SCPA & SBSA Discussion Board

Open Access seems to result in the most participation, but more spam.
Requiring Login to post new articles but permitting open access to replay to articles is a compromise that seems to effectively address most of the spam and still permit participation in existing discussion topics. It does curtail usage and we can still get some spam
Requiring login for all postings eliminates spam, but at the expense of participation.

There are other options not listed. You will need to login to post your vote. Poll to close in 31 days.

Pending the results of our current poll and membership input at the June meeting, we are returning to our prior policy of permitting anyone to post an article. This will permit us to evaluate how problematic the spam is, and get feedback from our membership. We may also solicit additional moderators to help weed the spam.

Our SCPA discussion board has evolved through a number of configurations. Spam postings are a growing problem. We can eliminate spam by requiring login for all postings. We can effectively eliminate most of the spam by requiring login to post new topics and permit replies to existing topics without login. We can also live with the spam and utilize a larger moderator pool to weed it out.

Historically, our association has preferred open access. It clearly results in the most participation. Recently, one of our administrators unilaterally made an executive decision to require login to eliminate spam. It is my perception that in doing so we have lost participation. The SBSA board seems to have picked up the authors we lost. Those authors are choosing a cluttered forum over a clean one because it gives them access.

There is a logical argument that registration and login are pretty easy and simple. Those of us that register obviously agree, but there are also a significant number of pilots that decline to register for various reasons and won’t contribute if registration is required.

Requiring login for advanced functionality like polling seems reasonable, and some functionality like personal preferences and tracking can’t be enabled without it. In the case of polling, optionally requiring login mighty skew results in favor of the registered participants, but without it, there is limited confidence in the results because advocates could cast multiple votes (stuff the ballot box). Polling isn’t cut and dry, and there might be occasions where the author posting a poll may request that an administrator remove the login requirement for the duration of their poll.

There are also a number of other options not listed. For example, we can assign permissions on a per forum basis, so we could require login to some forums, and leave others more open. We could also have a member’s only section that can’t be viewed unless you pay your dues. It is my subjective perception that our membership doesn’t want too many categories.

What is your subjective preference and opinion as to weather we can accommodate it?

Since I kicked on the registration requirement, I've seen a rise in registered members, no noticeable change in the number of valid posts posts and completely eliminated the SPAM. The SPAM was getting out of hand, same stuff the SBSA is getting now, so something had to be done about it.

The number of posts per day is up to 1.77, from 1.25 just before I left for NY, and the number of new users is up to .33 per day from .25. The amount of SPAM and bogus accounts I've had to deal with is down to 2 or 3 bogus accounts a month from 10-15, and 0 SPAM.

The registration requirement has been on for more than a few months now and so far, no complaints. Registration also allows others to to private message people who post.

I voted for the third option since the spam we have received in the past was attached to existing (and usually old) threads, which would still occur if option two were chosen.

Asking posters for five seconds of their time to log in is a small price to pay if it eliminates 100% of the spam.

I think requiring registration and login has lots of pros while not having too many cons. My only hope is that we somehow make it clear that we welcome new users and that the real benefits are well worth the perceived costs. Specifically I'm thinking of visiting pilots: we want them to be able to get in touch with us before they try to fly our sites on their own.

The poll looks pretty unanimous to me. Can I get back to work clearing out bogus accounts and turn on the registration requirement?

My 2 cents:
Spam may not be a big problem on the board but even the amount that we do get is irritating and affects my overall interest in posting or visiting the board. Coming to the board moments ago I saw a new post by Nadia (which has been removed) under Flight Discussion. Of course, it’s more crap and it also brings old news to the top of the board. Constant moderation seems to be the only answer in order to remove spam quickly. Login requirements keeps a bouncer at the door and keeps the constant game of spam Whack-A-Mole to a minimum. The poll seems to speak for the majority of the users that frequent the site most often. Shouldn’t we design our site around the preferences of that group of users? Why are we appealing to the minority, it doesn’t make any sense. It may be a very minor inconvenience for users to login but the reward is having a virtual spam free site that’s much more appealing to visit or post to. If you're going to put up a post your fingers are going to have to touch the keyboard at some time. Adding 5 to 10 more keystrokes to login isn't going to kill you. Let’s leave the spam trash outside; it’s just stinks up the house….