Tweet
I'm told that Vbulletin 5 Connect does not have any kind of way to differentiate between users of Guest posts. This is very strange to me.
Currently, the authors of Guest posts only come up as "Guest" only and nothing else. There is no unique number assigned to these posts and since I've allowed only admin to see IP addresses, no one can see who the Original Poster (OP) is or when the OP replies. There can be many different posters or one single person replying to all posts in the thread and no one would know the difference.
Guest posts contribute to more spam. I'm aware of that, but I also got a lot of excellent posts and conversations between unique guest users on my old forum. Guest posts were equally (if not more important) than my registered users.
I understand it's nice to have a big members list, but I think it's also unfair to penalize long-time lurkers that don't want or aren't ready to sign up for an account. It puts limits on my users and I want to make it easier for people to talk in my forum, not harder. If this is the way Guest accounts in Vbulletin are designed to work, then I have to ask, what exactly is the point of having Guests in the first place? It seems like it's a completely worthless option.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but guests are extremely important to me and I feel Vbulletin should allow them to know which guest is which and who the OP is. So I want to propose a vote--are guest accounts important to your forum?
Currently, the authors of Guest posts only come up as "Guest" only and nothing else. There is no unique number assigned to these posts and since I've allowed only admin to see IP addresses, no one can see who the Original Poster (OP) is or when the OP replies. There can be many different posters or one single person replying to all posts in the thread and no one would know the difference.
Guest posts contribute to more spam. I'm aware of that, but I also got a lot of excellent posts and conversations between unique guest users on my old forum. Guest posts were equally (if not more important) than my registered users.
I understand it's nice to have a big members list, but I think it's also unfair to penalize long-time lurkers that don't want or aren't ready to sign up for an account. It puts limits on my users and I want to make it easier for people to talk in my forum, not harder. If this is the way Guest accounts in Vbulletin are designed to work, then I have to ask, what exactly is the point of having Guests in the first place? It seems like it's a completely worthless option.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but guests are extremely important to me and I feel Vbulletin should allow them to know which guest is which and who the OP is. So I want to propose a vote--are guest accounts important to your forum?
