Can I hide how many memers my forum will have?

[Former Member]

At the top in navigation I have a members tab. I'm assuming I can take that off - but will that do the trick?

Thankyou.

[Michael]

Hi,

Removing the Members navigation link will only remove the navigation link itself. Anyone with the appropriate knowledge of our platform could still type yourforumURL.proboards.com/members into the URL bar and still see the page.

There is various member counts (members online, total members, etc.) that are in your info center. You may consider removing these from the info center but I know many people use this number to show off how active their forum is, so your use may vary.

[yogibearbull]

2 things to do, both from Forum Settings:

1. From Forum Settings/Forum/Info Center, turn OFF displays that show in the bottom area with member #.

2. From Forum Settings/Navigation, disable/uncheck Member (it is ON or OFF for all). On my website, I have actually replaced it with a customized Member button so that only staff see it, but not anyone else. This can be defeated, but I won't tell here how  .

[bigballofyarn]

Oct 18, 2021 9:57:55 GMT -8 yogibearbull said:

2 things to do, both from Forum Settings:

1. From Forum Settings/Forum/Info Center, turn OFF displays that show in the bottom area.

2. From Forum Settings/Navigation, disable/uncheck Member (it is ON or OFF for all). On my website, I have actually added a customized Member button so that only staff see it, but not anyone else. This can be defeated, but I won't tell here how  .

Not to cause you alarm, but hiding the info center does not prevent me, even as a guest, from getting an approximate number of users on your forum. By changing the navigation link a few times, I was able to see how many total people registered on your forum, but if any accounts were deleted, there are less than that many accounts remaining. To respect your privacy, I'm not posting the #. Those with knowledge of the platform can still obtain the information that they want. I don't recommend hiding the info center. It generally just tells a guest that the forum has something to hide.

[Former Member]

Wow, you guys are fast, thankyou.xx

[yogibearbull]

bigballofyarn, thank you for your note.

In my forum,

Info Center is visible to staff & members, but not to guests,

Member button is visible to staff but not to members or guests.

It is an open read-access site and those are the settings I like. My purpose is to severely limit personal info for guests except for the open content, but provide more personal info to members (and that is by invitation-only now).

I do my forum testing in administration-mode, member-mode and guest-mode (in 3 different browsers). So, Michael trick to get to members doesn't work in the guest-mode (because I have turned off the default Member button), nor can I figure out what you did to get member info in the guest-mode (if you don't mind, please send me a PM on that). 

But this is now going well beyond the OP issue, so we should leave the discussion here and move to PM.

[Scott]

yogibearbull, I think you may have misunderstood Michael. The members list is not available to guests and there is no work-around to make it so.

Additionally, member profiles are not available to guests either.

[Michael]

Oct 18, 2021 10:47:45 GMT -8 yogibearbull said:

bigballofyarn , thank you for your note.

In my forum,

Info Center is visible to staff & members, but not to guests,

Member button is visible to staff but not to members or guests.

It is an open read-access site and those are the settings I like. My purpose is to severely limit personal info for guests except for the open content, but provide more personal info to members (and that is by invitation-only now).

I do my forum testing in administration-mode, member-mode and guest-mode (in 3 different browsers). So, Michael trick to get to members doesn't work in the guest-mode (because I have turned off the default Member button), nor can I figure out what you did to get member info in the guest-mode (if you don't mind, please send me a PM on that). 

But this is now going well beyond the OP issue, so we should leave the discussion here and move to PM.

Hi,

Just wanted to confirm that guests cannot access the /members page without first logging in. My post was more in general than in specifics as the question was about preventing any view of the number of members of the forum, not strictly limiting access to members only.