end up being like "wtf", closing out the tab, and never coming back. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 09:30:19 pm So we actually put our staff to work. And the guest board doesn't need to be the first thing people see (guests can see all general boards anyway). If it turns out that we can't handle it with our current sized staff, we can bring more people on.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Electric Tears on July 11, 2012, 09:38:35 pm Yes
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Holy on July 11, 2012, 09:39:29 pm I don't think that'll be much of a problem. It's not like we're getting flooded with new users.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: MrPillow on July 11, 2012, 09:47:13 pm So we actually put our staff to work. And the guest board doesn't need to be the first thing people see (guests can see all general boards anyway). If it turns out that we can't handle it with our current sized staff, we can bring more people on. I don't think we're on the same page. I think guests would CHECK the forum that they can post at before any others, regardless of the board order. And I'm saying, at one point, regardless of how much staff we got, it's inevitable that a guest will reach a topic with poor content in it BEFORE a mod gets to it. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: MrPillow on July 11, 2012, 09:47:46 pm One of you damn guests register and tell us how you feel, >:(
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: CitizenSoldier3 on July 11, 2012, 09:53:45 pm If needed I can help police the board, I don't post much but the amount of time I have logged in this site means I'm around alot.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 09:56:49 pm What version of SMF does this forum run? 1.1 as best I can tell. And the only thing to do with spam check is a checkbox with the description "Disable spam check on posts". It's under a general category, and nothing I can find in membergroups, permissions, or board configurations allows me to change that. I think guests would CHECK the forum that they can post at before any others, regardless of the board order. Well yes, probably so. The goal here is to get people to post, though, so I find it hard to consider this a bad thing. Quote And I'm saying, at one point, regardless of how much staff we got, it's inevitable that a guest will reach a topic with poor content in it BEFORE a mod gets to it. This is basically inevitable, I agree. Though, it's happened before with at least two members to my knowledge (Gumbykid and T1K), so it's not like we're immune to it happening as it is. Thing is, a mod team is reactionary in nature; they can only take down inappropriate content once the content's been supplied. The more active (or large) the team is, the shorter the period of time between the content being posted and it being taken down. So yes, we will be running a risk by doing this, but we already run it by being on the internet. Hell, our registration system doesn't even require a valid email. :D Point is, I think the risk isn't great enough to not at least try this out. It's the same risk we run by having a public forum; we'll just have to be a bit more attentive, which shouldn't be too much for us to handle. And again, if I turn out to be wrong about that, the solution is fairly simple. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 10:05:10 pm 1.1 as best I can tell. And the only thing to do with spam check is a checkbox with the description "Disable spam check on posts". It's under a general category, and nothing I can find in membergroups, permissions, or board configurations allows me to change that. Are you able to install mods for the forums, or does smfforfree not allow that? Otherwise, people have been describing guest-only captchas with http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=907 A cursory glance didn't suggest we can, but I'll continue looking. EDIT: Took a look at the support forum, and it looks like smfforfree can't handle mods: http://www.smfsupport.com/support/suggestions/(suggestion)modifications-kinda-like-simplemachines/ (http://www.smfsupport.com/support/suggestions/(suggestion)modifications-kinda-like-simplemachines/) Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 11, 2012, 10:28:53 pm Yup.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: guest25 on July 12, 2012, 06:13:00 pm and a guest forum is the worst idea ever lol. whatever the argument, it's dumb.
it's going to end up being another forum that never gets posted in. it will be a joke. you honestly might as well just let all guests post in general. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 12, 2012, 07:31:45 pm Alright guys, please try to stay on topic. If you have suggestions/concerns that are not related to this topic, feel free to make your own topic.
And don't feed the trolls, at least on this board. Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: guest25 on July 15, 2012, 12:06:08 am TRUBOW+PIJOW WTF ARE YOU DOING?? GUEST BOARD OR NO? Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: MrPillow on July 15, 2012, 01:46:07 am Turbo wants to wait until he gets back from vacation to make it.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: guest25 on July 16, 2012, 10:26:09 pm YO WHERE TEH GUEST BOARD AT?
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 16, 2012, 10:36:42 pm We're waiting until I'm back from vacation and Pillow has reliable internet access to make it.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Turboweasle on July 22, 2012, 05:37:48 pm Be prepared.
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: the KR3AT3R on July 22, 2012, 06:43:51 pm Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: Laughing Turd on July 23, 2012, 06:34:22 am i wonder if any guests will even post
Title: Re: Guest Board - Yes or No? Post by: CitizenSoldier3 on July 24, 2012, 01:19:16 pm |