What is your opinion as users?
At present, you have to register to see the forum. The advantages of this are that we can be sure that opinions are “private” to the community.
However, it does mean that “suck it and see” first-timers can;t see one of the huge strengths of the SSi community, ie it’s helpfulness and friendliness.
The old forum was readable without logging in. Should we reproduce that here, or should we keep that here?
I can see the benefit of keeping the forum visible only when logged in. Not that I post anything here which is private, but if it is visible whether logged in or not, I assume forum content would become visible from a Google search. This might not be what we want.
I think it should be “readable without logging in”. First timers need to see it’s strengths…That the Welsh language is open to all.
Agree with Dinas. One of the things that drew me to SSiW was the sheer brilliance of the forum and the strength of the community it represented. I think it’s such an important advert for the SSiW approach that it should be readable without forcing a login.
In general I’ve found the SSiW ethos to be very “open” and I think that preserving that as a principle is important if the overarching aim here it to encourage more and more people to learn Welsh. (Gosh I ended up on a soap box there… apologies 
It should be completely open to view, but require a painless registration to post. Unfortunately we seem to be at the point right now where meta-discussions are filling up much of the space. I think that’s where the tagging could come in very handy.
I’m with the “open to view” camp - I think I lurked for a while before signing up …
Mark Hinton: I think I lurked for a while before signing up …
This might be a more important question. How many of you would not have joined if you hadn’t had the option of watching the forum from a distance?
Of course, it is slightly different here, because you have to register to use anything past lesson 1, so anyone following the lessons, will automatically be able to see the forum.
I’m in the “register to view” camp; registering is free and is at least some minimal commitment.
Hwyl,
Stu
Being able to read how others used the lessons and seeing the speed and comprehensive style of answers to questions tipped me over. I would have signed up anyway as it’s so important to me but it was a real confidence builder which speeded up the process. Be interesting to know if that’s acommon view or not
… and given that you have to register to use anything past lesson 1 here, I’m not sure the lurking opportunity is all that important after all.
Swayed by Iestyn and Stu …
I’ve just checked and I was hovering for over six weeks until I made my first post: though I was browsing the Forum from early on.
One other thing: when I first stumbled upon SSIW through a search engine I remember placing something like “Learn Welsh”. Running through several engines today with the same I have to say SSIW doesn’t actually jumpout at you…Is there a way to make it more prominent like the B.B.C, Welsh for Adults sites, etc?
Is there an advantage to making people register initially, other than keeping our opinions “private” from other people?
(edited for clarity)
Interestingly, Mark, until you pointed out the obvious implication of my post, I was in favour of an open forum…
Dinas - thank you for pointing that out. Until the new site came into being, SSiW did jump out. It said “SaySomethinginWelsh” and went into the home page blurb about extraordinary results from learners all over the world etc. Because the lesson page is now the landing page, and the labelling a bit more generic, that branding has been lost a bit. Something for us to look at quite quickly, I should think, so thank you very much!
Interesting. To be honest I’d never considered the fact that the old forum was open to the public - I created my account on there when downloading the first couple of lessons, before I’d ever considered being a forum member. But now that I think about it, it’s obvious that it was open, because occasionally my browser would forget that I was logged in and I’d wonder why I couldn’t see the little unread icons any more. 
Open does sound like a reasonable idea form the point of view of attracting new people!
For the record, opening it up for read-only access would be a quick job, so that’s no problem if we decide to do that.
I lurked a while before joining. I learned quite a bit about the program before I signed up. It was instrumental in getting me to try it.
Perhaps with the posts that you wish to keep among members, you could have a similar method like on the old forum. Although I think that was only possible because of everything was categorised. Maybe when tagging is available there could be a workaround so the open forum is open to all and certain tagged posts remain for members only?? (Not sure how it will work, or if any of this makes any sense…!)
I lurked a while on the forum, but I already had an account, I just didn’t post. Oh well, experiences differ
New words on this page: llechu
I’d vote open - the forum is mentioned int he marketing blurb as a highlight but without people being able to see it they sort of have to take your word for it!
I’ve been to many forums, being only for community purpose or opened (viewable) for crowds and I’ve also been admin to some and I’ve experienced that those of forums which were not visible if one’s ot logged in, had less traffic then those which were readable without loging in.
However, here comes another problem - bots. But since I know here’s always someone from SSI to care for the forum, I think this shouldn’t be the problem.
So I’d say it should be readable to all (not that I’ve posted much even being logged, but had read a lot). If you want to preserve some topics to community there’s always possibility to “hide” some topics from those who are not loogged in so combined option could also be one to considder.
Oh, and … hello to all. (Might be I’d not post much in the future aswell, as I have nothing useful to ad though).