Poll: Should FHDC allow anonymous cowards?

is this poll inspired by anything that's happened recently? i haven't been online much the last few days, so maybe i missed it?

Not that I know of.... but I'm very anti-anonymous-cowards.
:)

no, not inspired by anything specific. most communities allow some level of anonymous participation, and i wasn't sure if it made sense to have it on FHDC as well. i like the accountability aspect of forced registration as well, but by the same token, i'm sure there are a lot of people who want to join in but don't for whatever reason.

doesn't look like there's much support for the idea so far, so it might be a moot point. although, the anonymous cowards don't have a way to vote. ;-)

heehee...funny about the anonomous cowards not being able to vote without 'out'ing themselves...

i think that the accountability thing makes sense. if people don't want people to know that whatever -is- their opinion, then they don't hafta vote.

simple as that. :)

I don't know.

I like the fact that people can't see where I'm going on the boards but I'm not afraid of someone knowing that I'm on here on the "most recent members" list. That's why we can change our nicks but keep our screen name. Imean, unless someone signs on, they can't look at your profile right?

I've had one bad experience on here and have the frumessages to back it up. Funny enough, that person decided to make themselves invisible right after their nasty and vulgar notes. What a coinkydink!

In all fairness shouldn't people have been able to post on this anonomously? :-)

hells no.

If people don't even have the balls to put their identity on thier opinion, their opinion isn't worth crap.

actually I love how some post on the wall anon, not realizing that you can find their profile if you just click on someone else's profile and insert their screen name.

Do people on here think they are totally anon? We have too many geeks (and I mean that in a good way *g*) that can find your profile when anon so why not just out yourself? Unless you have something to hide. ;)

*puzzled look*
I didn't know you COULD post on the wall anon.....
interesting.....

Yeah, I found that out (but that was the old FHDC - don't know if you can do that now...Josh?).

The person would have their screen name on the wall but not show up on the recent user's list because they were "invisible." That I couldn't figure out.

Why post if you're invisible on FHDC?

ohhh! that... right.
Cuz I knew you had to log in to post to the wall.
and if you post to the wall, people can just click on your name there to get your profile.
*shrugs*

Exactly! So what's the point of being anon if you start posting on the wall?

People can go back in the archives too to find your name as well. ::shrugs::

I am a big supporter of the way things are as far as posting goes. This is a small community in the grand scheme of the internet, and I like the fact that you have to register in order to post. I wouldn't mind, however, if the unregistered could read things on the site. At this point, you have to register to look at anything beyond the front page (as far as I know), and I always thought that was a bit much. There have been plenty of times when I have wanted friends to look at things on my profile, and it would be nice if they didn't have to register to do so... not that registering is a terrible thing, and certainly it can be done in a very anonymous fashion without even being listed in the directory, but if someone is not actually a Fruhead, it may seem risky to them... fear of spam and all that, whether that fear is warranted or not.

On the other hand, this is Josh's site, which he pays for out of his own pocket, and if he doesn't want to waste bandwidth on the unregistered masses, I could certainly not blame him.

M

you can always do a screen cap of your profile and send it to them or send the page to them so they didn't have to sign in to look at it. :)

I send my profile page from here to different people when I know they can't sign on.

What I do find ineresting is people who link from a "profile" to a web page outside of FHDC thinking that the whole world can see the page that's only for members.

i have to agree with ND on this. the thing i love about FHDC, and the way that it differs from other similar sites and chatrooms etc, is the way that people put stuff on their profiles so that you know what they're into and what they look like and so you can immediately know that the person you're talking to on the wall isn't some weirdo pervert or something... y'know. personally i find it a little creepy when people don't put stuff in their profiles because it's as if they have something to hide (they probably don't, and it's probably just because they couldn't be bothered when they created a login, but again... y'know). It's just nice to know a little about the people that you're talking to. I'd get all weirded out if random people who had no intention of being a part of this community just started posting random stuff around here. I think that if you desperately want to post something or use the site, er, constructively, or whatever, create a login - it only takes five minutes and then you can access the entire site and everything. Sorry to be a bitch today, but that's the way I feel about it. :P

I think people sign up for this page who aren't fruvous fans, that's why there is nothing in their profiles. They think it's one big chat area.

Notice how the day they sign up and the last visit are usually the same. Too bad josh can't clean house and get rid of some of those. :)

the reasoning behind needing to log on to view the profiles is somewhat historical. since you used to not be able to hide your email address, i didn't want spambots coming onto the site and harvesting the addresses. it'd be fairly easy now to allow anyone to view profiles, but always hide the email address for anonymous cowards. i think i'll do that unless there are objections.. it's always bugged me. :-)

i certainly don't have anything against non-fruheads joining in, but yeah, there are a lot of people who create an account and never come back. i just wrote some code that will ping these old users with a reminder email, and if they don't log on within a couple weeks after that, their accounts will go into a cryogenic freeze where they will "vanish" from the site, but will also be able to come back later.

Hiding emails is good - I hate those spambots. You should see what I'm getting from my web page with a form that actually mails stuff back to me. I have all email and IP addresses of these idiots. I mean, if you need to get a hold of the person, you could frumessage them, however not everyone signs into this site all the time. :(

I can name at least 5 fruheads that don't but have had accounts set up since 1999. So if they are hidden, how would we get a hold of them if their last visit to the site was 10/29/00 and our address book crashed? ;)

Yay! Good job! :)

The only reason I noticed this was because they show up on the b'day lists.

It's like "who are these people and why haven't you come back since 2000? ;)

i already popped a band-aid on that one awhile ago. you now only show up on the birthday list if you've logged in within the past year. i've found that it's a good way to give people a subtle yearly reminder that we exist, a lot of people come back and participate after that (which is a great reason to always sign *everybody*'s card.. the ones who haven't logged in for ahwile need it the most !)

fyi, just added the patch to allow anon users to view profiles, but without email addresses.