Topix has a very interesting post on the their experience removing registration.
Since removing registration, our volume has exploded and just this morning we just passed a quarter-of-a-million aggregate posts on our system. And the quality of posts? To our surprise, our post kill-rate has actually dropped — hovering below 2%. This is less than half of the number incurred when registration was in place.
What gives? We think it’s the “Ni-chan paradox”…
If you’ve never heard of Ni-chan (or “2ch” – pronounced “ni-channeru”) it’s a Japanese site that has the distinction of being the largest internet forum in the world. 2ch champions an “anything goes” approach to posting, and while it’s a bit more wild-west than Topix aspires to be, we believe they’re on to something by eschewing the user registration in their boards.
Here’s a great post explaining the 2ch rationale for jettisoning the reg, and a quick summary of the philosophy:
Registration keeps out good posters. People with lives will tend to ignore forums with a registration process. Registration lets in bad posters. Children and Internet addicts tend to have free time to go register an account and check their e-mail for the confirmation message. They will generally make your forum a waste of bandwidth. Registration attracts trolls. If someone is interested in destroying a forum, a registration process only adds to the excitement of a challenge. Trolls are not out to protect their own reputation. They seek to destroy other peoples’ “reputationâ€. Anonymity counters vanity. On a forum where registration is required, or even where people give themselves names, a clique is developed of the elite users, and posts deal as much with who you are as what you are posting. On an anonymous forum, if you can’t tell who posts what, logic will overrule vanity.
That’s wild stuff.
Is this bizarro world?
Hello!
UPDATE: Dr. John M. Grohol brings the earth back into alignment with “Anonymity and Online Community: Identity Matters” proposing that segemented, simple registration systems are the best route. Here’s a taste:
Membership systems are no panacea, and they won’t stop a person who is committed to disrupting your site. But they do offer an important stepping stone to connect a website’s community to a real person, and that person to their actions. Such a registration process also works to limit the disinhibitory effects of online behavior—or at least some of the more negative ones—and creates a subtle but important psychological difference between an anonymous visitor and a known community member. A person who is invested in a community through a membership system is one less likely to abuse the community.
June 15, 2010 at 8:31 pm
I know this was posted years ago, but bologna. Topix is now arguably the worst site on the internet. Do a google search for many towns and you will be appalled at the absolute garbage on the forums such as “who is the biggest hoe in town” or “who has a meth lab? etc. Many children are attacked on Topix forums and you have to pay twenty bucks to have a topic reviewed for quick removal. That is criminal and allowing libel is a criminal activity. They have no accountability whatsoever and that is ridiculous. That site could have been good but instead it is now simply a place for many lowlifes to tell lies about innocent people. The forums need to either be heavily moderated or the forums need to go away all together. Complete trash.
September 17, 2010 at 3:51 pm
That was a lie told by Topix. They don’t require registration because they fear people will stop posting there if they have to register. That shows a lack of confidence in their business. Good posters who really want to comment on news and not attack others will have no problem registering. Go to most of the forums and it is nothing but trolls which contradicts what Chris Tolles said.
October 22, 2010 at 8:29 am
Does anyone buy that? Topix “fans” are an overrated number. By not requiring registration, someone can go in and post multiple times constantly changing their user name or hiding behing a proxy and make it look like multiple people are posting. By requiring registration, it takes a lot more effort to continue changing email addresses. With all that has come out about cyberbullying and the dangers, the responsible thing to do would be require registration and have a moderator for every forum. You have a much cleaner better site and as long as people aren’t attacking one another and talking about real issues (news stories, etc) Topix could be a wonderful company. They have chosen evil over business ethics and that is too bad. How would anyone feel if they lost a child or their job due to lies told on a cyberbullying site? If Topix is as strong as they claim to be, they would still have plenty of users of their site and possibly bring back people who actually want to read news and not look at a cyberbullying site and let’s make no bones about it, that is largely what Topix has become.
November 4, 2010 at 4:18 pm
That is not true. By not requiring registration Topix knew bullies would come in and attack others and they would profit it from. Registration and moderation holds people accountable (and any reputable company would want that) Topix has chosen money over what is right.
November 12, 2010 at 10:18 am
Topix is basically nothing but internet trolls now. They have managed to run off most people who actually wanted to talk about news. It now has trolls who want to attack everyone and many high school kids now use it as what they call a “slam book.”
Has anyone seen the site Toxic Topix. It has some useful stuff on it. http://toxictopix.webs.com
November 30, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Even Topix own users have asked for registration to come back because the forums are so awful and Topix refuses. This shows a lack of confidence in the company and confirms in many ways that they are no longer a news aggregator but simply a gossip, cyberbullying site that condones outrageous behavior and many times criminal conduct such as sexual predators and drug sales occurring.
January 4, 2011 at 4:40 pm
This was never true. When you don’t have to take a grand total of two or three minutes to register, you are going to have MORE trolls because it is easy to go on and leave a deragatory remark and then take off in cowardly fashion. Most Topix users are not registered and considering the trolling seems to be at an all time high (I have seen forums where it is about 90 percent trolling), this has proven to be completely untrue. It was done to pick up traffic plain and simple and sadly it worked. Four years later cyberbullying has spun out of control, lives destroyed, people committing suicide and now states are passing cyberbullying laws such as California (which Topix is now seriously violating that one) and others. Slowly but surely more and more people are reporting on Topix and most if it is not favorable. It is time for Topix to reverse positions and go to a registration system.
February 3, 2011 at 12:50 pm
It draws trolls?!! Has anyone seen the forums lately it pretty much is dominated by trolls some of which go from forum to forum attacking people, and the biggest contributing factor to that is “LACK OF REGISTRATION.” The reason Topix doesn’t want to require registration is because they are not confident enough in their site to require that, plain and simple.According to another site they are planning to enter the political commentary fray. They better watch their step carefully because allowing libel to occur against political leaders especially when threats are made (common on Topix) is the very thing that might make legislators take note of Topix and considering the trash Topix allows, it is going to cause them a ton of legal problems. It would be wise for Topix to set up a registration and moderation system well before they do anything involving politics.
April 20, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Topix is nothing but trolls now. They have managed to run off good posters with the amount of trolling they allow on the site. The LACK OF REGISTRATION has destroyed that site and what Topix claimed a few years ago has proven to be completely untrue.
February 20, 2012 at 8:46 pm
It’s very interesting to read this article from almost six years ago and to realize that the problem that IS Topix.com has long been in the making, with full knowledge of it’s CEO, Chris Tolles. On Topix the types of comments that are allowed to pass as “news” or useful commentary is name calling made by a few users who post under multiple names so that they can give the semblance of being more than one person, that’s the norm and that’s why they won’t require registration.
I’ve been called a crackhead, welfare recipient, an unsuccessful writer, all sorts o nonsense. Comments have been written under my children’s name, my name, you name it. At first, I did try to report them and they didn’t delete even half of the comments so I stopped wasting my time.
I believe Topix allows the comments to suck people into posting; to draw them into coming to their site. I believe what they want is TRAFFIC so they can get those advertising dollars.
I observed Topix admins getting in on the action, creating monikers and posting antagonizing comments to stir the pot, basically encouraging the abusive behavior on their site. I believe they are banking on those being targeted spending even more time over there.
Chris Tolles, since this was an obvious problem from the beginning has proven that he could care less. He has since claimed that he is cleaning up his site but it is just talk and that’s evident from the outrageous practice he tried to implement of CHARGING members to have the libelous and slandering comments placed on his sites removed. Thank God, the Attorney Generals intervened and put that to bed.
It would be a simple matter to:
a) require users to register with a valid address
b) require users to verify their account with a phone number or credit card before participating in the forums.
These actions would clean up the forums IMMEDIATELY but would also get rid of the users pretending to be multiple people and they ARE the regulars!!!
If Topix required registration, they would lose their fictitious traffic numbers; they would lose their bully and victims, and that’s the basis of their “successful” business model – that’s who you’ll find there, abusive people, bullies and their victims.
April 6, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Registration is the only way to go. I do not care how many degrees Dr. Nerd has, I have a few myself, REGISTER. It provides accountability, its that simple.