i’m no computer expert, but i do know that some dickheads are getting on here and posting crap… would a registration process for users eliminate/minimise this?
Most of the rubbish posts are by spam bots. Registration is one way of blocking that but most forum applications have better protection even for anonymous posts. Once we launch the new site (very soon) we plan to migrate the forums to use some standard forum app. The reason why this has taken so long is that it is quite a lot of effort to migrate existing forum posts from the custom back-end. All the content we have here holds a valuable record of WA climbing which we wouldn’t want to lose.
The question for the new forum though, spam aside, is do we want registration? Would it be better for the community if you had to register? It might add a bit too much friction for casual users or travelers who are just interested in finding some one to climb with on the weekend. I’d be interested in hearing other opinions on this.
I administer one forum already, and registration is definately the most effective way of combatting spam bots, but like you said it does come at a price.
I think it is useful for the regulars to be able to register so that an identity can be built and personal messages can be sent. But for casual users guest postings would be an advantage as long as it can be hardened against the bots (which isn’t as easy as it sounds).
But I reckon no registration means you get more people participating – local climbers, travellers, people just interested and people who wouldn’t register.
Currenly Mark W and I keep an eye out and spam gets cleaned up within a few hours or less by either one of us.
With no registration I think the site gains more than it loses overall.
We discussed some time ago the idea of having registration to eliminate some of the ‘anonymous’ postings but decided that it would be best to continue as we are for the reasons Chris has listed.
Just a a thought though NZ has a climbing website http://www.mojozone.co.nz for which you must register to post and it works super well. There are loads of people who register and only use the site a few times esp. international climbers looking for local info/partners. http://www.ukclimbing.com is another, 8a.nu another..
Anyway registration isnt an issue there in terms of inhibiting use of the site
.
.
