No guest viewing permissions?

[McConnaughay]

Fair enough

... What?

I feel like you misunderstood. I never called what you did weird, you said you have your boards open for guests to see, but not to post. I said "I always thought that was weird" (as in, for someone not to have their boards open to see).

 

[Webster]

You should have some of the forum visible otherwise no one will know what the forum is like, Closing the whole forum off is silly. I would not join such a forum,

I leave all boards open for the guests to see, but must register to post.

Agreed on both counts.

 

[Nebulous]

I always thought that was weird - what exactly are you trying to hide?

They aren't really hiding anything because anyone can make an account and see whats inside.

 

[McConnaughay]

They aren't really hiding anything because anyone can make an account and see whats inside.

They are though. They're hiding their forum from guests. Unless you really think your discourse is that amazing or that bad, I can't see a reason to not have it visible as a pitch to onlookers on the fence about registering.

 

[Nebulous]

I remember I was on a local forum where everyone pretty much everyone knew each other IRL and they closed it off to guests because they wanted to keep the creepers and weirdos out. These members often talked about their personal life, posted personal photos, organized meet-up's and hang-out's at places in the area. They vetted each new member who signed up. You either had to give the admin your phone number so she can call you ...or you had to write the forum's url on a piece of paper and hold it up in a selfie / photo of yourself ....or give the admin links to your social media accounts so she could DM you there. They eventually closed the forum and moved to a Facebook group. #Lame

 

[Ravenfreak]

I always keep 99% of my forum open for guests to view. I like to lurk on most communities before registering to see if I'm going to enjoy my time participating in the community or not. Most of the time if I notice that most of the forum is hidden from guests, I will not join the forum.

 

[Banned]

How do you feel about forums that are completely shut off to guest viewing?

You have to register and/or login to the forum to be able to see anything?

Is it a turn off or does it make you want to join to see whats inside?

I have never signed up to a forum that I couldn't check out first.

 

[MrDawn]

If I can't view the forum itself, I'm not joining it.

 

[Cpvr]

If I can't view the forum itself, I'm not joining it.

Me either. I need to see what the forum is all about before I join.

 

[Phillip]

Me either. I need to see what the forum is all about before I join.

I totally agree with that. I have to know before joining any forum

 

[Black Angel]

I have a few viewable areas on my forum and I had a section for guests to ask questions or validating members to get help with their account, but it ended up being flooded with spam bots.. I never had posting enabled publicly and always required verification, but that ended up being just as annoying..

My Mod CP was full of posts requiring verification, so I ended up going through most of them and adding the sites to my word filters before I just decided to disable it for guests entirely.

If I get around to advertising or doing exchanges again then I'll just post a notice for those members in my topic and call it a day..

 

[Kyng]

Not a fan at all.

Admittedly, my own forum does have some of the more sensitive sections shut off to guests - but, they can still see most sections!

 

[Mendalla]

How do you feel about forums that are completely shut off to guest viewing?

I would only do that if the site had a private purpose, but I would also shut off registration and just sign everyone up myself (e.g. if it was for employees of an organization). A site that allows public signups probably should have something visible to non-members.

I do have private nodes on my site, e.g. the "site business" forum is only visible to members and there's private forums for the staff that users of any stripe don't see, but the regular discussion forums are all visible to guests.

 

[Bawse]

I think it's a bad idea. The forums would be losing a lot of potential traffic/members because Google won't be able to find the content in search engines.

 

[PsychoticThoughts]

I think forums that do that are downright suicidal... Why would I join a place if I can't even tell if it's still alive. What reason would I have to? I can't gauge anything, neither good nor bad about it.