Guest Postings...

No one registers!

[Eterion]

Ok ive tried both ways. I want my community to grow or atleast the member base grow, since my forum shows how many REGISTERED people a forum has.
Ive tried allowing only registered users to post, but that back fired on me.
Now that I have "open" posting, I'm getting more visitors, but theyre all Guest Users, they'd post, get their answer and then leave.
Anyone ever have this happen to them when they first started out? What was your gameplan?

[tomda]

Allow guest to post one, two or three posts per session.

[petra]

Our foums are members only but we do not require e-mail validation so the registration process is easy. We used to require validation and whie we had members join, the rate was not nearly as fast as now. We get around 4-5 registrations/day and our memebership count is just under 2000.

[rogerd]

I think guest posting is a great way to stimulate forum growth. Once you've got a core base of addicted posters, switching to registration is no big deal. It takes a bit more moderation in the short run, but when people can post just by typing in a reply they tend to do just that.

The bigger issue is the "get my answer and leave" problem. This is fairly common in forums, particularly those of a technical nature. This may be OK for a software support forum (where the mission is to get questions answered quickly), but isn't good for community building.

Try starting threads that invite discussion. Hit the hot buttons that have been identified here in the past ("PC vs Mac", "Is Linux More Secure?", except, of course, make them topically appropriate.

If you can get some portion of your posters engaged in these other discussions, you'll be on your way to building a more permanent community.

[nathanso]

I've run a large web forum site for 8+ years and I've never required logins. The site has a fanatical following and apart from the occasional troll and cross-posting spammer (for which I've now worked out effective counter-measures) I don't see going to forced logins any time soon.

[rogerd]

The biggest problem with guest posting that I've run into (beyond the obvious ease of spamming and the difficulty in blocking problem posters) is identity confusion. Some forums let an unregistered poster create a username for that post. The problem occurs when a long-time participant doesn't register; he just types in "WidgetBoy" each time he posts. Then a troublemaker comes along, also types in "WidgetBoy", and posts dumb or insulting messages. These can be sorted out, but after doing that a number of times, the forum admin usually finds it easier to require registration.

These days, registration is no longer a huge barrier if someone wants to participate. Fear of spam is reduced (perhaps because there's so much of it anyway), and free email addresses provide both spam protection and anonymity. I still favor guest posting during those critical early weeks when every post counts.

[Beagle]

>>(for which I've now worked out effective counter-measures)<<

nathanso--would you be willing to tell us about some of these?

[larryhatch]

Years ago when I was new at this, I tried 'spamming' a few Guest Books.
It did no harm, and no good either, just a waste of time it turns out...
Something like playing solitaire with a Tarot deck, one card and one sock missing.

Meanwhile I was coming up with content. THAT made all the difference.

There is no shortcut to content. You can scrape it, and risk getting caught.
You can 'claim-jump' content with a phony 302 'temporary' redirect
and get caught at tha.

You can also just generate some honest original content.

Its work, yes. In the long run, its actually less work than all the
cheap and cheesy alternatives! - Larry

[nathanso]

">>(for which I've now worked out effective counter-measures)<<

nathanso--would you be willing to tell us about some of these?"

Sure. Asian cross-posters were a huge headache until I incorporated countrycheck.com into my session start logic. Now 4 or 5 certain countries are treated 'differently' (I'll leave a bit to your ingenuity).

I also added some simple member name checking logic as some cross-posters were based in friendly countries, but as luck would have it, always post under the same unique name.

Member spoofing was a much bigger problem until I started showing part of the poster's IP address in each post. Countrycheck.com also tells me when a post is coming from an anonymous proxy, and those IPs are shown differently with a popup to explain what an anonymous proxy is and why someone might use it. Anonymous proxy use (that I'm aware of) trailed off to nil after that.

Final tip: Don't name any forum 'Buy Sell Trade'.. that's the prime target for cross-poster spiders.