To All Forum Users

As I said in one of the other threads, what makes this forum great is how open it is to everyone. Some argue that there should be a registration system, but that often leads to a much more stagnant forum, less visitors and the annoying emoticons that do nothing but slow down how fast the page loads. How often do you stumble upon an Internet forum that hasn't been posted on in weeks? Antimoon is open to anyone who happens to surf right in. He/she can immediately join in the discussion. I think Tom's forum is one of the most active and truly international forums out there.

Unfortunately with such freedom there are going to be those that abuse it. We have a couple of nuisances that surface from time to time....now is one of those times. It's not worth it attempting to argue with the troll/spammer....what use is it trying to reason with the mindless? If the guy has an hour to devote to putting a string of periods in every thread or faking people's names, there is nothing that we can say that is going to stop him.

I check the forum several times per day and will eliminate posts that violate Tom's rules. Generally it's not too hard to discern what messages are real and which ones are fake.

I appreciate everyone's patience and cooperation, as I genuinely enjoy participating in the forum discussions and learning from the diverse Antimoon crowd. My apologies to Damian and any others who have been faked...I'm doing my best to combat it.

Have a great holiday,

mjd

MJD,

I've been to some of those other language sites you were referring to. Part of their problem may be the registration requirement. Part of it also seems to be due the favoritism that the moderators show to some people who post on them even when these people are bad.

Compared to these sites and having posted on them , I can honestly say that Antimoon looks good by comparison and I wish you and Tom well in keeping it that way.

You could allow each user to register a password protected name, but not require that a password protected name be used. New people could post using any name that was not registered without having to register anything. Of course, that might be a pain to implement...

I used to be for a registration system, but your arguments convinced me. By the way, I discovered this forum in July, and have always liked the interesting discussion activity that is going on here most of the time. I agree that it is truly an international forum. I have also been guilty of some digressive postings, but have decided to keep to the point whenever I participate on a thread (one of those New Year resolutions which you are able to keep for the first couple of weeks... but I'll try to do my best).

By the way, I miss the updates... I found the last one of November 9 particularly useful.

Sorry, I meant the update of October 26. It was very enlightening.

I hope you weren't talking about some messages in occitan i could not translate into english. If that's so, i beg your pardon MJD.
Happy christmas.

If this forum had had a registration system when I first came, I wouldn't be here now. I hate to register.