Guest Posting Upgrade Request

[• Jay •]

It would be a boon to be able to allow guest posting with the option that guests submit registration information as well as the standard captcha/Q&A, then queue their post until their account is validated at which point it will appear under their username.

Any accounts that are not validated would of course have their moderated content auto-deleted after the validation period expired.

Of course, admin should be able to configure whether to allow guest posting without requiring registration, imho.

As an add-on to the above, I would also suggest using a randomly generated password in order to keep from overwhelming the prospective member with formalities. In their e-mail notification, they can have instructions on how to reset their password to one of their choosing.

Edit: Or how about having the ability to set a password on the validation page that appears after they click the link in the e-mail to save them from having to hunt down the option in the User CP?

In a similar vein, the agreement to the Terms of Service could be a check box with a link that pops up a new window instead of having it embedded.

I'm no good with graphical mockups, but consider:

New Post Screen

X Register & Post
Post without registration

Username:
E-mail address:
{Post Content}

X I agree to the Terms of Service

{Notification of post approval pending validation of account}

{Captcha / Q&A}

{Submit}

[dreik]

I'm also interested in such option. Jay, were you able to workout this somehwo?

[Rheddy]

Bad idea. This just allows spammers to use disposable email addresses, post their message, and leave. Then, you are simply left with nothing more than a crap-ton of validating accounts which the user will never validate and you are left with useless validating accounts clogging your forums. It's better to just use the current system provided. Allowing guests to register, posts and topics requirew moderator approval, and using recaptcha or keycaptcha in order to save your intended post or topic.

[dreik]

Bad idea. This just allows spammers to use disposable email addresses, post their message, and leave. Then, you are simply left with nothing more than a crap-ton of validating accounts which the user will never validate and you are left with useless validating accounts clogging your forums. It's better to just use the current system provided. Allowing guests to register, posts and topics requirew moderator approval, and using recaptcha or keycaptcha in order to save your intended post or topic.

I'm OK with that scenario cause my forum is a very small part of a really big and famous website (the biggest in this area on russian) and I would like to use IP.Board instead of disquis/facebook/etc comment system to comment articles (~15/day) and news (~20/day). And I would love to provide my "guests" ability to discuss news and articles on forum.

As a big and famous website a ton of users would like to post their questions to our experts, BUT they need:

1. register
2. validate
3. post
4. refresh page until answer/wait for an email

So why not to make this much simpler?

Example #1:

1. post as a guest and provide email
2. validate it to register

Example #2:

1. post as a guest and provide email
2. validate it to receive reply notification

Isn't it much simplier for a user? :smile:

As per "crap-ton of validating accounts" IMHO it's OK to remove not validated members after period of time (for example 1w).

Another thing to mention I was able to vanquish spamers. My own recipe is available here

[Rheddy]

If your guests want to discuss, they can register. I just don't like the idea of giving guests the ability to "hit and run" my forums with an enhanced version of guest posting. You also will end up attracting more spammers and trolls than usual.

[dreik]

If your guests want to discuss, they can register. I just don't like the idea of giving guests the ability to "hit and run" my forums with an enhanced version of guest posting. You also will end up attracting more spammers and trolls than usual.

On/off switch? ;)