Guests.

Malintex_Terek

I propose we change the names of "guests" on our forum to something a bit more nasty, since guests aren't really beneficial to promoting Arlong Park as a popular hub for critical discussion, debate, and social relations over the information superhighway. Guests contribute nothing to AP and instead leech bandwidth, and I am willing to cite them as the primary source of spoilers on other boards. There is, indeed, little incentive to register on this board and I'm not sure if malicious guests (hammerers) are able to be banned.

Hopefully, with a less cordial term labeling these unregistered users, more will be willing to register, which is the first step toward having them contribute to AP.

As to what this term should be…I have no idea. "Fishbait" is the first thematically appropriate term that comes to my mind, but an even more sinister label would be 'weeaboo'.

Thoughts?

captain usopp

ok. what IS a weeaboo?

Malintex_Terek

@captain:

ok. what IS a weeaboo?

It's taken from a comic strip known as the Perry Bible Fellowship, where when one person says the word "weeaboo" a bunch of other people chain that person to a wall and hit him/her with a pipe, chanting 'weeaboo, weeaboo'.

Nowadays, it's been popularized by Yotsuba as a derogatory slang term for wapanese. I'd call it the Western equivalent of otaku in Japan (because "otaku" isn't negative in the West, though 'wapanese' is).

captain usopp

this word goes beyond me.

CosmicDebris

Guests can't see what their title is unless they post…and guests can't post by default. So it's pointless.
But we can make the spoiler board only viewable by registered members.

Malintex_Terek

…that's not what I mean. Taken from the main page:

Currently Active Users: 182 (46 members and 136 guests)

And from this page:

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)

…

My proposition is that 'guests' in this context be changed to something like 'fishbait' or 'landlubber' or something simmilarly insulting. It's a relatively minor change that will likely have a minor influence on the guests, but at least it's a step in the right direction and I couldn't really see anyone getting bothered by it.

Ms. Suave Debonair

Is it not possible to close the forum to guests for certain parts of the week? So around about the time the spoilers appear, make it so you have to login or register before you can access the forum. I've seen it happen on other forums..

CosmicDebris

I've been to forums that do stuff like that, and honestly I couldn't care less, I'm entirely anonymous in the forum.
Hiding the spoiler board definately would influence people to register, although nothing can really make them post and start contributing.

Battle Franky

@CosmicDebris:

although nothing can really make them post and start contributing.

Right, and I don't think we really want to create hundreds of 'dead on arrival' accounts overnight. Plus, I'd think a large element of these guests are foreign based, probably non-english speaking (we are linked on 2ch a lot) who couldn't really contribute in any meaningful way in the first place.

So.. it'd be a pretty pointless endeavour to twist the arms of guests to register, just so they can become guests in members clothing. I think the people who genuinely want to register & contribute, will eventually do so and those anonymous masses who just want to flood the spoiler board and repeatedly hit F5 on a Wednesday afternoon, will continue to do so… forever and ever, amen!

Buuhan1

Some time ago we had guests blocked cause we were going through server issues. And ultimately I agree that the forum would be able to run for less money if it wasn't for them.

But then we'll get tons of dead members who simply login to view with names like luffy123456 clogging up the memberlist.

So, yeah. It has its pros and cons…

Also, many people tend to look around the forum and see if its a place they'd like to contribute to before registering. I use to be anti-guests but now I realize how we can't just block them.

We already have things like senior members seperating from normal members making them feel less than them, so last thing we need is to seperate guests. We are all One Piece lovers, so why would we?

dinty

I'm not sure if anyone else does this, but I usually don't log in to my account until I'm ready to respond to a specific thread. This means that half the time I'm on AP, I'm actually listed as "guest", not as "Dinty", even though I'm still te same old Dinty that I always was.

I have a feeling that there might be a certain percentage of "guests" who are registered users like me, but who have not logged in properly yet for whatever reason (and there are several good reasons). So AP might not have as many "leeches" as it first seems when looking at the guest count!

I also agree with Buuhan1 about how some guests are lurkers who are checking to see if they're a good fit with the AP community before registering for it. I think that's great, because, as Battle Franky said, the last thing we want are people signing up immediately and then realizing they don't fit in with the community and never using the account again, or worse, spamming it out of frustration or anger.

To use myself as an example (sorry, I'm not trying to be egotistical here, I'm just too new to AP to know anyone else's registering stories yet) I lurked as an unregistered guest for about three months before registering officially. I wanted to see the sort of community you had here, the kinds of questions that were being asked, and how well I'd fit in. Then once I got a good sense of it and decided that I'd like to join you, I "unlurked" and became officially Dinty. That's the reason why my intro thread was called "another guest steps from the shadows" – because that's literally what I'd just done : unlurked as a "guest" and become a registered member.

Hope that helps!

e1n

i'd personally rather have the guests stay as guests forever. ~~in fact, some members should have just remained as guests. <_<~~

oceanizer

Good example of member-only forum for some goodies, but never had anyone post about anything:

http://www.kefi.org/forum/

When I was still doing One Piece + Bleach + Death Note + etc translation, I made those translation boards for registered members only. Since I usually put up the translation really fast, people did register on that forum, which resulted in 2109 members as of now. Though, no one really posted anything >.>

So, my conclusion: lurkers/leachers will forever be lurkers/leachers. :x

Malintex_Terek

I'm not advocating restricting spoiler forums to members only, for the same reasons mentioned by ocean, BF and Cosmic. We already have enough dead weight here as is.

My proposal has two benefits, the first somewhat significant and the second marginal. The first is that AP becomes a bit more thematic with our "pirate manga" when we use the terminology; it helps define our forum a bit better in a simmilar fashion to Disneyland calling its employees "Cast Members" or Wal-Mart using the term "associates". We already have naval rankings for the mods/admins/editors, so why not apply the same to members/guests?

The second is subtle conditioning as I outlined earlier. If we use an insulting term, it becomes insulting to either stay here or remain as an anonymous guest. While driving people away from AP seems like a bad idea, we really don't need hosts of guests who are not foreign that don't contribute and instead lust leech/hammer our site, so we're better off with them gone. Alternatively, being called something nasty might be provide an incentive to register.

I know when I first came to AP, I remained an anonymous lurker for about a month or so, but after reading the dialogue here and wanting to talk about OP, I was eventually weakened to the point of registering.

In all likelihood, the same probably won't apply to all guests, but changing the terminology in a small way might alter a few mindsets.

dlo62282

I was a guest for around 4 months before I became a member. I first got into One piece because of good things I heard about from Narutofan.com. I caught up with one piece, so I needed a place to see the new raws/scans and I found this place.

Ivotas was my favorite poster than, so he was the reason I decided to join the forums. So if some of you guys dont like me, blame Ivotas.

I think it is a good idea about the pirate theme. The guests name could change as well. I have the same problem as Dinty at times. I read the forums but dont realize I am not logged in at times. I go to make a post and bam it says please log in. lol. I am sure alot of the guests are actually members.

joekido the Second

I don't mean to sound any harsh, but to call guest something like "landlubbers" or "fishbait" in meant to insult them is so unwise and pointless. I become a guest myself when I log off and would I be called such nasty name? We should not snub guest, we should respect them. It's not at fault that they don't resigter and it would be more annoy when someone sign in and only speaks one word theofore never return again.

I never mind guest, I intent to ingore them. They'er like members except that they are not resigtered. I have to disagree with you Terek, it'll sound mean to call the guest some negetive titles. If you log off, you'll become a "guest" too.

And no, I'm not biting your head off, I'm marely stating the fact. I understand your point yet I felt it's not a good idea

igalsfy

if you can't stand being called a landlubber or fishbait, you'll have serious issues in your life.

Majek

respect guests? What rock have you crawled under from? Guests and lurkers are evul. They don't have any rights. So "insulting" them with landlubbers or fishbait is fitting.

joekido the Second

Alright alright, I'm olny saying it's rude to call them that and I'm not saying this to sound like a goody-goody perfect person, I'm saying this because it sounds akward and pointless. Better to just call them guest or evil doers if you perfer it that way.

How about shadowlubbers?

Or faceless?

Ethier way it's pointless IMO.

captain usopp

i actually agree with jokkido. It's pointless. Pointless to be so crewl to someone who has yet to do anything wrong. I don't buy a magazine, till I've had a chance to look at the articles. I wouldn't have joined AP either, until I read a few threads and seen how cool it was.

HEATXZ

How about calling guests Spies

BobTheDarkOne

Did someone say weeaboo?

Malintex_Terek

O_O;;;

…

OH SHI-

...

@captain:

Pointless to be so crewl…

Say what?

oceanizer

I did want to have kaizoku themed ranks at one time, but… well... we'll see. It might come along with new skin if it gets ready?

captain usopp

ocean, how about stow away. (sp) that's what people are, if they are on a ship, but not part of the crew. i also find this not as mean spirited.

Captain Kuro

@captain:

ocean, how about stow away. (sp) that's what people are, if they are on a ship, but not part of the crew. i also find this not as mean spirited.

I'm pretty sure my default title is already "Stowaway". And I've been here since the start (or at least two message boards ago). So it's the default title of most people already I guess. Of course, I don't know what the other default titles are.

Anyway, I think that guests could probably care less what they are called.

Ramza

by changing the name of guest into something else…do u mean

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (1 members and 0 "guests") this guest?

if so…i really dont see the problem with the name change...i doubt that they will even know about the change...

when i read the
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (1 members and 0 guests)

i only read the bolded part…the guest part isnt even important enough to look at...(the only time i read the guest part is in the manga spoiler threads...it amuses me when i see 300+ lurkers...)

Ivotas

@oceanizer:

I did want to have kaizoku themed ranks at one time, but… well... we'll see. It might come along with new skin if it gets ready?

I still never got over it that us editors are not ranked as Shichibukai.

With all that we have in One Piece Gorosei, Yonko, Shichibukai, Admirals, Vice Admirals, Cipher Pols, Revolutionists, Strawhat Pirates etc. there should be easily a solution found to rank admins, mods, senior members, subbers, scanslators, editors and the regular members.

Well just an thought (which going by Dürrenmatt is not to be taken lightly).

Malintex_Terek

@Ivotas:

I still never got over it that us editors are not ranked as Shichibukai.

It's a bit misleading since our numbers are not seven.

Ivotas
Terek
Cindre
yokaiforte
Ubiq
mumbo
Solar Knight
Spaceman

…

Well, we were seven.

Majek

well there's no 7 Shichibukai anymore either XD

Ivotas

Well, the exact numbers don´t matter anyway. It´s just a nice gag that would be a cool theme for this board since it is an One Piece forum. As I said, we have more then enough groups in OP to name every group here.

Asami-chan

…that's not what I mean. Taken from the main page:

Currently Active Users: 182 (46 members and 136 guests)

Guests scares me. . .

Solar Knight

@Malintex_Terek:

Ivotas
Terek
Cindre
yokaiforte
Ubiq
mumbo
Solar Knight
Spaceman

…

Well, we were seven.

It's still seven, since I quit in October.

Cinder

It's 8, since Dr.Chopper is supposed to be on the list too.

oceanizer

Some of the mods are on it, too, btw.

And. Totally forgot about your PM, Solar Knight :X Sorry…

Solar Knight

Since it's more than 7, you guys should be called Den Den Mushi. =]

Zulen

Why would you care about guests…? Do you honestly think Manta Ray's care about the thousands of tiny fish who stick to their undersides and eat the dirt off? I'm fairly certain they don't.

So why should you care about a bunch of non-english speakers come into the forum and watch One Piece? I mean, if they started posting, many posts would be more like this one.

@G-ology:

Wow, bist ja genauso schnell wie letzte Woche ^^
Bist du Dragonbyte, heißt deine Gruppe so oder ist das der Translator?
Du hast ja nichts dagegen wenn ich deine/eure links auf www.mangahelpers.com poste, oder?
Natürlich mit den Credits!!!

Wie auch immer.. vielen Dank für die Arbeit

I have no clue what the guy's saying, so therefore, I don't care.

The_green_samurai_ranger

@Private:

I have no clue what the guy's saying, so therefore, I don't care.

Not that many people speak english, just because this person does not speak english. Does not mean that this person's opinion is not important.

Ubiq

@Solar:

Since it's more than 7, you guys should be called Den Den Mushi. =]

That's not a very good title for a person.

Like Ivotas, I think Shichibukai would be best (or, if numbers are a sticking point, Hachibukai); after that, Lieutenant Commander on account of Brandnew.

Zulen

@The_green_samurai_ranger:

Not that many people speak english, just because this person does not speak english. Does not mean that this person's opinion is not important.

Of course not. That's not what I meant at all. I'm saying this thread is just a big overreaction.

The_green_samurai_ranger

My view point on guest. Unless this forum is going to go private and you have to become a member to view topics, do not worry about it. Eventually people who just view the topics will just register and then they won't be guest anymore.

So many things that people have to fuss about anymore, why do people have to care about the small things so much instead of the big picture that we are all trying to get at?

Solar Knight

@Ubiq:

That's not a very good title for a person.

Think about it, the Den Den Mushi are pretty much phones (and if I remember correctly, a fax machine). Phones/fax machines help get messages/information from one place to another quickly. As editors, you guys put information on the site which is viewed by others. (I wish I could explain this better, sorry. -.-; )

That and snails that work as phones are… interesting. =x

captain usopp

ah, I get it. I thought you were trying to refer it to numbers, like the other example. but getting out information. that makes sence

Ivotas

@Solar:

Think about it, the Den Den Mushi are pretty much phones (and if I remember correctly, a fax machine). Phones/fax machines help get messages/information from one place to another quickly. As editors, you guys put information on the site which is viewed by others. (I wish I could explain this better, sorry. -.-; )

A phone snail in comparison to that is just a creature that which it will ever be. Characters however are not born Marine officers, WG agents or Pirates. They become some. Just like many people here are not born mods, admins or senior members.

But Shichibukai make more sense because us editors are nothing else that members that have been given some priviliges by the mods and admins to work on the site. It´s exactly like in OP where the Shichibukai are neither Marine officers nor WG agents but regular pirates that have been given special priviliges.

And the number really shouldn´t matter here. It´s just about using names from the story as ranks. It doesn´t have to match exactly as long as the gag comes over.

Solar Knight

Wow, that explination blows mine out of the water. ^o^; While I still like the rank name I said, that one seems more… interesting. (oh but why should it matter what I think on the subject. no sarcasm intended =x )

Ivotas

Well yeah, I actually never even understood why it is such a categoric no-no, to use the title of Shichibukai. I mean it´s not like its something that appears out of place in a One Piece forum.

Maybe my biggest gripe with it is, that I constaly see the term "navigator" categorized as a rank which makes absolutely no sense if you look what ranks mods and admins have. They have Marine ranks. If they would be classified as Captains or First mates then navigator wouldn´t seem that much out of place (but then we would be speaking of positions other then ranks).

So if we stay with ranks then we should use something that fits here. Marine ranks make sense for staff. Members who´re not staff don´t necessarily need marine ranks. But I don´t see a reason why Senior Members, Regular Member, Scanslators, Translators and editors can´t receive some group related titles as such Cipher Pol, Shichibukai, Yonkoh or at least Pirate or civilist.

Aww heck, I don´t have anything left to debate here then this matter.

oceanizer

Probably because of this: http://apforums.net/showpost.php?p=404674&postcount=24

Navigator was the first step of converting, maybe?