Someone is STILL posting as Tyger ™ here. How unoriginal. Must be a rethuglicken. Or a fascist. I am the original Tyger and I hereby retire the trail name from use in any capacity. Any further posts bearing the name of the Tyger ™ trail name are imposters and will be subject to warrantless wire taps and anal inspections, as well as suspension of Constitutional rights of liberty and speech. (That means YOU, Conan.;-))
Tyger
This forum badly needs to start register the users so you cant post as anyone. This will also help make it easier to reduce/ban the number of trolls.
Could be anyone
Sorry, I thought I was the original Tyger. I will now go by Tyger II or Tigger. No Tigger has already been used and is a registrated trademark. I will go by Tyger II or Tyger too. Or maybe Tyger '06. That sounds good, I will be Tyger '06, you can be Tyger '02. Not to be confused with Tyger II. Just how many Tygers are out there? Seems like there were two Hotfoots, two Bigfoots and two Leadfoots. Is the Trail bigger enough for two Tygers? 
Tyger
Registering user’s? Great idea let’s assign everybody a number. We must be able to identify the voice of those dissent. Death to the trolls!
Tyger III
This has been suggested many times to the site administrators; the fact that someone was able to open a fake Trailjournal here this week in someone else’s name solely to cause distress or damage to someone’s business and reputation is proof that things are too loose around here. A registration/password system such as those found on other bulletin boards would be a good start, and it’s an easy and inexpensive thing to initiate. Sooner or later, something is going to appear on this site that results in legal action. It’s also fairly easy to discover where specific objectionable posts originate from, as every computer has a specific identifiable identification number; it’d be fairly easy to identify problem address and permananently ban them from the website. This of course wouldn’t prevent someone from sending in something nasty from another computer or a public access terminal, or signing in on a new account under a new fake name, but it WOULD prevent someone from posting from their home or workplace, which is where most people do their computer work. In short, it’d be very easy for the website administrators here to tighten things up, but they don’t seem overly concerned about it.
Longtime Trailjournal Visitor
Zgg-zactly. what the longtime visitor said. huzzah, huzzah!
You wouldn’t believe the sites I’ve been banned from…
I would kind of suck, but a simple registration form could serve to really cut back on the lurkers. It could still be fairly liberally enforced, as opposed to completely unenforced like it is now, but would be a good remedy for obvious, unrepentant, repeat-offending bullies.
In cyberspace, especially heinous trolls are dealt with by a dedicated squad of web masters. These are their stories…
Tyger IV
I go by the name of Tyger, and I won’t alter that one little bit.If you don’t like, then you could change your name. TYGER!
Tyger
this is like that Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk must fight his evil bizzarro world double. I’ll maim you, tyger!
Tyger
The issue of intentional imposters or trolls, and people innocently using the same name as another, could indeed be vastly improved by a system of user names and passwords. I don’t know this particular software, but it could involve quite a bit of labor-intensive hacking on the part of Leif and Zip Drive–who graciously provide this site and service as volunteers.
I don’t believe the recent fake journal to hurt a trail business is part of this problem–it’s a separate isolated incident which did require an initial sign-up on the Trailjournals side by the perp.
The more likely option for Trailforums would be to begin these forums over again using more current and easily acquired ready-out-of-the-box bulletin board software like that used on White Blaze and a bunch of other sites. This may cost money and certainly a lot of work transitioning. It would also nearly guarantee that this forum would have few users for awhile until everyone signed up and got used to the new site. Also there is the issue of how the Trailforums software interacts with the Trailjournals software, if it does at all. The journals side seems to function quite well.
Either way, keep in mind that if this change–which I’ll add my voice, is needed–were to be undertaken it’s not a quick, simple or necessarily cheap matter. Thanks as always to Leif and Zip Drive for keeping this going for so long, and I’m sure they’ll do what they can, when they can, to address these issues and should not be shy about asking the Trail community for help doing so if need be.
Skyline
There are plenty of deadly serious, tightly controlled sites out there. The types that run them never laugh. This site is cool because its just loose and free enough to have fun as well as serious discussion.
Jester
I guess if you’re a fan of Identity Theft then you’ll take the view that it ain’t broken, so don’t fix it.
Some sites that require user names and passwords are administered with a heavy hand. Some are not. For example, White Blaze is usually not. I have a feeling–just a feeling–that if this site went with registration it would not become a heavily censored site.
Skyline
I have a feeling this would not become an uptight site even if a password system appeared. Freedom is a good thing, but the trolls who steal identities are exceedingly uncool people.
As for the police state, let the monkey boy take care of that business. Chimpeach!
The Hiker Formerly Know as Tyger