Limited Viewing

[Alex]

Hello everyone! I wanted to get your opinion on adding a limiting viewing modification. Basically, it would prevent a guest from viewing more than a couple threads before telling them that they must register. Do you think this would be a good idea? Why or why not?

THANK YOU! ;)

[CSI_Nut]

Well, I think it *might* increase your total membership and decrease voyeurism slightly, but it would also prevent regular members from popping in to check for new posts but not logging in unless/until they wanted to say something. And that increase in total membership might not necessarily be quality membership, KWIM? Do we seem to have a lot of voyeurs or something?

[Alex]

Usually about 6-8 guests are viewing at a time...

[anfrey]

be aware that some of those guests are search engine spiders. look at their user agents and you'll see...

i do NOT think that mandatory registration just to read would be a good idea. sure you'll end up with lots of members, but most will more than likely be inactive. sure it's good to have a nice big member number when attracting advertisers, but do you really want to see "3241 members" and only really have two dozen active members?

[Ellen]

Hello everyone! I wanted to get your opinion on adding a limiting viewing modification. Basically, it would prevent a guest from viewing more than a couple threads before telling them that they must register. Do you think this would be a good idea? Why or why not?

THANK YOU! ;)

I don't think it would be a good idea to do this. I know before I join any new forum, I like to see how it operates first, and also see how well the members interact with each other. If I was limited to only viewing just a limited number of posts, I don't think I would join.
Eventually your membership numbers will increase once all the non member viewers out there become familiar and comfortable with how the forum operates........With over 100 members added to this site in such a short period of time, I'd say you have done a great job so far. :)

[Matt]

To post = register

To read = Not register.

[chokaay]

To post = register

To read = Not register.


I agree. I don't think registering in order to read is a good idea. Registering to post, however, should be a requirement.

[anfrey]

To post = register

To read = Not register.
this is the way it currently works.

[Alex]

Great thanks for your feedback. I have decided not to enable limited viewing. :p

[Ellen]

Great thanks for your feedback. I have decided not to enable limited viewing. :p
There is still limited viewing on this site, because when I go to read any of threads on this site when I'm not logged on, I get told that I have reached the number of posts that I can view before I must register or sign in. :confused:

[chokaay]

There is still limited viewing on this site, because when I go to read any of threads on this site when I'm not logged on, I get told that I have reached the number of posts that I can view before I must register or sign in. :confused:


Yeah... so do I... (found out when my laptop was broken and I was using random computers to view T-mo Sig). :(

[Alex]

Now you can read up to 10 posts before being asked to join T-MobileSignal. Is that fair? ;)

[dsigma6]

I ran into this problem yesterday, opening a million threads without having the need to sign in yet. It was annoying to me, so I assume it'd annoy anyone else looking for some quick info. If they like the things they find, they'll come back and register.

[Ellen]

Now you can read up to 10 posts before being asked to join T-MobileSignal. Is that fair? ;)

IMHO, No. If other forums are successful without this limited viewing feature, then I see no reason why this wouldn't be also......If the people that are viewing this site like what they see, they will sign up on their own without having to be forced into it.

[Ellen]

be aware that some of those guests are search engine spiders. look at their user agents and you'll see...

What are search engine spiders?

[chokaay]

What are search engine spiders?


"A program that automatically fetches Web pages. Spiders are used to feed pages to search engines. It's called a spider because it crawls over the Web. Another term for these programs is webcrawler.

Because most Web pages contain links to other pages, a spider can start almost anywhere. As soon as it sees a link to another page, it goes off and fetches it. Large search engines, like Alta Vista, have many spiders working in parallel."


What is spider? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer Dictionary (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/s/spider.html)

[Ellen]

"A program that automatically fetches Web pages. Spiders are used to feed pages to search engines. It's called a spider because it crawls over the Web. Another term for these programs is webcrawler.
Because most Web pages contain links to other pages, a spider can start almost anywhere. As soon as it sees a link to another page, it goes off and fetches it. Large search engines, like Alta Vista, have many spiders working in parallel."
What is spider? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer Dictionary (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/s/spider.html)

Thanks chokaay. I wish they would have named it something else though. Spiders are creepy. :(

[Alex]

I've taken your opinions under consideration and decided to deactivate limited viewing. Thanks for providing your feedback. This is why I enjoy the members at T-MobileSignal, everyone is upfront and honest with their feedback.

[anfrey]

Thanks chokaay. I wish they would have named it something else though. Spiders are creepy. :(they're called spiders because this is the web ;) get it?