Do you run a "Private Forum"?

By "Private Forum" I mean a forum whose content is visible only to members and guests can see only threads.

Do you run this kind of Private forum?

If yes, do you get success with it by hiding content to guests or it is not doing any good to your forum?

 

no i make most of forum sections public for guests but you can make some private forums for registered users or paid membership

 

Hiding your whole forum from guests is quite stupid sorry to say, but who's going to sign up to a forum whose content cannot be seen?

 

Na actually if you hide content we think guest would be excited to know what inside it and register but its wrong thinking instead forum should be open people after seeing the thread they feel like reply they automatically will register an account simple you cam here because you saw some important thread here and was feelign to reply or felt the purpose to be here only after you saw the threads

 

I keep my forum open, but do have a section that is private.

 

Mine is hidden

I run a forum for parents, and we were getting graphic pornographic posts (not what you want to be seeing when you have your 2 year old on your knee!!). I tried setting it to where the member had to authenticate by e-mail (like digital point do) but the spammers got wise and started using real e-mail addresses.

Now, it is completely hidden, mainly to protect the members, who like to share pictures of their children etc. I do, however, have a notification on the main page which reads:

Looking at Joining to Spam?
Don't bother. We screen all new members before allowing access, the memberlist is inaccessible, and we report anyone posting inappropriate material to their ISP.

Looking at Joining NEMums?
This forum is aimed at parents and parents to be in the North East of England - we are a friendly, supportive group, and you are more than welcome to join us! For the security and safety of our members, we have hidden the majority of the content from non-members - we have far more on offer than what you can see here!


There are ways in to see posts and profiles, which I'm sure it wouldnt take the majority of people long to work out, but it has served the purpose of keeping the spammers and porn out.

 

You're saying goodbye to ALL search engine traffic by hiding threads. Nobody will "get excited to see the content", that's BS.

 

Sorry let me re-state my statement:

 

Actually I kept my forum hidden for 3 days to test and surprisingly the traffic and pageviews were just going down daily so I opened my forum open to public again.

 

I don't have this kind of stuff on my forum./

 

i did it before. It did not make sense. No people come to your forums if they don't see any benefit.
I would say if you can, just make it publicly to see but not to post. If visitors wanna post, they are asked for register.

 

^ Yes, I am doing exactly same.

Visitors can read content, if they want reply or ask something they must register.

 

you can't get any success in any private forum. Of course, how you will let others to answer your questions? A mass will not help you out, you will just choose a few people to answer your question, because a mass using a public profile, that's why it's called forum. I may say, what you mean is appropriate in PM, right? Since, it is a private message, there nobody except the one you are hanging with you knows your topics to talked about.

 

I believe you can take a chance to do this ONLY when you have an existing regular userbase. If you're forum is new and you're doing this, then you gotta be kidding

 

It best to leave your forum open to guest when you get 100 to 150 mebers 5000 to 7500 post then you can lock your forum guest

 

Private forums are by far the most profitable sub-forum type . But to have them you need a minimum of 5k+ members . Otherwise the private sub-forum will be a ghost town .

 

I have a semi-private forum, most of the forum i invite-only, but guests can read some posts.