just wondering if it’s technically possible to have guest posting expiry set to posts instead of days.
No, no way, absolutely not. Guests are responsible for a huge amount of my enjoyment at this site when they are allowed to run around free in the yard for a month straight.
No, no! What if the guest takes years to get to 30 posts? :dubious:
I’ve seen some lurkers who’ve been members for ever but only have a handful of posts.
This would not work for that reason.
I’d be happy if guests got 30 posts or 30 days, whichever comes last.
what Barbarian said. what’s the harm in allowing a guest to hang around longer? lurkers who ponied up will do so regardless. it took months before i was hooked.
I can’t be absolutely sure what Barbarian meant, but I see this as 30 posts or 30 days, whichever comes first.
I don’t have a strong position on either expiry date, but I’ve seen a few guests lately who’ve joined that turn out to be troublemakers and seem to post as much as they can to stir up as much trouble as they can during their free 30 days.
If it turns out they’re not really interested in joining and contributing, a new expiry rule would cut down on the troublemaking.
We currently have set the free trial period at 30 days.
In my opinion 30 posts is not near enough to get the full flavor of the SD experience, but that’s just my opinion and YMMV.
We do look closely at our guests and how they behave here in the trial period. Let me quote to you from the rules:
i think Barbarian meant that we can set both so if a guest used more than 30 posts within 30 days, their expiry will be 30 days; or if a guest used less than 30 posts in 30 days their expiry will be 30 posts.
Again, 30 posts is not enough. Some new visitors get all excited and make 30 posts in a day or two. Should that disqualify them from making further posts until they ante up? Not in my opinion.
That’s backwards to what they’re suggesting, though. If they can make 900 posts in 30 days (god help us), they’d be allowed. But if they take 5 months to make 30 posts, that should be allowed, too.
It seems to me that if we are letting people that post very little to be here for free, then that means that we are penalizing the people that really like it here and post a lot. Something doesn’t feel right to me about that.
Of course, the people that post the most are those that use up the most of the board resources. Maybe we should start charging a penny a post!
The folks at PayPay would be pissed.
Nobody has to register to read the SDMB, so there’s unlimited lurking. That should be more than enough for someone to get familiar with the place. The guest membership is your basic free trial offer. No matter how much free stuff is offered, people will always want more. The SDMB managment has to draw the line somewhere.
Hey, don’t even joke about that. 
That’s kind of a weird way to look at it. First of all, people can “be here for free” all they want right now, they just can’t post. A “30 posts or 30 days, whichever is last” would just give the slow starters and low frequency posters a chance to try out the board “their way”. And also on this general note, I don’t think you can assume that post more=like more.
Lastly, hey man, this is a capitalist society. You aren’t “penalizing” people, you’re charging them. If that doesn’t “feel right” then move to, ummm, well, I guess they’re doing that everywhere now.
Just testing a quick replay on the most recent thread. Still not sure how this is different.
Now this one is from Post Reply
OK, is the difference that I save one click on quick reply? But I can’t quote anything…?
Quick Reply is just that; a basic box with not a lot of formatting options so you can get off a quick reply. 
Arnold Winkelried, that is an odd way of looking at it. currently we’re penalising the people who post very little, whom i suspect are paying because they want to help the board and not because they need the odd posts every few months.
i view this primarily as a question and answer site, which is incidentally how i (and i imagine a number of other folks) got here in the first place - looking for answers. had this been a pay board then, with a time limited guest account i wouldn’t have remained to lurk around. i wasn’t actively looking for ways to spend money on the internet when free options are still plentiful.
i didn’t have, nor was i inclined to have, a battery of questions i wanted to throw at the board. however, since it was free (or if the guest privileges more flexible) over months i found myself returning to the board as an interesting source of information (and hence hooked). this couldn’t have happened under the current system. a wandering guest may have a question answered, thought of a question months later, only to return to find that his posting privileges have expired. he’ll even be banned for creating another guest account just to ask a question. a walk-in customer is unlikely to be aware of board rules and nomenclature. he won’t appreciate why socks are not allowed or what they even are, and why he was so rudely kicked out the door. at this point why would anyone who haven’t developed a taste for the dope, pay up just to have a single question answered? a question which could be answered elsewhere for free?
our charter members number more than our members. it’s been more than two years already, this is wrong, and must change if we are to delude ourselves that the board is serving the Teeming Millions. we need to look into ways of drawing new blood and not get over obsessed with trolls to the point of turning away potential customers ‘who should know better’.
放長線, 釣大魚