[eglyntine]

Originally Posted by Ted S

As far as why, well as fool.com will tell you, requesting a simple data capture on content pages has huge results. Does forcing someone to register guarantee they will post? Absolutely not. However once someone registers you have the opportunity to engage them 1-on-1 via email whether it be the welcome email, a reminder email, newsletter or any other communication piece you're now talking to someone. Additionally once someone has an account they can contribute without having to go through any hurtles. Think about it, someone viewing a page may not want much more involvement but at 10 views or 20 views or 50 views if they haven’t participated in any form do they necessarily know they can? Is a message telling them to register something forced or something helpful? Many sites find that the people who use this sort of message and/ or block find their experience better because they have a next step [a conversion goal] and that people participate once they’ve engaged enough to reach this stage and are given a push to register.

That said the user experience is the most important part of your site and something you should never ever, ever ignore. Of course forcing someone to do something sounds horrible with this in mind each admin has to think about how they want to set things and at what point their ability to drive goals (registrations) outweighs interfering with the user. A smart site customizes their block message, gives users options and provides value. Simply blocking people on 2 views is likely not going to get the results or response one wants but that’s not the point here. On the other hand, giving them a warning at 5 views, a lock at 15 and options to help them decide what to do as well as a way to participate, get answers, share, etc… is value and that’s a great experience.

Again, each admin has to decide how to best reach their goals while maintain a good balance of benefits for guests and members."

I have a parenting site and most of my members do not like the fact that anyone can just "lurk" on the site and read about their issues and they don't know who they are. And while *I* know it's the internet and if you are going to post personal stuff on an internet site you might as well take an ad out in the AP, these ppl think that if they have restrictions and private forums then they are safe.

I run into the dilemma do I shut the whole board down to unregistered ppl or do I tell my members to suck up and deal with it? This add-on gives me the opportunity to compromise. I can set it up where certain General forums can be viewed by guests and the other forums with more personal details are kept away from non-registered ppl.

I also have it set up to where after the viewing of one thread it tells the person they need to register to view more and once they have registered we have a welcoming committee that leaves Welcome messages on their visitor page to help break the ice and then we encourage the new members to post an intro in our Introductions forum.

So far since I've put in this add-on and created the Welcoming Committee, 9 out of every 10 ppl that register have become active members. Before the addon there was no reason to register because they could read without having to interact and when I shut it down to unregistered user, they wouldn't come by cause there was nothing to encourage them to want to be a part of the site. It's a good balance you need to find to get ppl to participate and I'm still working on it daily but it is slowly working for me.

Great Add-on Ted, and when used like it's designed to be used it really is very helpful. Thanks again for your work.