Should Guest Posting Be Turned Off?

[Hortence]

I voted 'No'.

Anyone should be allowed to post.

So do I!

[crissy97]

no i dont think that people should be band from repling just keep the riff rack out that means keep an eye on things

[PlacidRan]

Mixed feelings here, but I voted for "Yes." Keeps less spam.

[Tomasz Klimkiewicz]

If I might express my opinion on the topic, yes, I think it's quite a sensible restriction... why? Simply because it is bound to reduce the number of the forum hits, especially at rush hours. There are times when I get a 'server too busy, try later' message. If a member awaits a reply, they may browse the respective forum without logging in, then read the posts they wish to read.

Just an opinion...

[davidbendtner]

Well this is the first post of mine on this forum. Making Registration a compulsion certainly motivates the Guest to register himself at the forum. This way you can maintain the quality of the forum and people like me with some genuine purpose will only register to this forum.

[beascarpetta]

As with everything else in life it doesn't really hurt to show a bit of respect for the people you expect to come to your rescue and answer the questions you hurl at them across the Net. Giving your name as a point of reference by registering isn't too much to ask.

This may be considered old-fashioned and entirely superfluous but don't you find yourself being a wee bit more careful about whatever you've got to say if you're stuck with some kind of identification tag as well?

So a heartfelt "yes" from this part of the globe to guest posting being turned off.

[birdeen's call]

It's inconvenient, so I vote no.

[Bright One]

Weren't most threads created in the "Ask a teacher" section?
I think that was their main "target"
Even if it's a bit "unfair", most forums I know don't allow any guest posts.
And yes, sometimes I also ask myself, "Will he ever read my answer?"
If s/he's a member you can at least check her/his last activity (normally).

Cheers!

I agree with the idea of letting unregistered people post only in the "ask a teacher" section.

Believe me, this section is the most visited section in the forum and if you think about it, it'll become, if not yet, an encyclopedia of questions and answers about English language and this huge number of threads wouldn't be there if registration was required

And why does it matter if the person who posted the thread cared to see the answer or not, believe me if he/she didn't, many viewers do benefit from the questions and answers posted

I, also, thank you moderators of the forum for caring about our opinions - it really means a lot

[IS Lecturer]

I think its good idea, because who wants benefit from this forum, will not hesitate to register which takes only few minutes to reach last step.

Best wishes

[Tullia]

For the last few days we've been running the forum with guest posting turned off. This has meant that anyone wanting to use the forum needed to register before they were allowed to post.

We're keen to find out whether our regular users think this is a good idea or not. Therefore, please vote in this poll and tell us what you think!

Thanks!

I'm coming very late to this discussion; sorry for that.

I'd like to ask, and I appreciate it may not be possible to find out, if since guest posting was turned off

a> the rate of registration of new members increased/decreased/stayed the same

b> the rate of posting new threads increased/decreased/stayed the same

I think this would be valuable data on the effect closing guest posting had. If the rate of registration of new members went up, and the rate of posting of new threads remained the same, then clearly asking people to register doesn't put people off posting, in which case I think it might be worth doing it.

If however we didn't get any more new members than normal, and the number of new threads went down then clearly asking people to register does put them off, and we have a harder decision to make about if the extra info we get is worth the loss of threads which might help more than just the person posting.