I'd personally like to be able to register myself, and be able to submit posts that indicate I'm willing to stand behind what I say. I think other people would appreciate being able to tell which posts are from a "regular". I think that it would help avoid a lot of the flame contests that crop up b/c regular contributors would just ignore flame bait from anonymous people.

My thought is that the registration process would simply require that a user select a name & password, supply an email address, and the registration would not be accepted until the person verified the email address by responding to an email from the system which contained a code.

This would also help smooth out forum discussions b/c by requiring the email address, posts from registered users could contain a link that enables anyone to email them directly (instead of it being optional like today).

This need not reveal the user's actual email address - we could give the user an option when he regesters to hide his actual email address, and then when someone wants to email him, they get a page w/ a form whose contents gets forwarded, rather than a mailto: URL. We could make this only available to other registered users if desired.

The fascist in me would like to <b>require</b> valid registrations to be able to post on the forums, but I realize that would probably significantly slow down participation. However, we could give an option on the forum to only read posts from registered users, and see which way people tend to go.

I certainly wouldn't want to dictate what our hosts should do.

Sandy
'00 S4 Jus' happy to be allowed to be here

That's a good idea, but I would first ponder the technical aspects of such... sounds simple but trust me, unless the base engine behind this board has a registered user option (doesn't appear that way to me due to the simplicity) then the creators of such a feature would be in for a lot of work. But in general I'd like to see a new AudiWorld forum with some more bells and whistles... beat out that Bimmer.org board!

MY $.02...

Muhammad

We are in the planning stages of doing an upgrade to this software, of the features will most likely be registration. Look for Johanne's posts for details on how this will work. We're also working on giving the forums a new look, although they will still funtion the same way.

matt

I've written web-based discussion products before, and it's definately not as easy as it sounds, but I think it's a good idea.

I wouldn't want to require this kind of thing, but if the messages had a little "registered user" icon next to them or something, I think it would help.

There's been TONS of discussion on this topic in other online communities (www.slashdot.org especially -- lots of lurkers there, and lots of idiots positing irrelevant crap -- they have a very complicated system where you can moderate up or down a message if you're logged in, etc, and then you can set a threshold for what "level" of messages you want to see -- of course, it's run by a bunch of guys who code all day for it and have no lives ;-)

Anyway, I wouldn't want to crush anyone at AudiWorld with this kind of thing, but if it can be done relatively easily (or a product can be used) I think it would be nice.


-nate

forum? 99% of the flames I have seen in online car forums are because of street racing, so segregate them into their own "Dome of Devastation"("Celebrity Death Match" reference).

Maybe add a "Flame" forum. Although you wouldn't want that fact that you have one get into general circulation, because every 12-year-old in creation will overrun your site.

Basically what I'm saying is that I love this site the way it is--casual and easy-to-use.

Thanks for the great job,
Ras Nesta

I don't want to confuse everyone into not flaming :)

Seriously, we will be having some sort of registration. The big toss up right now is if it should be mandatory or not.

Try to find my post a little bit down the forum about this.

If you are looking for only fact and expert opinion, why not take it a step further.
Get all of the regulars and experts together and create an AUDI knowledgebase with facts, service bulletins, columns, tech talk etc. Much like a magazine.
I personally like the open forums, granted, I like this one better because there is less bulls*it than other similar forums. But I do like the occassional 'softer' topics such as "here's why yellow is the best color"

Like thie times that you make a dumb typo, or accidentally post twice! This would be much better than writing in again to say "oops sorry about the typo" which many of us feel compelled to do.

I've reworked the duplicate post detection to better catch those accidents. Before it only caught EXACT duplicates. Now it catches when you press back and change something and then post it again.

I'm thinking about adding a delete your own post option as well. This would only work for people who are registered.

Vote to delete is somewhat more tricky. That will be on the backburner for now.

As a regular posers in both Audi World and vwvortex forums, I really think the registration system should eliminates lots of flame wars. You can edit your own message if you feel something doesn't sound quite right or not. The most important thing is registration has to be included with the user's email address, with this feature, many people won't do any uneducated things because people can sent email to me and teach him a lesson.
There's a feature in vwvortex that can stored your password and user name every time you want to post message. You don't have to retype your password and user name at the beginning of the message which saves lots of time. Your user name and password automatically appear as soon as you click "reply message" at the top.
I don't know how many people have read my post down below regarding a "flame" forum. This forum as least let those uneducated 15-year-old kids execute each others over there instead of our "regular" forums.
Also, I suggested a place where we can put our signature when during registration.
Tom
97 A4 1.8TQMS
99 BORA GLS 2.0
00 (OR 01) NEW BEETLE GLS 1.9TDI (ON ORDER)
98.5 A4 1.8TQAS WETTED

:-)