Topic: New site restrictions - too restrictive?

[TomatoSoup]

Per the updated Membership/Forum rules, we now have:

4.  Guests will no longer have full access to the forum.  Registration is required to access all of the features/attachments/sub forums. 

I don't know why this decision was made, although I assume it was something to do with the recent account and avatar hack(s), but this just makes the forum decidedly unfriendly to non-members since guests can now see effectively nothing anymore (heck, *I* can't see anything if I'm not logged in).  In my opinion, this is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I had occasion to post links to a couple of threads here recently as responses to threads on the BB.  Now those links just say the text "login", which is really not a great advertisement for us over here. 

Please, this is probably the friendliest of all the kappa forums.  Let's not become like a small podunk town, treating outsiders with fear and loathing.  It's along the lines of not letting terrorists change our way of life.  If you DO, they WIN!

[DeepBlueGXP]

Point well taken.  I'll take this under consideration.

[kennysabarese]

It's a tough call. I'm not sure how much this site pops up when people Google about our cars, but the BB comes up a lot when I Google for issues, and if you lock guest access, then Google may not be able to crawl anymore, and we'll lose viewers, which in turn members as well as ad money generated.

[Arabas]

well, i personally prefer the information (and joking) to be shared among registered people, people that have bothered to "check-in" and post, rather than any person just googling around...
but it's up to Joe and it all depends on what he's aiming for.
if one of his aims is visibility and high Google ranking for ad money purpose, well these restrictions don't help. if he is aiming on info among registered users, then privacy has it's benefits

[Mihela816]

In the past I've come across forums with the same restrictions, and I've usually just said screw it and gone to a different forum.

[ChopTop]

In the past I've come across forums with the same restrictions, and I've usually just said screw it and gone to a different forum.

Ditto, but I do understand the reason it was changed.  As usual I see both sides.  Maybe a compromise could be reached.  An isolated incident shouldn't be the sole reason; but if they continue than it should be changed to protect members.

[kennysabarese]

Yeah so what is the compromise. What are the options?

[TomatoSoup]

Actually, I'm not sure why it was changed (Joe?).  Non-logged-in members or guests not being able to see the posts wouldn't seem to have anything to do with hacking/hacked accounts(?)  But I could well be missing key info here.

I agree with Mihela816 and have the same attitude to fora with restrictions.  I also agree with Kenny's earlier post about google's ability to crawl and ad revenue (though I hadn't thought of that myself )

Any way not trying to here, though it's good to have this polite discussion and set of viewpoints.  It's Joe's call, obviously.

[kennysabarese]

Yeah I'm very interested in what happened and what the results were. Was there a thread talking about the hacking and how it was found and how it was resolved?

Joe if you need to keep it private, I understand. Just really curious what happened.

[DeepBlueGXP]

I'm not sure you're familiar with the term, “praise in public and discipline in private” so I will not say anything other than one of our members account had been compromised which resulted in the changes.

This is temporary. I'm in the process of upgrading the forum and testing security packages.  Once that is complete, portions of the forum will be available to guests.

[kennysabarese]

Cool. It's all good. Thank you.

[Brad Kenny]

This is temporary. I'm in the process of upgrading the forum and testing security packages.  Once that is complete, portions of the forum will be available to guests.

DBG, THANK YOU for all you do. I personally appreciate the time-staking process that you must go through everyday to maintain this forum and keep it up and running at it's peak performance. I fully support your decisions on your forum. May the KP Forum be around for many, many years to come...

[snaponbob]

I'm not sure you're familiar with the term, “praise in public and discipline in private” so I will not say anything other than one of our members account had been compromised which resulted in the changes.

This is temporary. I'm in the process of upgrading the forum and testing security packages.  Once that is complete, portions of the forum will be available to guests.

Now that I read THIS, I understand what is happening. Good job, as always.

[TomatoSoup]

Yep.  THANK you, Joe!!