Forum Posts Visible w/o Login

So I noticed this morning that the entire forum is now exposed and you don’t need a login to read posts. Not sure how I feel about that really. It was nice that the forum was closed and if folks wanted to read, much less reply, they had to have an account.

At the least, this seems to be a way to encourage the spammers to come out of the woodwork. Can we get our closed group back, please?

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I’m of two minds about it, because letting everyone see it might bring new fans in, but I can see all the downsides like you’re talking about too.

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I could see not letting us be crawled by the search engines or being snooped on by unamazing randos, but if I post a link somewhere, it’s useful for people to be able to see what I’m linking about without having to sign up. Posting links externally is useful for telling non members about something happening in here.

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Yikes, I’m glad you discovered this and shared it. I agree that removing the gate might encourage new visitors, but I’m of the mind that this is vastly outweighed by the benefits of keeping it closed. And search engine indexing? The last thing we need to be doing is feeding those maws.

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The plan was always to open the gates at some point – that said, if a majority feels strongly about continuing to require registration, we will absolutely take that into consideration!

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I have no problem with the viewing of posts being open to the public. Going back to LadyShelley’s comment, how are spammers going to make use of the ability to see posts? They’d still have to create an account to post.
More exposure should lead to more fans.

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I’m ok with it being open. Just don’t go look at the thread I made for my Crow/Servo ship fic. It gets pretty steamy. :wink:

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It sorta felt like the intention was to eventually open up the forum – if not to present it in some corner of the Gizmoplex then for inclusivity (and maybe some new sign-ups).

But SEO is gonna get real weird real fast as we take sides in the raisin snail wars, respond to near-everything with “Mitchell!” and “pretty nice!”, and wax poetic about posture. Don’t forget the chicanery going on in the Regular lounge. Is there a noindex meta in place?

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I think there will be an initial rush, but over time some of the tide will roll out. In the end, the worst that could happen is a careful eye is needed and we bring new folks into a fairly generous fold.

More interaction leads to maintaining or gaining subscribers. That probably means more episodes. I’m here for it.

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I guess this means the era of talking about the rest of the internet behind it’s back is over :frowning_face:

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Now we take it to the streets!

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Stay vigilant. Stay alert.
Suuuuuuuuuuuuurge!

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Does this make us truly test subjects? Since we are now being watched by non Mysties and they are gathering data about our kind? Maybe we are all in a zoo of some sort and just became self aware of the fact that people are watching us?

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Gah. I’m having flashbacks to Maniac. If we can just… take… control!

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mst3k303doubletake

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an interesting (probably slightly lame in reality) option would be to limit the amount of posts shown (almost a preview) of like 4-5 posts, or whatever the average browser window shows, and then prompt the viewer to sign up to view an entire thread, post silliness and hopefully only then interact.

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For what it’s worth – we can also make SOME categories private and require registration to see them. Are there specific categories the community would prefer to keep “behind the wall”?

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I mean:

Pretty much all the NSFW, top secret and generally saucy stuff. The fan-fics, the ships, the fogelbergs…

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Everyone must see my Fogelberg!

image

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look away

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