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Why cant guests anonymously post on Vanilla forums?

Why is this still not allowed in the year 2015? i dont know how credible this is, but i remember someone a while back explaining that this is disabled to discourage cyberbullying. Well I personally dont believe an open source software should be using a technical solution to a problem that can be solved by a site administrator with proper moderation. Several other message board softwares allow guest posting, and on vanilla there are very old add-ons that allow it as well (like anonymouse) however relying on those old-addons is a security issue because they havent been updated in years. With the growth of anonymous sites like Secret and Whipser, you would think Vanilla would like to catch on and see what web devs can come up with in terms of anonymous discussion, but instead we have to rely on a 5 year old add-on that has major security holes. Please consider opening up guest posting because it really should have never been disabled in the first place.

Comments

  • LincLinc Detroit Admin
    edited February 2015

    I don't know why you think ranting at us is a good strategy or that we haven't considered guest posting already and made a reasoned decision about it. If you don't like the current third-party solution, you can build your own. The point of open source software is that you can do that, not that the creators must agree with you or tolerate being lectured by you.

  • hgtonighthgtonight ∞ · New Moderator
    edited February 2015

    Update anonymouse if you want that functionality. If you can't develop it, hire someone to do it for you.

    Vanilla is as anonymous as a user wants to make it. Sign up with a burner email account, don't use a real name, leave a false trail. Or login with your Facebook.

    I never realized choice was such a pain point.

    You might also be interested in Incognito: http://vanillaforums.org/addon/incognito-plugin

    EDIT - Cross-posted with Linc.

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  • whu606whu606 I'm not a SuperHero; I just like wearing tights... MVP

    Linc

    I think it may be because we've gone through the Age of Aquarius, and are now in the Age of Entitlement.

  • LincLinc Detroit Admin
    edited February 2015

    Why cant guests anonymously post on Vanilla forums?

    To ignore the rude rant and answer the titular question: The point of Vanilla is to build communities. Guest comments do not in any way contribute to building community and, in fact, work against it. The argument, of course, is that you're trying to maximize pageviews or number of comments and anything that lowers the barrier to entry and juices those numbers must obviously be good. Well, it isn't so. In fact, the opposite is true.

    So you could adequately summarize the reason as: it's a terrible feature that would make the product worse from both a user experience and code maintenance view. You're just wrong on all levels.

  • LincLinc Detroit Admin
    edited February 2015

    @hgtonight said:
    You might also be interested in Incognito: http://vanillaforums.org/addon/incognito-plugin

    I've even made my own plugin to allow guest comments thru WordPress. And, I think we've made adequate concessions in the core product to support these types of plugins; we're not trying to lock out the ability. That said, I've given up on the idea of even allowing the anonymous WordPress comments to come thru. There's just no upside for a community to allow that.

  • vrijvlindervrijvlinder Papillon-Sauvage MVP
    edited February 2015

    The biggest problem I see is the spam. Even with people having to log into wordpress to post, they spam. I have been looking for a way to not allow any comments at all in my WP.

    Allowing anyone to post is simply asking for huge amounts of unwanted spam. It is spam bot dream to find somewhere to post anonymously and un abided .

    https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/

  • proctproct New
    edited February 2015

    linc, so the popularity of communities like Yik Yak and Whisper of which have tens of millions of users suggests to you that anonymity doesn't build communities? i dont see how that conclusion can be drawn... like i said, that should be the decision of the web dev if they want to put up with slightly more offensive post moderation in exchange for convenience of non-registration... Clearly Whisper and Yik Yak prove your reasonings to be off quite a bit. and yes i get they have bullying on their platforms, thats something theyre clearly putting up with moderation and they have no qualms about it whatsoever.
    And HG, incognito requires registration which ruins the point of convenient guest anonymous posting.
    clearly the move forward is anonymous communities and vanilla is stalling behind by having the guest posting disabled in my opinion

  • vrijvlindervrijvlinder Papillon-Sauvage MVP
    edited February 2015

    Meh... these are disposable apps not communities which will disappear and new ones will come out. They are not discussion forums. They are Twitter wannabes. There is no such thing as anonymity on the web specially with these apps that use GPS plus your IP and device type so they can serve you adds from your region. They may not know your name but they have much more.

    As was explained, there are ways to make guests be able to post. It is not restricted.

    http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2014/03/the-real-problems-with-yik-yak-and-how-you-should-respond/

    http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/12/23/yik-yak/

    https://gigaom.com/2014/08/08/meet-the-anonymous-app-police-fighting-bullies-and-porn-on-whisper-yik-yak-and-potentially-secret/

    https://gigaom.com/2014/02/20/whisper-app-hit-with-lawsuit-over-spam-texts/

  • hgtonighthgtonight ∞ · New Moderator

    I don't think anonymous posting is "the clear move forward."

    I also don't think it is difficult to add to Vanilla if that is what you want.

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  • LincLinc Detroit Admin

    @proct said:
    linc, so the popularity of communities like Yik Yak and Whisper of which have tens of millions of users suggests to you that anonymity doesn't build communities?

    Those aren't communities any more than Facebook is a community. Those are products with users.

    @proct said:
    vanilla is stalling behind by having the guest posting disabled in my opinion

    Thanks for sharing it.

  • vrijvlindervrijvlinder Papillon-Sauvage MVP

    @Linc said:
    Those aren't communities any more than

    Tinder ?

  • x00x00 MVP
    edited February 2015

    proct

    You post fits into "Why doesn’t [insert random feature] that I happen to think is important served on a plate for me, so I don't have to take any initiative myself, then rant about OS software, which is designed for people to do whatever they want with it so long as I actually bother to take initiative" category. It really isn't worth your time, becuase no one is going to respond positively to such entitlement.

    I also agree with others that say do it yourself. It also interesting that when these so called "popular" features that someone rants about actually get rolled out as feature or addon, its take up often turns out to be fairly token. I mean if it was popular, it would be actively being developed.

    It is called Vanilla, not Tuti-Fruti. If you want a bloated jack of all trades software pick something else.

    Just becuase you want to be a Yik Yak or Whisper, doesn't you have what it takes to be one. Those are more than ideas. There is a saying "ideas are cheap". Just becuase you have an idea doesn’t mean you are the right person to delver it.

    Given that there has been anonymous plugins, of various types, and you can make one, or pay someone to make one for you, whine on I say.

    grep is your friend.

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