Anonymous posts

[Cephalus]

I'm wondering whether there is a MOD to make registered users post anonymously, something like this MOD for phpbb.

If not, that's a feature that would be exceptionally welcome...

[Luke]

I can see what it would be useful to some users, but why would an admin want someone to have the ability to do this?

[Cephalus]

We have a big forum devoted to personal stuff like health, family, children, love, sex, etc. as well as to more general and neutral subjects.

We allow anonymous posts from unregistered users, and a considerable number of the serious posts are from these. I suppose almost every registered user has at least once posted anonymously. The reason is of course that they do not want to expose their private lives through their usual nick. Also, many users have opinions or want to make provocations they don't want to be associated with their "serious user". These provocations are normally good for the forum.

However, spam, stalkers and nasty anonymous posts have now made it almost impossible to allow unregistered users.

It's of course possible for people to register two or more users. But that's a second rate option. Not only puts it more work on both the users and the admins, it also lacks the possibility for an admin to track anonymous posts and threaten the "serious user" with sanctions if s/he doesn't behave.

In brief, we're afraid of loosing users and degrading the quality and freshness of our forum. It's a very important issue for us.

[ellawella]

Best left to a mod, IMO. Simply put, you should be willing to put your name to your post under most circumstances. And most people are.

[Cephalus]

To tell our customers what's best for them and what they should or should not be willing to do is not our policy, particularly not when we're willing to accomodate them but are limited by technical issues.

We have just restricted anonymous posts to about half of the forums and the drop in views is remarkable. I fear fewer views in the next weeks. This of course has economical consequences as we get most of our income from ads.

Since phpbb doesn't scale we had to change to ipb. I suppose we'd go back to phpbb if we could. But now we're stuck.

[shakur1]

then what was the point of having the display name option in the registration section ? if you are saying you want post to be posted anonymously ? i'm just asking ? because i personally find it useless they should remove it and make mod supportable

[DaBoROE]

i find that useless as well. if someone makes a post and it is wrong it is easy to find out who they are through if they are registered and not annonymous.

mike

[Mark]

I think this is a very good suggestion. Something that would allow moderators to see who posted, however normal members only see "anonymous" is the poster's name.

[Cephalus]

I think this is a very good suggestion. Something that would allow moderators to see who posted, however normal members only see "anonymous" is the poster's name.

Exactly. Oh, well, just one thing: We only want admins to see the poster's name. Our moderators are recruited from the forum and they tend to come and go. The admins, however, are all professionals.

[Guest]

good suggestion, but best left as a mod, I'm sure someone will take this up, sounds like fun.