I would prefer to have the Somersoft forums only viewable by members. Why?
1) I've encountered, when organising get-togethers here in Brisbane, that lots of members forget to sign in when viewing the forum, because they can view without signing in. Then they miss out on private messages and are disappointed that they miss out on things. If they had to sign in to view, it'd remind them to do so, and they'd get their PMs.
2) I may be mistaken, but I believe that limiting the forum to members only would prevent forum content from showing up in search engine results, which would be a big enhancement to our privacy.
3) Privacy again... We share some pretty personal stuff sometimes - and it's good to feel free to do so. Yes, anybody can sign up, and it's still not "private", but if the forum's only viewable to members, it'd still restrict the info on here to tens of thousands of people, rather than "the universe".
4) It wouldn't prevent but may deter some trolling (though thankfully that doesn't seem to be a big problem right now).
In short, I see some significant potential advantages, and no disadvantages. But perhaps I've missed some advantage of being publicly viewable...
Thoughts???
1) I've encountered, when organising get-togethers here in Brisbane, that lots of members forget to sign in when viewing the forum, because they can view without signing in. Then they miss out on private messages and are disappointed that they miss out on things. If they had to sign in to view, it'd remind them to do so, and they'd get their PMs.
2) I may be mistaken, but I believe that limiting the forum to members only would prevent forum content from showing up in search engine results, which would be a big enhancement to our privacy.
3) Privacy again... We share some pretty personal stuff sometimes - and it's good to feel free to do so. Yes, anybody can sign up, and it's still not "private", but if the forum's only viewable to members, it'd still restrict the info on here to tens of thousands of people, rather than "the universe".
4) It wouldn't prevent but may deter some trolling (though thankfully that doesn't seem to be a big problem right now).
In short, I see some significant potential advantages, and no disadvantages. But perhaps I've missed some advantage of being publicly viewable...
Thoughts???