I’m getting heartily sick of forums and websites that require a login simply to read content, particularly when the content is indexed by Google just fine. I shouldn’t need to create yet another login just to read half a page of text. Case in point, I was just checking the Second Life site for the Linux client, and wanted to peruse the bugs and known issues page.
I can understand restricting logins to prevent comment spam — and I have no problem with that. But it’s really annoying to be asked to register just because you want to read about a product’s requirements.
http://www.bugmenot.com
http://www.ghacks.net/2006/01/16/website-backdoors/
Yeah, I know there are sites that allow you to use fake registrations — but, I’m not just talking about media sites that put up walls around their content, I’m talking about companies and projects that use forums to store information about their products and then require a fscking registration just to see them. Bug Me Not is unlikely to have registrations for stuff like that.