Pros and Cons of Hidden Boards

Yes, on my largest site, we do have some boards hidden from users - Newbie Introductions, Discussions, General, Games, and Story/Art boards. Everything else - profiles, exemptions, announcements, and the rpg boards - are open for guests to view. Having some boards hidden is fine, but the most important ones should be open for them to see. If you have those boards - in the case of rpg boards, profiles and the rpg boards themselves - you will turn people away because most people want to see the level that things are at. If they can't, they might join to see, and then if they don't like it, you'll never see them again. Those that don't want to - like me for instance - won't bother wasting the time to register.

Unless there is a specific reason where the content would need to be protected, like on writing forums as Sakhi said, I don't think it is necessary. Setting the boards to member posting only is much more effective as it lets guests see what happens. If they like it and want to participate then they although they have to create an account, they are willing to do so.

I personally dislike it when boards are hidden to guests for no (apparent) reason. If you want privacy then put a password on the board or have it so that the board is truly hidden (I forget the exact combination of settings) and the guests have no idea that the board even exists. This is what we do with our evil, cabalistic Staff board

I don't like forced login boards in order to see the content. It drives me away. I like to have some glimpse of what is around so I can make my mind.

However, I admit I have hidden boards from guests, but I don't just randomly hide everything from them, on the contrary I tend to leave all light take + debate open. I even have the SPAM area open for guests to post in, as well as the suggestions & feed back one.

I don't like in the other hand, when Blog and art areas are public viewable. Thus, since I like my members to feel relatively safe when sharing their creations and/or make their rants, I hide those boards from guests access, This is just to avoid plagiarism and easy prey troll stalking.

So my opinion is that it should be balanced and according to what your board is about.

I don't have any boards hidden from guests because I find it rude. As it has been said, if you really need a board to be unavailable to guests, then password protect it. Guests want to see what is going on in the forum and see how active it is and get a feel for what types of people frequent that particular forum and if boards are hidden, it gives them the idea that the site is full of elitists or could possibly leave them wondering if the site is breaking any of PB's TOS rules as well.

I think hiding them drives people away and makes them not want to join your site because again, as it has been said, who wants to join just so they can see what might be available? Now don't get me started on how tacky I think it looks to have the Expand/Collapse Boards code on your site because that is for another thread discussion

I have a member Bulletin Category with the Introduction Board and Member Corners lock. There's no reason why guest need to read the members introduction and the members corner is to discuss grievance and other subject matter pertaining to members only so there's no reason for guest to read this. I also made my Modification/Hack board access for members only. I work hard on those tutorials and I don't want non-members to access them. You can see all 3 boards but you have to sign in to read them. My Staff Bulletin is completely invisible to non-staff members while the Members Bulletin is visible to everyone but you need to sign in to access the 2 boards. Everything else is open including the most active boards.

I do have a nag in place though that is easily removed my clearing your cookies. After you click on a total of 5 threads, so on the 6th as a guest (if the thread has 6 pages, it still counts as 1, it has to be 5 new threads across boards) then you are redirected to a message that ask you to register or login to continue to read the boards. You will continue to get that message if you try to open any other thread even though you will still be able to view the boards, you just can't click on threads to open them, the only escape is to clear your cookies if you are a guest or register. I think that's ample time to decide to be a member or not since everything is visible and you can read all subject matters except for the members bulletin. My forum has been open for 4 months and 4 days and I have 295 members (including myself); really 4 months and 1 day since I it took 3 days for me to build and open registration.
This gem was created by Wormopolis who owns wormocodes.proboards.com

http://i475./rr120/caribsa/CaptureNag.jpg

The only board I hide is a staff board so that my staff have a nice place to relax and tlak in privacy with all the other staff members. But other than that, hidden boards are a large turn off. I find it annoying when you can't view how much posting is done, etc. etc. I remember one sit eI found had all of the boards except the rules hidden, and as soon as I saw that I left without a second glance. It just gets annoying, and pretty much, all I want to say is what people have already posted. (:

I have had several cases of people stealing content from my forum and members, so therefore I had no choice but to make it so that you must be logged in with a sorted account to view certain categories.

I feel that while it is good to keep your boards open and viewable to guests so they can get a feel of what your forum is about, you're opening yourself up to thieves who would love nothing more than to take your hard work away from you. To me its a security issue, and while every administrator is different, I personally keep the security up to protect my members and forum's content.