Vote for Making the Forum "Member-Only"

[DarkPacMan77]

* notice * - No matter how the voting outcome is, that will not be the deciding factor. This is just a poll for the staff to evaluate.

Recently, when Puncharger addressed the issue that people aren't "registering", it made me wonder about what would happen if we were to hide all of the forum sections until people were registered. This is a possibility that we could switch over to, but there are pros and cons to every issue and I'd like the communities' input on this particular issue. Please vote!

Pros:
* could possibly lead to much higher member registration
* would vastly help monitor spam-bot usage, since the person would have to manually create the account, thus discouraging the spammer, which means it will be much easier to ban those people outright.

Cons:
* could lead to much lower member registration numbers if people get aggravated during the sign-up
* people may not want to be part of a "private forum"



Let me know what you guys think. If you can come up with more "pros" and "cons" then ask for me or a moderator to edit them into the post.

-DarkPacMan77-

I think its a dumb idea. This is the way the forum has always been and I think it should stay that way. Plus then like you said less people join and thats not a good thing. If you guys put some google analytics on the site you would probably see that those people come back. They may not post on the forum but at least they are coming back and getting what this site is for. Its a website first. Forum second. Plus I haven't seen any spam on this forum in a long time. Only place it happens is the front news page thing. I just don't think its a good idea. Plus with the new psp coming out, we are probably going to be getting lots of new people.

I say trial.

You say less people coming is a bad thing.

Honestly no it's not, your basically saying that you want More bottom feeders.

Im not trying to be a dick or flame.. im just saying.

[ace]

I vote for a trial. :0

I agree, let's vote a trial. before making such a drastic decision, let's see what will happen first. [:

Better than not doing so.

Trial it up

[color=red]Cons:
* could lead to much lower member registration numbers if people get aggravated during the sign-up

-DarkPacMan77-

yeah But Think About It...how Many Members Who Have Actually Signed Up Are Commited To Staying Active to The Site?

[DarkPacMan77]

Cons:
* could lead to much lower member registration numbers if people get aggravated during the sign-up

-DarkPacMan77-

yeah But Think About It...how Many Members Who Have Actually Signed Up Are Commited To Staying Active to The Site?

Well see, that's one of the issues that I've figured into this whole idea. From the current demographic standpoint, there is a pretty hefty number of people, perhaps 70%+ that are registered users but do not post in the forum or even sign into their accounts. The other people that do use their accounts are split between people that come to us for a question or two and then never return and the people that actively participate, albeit weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly - but still consider themselves to be "active" members, and all of those types are fine with me.

The real underlying question at hand here, and what Puncharger is trying to exploit, is the idea of "bottom-feeders", like he mentions in his post in this thread. He's basically bringing up the point that, [color=red]"well... why exactly are we just having people sign up for no good reason and never posting when we could privatize the forum and ensure that people are coming here for a reason - with a purpose, and registering in order to either A.) be part of our fine community here, or B.) Resolve a tech-related issue".

Now see, that's the kind of thinking I like to see. I agree with that sentiment, but going about how to change our current system is a different story. The current consensus is leaning in strong favor of giving this a test run and having a trial period, which is what I believe would probably be best off the bat as well.

At the end of the day, the entire point of this effort would be to attract LESS members but those of which are also MORE dedicated members. Members who have a cause and a purpose or are otherwise joining a "private" forum to seek a more private community in order to get the help that they need, because let's face it folks... we f**king ROCK when it comes to helping out people. I kept track of how many people we were able to help that asked questions for 2 months some time ago and the results were over 93% for how much we successfully resolved problems. We also have one of the largest outright tutorial sections for PSP, I believe... but then again, last I knew that was fully true was a year ago

I guess the real debate would be whether or not privatizing the forum would really bring those types of "quality-over-quantity" type of members, but perhaps that's exactly why we should do a test run first... hmm. Much for the mighty DPM to ponder in his cave about...

-DarkPacMan77-

When i first joined, I wasn't Very active, Like you said asked a few questions, but when i got into the WiiScene, i decided to post alot more and help people. I also like talking in here as i know we have a great community, The only thing im anoyed with is i started in like Feburary, and because of that i have so low post count a day, Still alot more then some people but if i i joined from when i started Posting, it would be alot higher
Basicly, imo i don't care if we only have 10 active people, Etleast the forums active. However I hate "Bottom-Feder" Stop eating S**T and help. Reediting later off to school.
Thanks, Alex.

I say we do what other sites do..

Gotta be a member to see links.. etc.

The important stuff at LEAST.

I say we do what other sites do..

Gotta be a member to see links.. etc.

The important stuff at LEAST.

Meh, But i do that on other sites, just sign up and don't post nothing. No offence to the other sites but its ridiculous things like Download links...L I personaly think their should be a post limit to see things but if that happons, we would get lots and lots of spam. Not exactly sure what we should do.

[DarkPacMan77]

I'm against hiding links, personally. This new idea wouldn't be for the purpose of hiding download links - although that's something it would consequently do. From my perspective, the biggest positive influences that could come from this transfer is that it would DEFINITELY create a better environment for the staff to track down spammers and have them banned, and second, it could attract good quality members and weed out the 0 posters.

Then again... it may NOT bring those quality members. I suppose that's a toss-up that the trial will have to solve, since it seems that's the way the forum is leading.

-DarkPacMan77-

[crait]

I don't want to have to log in everytime I want to see if someone posted.
Okay, I'm out of here! (I messed my hand up! No more typing for a while!)