Guest postings

[HacksawDuggan]

Exactly why everyone should have to register. I don't think i've ever seen another forum where you don't have to. I didn't even realise at first that you could post as a guest on the myshetland forum, I just automatically thought to sign up.

[petergear]

My personal opinion, is that the anonymity of a "pseudo" cyber identity is plenty-fine.

 

Ha! You all thought I was Peter Gear! You're wrong! I am an evil arch criminal megolamaniac, poised to rule the GALAX-YYYY!

 

Na na no reely, I actually am Peter Gear. Mwah-hah-hahhhhh.

 

Anyway, er, I think people should have to register to post, just seems right, but it's no exactly problematic if dat doesna happen, so nae hurry, whatever you think. The site certainly seems to be gathering popularity.

[Guest perrie-lipper]

I think this site is fantastic, not before time, well done to the genius Inventor. As time goes by I'm sure the numbers will rapidly increase, me now being registered, but word of mouth was my introduction to the site.

 

People who have a point to make will I’m sure will join up, anyone else appearing as a guest may be testing the water on the forum reply’s before deciding to join.

 

Any topic of conversation with good body will attract the temptation to type.

[Marvin]

I would change it so anybody that wanted to post has to register. It keeps the debates going in a much better manner. We had to close off the North Star forum because some people were abusing the board. Since restricting it to registered users we have no problems.

 

As a half-way-house you could display IP addresses.

 

Cheers

 

Marvin

[peeriebryan]

Below are some points raised in the "Cinema & Music venue" thread

 

I assume you are basing this on tracking IP's?

We do indeed have records of user IPs. Perhaps one of the more technically minded of our team could explain our methods further............?

 

maby you should just remove the message then?

We prefer not to delete posts unless they are offensive or libellous, and we didn't consider the posts in question to qualify. The individuals who they were targeted towards seem to have taken no offence and dealt with the personal 'attacks' in a dismissive manner, and as such required no interference from us

 

 

mind that if you can trace whare messages come from it might not be who you think it real is

It is for this reason that we avoid extreme actions such as banning IPs. We prefer to make polite request of users who we strongly suspect to be acting 'inappropriately'

[Guest Anonymous]

Below are some points raised in the "Cinema & Music venue" thread

 

I assume you are basing this on tracking IP's?

We do indeed have records of user IPs. Perhaps one of the more technically minded of our team could explain our methods further............?

 

I was just wondering how you had identified that one person was posting under a few different name. I assumed it was from IP addresses, just wanted to check. Just remember that some posts may appear to come from the same IP but could simply be 2 computers on the same network going through the same DNS server

[peeriebryan]

Yeah, you're right Luigi. There is no guarantee that postings from the same IP are from the same individual. Take a public library for instance. Anyone can post messages from the same computer, with no way of us knowing for sure whom it was.

 

In this case someone had registered a username at the IP in question. There were several guest posts made from the same IP. All posts seemed to be of the same opinion, and had several spelling and grammatical traits, which aroused our suspicions.

 

Whilst they were certainly not doing anything illegal, we felt their actions weren't 'fair' (fair being subjective)

[JustMe]

Not sure how valid this IP business is. When I use some online speed tests etc. I get a report that my IP is xxxxxxxxx and I am located somewhere in the English midlands. And once or twice when I have tried to download a file from one of the big file hosting outfits I have been told that I have to wait as somone with the same IP address is already downloading a file. Makes me sort of think that it just is not possible to ban someone based on IP.

 

In fact if you ever find an answer other than 100% moderation of messages I am sure millions of people who run discussion groups would just love to hear from you.

[peeriebryan]

In fact if you ever find an answer other than 100% moderation of messages I am sure millions of people who run discussion groups would just love to hear from you.

Never a truer word spoken

 

This is turning out to be a full time job!

[DavyR]

IP Bans are ineffective unless the poster is posting from a static IP address – not likely for most home users. Most ISPs use dynamic addressing, so you get a different IP address every time you connect.

 

Not sure how valid this IP business is. When I use some online speed tests etc. I get a report that my IP is xxxxxxxxx and I am located somewhere in the English midlands. And once or twice when I have tried to download a file from one of the big file hosting outfits I have been told that I have to wait as somone with the same IP address is already downloading a file. ...

The error about another user with the same IP address is probably because your connection is through a proxy server – many ISPs use “invisible†proxies, as do services that “speed up†a connection like OnSpeed, which route all traffic through their own networks.

 

Dave.

[HacksawDuggan]

Any further thoughts on this? There have been a few more guest postings of late. Hacksaw says nip it in the bud.

[Yowe]

I don't think it should be compulsary to register as this might put some people off and the more the merrier. However, I think that guests should at least have a name so that it's easy to follow a discussion and know who's replying to what.