how is registration going over?
 

I know this can be a touchy topic on this board, but I was interested to know if it's cleaned up the trash talking. I haven't visited the sight in over a year because it was getting so ugly and was surprised to see that registration is now required.

Traffic has picked up again, and most of the ugliness is gone, so I'd say it seems to be going over pretty well so far. You don't see much of the irreverent humor that used pop up from time to time (although Hiroshi seems to be trying pretty hard), but I guess that's part of the price you pay with registration.

I was about to give it up too but registration has really helped.

There have been 150 posts since 10 this morning -- so no one can say traffic is down. The most amazing thing is that the topics seem a lot more varied than before. Maybe there are a lot of new posters doing all kinds of topics. Not a lot of humor, but sure a lot of good travel questions and advice. Maybe the humor will return. And I don't miss the nastiness. I think several of the negative posters were blocked several times as they kept re-registering new names and now have given up -- thankfully.

I think registration has been wonderful. It has helped alot and all of the nastiest has gone away. As the word on the board is spreading, I think we will get new posters and returning regulars who will appreciate the site becoming a friendly place.<BR><BR>We were also getting viruses sent to our email on a daily basis, sometimes several a day, and once registration started it stopped, coinsidence? Oh....I don't think so. Wondered if other posters getting viruses found the same thing.<BR><BR>It is such a great site and it will just keep getting better now.

I left a few days after registration, (kinda felt guilty when I got my free gift!) but have returned in the last few days. The other boards just don't have the eclectic diversity and travel chic that exists here. But with registration I guess that means we can't poke fun at our friends from Canada anymore, huh? Just kidding! I'm going to Bruce Peninsula in the summer and am looking forward to it. HAT to all!

It has been good for the US board, but the Caribbean and Latin America boards have seen traffic go waaay down.<BR>Same questions over and over and very few posts.

Funny comment about the viruses. I started getting viruses about the time that registration started -- rarely if ever got them before. Just yesterday my filter stopped about 25 virus-laden messages, usually arriving about 4 or 5 at a time. It's getting really annoying, but I never connected it to the registration here.

Patrick,<BR><BR>We had gotten so many viruses over the last few months, and had the guy kicked off several internet providers. We were able to get all of the email info from the headers and sent it to our ISP and to the the various source of the virus as well.<BR><BR>With registration we figure the person causing the problem has been &quot;filtered out&quot; from here and has given up harrassing us.<BR><BR>If your real email address was on any of your earlier messages, that's probably where those viruses were originating. If you can get the headers from the individual emails, send it to abuse@(the ISP provider).<BR>It took us several months of forwarding messages but it finally worked.

Thanks for this information. An earlier post had suggested that my address had been picked up by a &quot;worm&quot; virus and was being repeatedly attacked as a result of that. No two of the emails seem to have the same heading -- with the exception that &quot;craig's list&quot; appears within many of them.<BR><BR>I will start collecting the information and forward it on, however.

I agree with Diana that traffic on the Caribbean board has almost ground to a halt. Message 53 was from 2 days ago! And many messages don't get any replies at all. It's too bad. I'm not saying that the reason for the lack of participation is due to registration but the timing of when it started does raise suspicions.

When there were a lot more posts, how many of them contained useful information?

I think it's gotten much, much better and am very grateful to Fodors for instituting registration -- for one thing, it makes their supervision much easier so the crap-posts disappear sooner (usually).

I don't like registration. I chose not to engage in the nastiness that sometimes appeared but usually got a chuckle out of reading some of it. If I didn't feel like reading it, I didn't have to. It seemed to me that people were taking it all waaay too seriously. After all, no one was being forced to read or reply to anything they considered to be inappropriate. If the worst thing that happens to someone is having a nameless, faceless person saying mean things on the internet, then overall, life is probably not too bad. <BR>It doesn't seem that the questions and answers are much different than before. There is still alot of Hawaii on the US Board and London and Paris on the Europe board. It does seem that there are many &quot;What should we do in Hawaii, Florida, France, Italy, etc., etc.&quot; questions. Those questions drive me crazy. If you don't know what there is to do/see somewhere, why are you going there in the first place?? (Yes, I feel better now!)

I'm not a fan. It's too &quot;Brave New World&quot; for me. Remember the motto of Huxley's World State?<BR><BR>&quot;Community, Identity, Stability.&quot; <BR><BR>Sound familiar?<BR><BR>We may have stability, but the spice is gone.

I think it is just so wonderful since the trashy talk and bad posters have been removed. This is no place for bad ideas to be talked about, especially in these times, if you know what I am talking about. Lets just stick to travel and be nice! This is a time when we need to give each other a hug.

I miss the old board. Not all of the bad posters have gone away, they're just behaving themselves. The upside is that I'm finally getting my closets cleaned out. Nothing very riveting here to keep me glued to this site like in the old days.

I am also glad that people are behaving themselves. Some people on this board think that they can say whatever they think and get away with it, and use language which is not acceptable.

Reading some of the posters above reminds me of why we have registration and just how dull and uninspired this board has become as a result. As with any time you muzzle free speech, even obnoxious free speech, you eliminate discussion and debate. I used to love to come here. I often found interesting posts and posts where I thought I could make a contribution. Now they are few and far between. The registration folks got their wish and the rest of us have to live with it, a basically uninteresting board with fewer posts, mostly from the same old posters.

I used to visit here daily to get and share travel information. And yes, I can choose not to read the trash talk, but it was getting so bad that you were wading through it to get to what you wanted to know. I don't come here for spicy talk. That's available on other boards. I come here for good travel info and have contributed my share of advice over the years. If registration is filtering out the nonsense, I don't feel my constitutional rights are being threatened. I'm getting what this board is intended to give!

Well said, Lucy. Second the sentiment. I'm much happier with this board, especially because even the idiots are largely &quot;behaving themselves.&quot; There is no particular &quot;free speech&quot; function for this board, so complaints about censorship or &quot;Big Brother&quot; are stupidly irrelevant. The only thing that would threaten the validity of it would be if the only posts that were run were ads for sponsoring interests and there were &quot;censorship&quot; of all pro-competitor comments or criticisms of the sponsors. If that started to happen, it would be very obvious and we'd all slip away in the night.<BR><BR>I'm grateful for the vast improvement in tone here, although I hope the occasional whimsy isn't scratched out too quickly. There's fun and then there's gratuitous nastiness.

And then there's incessant whining, which even registration won't cure.

Yeah. I bet this place shuts down as soon as Matlock is over.

How is it I'm supposed to know something is nasty and therefore not read it without reading it? <BR><BR>I am still wondering why those of you who don't like it here anymore are still here.

I really don't miss the nastiness. I know that I could have chosen not to read it but how I am supposed to know that 3 of the 5 posts were going to be mean?! I now feel like I can participate more and even have a typo or two without being ridiculed and made to feel so stupid.<BR><BR>I do think there might be a tad less humor but then I have read some that were pretty funny too.<BR><BR>It sure makes replying faster since I don't have to type in my bogus e-mail address anymore!

I peruse, but I have pretty much stopped posting. Not because of registration, but because of 2 other things. 1. I just can't take the repetitive questions--Which is the best musical on broadway? How would I know what you would find to be the BEST on broadway? I am going to NYC in 3 days, should I buy Lion King tickets now, or take my chances when I get there? Where is the best pizza? Can I bring my 6 month old to a casino? Which hotel on the strip has the biggest rooms? I just think that if you really are a traveler, you would have done SOME investigating prior to asking these questions again and again. And 2. I rarely, if ever, get any feedback from ANY of my suggestions, and I have been on this board for over a year. So, apparently no one is taking my suggestions, so I gave up wasting my time typing. I do like to read some of the more interesting posts and trip reports though.

I don't see my new posts and that makes me feel like I won't bother anymore. I posted a Key West trip report twice but it never appeared for example. When I tried to find out why I never received a reply from Fodors. I can only assume because I didn't say the right thing about a place everyone on the board here raved about. My experience unfortunately was no as pleasant at this expensive B&amp;B and I wanted people to know. My post was not rude or strange, just my plain facts. Now I'm guessing that perhaps Fodors is turning into a regular paid for advertising forum like most other magazines so I will not take the time to contribute any longer. I'm searching for another travel forum.

I can't imagine for a minute that Fodor's removed your post because they didn't agree with your views!!! Did your post ever appear? Maybe it was too long to post in a single post, maybe it was one of the many times when the system was down. Or did it post and maybe like many others, you couldn't find it later because it had sunk so many posts for lack of further comments, and it wasn't yet indexed in a search function. There are a number of reasons for a post not to be here or be difficult to find, but editor's removing it because it wasn't about a &quot;paid&quot; sponsor is nothing short of implausible.

I agree with Tansy.<BR><BR>Give me the trash talkin' trolls any day.<BR><BR>-darvy

I have to admit it has really become boring.<BR><BR>To Connie who stated &quot;I am still wondering why those of you who don't like it here anymore are still here&quot;....I say it's better than nuthin' at all and it really is hard to leave here after you've been hooked for so long, even if you think it's boring.<BR><BR>

Wintertraveler--If what you wrote was too long, it just won't post. It looks as if it is going to, (you are returned to the main screen) but it doesn't. Try again, and this time if it doesn't show up immediately, break it up into two parts. Post the first part as a new thread, &quot;Key West Trip Report&quot; or whatever, then post the second half as a reply to the first. Bet that will solve your problem.

You could not more obviously be a (current) troll. You know this is a &quot;touchy subject&quot;, yet you declare that you &quot;haven't visited the sight in over a year&quot;??? There was never any mention of registration over a year ago.<BR><BR>And, that you haven't contributed to ANY of the recent Boston inquiries would confirm that.<BR><BR>If you're gonna be an upstart, you're not subtle.

Since this is the only thread you've posted to &quot;wintertraveler&quot; since registration began, it is hard to imagine why you were even doing a trip report. If you really want it to appear, are you going to try again? Or was that under a different troll name?

OliveOyl--It's good to see your name--I changed my screen name upon returning (Lucy is my Boston Terrier). A lot has happened in six months, including a computer crash resulting in the loss of your email address. Hopefully you still have mine and we can re-establish contact. Alot has happened in 6 months. I'm going to be at the big Time Warner bash at your hotel next month!<BR>&quot;Sal&quot;

I think the board is much improved since registration. The vast majority of the posts are specific and informative. <BR><BR>I am surprised at the number of people who seem to post questions about destinations without doing any research, such as &quot;which is the best Hawai'ian island?&quot; No one can answer that, though some of us do try.

tazlor, people were calling for registration well over a year ago as things deteriorated here. BostonLucy just gave the name she used prior to registration and she was a regular providing good info on the Sarasota area.<BR><BR>Hi Sal!! I wondered what had happened to you. You seemed to have dropped right off the edge of the earth. Hope everything is OK. If you still use the same rr address, I've got it and will re-send mine. Welcome back--hope you can stick around. Things have improved dramatically and the board needs someone who knows Sarasota inside out!

Olive-yes it's still the same, starting with a g. Can't wait to catch up.

It is now wimbledon without John McEnroe.

Patrick-for what its worth, I enjoy reading your posts. You seem intelligent, mature, and not nasty. There are plenty of ill mannered people in this world and I would prefer not to deal with them. And yes, I confess that some of the nastiness is amusing. That is until it strikes close to home. So lets leave it out of our conversations and talk about travel.<BR><BR>(Patrick, on my way to Florida in 3 days. Keep it warm for me, ok?)

11 AM in Naples, 78 degrees, perfectly sunny, and a light breeze. Will hit mid to upper 80's this afternoon. Couldn't be better. But better hurry -- we don't know how long this might last!