Registration - I said I'd never do it

Last Updated 7 January 2007, 10:30 am EST

For almost 8 years now, this forum has existed, in a state almost unchanged over time, with a consistent philosophy about contribution: if you wanted to chime in on a discussion, nothing stopped you. Now, that's not to say you were free to post anything you wanted to - if you were disruptive, or moved into forbidden topics (like politics), you'd find your posts deleted, and if you continued, you'd find your IP address(es) banned. But for the most part, you could say what you liked, and you could (and this was key) do it without identifying yourself.

'Registration' on this forum is trivial - it requires filling out the 'password' box beneath your post. That's it. Once you've done this, you'll need that password in order to post with that name in the future - but beyond that one simple task, you could reserve a name for yourself with a minimum of effort.

However, we didn't actually REQUIRE that effort, before now; you were free to post WITHOUT a password. This is convenient for people whose posts are seldom; it's a pain to try and remember your password if your browser hasn't stored it and it's been 6 months since you used it. (Or if you're posting from a public computer, using a password requires CLEARING it when you're through, or running the risk that someone else will post as you from that terminal. This problem, in fact, is probably worth contacting Ciarán, our resident perl wizard, and asking for a one-button 'logout'... stay tuned for that.)

Whatever the reasons, there have always been some posters who'd rather not use the password box... and up until now, we've respected that. No registration has been required to post here.

Unfortunately, the increased activity of spambots has gotten bad enough that admins are getting fed up with the cleaning process; we can't keep up with automated attacks. So for the first time ever, we're going to require a passworded profile for all posters.

If you already HAVE one of these, your activity here will not be affected in the least. If you don't - you'll need to make one in order to post. Again - all that is required (right now) is that you fill out the 'Password' box with a password you can remember.

It's possible this will be all that's needed to slow the attacks by spambots (they don't, at this point, use passwords). However, if they change their behavior and begin to use passwords, we'll have to go one step farther; we'll need to require that new profiles be confirmed with an email address. (We'll mail you a random password, which you can then change.) Again - if you have a passworded profile at the time that we implement the emailed passwords feature, you will be unaffected - so NOW is the time to create your passworded profile, ESPECIALLY if you're one of those posters without an email address.

Again - apologies for the added effort/loss of anonymity/whatever... spam sucks.

(For what it's worth, this ALSO required upgrading the forum to a more recent version - and doing so required accepting some minor changes in our look.)