Registration Required to view threads or not?

[GTX2]

What is your opinion?
What do you have on your board?
Do you require visitors to register in order to view threads or not?

Which settings do you use for your guests: "Can view forum", "Can View Thread Content", "Can View Others Threads" ?

From my point of view, i can get more registered users this way, but maybe some visitors would go away if they need to register.

Please post your opinion about this
tks

[Boofo]

Depends on the site. I run a Fathers' Rights Site so I have a few articles that I allow Guests to read. I would rather have 50 contributing members than 1,000 one-time show-ups. Most guests won't be back if they get what the need after the forced registration.

[Mark.B]

I let guests read the first post in the thread. If they want to read more they need to sign up.

This is actually more to dissaude certain factions of former members who have left in a sulk and set up "rival" boards with two members from stealing content and generally "spying" on what we do. It's a vicious world, the world of forums.

In a practical sense, what it does is allows people to see the subject matter and tone of the thread without registration. Hopefully they are then minded to sign up and join in. Works a bit, that's the best I can say.

[Jase2]

It depends on whether you want to keep your forums small, or you wish to grow. If you want more and more members, then not letting guests to see your threads/posts is bad for SEO... And if guests can't see them, neither can bots who are crawling your site. There is no point forcing a user to register, a member will register if they like what they see. You've first got to get incoming traffic (guests), then you've got to to turn them guests into members, then you've got to try and keep them members regular posters.

In my opinion, if users cannot see what your board is about, why will/should they join?

[Wayne Luke]

On my forum new registrants have access to three forums - Site Rules, Announcements, and Introductions. To gain access to anything else, they need to be a member of the group in one of the online games that we are currently playing or vouched for by an existing member as a friend or loved one. All growth is done by word of mouth, I don't even think the site is in search engines and we don't want it to be really because that just leads to spam.

[goddess_dix]

i don't require it. a lot depends on your forum goals.

my visitors can see all but my private forums currently. later on, i will probably add some members-only areas, but for the most part, anybody can read all the threads.

i run a support forum, and search engine traffic is responsible for about 65% of all my visits. having that content out there is an important part of how the site grows, and consistent with my site mission of helping others. that's my main priorioty.

i encourage registration by showing registered members fewer ads throughout the site and encouraing them to register with the welcome headers hack. i customize the message to my board's tone, and suggest the benefits of registering.

(spam is not an issue for us since we locked down the server security with mod security 2. no automated spammers are making it through anymore.)

[Keesa]

We have some threads they need to register to read, like the Pics thread and what we call "The Underground", but anything related to news about the band is left open.

http://www.tokiohotelamerica.net/forum if you want to see.

[Walter Ronny]

Yes.

[cdanik]

No, it discourages members from reading things on your site. A lot of times when members see they have to register to read, they click the red X in the corner

[mtrac]

I have a 12-hour delay to read most of my forums. Further, I look at the user agent and let googlebot, etc. through. Have found it effective, particularly when there is breaking news.