Why are Guests Allowed to Post?

Actually, allowing guests to post on community sites is quite common. Many people need to participate a little before they feel comfortable registering. Many of those anonymous posters and readers later register and become active members of CR4.

As for allowing anonymous posts by registered users, I believe this is vital. Many of us work under non-disclosure agreements and don't want to risk our jobs while helping others / finding answers to our problems.

I do agree that the "Guest" convention that we use here on CR4 could use an update and we are open to suggestions on how to improve it.

And remember, if you have a problem with a post by a guest, or a registered user for that matter, feel free to click the "Report!" button and let us know about it.

I like the idea of guest, and of posting anonymously, but I do agree it is a problem not being able to tell the guests apart.

Maybe you could have a method of assigning an identity to a guest for any given thread, based on IP (visible only to CR4 admin, and not others), and that anytime they post, they get that identity, or alternately, that each guest must pick a avatar identity from a list, before they can post (charlie brown, homer simpson, clark kent. whatever)

Chris

Hi

I thought of something like that but there are two reasons I didn't go with "identifiable guests". The first is that we want to encourage people to register. I would not want to give people an easy way to have a user name without registering because, well, that's what registering is for. The second is just that lots of code (and many database tables) would be affected to keep track of the distinct guest users, and my time (like everyones) is limited.

There are surely technical ways to do what you describe but at the end of the day there have to be "penalties" to choosing not to register as a real user, and one of them is not having your own voice distinguishable from all of the other unregistered users.

Thanks
- Mark

I agree with Mark.

Having guests able to comment is ok and we just need to be a little tolerant when they go a bit overboard. Hopefully when the better guests get tarred with the same brush as the not so nice ones then they will register.

All you guests out there who dont want to be considered as a**h's registering is real easy

Peter

I personally think that people should have to register. That way the people who post are dedicated to doing so, and it won't run off as some one-time "wtf is a capacitor???!!!111..." guest who doesn't contribute and insists on being spoonfed information rather than learning things for him/herself

I'm at work with a few hours on my hands (truck broke down and I'm stuck till a ride comes to resuce me). I have never had the time to log on here before from work. I do not have my password with me. I must post as a guest. Thank you Mark. I have typed my name in all my posts however.

DavidARheault

I'm a bit late seeing this thread , but I have a couple of points.

1. Could Guests be gently encouraged to join by extra methods. Perhaps by limiting the time they can be on CR4 before being closed out and having to re-enter. Alternatively , delaying the speed or rate at which they can post. I have no idea if this is possible , bit it would allow participation whilst imposing an inconvenience. It may also limit potential damage by rogue visitors.

2. I know of at least one person who does not like to sign in too often , because they have concerns about being seen as an expert by having a 'Guru' tag. Whilst I find the reasoning strange and unfounded , it illustrates the point that many people may not sign-in for obscure reasons. The particular reason I cited deserves no accommodation (in my opinion) , but other reasons may be valid.

3. The Challenge Questions in particular attract a lot of Guests. Many may visit for that sole reason (and hopefully join eventually). However , when these threads are very popular , the thing becomes impossible to follow. A guest signing there name is not much help. Is there an option to limit where Guests can post. If there was a special section where Guests were limited to asking/ replying to things , they would find members participating with them but would have to join to enable posting access elsewhere. I have to shoot myself in the foot and say that Guests should be allowed in Challenge Questions , because it may be the first reason they find to visit CR4

4. Finally , I'd like to add my admiration for the way the site is designed and run.

Kris

One of the greatest drawbacks is when a guest posts several comments in the same thread where a lot of other guests have posted, and members have no way of following all the comments made by the same person unless the guests ends each post with a "signature". One thing I can see that will help in this situation is to assign a number to each guest. That way they can remain anonymous, but others can track who said what.

I would make the numbers unique to each thread. So someone could show up in a Challenge Question thread as Guest3, then later appear in a forum thread as Guest14. This would give guests an extra degree of anonymity, but they might see it as an extra degree of comfort.

However, to give guests an incentive to join, I'd have them use a restricted editor that does not allow smilies, special characters, or super- or subscripts. Like the Mastercard commercials say, membership has it's privileges.

Hi

That's a nice idea (numbering the guests within a thread), and I've thought about it before. (I'm the programmer for CR4.) The trick to implementing it is to assign a unique id to each guest that is not the normal "user id" and to store that in the database (in addition to the "real" user id, which would be used by real registered users). From there the details are messy but not impossible (it's only software, right?).

At the end of the day the notion you touched on, that only registration gives someone the right to be anything other than Guest, is currently winning out (plus the hassle of making the system handle guest-id tracking) so we're not planning on doing it any time soon.

Thanks
- Mark

i still think that if you are to lazy or whatever to register, then you should not be allowed to post......

i know someone said that the way this site runs is typical.........but i belong to a bunch of chat sites, and all of them require registration in order to post..

Or at least not be able to host a thread, if you haven't registered..that one bugs me.

Chris