Add your real name, CH House(s) and dates to your signature

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horndub
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Real Name: Roger Lamb

Roger Lamb BB 55-61

Post by horndub »

I have been a member of this forum a very short while, and when I first logged-on it was immediately obvious that it is hosted by phpBB, a successful and well-regarded Dutch provider. I am a member of two other like-hosted forums, the Riley RM Club and the Hornby Railway Collectors' Association. In both of these it is possible to tell at a glance who a contributor is, for in both groups the registration rule is that the screen name should be in the format: First Name, Last Name, Membership number. We of CH do not of course have membership numbers but we do or did have houses and years, so can I suggest that the moderator(s) consider that a screen name such as 'Roger Lamb BB 55-61' says it all. As such, there is no need for a signature, although it can still be given. My screen name is 'horndub' which means nothing to anyone else and would appear to be spurious to those not 'in the know'. Of course the actual name can be found by clicking on the screen name, but even then, not all of these are complete.

As a newcomer I am not going to rock the boat, as after all, there are many contibutors and thousands of postings over a long period, and it has evidently been working all along. This is no more than a suggestion to see if it has been or is likely to be considered.
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jtaylor
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Re: Add your real name, CH House(s) and dates to your signature

Post by jtaylor »

All good points, and I can certainly see the benefit.

When the forum was started, we were simply keen to encourage participation, and ensure no barriers to getting involved.
There have been a number of people who have lurked for a while, registered anonymously (wishing to put ghosts to bed etc. without being identified)
Some have then revealed who they are, others have re-registered with a new username etc.

So there's the above downside, but also the requirement on the moderators to then approve and prove each username - it would very easy to register as someone else, or a made-up person, unless we were able to somehow confirm who the person was. I know this is the same as now, but at least nobody trusts the usernames at the moment as they're usually pretty random!

Those are my thoughts - open to anyone else's??
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englishangel
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Re: Add your real name, CH House(s) and dates to your signature

Post by englishangel »

As we are a relatively small circumscribed group anyone who joins is usually known by someone else and not that many people join at any one time so it is fairly easy to pounce on unwanted posters. A big busy board would obvously be a different matter, Having said that, my son is on an enormous board (airsofting) and they all have nicknames, though it does have professional full-time admins I think.
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Mid A 15
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Re: Add your real name, CH House(s) and dates to your signature

Post by Mid A 15 »

In general terms you raise a good point Horndub but as has already been stated this specific forum is small enough to be relatively easily moderated. I doubt if there are more than 20 what could be called "regular" posters and there is probably the same again who could be termed "occasional." The remainder post rarely if at all despite over 1,000 user names being registered. There are an awful lot of 0s if you look at the number of posts per user!

In my time on the forum (4 years or so) the only "trouble" has come from unwanted spam merchants, hence the report abuse section.

There was an isolated incident of possible trolling a couple of years back but the culprit was quickly banned and more recently another bit of possible trolling regarding primarily a facebook (closed book to me!) group protesting about the present headmaster.
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DavidRawlins
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Re: Add your real name, CH House(s) and dates to your signat

Post by DavidRawlins »

I have tried using the links suggested to add a few more details, but they do not seem to work. I am not very computerate. Pehaps some one could make it simple.
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jtaylor
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Re: Add your real name, CH House(s) and dates to your signat

Post by jtaylor »

Not your fault - the links were old, and didn't work!

Try the new ones, which I've edited in the first post:- viewtopic.php?f=17&t=39
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