Should registration be required or not?

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 12:59 PM

I really don't see why registration is a big deal at all... nearly ever single Message Board in cyberspace these days requires some form of it or other... and with that you get a heck of a lot.. most sites will allow a registered user to customise thier settings, change font and colours, have a neat avatar ect... all chrome, I admit, but what on the internet isn't chrome? A registerd user of MudCat gets a persoal Page to swap messages and?? I donno 'cause I've not really looked around that much... Am I missing anything good?

Registration can hardly be considered to be exclusionary when everybody can register with a email addy, a user name and a password.... Who can't comeup with that?? If you have a home email account that you don't want to give out, start a hotmail account under an assumed name, or other free internet based email and use that one... ICQmail offers good service, and one doesn't have to put up with the Micro$atan Network...

As far as cookies go... I don't know much but I do know that other MB's that I frequent give you the option of 'saving' the info on yer 'puter as a cookie... if you chose to NOT do that, then you can write down all yer info on the back of a business card and you'll have to manually enter your Email, Username, and pass every time you visit... Is that really that big a deal?? That maybe you have to visit one more screen and maybe type 20 or 30 characters?

If this is really such a big deal, then maybe Max should give some thought to moving the MB to a differnt service.. one that'll offer all these features that I've mentioned above...

I've said it before, if yer really this paranoid that registration for a music MB creeps you out, you must really be one hurtin' unit... Do you not go outside for fear of falling stars? Have you not registerd to have a drivers licence? No credid cards...

Big Brother isn't watching now any more than he was 100 years ago... He just doesn't care...

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: GUEST,T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:18 PM

Posting under someone else's handle, however witty the post be otherwise, is a clear breach of etiquette. The "GUEST" mechanism should be adequate to prevent further occurrences.

The forum has probably always suffered from some bad-faith posts intended to sow discord or create inconvenience rather than encourage discussion. Is there reason to suspect that there are more such spam-posts now than before ? or to suspect that some of the "song requests" are actually attempts to entrap the mudcat in an act of copyright infringement or something ? Even if there is reason to suspect that the frequency of these inconveniences has increased, we should be cautious of restricting our own freedom in response. And certainly if these annoyances are no worse than before, we shouldn't become suddenly alarmist.

T.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:38 PM

I surrender. Again.

Rick

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: GUEST,SeanM, posting from the great world o' work
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:39 PM

Something else that needs to be remembered is that Max is working on several additions to the 'cat, all of which should make your lives a bit easier on the cat.

At one point, he mentioned filters. That will make almost all of this discussion moot. Don't like Guest posts? Use the filters to screen 'em out. Don't like healing threads? Use the filters to screen 'em out. Don't want to listen to anyone else but yourself? Use the filters, and screen EVERYONE out.

Registration is a last ditch solution for an open forum. Sadly, I think that the damage done as far as some of our better contributors that have left, can't be undone at this point. To salvage what's left of the community, I feel that we need to remain open... even if it means tolerating our local pack of infants who like nothing more than rolling in their own feces.

Max has a handle on it... he's announced that he's working on several ideas that will put the control of content in every individuals' hands.

I'm willing to wait it out.

M

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 02:25 PM

Takemus/Tbird (sorry I didn't get the diacritical marks in there): please go back to a year ago and give the threads a good scan. It HAS changed, much for the worse and started thus last summer.

As for those who are concerned that icons of folkdom will not want to register, it is my understanding that we have already lost several who just don't want to deal with the tone of recent months, mainly the type of postings GUEST et al are perpetrating.

Clinton, good points.

Sean, I hope you are right. I hope filters that varied will keep the attackers ar bay. Right now, newbies who come here must really wonder. This is not the Mudcat of even a few months ago.

Sorry, Rick, I guess we tried.

katlaughingworkingforBigBrother&MasteroftheUniverse,honestly!

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 03:48 PM

It hurts me to agree with anything that gangrene or whatever it calls itself posts, but I think that for once it has said something true. Trying to make this place safe against its disciples just won't work. If you are malevolent and obsessive enough you can always find ways of getting in and stirring the shit. It's so easy to get extra email addresses that it wouldn't even be hard for them, and they'd get an extra little kick out of the process, I imagine.

I hate the way things have been going, and worry that we are going to lose really good people we already know, and never get to know other good people.

Anything Max comes up with that improves things is fine by me - but on the whole I favour sitting tight with as few controls as possible, and totally ignoring anything from any anonymous GUEST. As for unpleasant posting from people people signing in as GUEST+ a name, on a case by case basis, ignore rather than respond. If you see some nasty jibe that is meant to hurt someone, send a personal message of support to the intended victim, and maybe to a few other people, suggesting they do the same.

Basic rule is, the people who are trying to screw up this site do not exist.

Remember the nasty stuff is only a tiny fraction of the good stuff. Worse things happen at sea, as they say. This is still a much more friendly and supportive and interesting place than anything I have found elsewhere in the net - including places which are a whole lot more securely regulated.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 04:00 PM

Kevin, I can see your point, but what about someone of goodwill, like the one who started the thread yesterday on the Jan 26th radio program? First impressions are important and the subsequent postings to it are NOT reflective of the community; but how do you tell that to the casual surfer who might become a member but for their first impression of something like that thread?

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 08:36 PM

Kat - that's a difficult one. In a sense, even if you put in a post saying "don't worry about this garbage, the Mudcat really isn't like that" you are providing the garbage spreader with the agttention it's after. And of course you can't send a personal message to someone who isn't registered.

If the site was registered only, I suppose it would be possible in this kind of situation to send a personal message and hold to a policy of refusing to pay any attention to the wreckers, and that is an argument for registration only.

But the registration wouldn't keep them out, and wouldn't stop them stirring things up in ways which might be just as harmful, and harder to spot.

My feeling is still that the best way is to refuse to give them the satisfaction of feeling they've turned things upside down.

And when it comes to stuff like the example you mentioned, play it by ear, but in a way which as far as possible addresses the new friend rather than responds to the old stirrer.

It's a drag, but we've got to keep it in proportion. Most of the Mudcat is going along well. Most of the rubbish is being ignored by most people. I think the best comment on it all was given in this song by Tom Holt that Jeri loaded on a thread a little way back, which I've stuck on my website so I can find it any time I want. Like now.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 08:40 PM

That blue clicky thing (actually purple) wasn't quite right. Here's a better one, I hope: Newsgroup Personality

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: GUEST,Gaughan
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:37 PM

Just like to make a brief apology - I posted a message here the other day and left it unsigned and, in view of all the discussion about anonymous trollers, I regret that. I'm an old Usenet head and haven't quite got my head round these new-fangled Web-based forums (fora?)

For what it's worth, what I see happening here is something I've seen many times before; a community gets established and in comes some troll firing off garbage all over the place. Some innocent souls engage the troll and the temperature soars. Regulars leave and the rest are left scratching their heads. As some have pointed out, restrictions are seen by trouble-makers as a challenge. Ultimately, the *only* effective way of dealing with trolls is to ignore them. It is all basically just a variation on attention-seeking behaviour and without that attention they die in the silence.

Don't let some infant with too much time on their hands get the better of you.

Incidentally, the reason I am not a member is that I don't use cookies.

Dick Gaughan

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Escamillo
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 11:14 PM

As many of you may have noticed, the net is a dense forest of stupidity. I've visited many places, stayed for a while, read other's messages and left as soon as I saw those symptoms. The Mudcat was one of the few exceptions, so I stayed and enjoyed and learnt. I wonder how long would I stayed if I had seen the kind of messages that we have seen here in the last month or two. 10 minutes? an hour ? I would say "oh, just another apparently good place plagued by flamers ! -no, thanks." And I may have had very little (as I have) or very much to contribute.
Then, suggestion:
1) Display a set of rules at the entrance door.
2) Allow guests read everything, as it is now.
3) Allow guests to fill a form with ONE music request at a time, and a short comment.
4) Encourage guests to register and then allow them full rights to start threads.
5) Let the cookie be an option. Those members without a cookie would have to enter a password, it's simple.

I don't know wether this is technically possible or not. Being a programmer/analyst, if I can help in any way, I'm at your orders. Or you prefer I sing ?? :))
Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Áine
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 11:18 PM

Brilliant suggestions, Andrés. I hope Max is listening.

-- Áine

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 12:11 AM

Ahh Dick, thanks for the feedback. If you're still around, Heather Upfield in Edinburgh says hello.

I wish it were simpler here. One problem for me is that by getting to know about 30 Mudcatters fairly well, two things happened. Number one: I would easily get protective when someone I liked was attacked. I (and others) would quickly respond in kind to the nasty one, knowing full well that would only encourage them. Number two: I've become increasingly open about my personal beliefs, joys, sorrows and idiocyncracies. I simply found a community that interested me for the most part. Not something that I'd found before in the mainstream world. It's not like chatting to folks who share your hobby, ie: baseball, Shakespeare, stock trading etc. It's the folk music "thing". It's a "lifestyle" and this is the only community of it's kind that I can visit without traipsing across several countries (which I'm trying to cut down on). I've invested heavily in this community, and even though I feel it's become much too broad (and reflects that mainstream, that doesn't really interest me) it's difficult to leave..but getting harder to stay.

Rick

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: GUEST,DeeAnn
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 02:18 AM

For what it's worth, I'm a registered 'newbie' who has only posted one time but visited often. Each time I've entered Mudcat I've been thoroughly discouraged to participate in any way, due to the nature and severity of some of the postings. I come looking for lyrics, music, information and a little comraderie, but I keep backing out quietly and asking myself if I really want to subject myself to such abuse. The answer is always no! So once again I leave in disappointment, hoping the next time I decide to visit things will be better.

DeeAnn Lurking since October 1999

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Escamillo
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 02:54 AM

Rick, DeeAnn, and all: there's an argentine (modern) song that says:
Porque me duele si me quedo
---- 'Cause it hurts if I stay
Pero me muero si me voy
---- But I die if I leave
Por todo, y a pesar de todo
---- For all and despite of all
Mi amor, yo quiero vivir en vos.
---- My love, I wish to live in you.
(The author makes reference to our country)
Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 09:03 AM

Regarding the question in the title, no.

The problem with anonymous flamers isn't the flamer, obnoxious posts is easy to ignore. They're personal attacks, and I can see no motive/reward for someone posting them than to provoke people to come to the defense of the insulted individual, thereby disrupting conversation.

Individual idiots are not a problem. The extreme nastiness happens when we let them change and control our collective "mood," and this has happened. I have pulled back quite a bit from Mudcat because of it. We quit listening to the words in a post and react to the fact that it's "anon." Where otherwise, we would ask "what did you mean," we knee-jerk flame anonymous posters. When I signed on in May, I don't recall this happening, but I may have just missed it. It seems people see anyone who doesn't sign their name as the enemy. For my part, I will read and try to understand the words they write.

I do think that some mandatory name, (they could type in "XYZ" for all I care) even for cookieless anons would be a good idea, so we know who to refer to, instead of "well, the second anon said..."

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 01:50 PM

I didn't read all of the replies to this but isn't there a way to just identify the non-registered inputters so those of us who don't want to bother with unregistered inputs can flip past them? Is that what a posting labeled GUEST means?

It concerns me that so many people are spending so much time worrying over this when they could be listening to or playing or learning or sharing music. Myself included! Why am I spewing my thoughts today instead of cranking up the old autoharp or improving my note-reading? I have about a thousand dollars worth of songs I've never played, gathering dust on my bookshelf! I could be learning MIDI and hearing some of those songs right in this site instead of reading them!

I this happens for the same reason we mere humans do a lot of things-- we get lonely and we look for like-minded people to be with, and sometimes we get carried away in that... if we were in person, though, we wouldn't do it so extensively. Someone would get sick of it and start a new tune, and we'd remember why we came. Some of this is just part of the new addiction to surfing that is carrying a lot of good time down the drain. It doesn't have to be porn to be a damaging addiction.

Here's a suggestion, I am going to go try it nowmyself-- I'm going to log off this addicting machine and addicting conversation, and go put a CD on, and next time I log on I'll try to remember if the music affected how I feel about the issues raised in this thread and others like it that I skimmed through today. And I bet that the lyric someone sent me for Tubas in the Moonlight will stay with me longer than this side issue.

Mudcat does not have to choose to endorse its members and users and abusers dwelling on difficult-to-solve material. Members who care about the site's effect on people can affect people by just redirecting all of us when necessary to the better things in life such as the mucivc that brought us here. let's help each other do that instead of staring into our organizational navel longer than the size of it would support!

I think what I am saying is, take two tunes and call me in the morning.

Speaking of which, I don't have sound on this computer yet at all. Does the site play tunes while you're visiting it, automatically? If not, maybe that would be a simple way to lift us all above the level of these little problems.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 02:27 PM

Welcome home Praise...I like you already.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 04:37 PM

Thanks, and I got a nice nap in too. Off to play for Sat nite service at church with electric autoharp!

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 05 Feb 00 - 04:57 PM

I think we all do too much self analysis -it's a great site, don't respond to the wise guys and let it flow guys-let it flow!

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Feb 00 - 10:18 PM

Takemus/Tbird please go back to a year ago and give the threads a good scan. It HAS changed

And as you travel back, back, back, in time...

you find that a laughing cat - with only a monotonous-bagpipe-drone-of-discontent,.....

a cat spurned by educators for her lack-of-empathy and therefore seeking to reconcile the misbalance-of-the-cosmos with a mack of healing

A cat severely lacking in most musical and search-engine and self-esteem-skills has been....closely associated with the ......NEW

MudCat Social Consciencnous

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 01:49 AM

Gaughan, I understand your well-made points regarding the flash-in-the-pan trolls who may drop in, fire off a flame, and leave if ignored. The primary problem in the forum here is, and has been, an individual who has long participated in the Mudcat, and with whom most of us are familiar. His jibes and personal attacks in support of his own agenda for the Mudcat have become more and more vitriolic, and they increase when he feels he has any support.

As a result, posters have lost a lot of the open and straight-forward feeling that characterized this forum not too long ago. Many of us can "take it on the chin" and go on with the battle, but few come here looking for a fight. When I scan the threads, I see a lot of song, music and instrument-related threads. I don't see much of the pure magic of genuine thought, humor and creativity that was amazingly typical of this forum, though. Those things require risk taking, and a tolerant environment that has been steadily eroding. Perhaps some welcome this change with open arms ... but even they must find the tactics used to achieve it somewhat degrading.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Escamillo
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 02:29 AM

LoneSome, a lot of those "pure musical" threads, many of them trivial, and many of them answered but never continued, not even with a simple "thank you", give me the impression that their only purpose is to fill the list and push down all others. I don't know who writes them, but he/she seems to be willing to end up alone in the Mudcat, perhaps answering his own musical requests.
Besides, they overlook the fact that among musical people, all matters, even those called BS, (as in any gathering of musicians) drive us sooner or later to musical matters and to a lot of learning and enjoying. I hope if they love music, they will realize this and cease fire.
Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: The Shambles
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 06:35 AM

A successful thread is not defined by its length (steady Bert).

For just one post such as an anouncement, is all that is required.

One question and one answer is also all that it takes sometimes.

The best ones for me are the ones where everyone feels they can and are welcome to contribute.

I do take the second point though and we should all recognise that this place will continue to change and that a 'young upstart' may not see, that the Emperor is indeed not wearing the finest clothes.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: The Shambles
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 06:45 AM

Well you know what I was trying to say.

Please take out the 'not' in the last sentence.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: JedMarum
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 08:48 AM

maybe a simple, 'ignore this post' button would be helpful

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Mbo
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 10:37 AM

Oh my God was that REALLY Dick Gaughan?! I love him! And he came over and graced our little website? I feel so honored! When will he come back? I'd like to tell him how much I like his music! I can't believe what famous company I'm in! MUDCAT RULES!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: MMario
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 10:44 AM

Would someone please peel Mbo off the ceiling?

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: SingsIrish Songs
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 11:37 AM

I don't think registration should be required...I tend to skip over the "controversial" stuff that has especially been causing the problem as of late...

I like the fact that when I go back to New York from California, I can access Mudcat via my sister's computer (or any computer, for that matter, to see what's been happening). The Guest feature is a good new addition...

Like with TV channel surfing, if you don't like the particular thread, skip over it!

Glad to be a Mudcatter!

Mary

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Feb 00 - 08:30 PM

i think that gargoyle caused the mudcat crash cause he was talking about that type of stuff with the filters and things so we should register him off and the nazi guy too

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 Feb 00 - 12:09 AM

I have a new plan. I'm going to write nice things to crabby people just for fun and because I can. I can even use this plan to learn new songs-- perhaps if I use the DT as my source for nice things, I can soothe some savage something-or-other. I think on my worst days I would melt completely if someone sang me just about any song in the DT library instead of engaging with me in whatever snit I'm trying to start! Sometimes my husband wanders into the kitchen when I'm throwing pans and muttering vile things and drowns me out with some lovely violin melody he's been practicing that I don't know he's learned. A violin in a tiled kitchen makes a lot of noise!

What do you think?

We attack at dawn.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Feb 00 - 06:03 AM

There some more thoughts on the subject of LYR REQ/ADD threads. here LYR ADD/REQ

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 00 - 04:48 AM

More of your thoughts you mean.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Feb 00 - 10:16 AM

Actually, 4:48 AM Guest, you might note from the length of the replies in both threads and the variety of thoughts expressed that Shambles has some company in thinking about these things. We would welcome your thoughts too, and I think most of us visit the Mudcat Cafe to visit with each other, share a few tunes, maybe see what a friend thinks about current events, maybe vent some recent or old hurt with someone who understands.

But we don't generally come expecting people to walk past our "table" and without any preamble just fire off a shot to our soft and tender parts. It's true that sometimes a fight starts over someone's poorly expressed passion but it isn't often nasty. I'm a new habitue' and it looks to me like a place where people try to keep it safe enough for everyone to be able to risk their own discomfort. It isn't PC, but it is generally not a place people visit to do a drive-by snooting. You might like visiting a place like that.

And sometimes we may mudwrestle in here but it is considered appropriate to introduce ourselves before the wrestling begins.

I really hope you'll join us.

Subject: RE: Should registration be required or not?
From: Blackcat2
Date: 09 Feb 00 - 10:33 AM

Hi all

please, everyone ignore "drive-by snootings" especially by identity free entities - paying attention only encourages them.

pax yall

Blackcat2