Forum: Open or Closed to the unregistered?

I have no issues with the open to view suggestion, to be honest. There is always the option of later creating a sort of annex available only to registered, paying members like before. Many sites have this facility if it is considered necessary. The forum is a very friendly, useful place, and for me it was not only the strength of the lessons but also the first-rate forum support that got me to sign up, especially the speed and depth with which other members, particularly the course leaders would answer questions.

Having the forum open to view may also help when we or Aran or Iestyn are trying to show SSIW off to important outsiders – awards committees, local Welsh for Adults group leaders, people in the media, people at media production companies, and so forth.

I’m not sure so please correct me but does clicking on “ask” when not logged in still take you to a t-shirt page, or something? Another reason to allow the forum to be open in my opinion. I thought the link was brokenededated first time I tried that.

Gruntius - but does clicking on “ask” when not logged in still take you to a t-shirt page, or something?

I just logged out and tried it; it took me to an FAQs page, which seems ideal.

Tidy, that sounds better. Diolch Diane.

Diane Owen: I just logged out and tried it; it took me to an FAQs page, which seems ideal.

Yes, and in a way, that might be the best default behaviour even if the forum is open. There’s a whole lot of useful stuff in the FAQ’s section, and it would be good if lots of people saw it, even briefly, so that they know it exists in the future.

Interestingly, the flow of opinion seems to be going towarsd “open”. But I’ve not seena ny really passionate arguments either way. I’m guessing that would be the killer to one or the other if someone says “If the forum were open / closed I would be deeply unhappy / unwilling etc”.

Are there any real objections one way or the other?

I would be disappointed if it was closed. But I can think of so many more important things to get really upset about… And very few of them are linked to ssiw :slight_smile:

With the old forum, aren’t some of the sections only for paid-up members? I’m sure the meetups was only accessible when logged in (which seems right - you can’t go discussing when you’re going to be leaving your house empty to be burgled on a site that’s indexed by Google).

The only section for paid-up members was the Lounge, which we sort of tried to discontinue because there isn’t really a ‘better support for paying members’ approach happening here…:slight_smile: I can’t remember how much of the rest of the site was visible to people who weren’t logged in, but we certainly moved in the direction of having less visible as time went on.

But I’m surprised and encouraged by how much support there is here for having the forum open - it would certainly be a major positive for us, as long as we can make sure everyone is aware of the fact that their posts aren’t ‘private’.

I’m definitely in favour of closed. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. It was the only way to get some people comfortable with using the forum. Illogical, maybe. Or maybe Aran convinced us ‘we’ committed few (er, 20,000) are specially nice, kind, trustworthy. Why else would I have been meeting up with strangers in England and Wales without backup??

When I get ‘there’s a new reply to the Bridgend or Cardiff meetup thread’ notifications on my phone (which isn’t logged in), and I click them, I’m unable to see the thread because I’m not logged in (or this was the case last time I tried, which might be months ago).

While most stuff being public is fine, I’m very strongly of the opinion that any information about people agreeing to meet up should be members-only.

While most stuff being public is fine, I’m very strongly of the opinion that any information about people agreeing to meet up should be members-only.

I think this is a very important point. It’ll be made easier to get this right by the fact that we’ll be working on a much more customised approach for meetups/groups in the coming months…:slight_smile:

I was initially for “open”, as I think it does affect how I look at forums- I really can’t remember if I looked at the forum on the old site before downloading the lessons, but that would fit in with how I act on other sites! Maybe…

I try not to post personal info on any site, which is why I was just a little wary of the stress on using your real name on this new site- not saying I think this site is inhabited by dishonest rogues and scoundrels! (apart from Aran and Iestyn) but if the site is to be open to everyone, maybe aliases…alias’…alias’s… pretend forum names should be stressed as being acceptable? Just a thought. Not a strong feeling, but a slightly more comfortable feeling using an alias.

but if the site is to be open to everyone, maybe aliases…alias’…alias’s… pretend forum names should be stressed as being acceptable?

I sympathise with that emotion - but I’m also absolutely certain that the emphasis on real names has been a very important part of building the welcoming and friendly nature of the site…

Another factor to consider is how the registration information might be useful to SSiW. A number of websites use free registration to capture information about the people who are interested in their sites, for marketing or just to see what kind of people are signing up. Then they can develop the site further with those people in mind or develop new things to attract new people. If we aren’t going to use the information that registration provides then go for it being open (in which case we would have info on the people who post anyway).

A closed forum (free registration) could put people off, because they might suspect that they will get marketing bumf if they register before they’ve even seen what the forum is like (a wonderful friendly place).

I’m definitely in favour of closed. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. It was the only way to get some people comfortable with using the forum.

Getting slightly off-topic but I wonder if self-destructing forum threads, for people who don’t feel comfortable with their early-learner questions being stored for eternity, would be good.

(I propose this more as a discussion point than that I firmly believe it’s a good idea - I think there are strong arguments for multiple sides there).

I’mm for an open forum but more importantly I think there should be a prompt to log in or sign up at the top of the FAQ page where it can be seen really easily.

OK. If one strong oposition is wanted then I’d be the one who makes one.

I’m quite against closed for viewing forum to non-logged in people. You at SSI are doing great job and I believe it’s highly needed to show to youngsters in Wales that this beautiful language is way too alive and way too beautiful not to learn and speak it. If youngsters would by any occassion come across this forum and see that not only Welsh and not only English speaking people are learning Welsh they might start learn it to - hopeuflly SSI way. I’m irritated hearing (even if only online as I’m not from Wales) that youngsters refuse to learn and speak this magnificent language and I’ve encountered the occassion when youngsters were kind of ashamed to speak/write it.

SSI is the right way to show to all people here’s a community where Welsh is learnt, spoken, written, sang if you want or put into poems, literature works …

So I’d say YES! forum has to be readable and NO! forum must not be closed to read for non-logged people (except maybe if there’s a section for (as you say) paying members).

You can freely say if you disagree with me though, but those are my (strong) feelings.

Diolch yn fawr i darllen.

I would not have joined if the forum hadn’t been open. It was nice to know it was a friendly place before I started.

The old Board Index gave you a peek into the spaghetti, but you only got the ‘whizz-round-and-find’ capability when you’d registered. Am I right? Looks like this forum is all or nothing, so more of a conundrum, but after reading the comments I can see the case for allowing access, especially as at present it seems all spaghetti! (laughing icon - no offence!)