Pros and Cons of Hidden Boards

[Artemis]

Disabling the ability for guests to view certain boards on your forum can be used in creative ways. You can hide certain boards for privacy purposes, or as a tantalizing offer to get guests to register to view everything you have to offer.

However, this could also get possible members to avoid your forum. Many who look around may not join if they can't see everything because they don't want to have to register just to see hidden boards. This is especially true when they come across forum where every singe board is hidden from view.

Do you hide any boards from guests? What do you think about hidden boards convincing guests to register, or turning them away?

Discuss!

[Gia_Sesshoumaru]

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.

[Des]

I personally dislike the idea of anything being hidden, especially on RPG boards. This is especially important when people hide character applications (and thus the canon character lists) as well as the main RPG boards, leaving you in a doubt about how active they are and whether or not they have a character you want to play. I don't think nowadays with so many boards available that anyone would go through all the trouble of registering just to see whether or not they like the kind of roleplaying done on the site.

Personally the only place where I can see this working is on sites like writing sites where the content of members needs to be protected.

[Shrike]

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

[Cyber Necrovalley]

I personally don't hide any boards from Guests. When I am viewing a forum and I can't see all the boards, it bothers me and I don't bother to join. I don't want to waste my time joining, I'd like to see what it is I'm joining first--so I can see why others would feel the same way and not join because of hidden boards. Because of that, I don't use hidden boards to draw in members. The only time I used a hidden board was so that mods could discuss site matters in private. It was still nothing too special, so it still was no incentive to join.

[Kaynil]

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.

[`` ashurii]

Personally, I leave all of my boards open except for those pertaining to staff only matters. If boards are hidden from guests, they should be hidden to the extent that guests aren't even aware of their existence, and only if you feel it is absolutely necessary.

I've seen forums that look great on the surface, but their rules board is hidden. That turns me off to the site immediately. I mean, who wants to join just to see the rules? Things like accepted characters for rping or story boards are some of the only things that should be hidden, protecting the rights of the person that wrote them, but blocking random boards for no reason just turns guests off.

[Descent Into Darkness]

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

[xazal]

Actually, I guess I don't have any idea of how I hide boards, though I've had a board since 2008.

There's only one thread hidden for guests on my board (is that "to hide a board"?) and the only reason is that my cousin is just a beginner in RPG and quite shy, so I promised her I'd be the only one who would read her posts. ;D

Anyway, it really depends on what kind of Board you're hosting. Things like rules and any other sort of information about the board MUST NOT be hidden - in my opinion; that's the way of presenting one's board and welcoming/giving impressions.

Okay, I hope that made sense to you - this is my first post, and I'm still afraid of doing mistakes...

- Xazal

[victory1]

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

[dorkster]

I have some boards hidden to encourage my members to be active. Once they hit a certain post count, they get access to more boards and activities. I don't know if it's worked or not, it still being a relatively new and all, but it allows me to put in all the boards that I want to without looking like I'm thinking too big for such a new site. I do find that blocking off all boards is a turn-off and I have been known to leave otherwise promising-sounding boards for that reason alone.

[[*S*P*a*Z*]]

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. (:

[Ellis]

As has been mentioned before, as a general rule, hiding is horrible for an RPG. When characters are hidden, you cannot be sure who is available and who is not. When in character boards are hidden, activity itself is in question. Nobody wants to go to the trouble of joining only to find that (1) their character is already taken or is banned for whatever reason or that (2) the site is completely inactive.

The only thing good to use a hidden board for would be something that would only be AVAILABLE to members in first place, for instance, if there are some sort of factionalism on the board (say, Jedi or Sith for a Star Wars RPG) and each side has its own faction-based chat room. Non-members would not need to know these rooms exist, so keeping this secret is probably not going to discourage anybody from joining.

[Matt [Malfoy250]]

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.

[The Mad Hatter]

On my sites we have certain boards hidden such as places where members are free to introduce themselves, the member discussion board and the storage of completed rp application, this is mainly to protect the applications themselves. Everything else is viewable but not postable, by guests. I find that this is good because it enables people to read the rules before joining and also to see if there is any canon character that takes their fancy and it works so far, it also gives potential members a feel for how active the forum is posting wise.

I think that the risk of things being stolen is not reduced by hiding the forum from guest view as a) some will create accounts if they really want to take something and b) members are just as likely to steal content as guests are so even hiding content can still pose a security risk. I find that with the completed applications hidden from guests there is less theft going on, though, so we just make modifications as needed.