Pros and Cons of Hidden Boards

[Rowan]

I will have to agree with Matt on this one. I am a owner of one forum, and a Co- Admin at another. A while back there was an issue with what we thought was a loyal member starting their own board (After the forum I co admin at had been open and running for almost three years) and they came along and stole species information that we had worked very hard on compiling for our members. It was a serious blow to many of us that this person would start a forum, then steal our information and claim they had their forum opened long before we did, which was false.

It really saddened us, and not only that, but after they stole our species information and claimed that we were actually the ones who stole it, they talked nothing but trash about us and talked some of our other members to delete their accounts at our forum and join theirs. So instead of having two forums that could have been sister sites, we now have two sites where the battle still wages on. Though now it has drifted over to the voting sites, where their members rate us down. Which is pretty childish in my opinion.

Anyway, at the forum I co Admin, we have a guest board that is opened to guests. And at the forum I own, I have species info open, though I'm not crazy about it. But I do want prospective new members to see the species we have available. Most of the role play boards are hidden, but I have a few open so new people can see the quality of writing.

Okay, so now that I ranted enough, which I shouldn't have, but I felt people should know the reasons why we have boards that can't be seen by non members.

In the end, I feel like it's a personal preference to the forum owner, though circumstances can cause people to not trust as much as they normally would have if things hadn't happened like they did.

[~Sarzah~]

At one point I actually had all roleplay categories on my board hidden from guests, although this was for a time when I had reason to believe that they should be hidden (one of my teachers was 'worried' about me - I am eternally grateful I had friends to play on her stupidity). In that time, there was actually no new members on the site. Also, my members found it somewhat irritating that they couldn't show off our threads to people not on the site.

I think, if you really want to hide a certain board, hiding the entire category would be better - that way, guests don't even know what they're missing out on. Other than that, when I'm looking at a new board, I like to have a bit of a 'snoop around' if you will, see the quality of the other roleplayers, and figure out where I can fit my characters in before I register them.

[lea]

I have 3 hiden bored . 1 is hiden from all members its a staff room . used to post ideas from mods and to discus any problems and move any bad posts to all can see them and the mod team can decide what to do about them

I have a clasified section for selling stuff this is hided untill you get to 25 posts . Becouse People were coming on selling stuff and going with out contributing to the forum . its a chat site not a flog your stuff and leave site .

Well thats what i have on my site .

[Jenno]

There are no boards that I hide specificall from any guests. There are the three different staff boards which are, of course, kept hidden unless part of the different usergroups that make up the staff on my site.

For the guests, I myself will not consider a site if it pushes you to sign up to see most, if not all, of its board. I wont put potential members in that position when it's one I hate as well. Also, it kind of makes it seem as though the forum/admin has something to hide and that if the board was viewable to all it wouldn't be enough to convince a member to join/sign up. And I think that confidence in your own board is pretty much essential to its success.

[sirolk]

I don't have my site restricted so that you HAVE to login to see anything about the site, but I do have the catagories set to be viewable by registered members only. That way a guest at a glance gets an idea of what we have on our site should they wish to join. That and turn off the new accounts needed staff approval that way they can just create an account and go.

I've also found that having everything open to the public creates a drop off in members logging in to the site. They can read everything at a glance and not login until they feel the need to post something themselves.

[rarzasaur]

Personally, I try to leave the important "read to play" boards available to guests, such as the rules and plot and who the staff are and applications. As much as I hate leaving applications free to view (I've had a lot of cases of stolen profiles from visiting guests, and hate to see it happen to anyone else), I do because it gives guests a glimpse at what the standard is around the site. That's because I hide the RP boards, often because I've had other role players comment on being more upset about stolen graphics and plot ideas and things of that nature. So guests see what they need to see, but I also feel like I'm protecting my members to the best of my ability.

[Troxy]

I tend to leave all of my boards open to read, but not to post in, unless the person is registered. I've personally had the experience of people stealing things I've written up, so it isn't like I've never felt the sting... I just remove myself from the drama, and don't take the bad actions of other people out of possible members and friends. I think one big issue with things like this is that the people who are stolen from all to often engage in this childish warfare, when one site could very obviously make a claim to the proboards site, have them shut down, and then be done with it. It's really as simply as that, and I think any further involvement in flame wars and battles between sites it immature and childish on both sides of the field.

This isn't to say, however, that I don't have hidden boards. I use many of my own custom designed pages, and hiding boards can be very useful for this. On top of that, I can sometimes hide board from certain user groups, like an all girls chat and all boys chat (which I did on one chat site I co-owned a while back), or perhaps with faction boards, which I've seen done before, that keeps accounts of one faction posting in the "territory" or "den" of another faction without some kind of plot behind it.

I think a "hidden board" when used to actually hide information from a large group of people, is rather counterproductive. However, all I know is what I myself has experienced, so if this works fine for one person, but doesn't work for me, we'll just have to go things our own way. I usually stick to the "hidden" feature when it can be used to organize my site. I've never used it to hide things from people, not even on staff board (where members could not POST, but could read over what was being discussed)

[niyx]

Personally, I believe that a forum that has all of their boards hidden pushes away possible members. Who wants to join a forum that you've never seen? Sure there's a possibility that it could be a great site, but I would never waste my time joining a site just to check it out.

I think that having some boards hidden is alright, as long as a guest is able to view a majority of the forum. Hiding boards such as graphics/artwork, stories, poems, etc. is definitely understandable due to copyright and to protect from plagiarism.

Well that was my two cents ;D

[ChilombiLite]

Hmm, the forum I mod for has quite a few hidden boards actually. We were getting hit with a lot of spam posts for about a month in strangely specific boards and threads. The Journals and Penpals sections got hit the most, so we made them hidden and the spam stopped. It was....really bizarre. Also, we never delete threads, so our main thread archive is hidden, and our staff section is hidden. Other than that, we do our best to keep everything readable for guests, but you have to join to participate.

But I definitely agree that having ALL boards hidden is really counterproductive. Magique summed it up best, imho.

[ily 'TIL THE end]

Do you hide any boards from guests?

I hide a total of 4 boards from guests.

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

As it was already said and it's obvious of course, is that if someone can't see what is in a hidden board, they may just turn away and want nothing to do with your forum. But, I had an idea that might change that around a bit. Would it not be a good idea to give them a taste of what's in the board? Perhaps providing some information or screenshots or something in an information box on your forum to give guests a taste of what's in the board. Because I think they might turn away because we are hiding something from them and they are curious to see what it is and because all that stuff hidden away isn't shown to them and they don't like that, so they leave, disappointed. I believe hidden boards do work, because some people get curious enough to join and then find out what's going on and if they like it, they stay, if not, they leave.

[Owlstar]

I do have a few boards viewable to guests, but not postable. I have the archives open as well as a few roleplaying boards so that they can see what the site is about and our members posting so they can see how well they can interact with them. However, the only boards I allow guests to post in are the advertising and suggestions boards because I don't want spam filling up the boards. So I think allowing some boards to be viewable allow guests to see what the forum is about, and not allowing posting reduces spam.

[alexxxxxx]

mostly applications are hidden to make sure that no guests steal from the sites right? that's what i always thought. some sites hide their threads which i don't find a purpose for.

[Cherri!]

I hate it when boards are hidden because, you could join a dead forum, going through a load of hassle just to see whether it's active or not. Also, you can't see the rules like whether it's beginner or advanced, even what the forum is about for starters.

[Pippi]

I have an artwork site. The only boards I hide are my photos because anyone with a bit of digital imagry knowledge could do what they like to them and claim them as their own, so limiting access to members logged in cuts down any risk . I don't think that hiding boards affects a site in my case.. my artwork can still be seen by guests.

[pumpkinpie]

The other day, I decided to hide my board, probably just for a temporary time period... And I did this because there are a couple people going to my board as guests and copying the creativity of my board, so their board will have all the same sections as mine. In other words, I've caught another board owner copying me, and I find it annoying.

Also, I have others going there- just to lurk and see what's happening there, yet they do not ever join. The same guests ever day, and I have not had a joiner in a month!

Also, I feel that my members are just reading as guests there some of the time and not bothering to log in.

This is annoying to me, so I've decided to give my board a bit of a mystery by hiding it for a temporary time, and seeing if things change, and more people join.

I have a description of my board on the front page, welcoming all guests, and briefly describing my board. (So people can see what it is about, and that they are invited to join.)

I don't plan to keep it hidden forever, and based on some of what I'm reading here, I'm wondering if I should just make it visible again immediatly?