Guest book

Have we tried a guest book? At present (30-10-05 in Oz), there are 80 odd guests (maybe some aren`t that odd)who may or may not proceed to posting. A guest book might give us a feel for how lurkers regard EvC (too tame, too controversial, not technical enough, too technical, etc.). While trolls might abuse the spot, it could give good feedback.

There no way to tell whether a guest is a lurker. Anyone who Googles for topics involving the Creation/evolution debate is likely to get links to EvC Forum. Once someone visits an EvC Forum webpage he is counted as a guest for the next 30 minutes, even if he says, "Whoops, that's not what I want," and immediately goes elsewhere.A guestbook thread would help give us somewhat of a measure on lurkers, but we still would not be able to tell how many guests are lurkers at any given time.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Thanks, Percy.Just trying to be helpful.

Your question does give me a good idea, though. It's easy to keep a count of page accesses, and I could define a threshold of page accesses that constitute a lurker. For example, I could set the threshold to 2. Anyone who accessess only 1 or 2 pages within 30 minutes is a guest. Anyone who accesses more than 2 pages within 30 minutes is a lurker. Anyone have opinions about how many page accesses should equate to someone lurking?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

ask the lurkers......

Of course, the next problem is getting lurkers to comment. Like many here who lurked, I was reluctant to post because of the talent, till I realised most were nearly human :-p

I would also look at what pages were accessedI would expect a person on a search to look at:(1) the thread with the information from the search (could be several pages) as their initial contact
(2) the EvC home page (to ascertain bias)
(3) an "about EvC" page
(4) the FAQ page
(5) the Rules page
(6) look at the All Topics page
(7) try the Search feature for the same topic that brought them hereie - kind of bounce around the site.I would expect a non-member lurking to
(1) access the ALL TOPICS page first and then
(2) pick topics of interest, returning to All Topics in between.I would expect a member lurking to
(1) access their Topic Index page first OR
(2) access responses to their messages (ie from e-mail notification) More than 10 would have to qualify, and less than 5 would be debatable, imh(sa)o.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

As a lurkee par excellence,I devoured most of the threads at a sitting, but then I`m voracious.

In the past, I created the "Short Term Topics and Messages" forum, intended for disposable topics (subject to being deleted at any time any admin thought right). I guess I was never able to impress upon the membership my intentions for this forum, and it ended up mutating into the now retired "Short Subjects" forum.I have once again been thinking about this sort of thing. This time call it "Disposable Topics (to be deleted later)". The forum could even be made open to new topics and new messages from the unregistered (or I suppose the registered but not logged in). The catch is, anything in that forum is subject to full deletion by an admin, be it an individual message or the entire topic.My primary intent for the forum, would be for topics such as "Hey Moose, please meet me in the chatroom", or "Hey Mark, please e-mail me". Right now, such things get plugged into the "Coffee House" or some other forum, where (because of the forums "no deletions" policy) they become clutter that persists forever.Perhaps the "Disposable Topics" forum might even succeed in sucking up some of the spam.This message is on topic, in that a "Guest Book" topic could be included. As mentioned before, such could be open to messages even by the unregistered. But if they or anyone else misbehaves, message deleted.Adminnemooseus