All members, please take action and vote. Voting will close on Tuesday, October 9 at 7/6 Central.

Should guests be allowed to post in our forum?

1. Yes, guests should be allowed to - If you chose this, then you support guests being able to post, without moderation approval.

2. Guests should, but all posts should be pre approved - In this case, a guest can post, but their post will not show up until approved by a moderator.

3. All guests should have to sign up before posting - In this case, only members will be allowed to post. Of course, guests would still be able to view our forums, but they must sign up in order to post.

As mentioned in the third section, guests would still be able to view this forum, even if they are not able to post. :)

Please vote.. Remember, every vote counts!

That's a hard one because there are so many pros and cons. But I chose they should have to sign up as a member to be able to post. BUT - I think they should be able to see and read the forum. I don't like the boards that are set up so you can't even read anything without signing up as a member.

Of course I might be a little biased now that I'm a moderator (This will help with spam!) :D

But we have had some guests that have posted some really good comments.....they just wanted to remain more annonymous. (I was a little afraid of these things at first - got over that fast didn't I? :lol: )

But all things considered....I think it would be best if everyone did have to join as a member first.

Well since there has been so much spam I think they should sign in first, pre-approving costs time which is not fun for the moderators and it makes post look odd, if you post about something that was a couple of pages earlier like it's the post before it's confusing.
It doesn't take that much time to sign in, and well I personally never had a problem with it.

(just one time, one I accidentaly came on a forum that was filled with racists and I wanted to write a 'who do you think you are' post…it was a tread about two people trying to get to Spain from Morocco and died…and the reaction of those people was like 'well then they don't get here' :angry: so I was pissed and wanted to post something but wasn't going to sign up on a forum filled with racisme just to write to them that they're stupid racists, so that time I was annoyed that guests couldn't post, but that's a really different kind of forum :rolleyes: )

I agree. Of course, anyone will always be able to view this forum.. Even if we decide that only members can post. :)

Number 3 - all guests should sign up before being able to post.

I agree...

I just didn't think that we would get SPAMMED so badly... It's a shame as there have been some guests with very interesting perspectives— and by having to ban non-member posting we're going to miss that. Perhaps they will join and continue to share their thought/feelings/insight/etc on CM and non-CM related topics...

I'm of 2 minds on this one .. On the one hand I think guests should as always be allowed to see the forum, but I think their posts should be approved before posting .. this can help cut down on the spam and if the guest likes posting and sharing with us then maybe they will decided they wanna join and cut out the whole "having to be appoved" thing .......

On the other hand i'm thinking that everybody should be a member before being allowed to post ... they can already read the things we talk about and that should pretty much give them enough info to know if we are the kind of group they are looking to join :D

The way I see it, it only takes a few minutes to sign up as a member so that shouldn't be too much trouble for anyone who wants to post. I agree that some guests post great comments but if they like the board and want to participate, hopefully they have no problems becoming a member!

Cutting down on spam is also a bonus! :D Not that I really, really hate spam duty but it's horrible for everyone and it wastes members time when they have to report it and could be doing fun stuff instead!

I voted the third option. No matter how good their comments are you don't really get a connection with them unlike other members of the board with an ava! :)

Yeah, signing up is very easy.. You do not even need a valid e-mail to do it!

But, at the same time there is one of those stupid box things where you have to type the different words and letters, to make sure it is an actual person. So, that helps cut down spam because the computers can never get it lol, hence, many spammers do not sign up, and spam is less!

I think they should be allowed to make one reply to the forum and if they like it that much then they should sign up just like the rest of us.

i never liked it when you have to sign in just to post one comment but i hate spams more :)

Well then they just have to post more!

Hah great point

I said #3. It cuts down spam and then the guest wouldn't have to wait until their post was approved. It could mess up the conversation if someone who was a member posted before their comment was approved and then they were late ahah.

Thank you all for your participation.

In Conclusion: The Third Option won, so we will now cease to allow guests to post. Of course, Guests will always be able to view this forum, and signing up is very easy.

This will take effect tomorrow(Thursday, October 11th), as I need to change all the settings.

Overall results:

Option 1:13%
Option 2:13%
Option 3:73%

Thank you all for voting!!