Status
Not open for further replies.

pecas

Active member
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Messages
78
Reason
PALS
Diagnosis
07/2014
Country
US
State
TX
City
Central
Hi all,

I've mentioned it before, but I wanted to start a new thread since I haven't found a search phrase that got me to a previous discussion of this topic. Why are these forums totally public? Is there a strategy there? Because I feel exposed, and I definitely do not participate as much or as often as I would if they were private. I mean, I have found my own posts when doing google searches on particular topics, which is disconcerting. This website has a high google rank (it comes up in the first page quite often). I'm not saying that folks need to be vetted to get into the forums, just that reading most of the forum should require registration. We are all sharing a lot of very private information here. I read in another post someone was wishing more PALS would come participate. I can assure you this is at least one large issue, because I've been actively searching for another forum that is private (haven't found a good alternative - y'all are just too wonderful, I guess).

I have a very active online presence in my "normal" life, having run online businesses and organizations and been in the public eye for over a decade. I don't use my real name on this forum because it's almost unique (I've never met anyone else with my name in all of my years and travels). I just don't really want folks out there knowing exactly what my deepest thoughts, fears, and medical issues are at the stroke of a key, you know? I've had one good friend tell me she identified me on this forum already. Fortunately, I love her and would share all of this information with her anyway. But it's not an unfounded or hypothetical concern for me.

Can we talk about this, please?
 
I understand what you are saying. I don't know what the downside of making it more private is besides any philosophical view that there is benefit to being visible and accessible. We do have many lurkers but they could of course register and still never post. Is it possible there is an increased cost to being private? I don't know I am asking.
I hope people will speak up here so I can get a sense of the board's sentiment to tell David
 
There's no cost, in my experience. It's a setting in the forum backend.

Like I said, I am not talking about vetting anyone. Lurkers are fine, great. It's the total exposure to the world that's disconcerting to me. Any google search can bring up the most intimate information. (shiver)
 
I understand totally. Hoping others speak up so we have some kind of consensus. ( and I recognize the most concerned about this won't be here to vote)
If you browse not logged in you see ads that go away when logged in. Do they generate any income? I thought they might? But do not know
 
There is a difference between making the forum or some selection of sub-forums 'invisible' to Google (via robots.txt) and other web-crawlers, and making viewing visible only to registered members.

Which is the goal?
 
Both. But even invisible to google would be an improvement. The problem is, you'd always want the home page and some forums (like DIHALS) to be public. So those would be visible to google, and draw in the traffic, at which point they'll click around and read. So if you don't make some forums private, then you're not doing much good as far as shielding private conversations from the public.
 
If the consensus is both then making selected sub forums (which I believe vbulletin refers to as child or leaf forums) viewable to members only would be the best approach.

Robots.txt would only prevent web crawlers from indexing content, it would not prevent 'guests' from browsing.

Making child forums 'members only' stops both indexing and 'guest' browsing.

Here is a discussion on robots .txt: https://theadminzone.com/threads/implementing-a-robots-txt-file-with-your-vbulletin-community.19872/

And here is a brief but possibly outdated discussion on members only: How to make forum accessible to registered members only - vBulletin Community Forum

And fwiw I am not a vbulletin admin (or even knowledgable) just 'search adept'!
 
I, for one, would love to have the pals and cals forums private.
 
Pecas, our name is also quite unique and easily identifiable if searched.
 
I, for one, would love to have the pals and cals forums private.

I agree and that would include private from the dihalsers too. They come on and read things and then seem to assume things that aren't true and want to fit their symptoms to that as well
 
That's great, Greg. Thank you. Right now, we have a few forums that are visible only to paying members. I was disappointed when I realized they were very trivial forums in the off topic section. But it means that the knowledge exists with the admin/owner to make something like this happen.

PALS and CALS could be a good start, with things like Research and General Discussion staying open, if that's what folks want. Or we could flip that and only leave a couple of the sub forums public, and invite folks to register if they want to interact more. I'd lean that way, as it would create the safe place for all of our groups, PLS, FM, etc.
 
Paying members!? Truth be told I am wholly unaware of a cost associated with this forum, possibly 'cause I've never looked. I am aware of other forums with that restriction, Harley forums for example.

There is granularity adequate to screen paying vs. non paying, but barring that I believe that once one registers _all_ forums are accessible. Which would mean that the "ALS wannabes" would have full access once registered....
 
deleted, sorry.
 
Well, Greg, the folks running the site would love for you to kick in a little. I think it's $150/year or $15/mo. :)
 
This is a digression, for which I apologize.
After poking around the front page for a minute or so I thought 'could it be the donate link?'. Which I had assumed was a general 'donate to ALS' link. And just now I realized the red "donate to ALS" link at the top of each page was actually "donate to ALS forums". The word 'Forums' wraps to the next line, so I never made the connection.
So, surprise!

Regardless, let's not confuse 'voluntary donations' with 'paying members.' If select content is being made visible only to those who have donated as the earlier post indicates, that should be a known feature.

I am not exactly an Internet neophyte, having been a webmaster back when Altavista was king and gopher more than a lawn pest, but I am now surprised twice.

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming! :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top