Your Comments Please

firstbassman · Post by **firstbassman** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:46 am

I completely missed this thread until now - my morning coffee break.
I tried to get to the forum and didn't see any topics listed. I just assumed the site was down. Tried again, same thing.
On a lark I tried to login (Edit Profile) and lo and behold this is what I found.

By the way #1, many sites list the IP address, not just this one.
By the way #2, both my home and work IPs are NAT'ed, so the address you see is not my real address anyway.

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:49 am

I like having people's real names visible. It feels much more like a community of friends, than, well, a web forum!

I think that's why I spend more time here than at the RIC forum, even though many of the members are the same.

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:05 am

I totaly agree Kevin. I have visited a couple of other forums for gear that I am interested in, but I refuse to talk with people who solely use these crazy names. There's something not quite 'adult' about it. I confess that it was for this reason that I stopped posting on the offical Ric forum. At least with real names, you feel that you are talking to real people & I am certain that if it was not for this, then so many of us would not have met up, over 1000's of miles to see each other.

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:05 am

Um. Hi, Elys. Yes, i am happy this evening, as most evenings - why not?

lyle_from_minneapolis · Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:20 am

Peter is balancing several balls in the air while multiple opinions, concerns and legal issues make the decisions all the more difficult. And he's doing it for free.

Well done, Peter. I do not envy you!

But I greatly appreciate your efforts.

elysrand · Post by **elysrand** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:32 am

Hear hear!! Hats (and toupees) off for Peter!

BTW, viewable IP addresses do not bother me, and they (from an engineering standpoint) shouldn't really bother anyone else on the Forum. That is because they don't really identify anyone except maybe the service provider in general out of the Registry. For example, here we rewrite and spoof them all anyway in our big Cisco edge routers. Every one of about 65,000 real IP addresses for users in our systems all appear to come from the same IP address when connecting out to web servers like the RRF

That's because we own outright an entire huge legacy block of IPs. We don't borrow or lease them from anyone. So, don't worry about an IP address being shown on the RRF pages - it cannot be casually used by spammers and scrapers to personally identify you.

walker · Post by **walker** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:34 am

For what it's worth Peter, when I opened up the RRF this morning, all topics were at my access without logging in. I never do actually log out, so I don't know if that always carried over, so that everyone who remained logged in during the changes you made will still see all topics. Also, I opened this particular thread by the link that was sent to my personal email.

qwezirider · Post by **qwezirider** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:44 am

Benefits to sleeping late on occasion: miss all the fun and everything looks normal.

admin · Post by **admin** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:46 am

I realized that I would be "Malcolm In The Middle" asking this question.

There are many different points of view expressed thus far, and I expect there will be many more. Some believe that I have not gone far enough and others consider that I have gone too far. As always there are those who choose to contact me directly via email which adds another aspect to this process.

My inclination is to protect the comments of members that might otherwise be taken out of context should the threads not be read in their entirety. I also want to keep names and other information within the walls of this Forum to the extent that the software will allow. The easiest way to do this is to require registration to read and to post. This is the most economical approach I can take at present in my attempt to have the search engines out of the picture.

I understand that some visitors will be lost as a result of this action as they may not be willing to register without reading first. Also, this puts a bit of a wrinkle in my goal to spread the word about Rickenbacker to the fullest extent possible. Regarding the latter, I realize that RIC doesn't need me to spread the word, but should I be able to contact someone that they haven't then it has been worth it.

At this time, I will have to live with these constraints. I want everyone to know who they are talking to at least to the fullest extent possible on the RickResource Forum. I have found that it makes a very big difference in the manner in which we relate to on another if our words are associated with our real name.

britye · Post by **britye** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:01 am

Sounds good to me.

beatlefreak · Post by **beatlefreak** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:09 am

We'll support you, Peter.

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:18 am

I was thinking about it, and there's one more aspect of going private that i'd try to comment about being as positive as i can.
Of course, when you know that your thoughts won't be read by "mass public", it gives you a sense of security, but there are two sides of it. It may also give a sense of security while discussing something "out of the forum" (non-members, like ebay sellers, etc) in a, say, slightly negative way - cause you know they won't read it and won't even know their actions or whatever are discussed behind their back. As you may know, there have been links posted here from other forums where this forum is discussed in a negative way, and that closing the door may lead into those people saying, "they've hidden from us - maybe they're afraid of us?"
Sorry, Peter, that my post wasn't positive. I just have a bad habit of saying what i think. I've seen other forums where there's a choice - to create an open (could be viewed by all) topic or a "locked" (members-only) topic, if the poster doesn't want to share their thoughts or info with "all the world".
But of course it's your forum, and i'm not the one to advise here...

bitzerguy · Post by **bitzerguy** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:27 am

100+% Peter. Whichever way you decide is best for your house, is best. You have been quite adept at canvassing, planning and executing to date, and have made the best house on the net. No fear here.

...Dean

lyle_from_minneapolis · Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:32 am

Without real names you start losing real people ("Hello, I'm 2NeckRicky"), real conversation ("Ah go to &*%$ Dummy"), and real relationships. I'm glad they are still here for us to view.

To the outside world, most all forums are cliques (they really are, I suppose) that can be uncomfortable to join at first. But this forum still is open to anyone who wishes to join.

admin · Post by **admin** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:39 am

Sheena: Thanks for your comments. They are well taken. Rest assured that the standard for posting remains the same when it comes to how others are treated.