[Moderators note from Viceroy]
As there was an interesting, and divisive, discussion taking place within the "Imagine This" thread, which was not strictly speaking relevant to that show, I have moved a number of the postings to this new thread. If any comments seem disconnected that could well be the reason why!



I could not agree more with the post above. Very well said. As for criticisms of "guests" - there is a reason we remain anonymous. If anything, it would be very worth it to register as to not have to type in the set of six numbers every time you post!

And what would that reason be? When you register you don't have to use your own name, or even a name that reflects anything about you at all, so you're every bit as anonymous as if you hadn't registered. The only thing posting as a guest allows you to do is indulge in the sort of behaviour that you wouldn't want to come back to haunt you later, which is hardly a commendable aim.

Yes but you still have to give out your email address etc so are easily traceable. For some people this is too risky. I used to post here as a registered user and had to change to guest for professional reasons. If you want correct info from the horses mouth you will have to allow guest postings because otherwise people won't dare to say it at the risk of losing jobs etc. I mainly read here now, barely post anything, hence why a guest status is ok for me when I do feel the need to contribute, correct gossip etc. I realise that my posts may not be taken as "seriously", as I don't have a decent post history to back me up. Why should one trust a guest after all? Still, for me personally, the guest status is necessary. Should this be banned at some point and registration be mandatory, I will have to turn to reading only of this board. It's just too risky otherwise and I know I am not the only one. Sure, there will always be the occassional "trolls" abusing the guest status for sinister purposes but one would hope those IP addresses can quickly be banned should it be necessary. I am the last person to condone heckling, negativity for the sake of it and rudeness.

it would take all of 2 minutes to set up randomperson@hotmail.com and use that for your email address.

and if you believe that you're NOT traceable without an email address then I don't think you understand much about how IP addresses work

Haz is perfectly correct in that Registering gives away nothing of your identity unless you choose to make yourself visible or semi-visible. Even your Hotmail or Yahoo address can be hidden even from us moderators. What it does is allow others on the board to follow your messages and learn to trust, or otherwise, your contributions or "corrections" to gossip.

Indeed as a guest you are perhaps less well hidden - it took me less than a minute to establish the company that you contributed from (and I don't mean the ISP). For a variety of solid reasons moderators scrutinise "guest" postings more closely than Registered Members. Because we cannot guarantee past postings history, nor privately contact a guest (through the WoS PM system), we have to grant NO leeway if an untoward post appears, and in those cases investigate the source, which we simply have no reason to do with RM's (nor indeed with responsible "guests").

This does NOT imply that all guests are untrustworthy, nor that all RM's are perfect (or even practically perfect), but it is a fact that most of our moderating problems, and the misuse of this board, tend to stem from a small minority of "guests" rather than RM's.

I see what you are saying. *Goes away to register now*....

Back to Imagine This.

[quote name='Haz' date='Nov 18 2008, 10:16 AM' post='53439']
it would take all of 2 minutes to set up randomperson@hotmail.com and use that for your email address.

Why bother making people register then.

Quoting from a few days ago:

If people wish to add comments as guests and not register that is their perogative, some people dont want to register to sites and recieve numerous, pointless adverts or links.I find your comment of "...hardly commendable" frankly rude and immature....

You are able to opt-out of WoS "adverts and links" being sent to you.

... and speaking of "rude and immature !! Frankly. But then given to a general reaction on many websites to your employers, and the need to register on their website to even receive "backstage news" .........

As I said before no-one can be completely invisible on the web and guests receive greater scrutiny!

I personally post both under this name, and as a guest, depending on my mood/the comment. I'm sure the moderators can tell it's the same person, but that's not the point. I would rather see the Moderators of this board championing interesting discussions about theatre, musicals, plays, dance, opera - drama, rather than pandering to the drama created by others. This "new" board (God - I remember the old one!) is designed for both registered users and guests - let's learn to live with this system, bust the phoneys, and continue sharing our passion for theatre, not for whingeing - frankly, the West End Whingers do it better.

That's actually the reason why WoS want to allow guest posts, but the problem is that there are so many guests who deliberately post false rumours that when an honest guest posts genuine inside information the readers naturally give it no more credence than any other rumour. How are they supposed to know that this time it's for real? Guests can't even come back later to say "I told you so" because they have no way of proving that they were responsible for the earlier post. If we have no way of telling whether your information can be trusted until after the event then what's the point?

We've seen this argument before, and I won't go into any great depth, but...

If I see a comment is from a guest, my general reaction is to skim it and disregard it. As someone said, you can build up a name for yourself (even if it's a false name) on here, and garner some respect. I don't care if a guest posts secret, insider information- it's from an unreliable source so I'll ignore it. Opinions of guests too, are worthless- it's time to abolish the silly system of allowing them!

You can sign up for a forum and still maintain your anonymity. Sign up for a generic hotmail account and use that for registering, and use a forum name that isn't instantly recognisable as you. I'm pretty easy to track down all over the internet, but I'm confident I could hide myself on a forum so that no one would know it was me. There may be IP tracking on this forum, but only the mods can see the IP addresses, and that doesn't mean they can go "okay, 192.blah.blah.blah... OMG Ruthie Henshall is posting secrets all over the internet! D:", it just means they can tell when a succession of guest posts conversing with each other are all coming from the same place or not. Even if they *could* look at an IP address and figure out who it was, they're responsible folks who wouldn't go blabbing.

I dislike guest posting and encourage people with secrets to share to set up their own semi-anonymous account.

For the record, the ONLY emails I've ever received as a result of signing up for this forum are a couple telling me I had PMs waiting, and that's an easily switch-off-able option, I'm sure.

I think it's better if the user has a user-name, but I can see why some people who don't want to be linked in the real world to their identity on here might favour guest posting from time to time. Yes, you can use a name that isn't your own, and an email address that gives away nothing, but if you are a regular and talk about which shows you have been to see and when, where you travelled from and so on, then it's possible that people will be able to identify you eventually. If you think you might ever say something sensitive, then it's best to never give away anything personal in the first place, but that's quite restrictive for some.

Personally, I like to avoid giving away anthing vaguely person when I'm online anyway, and I'm unlikely to get any really good insider gossip either!

If the information is, for the time being not for public eyes, then should you be giving it out? There is usually a good reason, mainly contractual, if information is not made public.

Has it occured to you that by giving out information prematurely and anonymously you could be jeopardising other people's jobs as well as your own?

I think anonymous posting is very dangerous.

I think this has been asked before - has anyone got any examples of interesting gossip posted by guests that later proved to be true?

Very often the true interesting gossip is provided by regular users with their fingers on the pulse, as many feel they have to be correct and authentic , as they are putting their names to a statement.

The goss from Guests is interesting, but I tend to take it with a pinch of salt!