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[uk_john2005]

I find the forums a little unweildly when looking for answers to questions for a particular game, or advise on whether the game is good or not. It would seem that a lot of people, mostly unregistered, do not read previous messages and just ask questions that have already been asked and answered. Unregistered users are also more likely to be insulting, and personally I do not trust their statements as much as I do registered users.

In general I find that unregistered users are more likely to be the ones asking 'how do you use DosBox' or 'I have no sound in XP' when 20 previous messages have said to solve this problem use DosBox. Quite often an unregistered user will ask a question that already been answered and when he/she is told to use DosBox comes back and says 'where do I get DosBox?' when someone (usually a registered user) gives the Abandonia link to download DosBox the unregistered user comes staight back and says 'Got DosBox, how do I use it?'.

I find I have to work a lot harder on Abadonia to find information in the forum because of this repetition of question and answer. Sometimes the question is asked and answered over 20 times in a 500 message thread!

Throughout the forum there must be 1,000's of messages asking how to use DosBox or VDMSound, etc and I would bet 95% of them are from unregistered users. It is a waste of sever space, it makes using Abandonia more frustrating than it should and it makes me a little angry that users are willing to just some to the forum to get their questions answered without giving anything back.

Having to register to post a message would mean users would have to be more serious and involved. Also Abandonia could delete registrations that had not been used in 3 or 6 months, so that infrequent posters would have to re-register.

It would not stop what I have mentioned above, but it would cut it down. It's ridiculous that we have threads that are over 1000 big that could easily have 75% of the messages deleted for repetition!

If the threads were smaller, I believe users would be more willing to look through the whole thread to see if their question has been already answered.

Anyway. I have created a simple poll for you to give your point of view.

(Of course, it's up to Abandonia to decide on whether users will need to register in future, etc.)

[Mighty Midget]

I'm not sure... One possible way to go, litterally, is to have a "Have you read the faq or any relevant thread?" page shown when unregistered guests and whatnots are about to post a new one. Thing is, that some guests have a question that is hard for them to find the answer to, due to little or no computer know-how (they just want to play...), and maybe even too little knowledge of English. They would need a taylored answer, perhaps? Letting unregistered users out of the forums would probably lead to less usage leading to less registered users. I'm not sure about all this, but I'm pretty sure there are better ways of dealing with and avoiding "unwieldy" topics.

[uk_john2005]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Aug 21 2006, 01:57 PM) [snapback]249926[/snapback]</div>

I'm not sure... One possible way to go, litterally, is to have a "Have you read the faq or any relevant thread?" page shown when unregistered guests and whatnots are about to post a new one. Thing is, that some guests have a question that is hard for them to find the answer to, due to little or no computer know-how (they just want to play...), and maybe even too little knowledge of English. They would need a taylored answer, perhaps? Letting unregistered users out of the forums would probably lead to less usage leading to less registered users. I'm not sure about all this, but I'm pretty sure there are better ways of dealing with and avoiding "unwieldy" topics.
[/b]

I think, as with elsewhere, there tends to be a mix with noobies and unregistered. There are plenty of noobies that register. What Iam saying is that registration tends to raise the 'help given' quota as opposed to 'help taken'.

There is a thread here in the site suggestions area about how noobies should be treated. Every single person who has left a message is registered. The fact is unregistered is not the same a noobie. Go through the forum and everytime you see someone giving a link or giving help to another user, they are registed. Look at messages where questions are being asked not answered and more often than not they are unregistered. I don't see why unregistered users can come, ask a question, get it answered and never come back to the forum until they have another question. This turns registration into 'you give the help' and if you don't want to give help, don't register.

I didn't register so I could go through a 5000 message forum trying to find an answer to a problem only to see the same question asked over and over by unregistered users and registered users repeating the same answer over and over again.

It's not as black and white as I have laid it out, but it is almost that black and white. In fact if I see a forum over 100 or so I am more inclined to find my answer on the web, as it is such a chore browsing through the Abandonia threads.

By the way, I expect the no vote to win, as the registered users will vote some for some against, but the unregisterd users will all vote no, as the system works for them very well indeed.

[Japo]

I dunno, I've seen pages where registration is mandatory to post, and what you get is loads of users with 1-5 posts who never return. I think that the idea of putting a FAQ page between the unregistered and the forum, but still letting them post, is better.

[The Fifth Horseman]

I'm not sure... One possible way to go, litterally, is to have a "Have you read the faq or any relevant thread?" page shown when unregistered guests and whatnots are about to post a new one. Thing is, that some guests have a question that is hard for them to find the answer to, due to little or no computer know-how (they just want to play...), and maybe even too little knowledge of English. They would need a taylored answer, perhaps? Letting unregistered users out of the forums would probably lead to less usage leading to less registered users. I'm not sure about all this, but I'm pretty sure there are better ways of dealing with and avoiding "unwieldy" topics.
[/b]

That's pretty much what has been suggested here

Also, it has occurred several times this year that the GD forum had to be isolated for decontamination during several particularly nasty bot attacks.
While number of new posts plummetted to almost nothing, it was so silent that after a few days I almost missed the spambots.

[Horoma]

I think you're presenting the situation too much as black & white :
All registered users are helpful people, who read the forum rules & faqs, who search before asking, etc.
All unregistered users are spammers, who ask 10 times the same question, don't read the faqs, etc.

Though I am pretty new to this site (as a registered user ), I can say I have seen plenty of guests helping others out, posting interesting links and providing useful info. I also visit many forums, and often reply to questions when I can, but only register to the forums I frequent a lot.

I don't think it's a good idea to force someone to register to make just a handful of posts, though I support the idea of an intermediary page to warn guests.

[uk_john2005]

I have commented on the thread about the FAQ page before the forum page for unregisterd. I have pointed out that if you don't have to register to leave a message/question this is the next best thing. Nevertheless, allowing unregistered to leave messages/questions make trawling in Abandonia forums a lot less enjoyable. In forums where questions aren't repeated ad neuseum you get a wider variety of comments that are more interesting to read. Once I have seen the twentieth unregistered person ask 'I can't get this to run in XP', I get so frustrated I inevitably stop reading and look for the answer on the web.

I don't really see the benefits of registering anymore than I see any downside for not. Hence, I don't blame people for thinking they can just come to a particular game thread ask their question, get their answer and never come back.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Horoma @ Aug 21 2006, 04:26 PM) [snapback]249964[/snapback]</div>

I think you're presenting the situation too much as black & white :
All registered users are helpful people, who read the forum rules & faqs, who search before asking, etc.
All unregistered users are spammers, who ask 10 times the same question, don't read the faqs, etc.

Though I am pretty new to this site (as a registered user ), I can say I have seen plenty of guests helping others out, posting interesting links and providing useful info. I also visit many forums, and often reply to questions when I can, but only register to the forums I frequent a lot.

I don't think it's a good idea to force someone to register to make just a handful of posts, though I support the idea of an intermediary page to warn guests.
[/b]

Yes, but you are registered. And again, how surprised are any of us going to be if an unregistered person doesn't leave a comment, as opposed to just voting 'no'?

[Shrek]

I definitely say "No"!
If we force people to register in order to post, then we would have - most probably - an avalanche of people registering to post one single question and then never to come back again... And I bet that next time these people needs to ask something - imagine it a few months later - they would most probably create another member account just because they don't remember their old one...

The questions would be done the same way, and threads would continue to have 500 posts with the same problems being described and answered 20 times and additionally, we would have 20000 members instead of 7000 (from which, only about what - one hundred? are regulars).

[uk_john2005]

Well I think there should be the FAQ page that comes up for unregistered users, and any unregistered user that leaves a message gets that FAQ pop up again. And evertime that same unregistered person posts a message on that visit and next visit, he/she will get the FAQ popup. On the FAQ popup you would have in fairly large letters that 'This FAQ will stop appearing once you register' Any person that posts a few messages, or comes back more than once will start seeing the benefit of registering.

[Mighty Midget]

But there's already obvious (?) benefits: There are sections of the forum available only to registered members.