I have difficulty understanding the phenomenon of a lot of members registering but without any sign of activity from them. After all, there is no visible benefit to membership unless you wish to post something. Just being a member of Harptabs.com does not confer any special status (not yet, anyway!). It is not like being a member of say "Mensa" or "the Arts Club" where membership alone is a matter of prestige and could look good on a C.V.
The only explanations which come readily to mind are:
1. Reserving a name. Maybe someone uses a particular screen name on social networking sites and doesn't want the same name to be used by anyone else on this site.
2. Preparations for misuse. In particular there has been a rash of new registrations at the end of January / early February which appear to have been automatically generated ( strange names / timestamp of 00:00:00 in their profiles) some of which have already been used to spam this site with pornographic content or blatant advertising.

Or have I missed something ?


Maybe the headline statistics on the number of members this site has (currently 15768) should be modified to exclude "members" who have not yet posted any (legitimate) content ?

It's always been this way and it's always been a mystery to me, too.

But that's OK. "20,000 members" looks better than "a few dozen members."



Post Edited (2011-03-20 19:12:23)

Hi guys
Just a note to say that I think (IMHO) is that a lot of people read these comments but feel they are perhaps not good enough to have a say. I read a lot of the posts with interest when I can but sometimes don't get back here for a couple of weeks, but I don't have the extensive knowledge that some of you gurus have.

I agree, it can be a little intimidating to have a say when you are new to the site and not confident. It could just be the fear of being shot down in flames. Now you don’t see much of that on this site, but you don’t know that until you have poked around for a while.

I agree with our Kiwi friend, you can read a lot and get great help without saying too much. So being a member and just reading is a benefit.

Thanks greyharp and cjd but that does not explain why they go as far as to register. People can browse the site without registering.

Maybe it is because some sites whether you pay or it is free, that if you join as a member you have access to things that visitors don't and maybe they think that it is the case here. Or maybe it is that some people like being members of clubs and things just to feel that they are part of it, even if they contribute nothing. As far as I go, it doesn't matter if someone registers and never posts tabs or gets involved in the forum, although if someone wishes to do either it is always welcome. I guess the only way we would know for sure is that if Nick added a section when someone registers that they have to put a reason in and then it would be in their profile or if they would all come forward in a forum post and tell us why they registered.

Agree with all said, many people just use the site to play the tabs, as said before you can do this and not join up but many don't relise this. The thing that annoys me most is those that join up and put absoloutely nothing about themselves on their member page. Yes I want everyone to use and enjoy my contribution but I like to know a bit about everyone that does.



Post Edited (2011-03-23 07:47:28)

Whoops! I am guilty of that a little as I have no Profile Message.

It may be because the "My Account" page does not update. It doesn’t for me at least.

If I may add some personal experience, I was using this site for around a year and a half before I actually began to post things. (I became a member for a few months before posting.) It is rather intimitading, for those that cannot play that well (myself included), where there are people here who have posted 100s of songs, thousands of wall posts and have been using this site for a good while.

glad you overcame your nervousness and stuck around 03lindsi. I like your Bolero Tab I have put it on my favourites

I have only been playing my harmonica a few weeks, was glad to find something that I could practice, cooler then the nursery rhymes you always get in beginners books! I subscribed even though I’ve got nothing much to offer yet, just liked your site. So lighten up, to suggest people who join and don’t post must mean to miss use, is a little paranoid, to say the least. I might start posting some of my learners blues now, two weeks and I still can’t play like sonny terry…

Don`t worry too much about tabbing songs until you`re ready Fraze,,,, by "No Activity" I`m sure they mean that these members don`t request songs or contribute to the forum pages as well as not tabbing anything ,,,,,,, You`re here on the forum page well done!!!!!!

I see now that in my original post, I did not consider that someone may wish to simply maintain a list of "Favorite Tabs" or "vote" on a tab to influence its rating. or maybe even send a Personal Message to existing site users, all of which require registration with this site.

Because all tabs, forum entries, in fact the complete site contents are visible to people who have not registered, I was interested to know why people register if they do not then go on to add content to the site. This has also now been mainly answered for me in this discussion thread with the explanation (as I interpret it) that it is consistent with the way some other sites work or that visitors do not realise they already have access to all content.
Thanks for all the answers and apologies to anyone who might have been offended by the insensitive formulation of the original post.

Regarding the issue of registrations for the purpose of abusing the site, it appears to me now that the majority of entries on the first page of the General forum are from spammers (Bleaksensulse, Briplephisp , MumPrupsBus + eteriewrags) , but with varying degrees of subtlety. I am sure that we are going to see more from them and from the other "users" who were created in the same batch.

I've stopped e-mailing reports of spam to Nick because I figured it will be lees of a problem once the site gets upgraded...And because I simply got tired of e-mailing every other day.

Spam is something which can hurt our site and the number of vistors we get so I take it very seriously. If you see any spam please let me know. So far I thought it has not been too bad, but if it is then I can make someone a moderator to help keep it under control.

The new site is still coming a long but it is going to take some time to rewrite the entire site from scratch. Right now the ability to load tabs and user information is done, but the code to display it and add new ones is still not done.

I would gladly act as and wear the title "Spam Cop", but as far as the usual duties of "moderator" go, this site does not need one and I would not want to be referred to or be thought of as a moderator.

Whould you prefer that I continue e-mailing you or would you want me to do the delete/ban thing?

Is this spam?

I second the nomination of Gene. He seems to be about the most active member at this time.

Just my opinion, but I consider that spam.



Post Edited (2011-04-07 17:18:08)

Hey, Jeff:
If you don't comment on my review of that Barrett book I'm going to ban you.

the message has been removed and the member banned.

Gene, I just knew you'd be a benevolent dictator.