. . .
I am horribly confused.
Why, pray tell, would a website ban registrations?
That is kind of like a city banning construction, pregnancy, and new people moving in.
About the most retarded thing I could ever see a city doing short of mandating genocide or $15 minimum wage.
Most of Naruto Base's problem with 'trolls' is with the admins/mods not understanding how forums and the internet work. The "ship" thread is a perfect example of that. You could argue for it to go within a sub-forum, but it is completely useless as a single thread of discussion.
That's like saying: "Post all discussion about Naruto in this discussion. All discussion about sasuke in this topic, and everything to do with Tobirama in this single line of discussion."
No one uses it because it's the equivalent of a chat room with all the utility and focus of discussion that comes with a chat room - so anyone who actually wants to discuss something posts a separate discussion.
That includes trolls, since trolls want to troll and that is not nearly as easy to do in a single line of discussion (which is also much more difficult to moderate because of the pace of updates and the requirement to sift through individual posts rather than being able to identify troll discussions from the initial post, title, or how 'hot' it is).
But give a few kids a job telling people what to do on the internet, and things are bound to get wonky. It gets even worse when you then add a few adults who then task themselves as if they are babysitting.
Naruto has already given the mods the solution. Simply stop trying to prevent every ill instance and experience.
The reality is that this show appeals to kids, teens, and young adults. Teens are going to troll the kids, and the young adults are going to get annoyed that their philosophical discussions get interrupted by stupidity that they will occasionally get drawn into, as well. As this picture illustrates:
You must be registered for see images
The internet is based off of the free exchange of ideas and concepts. The most popular sites have very little in the way regulation.
Look at how Facebook has handled the issue of 'trolls' and arguments thereof. If I post a public topic - I can delete posts and block people from posting future comments in a public comment. Many other forums allow similar tools - such as posts with too many 'downs' requiring a user to click to see (though usually this only increases popularity as it appeals to curiosity).
The idea of banning user registration is just... retarded. Honest to goodness it is just retarded. It's like saying: "Yes, I want to become a ghost town and I want to fail."
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that these internet forums should become 4chan - but the problems faced by this forum are not unique to the internet in the slightest. I can't even conceive of how someone said: "Let's just close down forum registration" as a serious idea for how to deal with forum trolls.
That is like: "Huh, my brakes aren't working, guess the only thing I can do is ram into the side of that cliff two miles down the road."
