Make registration mandatory - avoid lurkers?

[darkphantum]

So one thing i noticed right off the bat, and this may be good or bad, is that people can simply lurk on the forum.

A suggestion would be to allow guests to view different forums and topics, however, make it mandatory for them to register if they want to see the thread.

I think this would in some sense increase participation as people are more inclined to participate if they are already registered as oppose to just lurking, finding the info they need, and leaving the site with no contributions.

Of course, on the flip side, people may see it as a way to tell others about the site and that may help as well.

Just me 2 cents.

[TehVoyager]

Don't allow them to see anything unless they register, just like we cant see elite/legendary without the required rep, or LL's/Members cant see elite guides / Elite Exploits without Contrib/Donator rank.


(and TBH while Donator rank does bring in good monetary support for the forum, i don't think donators should be able to see elite guides / elite exploits till they hit at least 10 rep. to weed out leakers or blizzard accounts.)

[Dirtpetit]

I was just about to suggest this, but yeah, I support this to one hundred percent. And to the above poster, make it 25, 10 is pretty easy to obtain.

[Confucius]

MMOwned, now OwnedCore was made to be a free forum where people could find exploits and guides as an alternative to having to go use pay to access sites, making members registrar will completely undermine that. Forcing registration will also greatly decrease activity on the forums and lower the amount of new users, as many people would like to look at the forum and get a feel of it before registering and posting; I know many times if I go to a new site to look something up forced registration will leave a bad impression on me and I will simply leave the site. Forcing registration would also mess with the SEO most likely.

All together it's not a very good idea to force registration as it lowers activity and goes against what the site was founded for.

As to donators needing 10 rep or more that is also a bad suggestion, it would lower the amount of donators and leave those who did donate, and do not yet have 10 rep, very mad. There are two ways to support the site, submitting content, and donating, as a reward for supporting the site you get access to these new sections, it does not make sense that you have to do both; following that logic all contributors should also have to donate to gain access to elite exploits and guides.

I disagree with both of these suggestions, but that's my opinion, they both seem to go against everything the site was made for and they both seem like they would only have a negative impact on the site.

[TheFreak]

MMOwned, now OwnedCore was made to be a free forum where people could find exploits and guides as an alternative to having to go use pay to access sites, making members registrar will completely undermine that. Forcing registration will also greatly decrease activity on the forums and lower the amount of new users, as many people would like to look at the forum and get a feel of it before registering and posting; I know many times if I go to a new site to look something up forced registration will leave a bad impression on me and I will simply leave the site. Forcing registration would also mess with the SEO most likely.

All together it's not a very good idea to force registration as it lowers activity and goes against what the site was founded for.

As to donators needing 10 rep or more that is also a bad suggestion, it would lower the amount of donators and leave those who did donate, and do not yet have 10 rep, very mad. There are two ways to support the site, submitting content, and donating, as a reward for supporting the site you get access to these new sections, it does not make sense that you have to do both; following that logic all contributors should also have to donate to gain access to elite exploits and guides.

I disagree with both of these suggestions, but that's my opinion, they both seem to go against everything the site was made for and they both seem like they would only have a negative impact on the site.

Couldn't agree more, nicely said.

I for one lurked on the forums unregistered for a month or two before I registered. I've been here 6 years and it was all because I was able to browse certain sections before registering.

[Fiat127]

Yeah - I wouldn't have found this AWESOME forum if there had been "Forced Registration" so no thanks.

Please keep it like it is.

- Fiat127.

[darkphantum]

Okay, well how about setting a daily limit, like 10 threads a day or something? That will keep what we have in place...but also encourage new registrations.

What do you think?

[2dgreengiant]

Okay, well how about setting a daily limit, like 10 threads a day or something? That will keep what we have in place...but also encourage new registrations.

What do you think?

Something like that is a good idea, forcing people to register will just put them off and make a massive increase in unused accounts. Whereas if we allowed them to view some bits for a set time then they have to register to see more its quite appealing to a nonregistered user.

[Confucius]

Okay, well how about setting a daily limit, like 10 threads a day or something? That will keep what we have in place...but also encourage new registrations.

What do you think?

That seems like a good solution having a daily thread limit for each day. However, I do not see any issues at the moment with people leeching too much, it's the same as it has always been. No matter what you do people won't register unless they want to.

[xcrossover25x]

repost http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/news...l-threads.html

[TheFreak]

Yeah leeching isn't an issue for me either. That is why on all my downloadable guides, I include a link of some sort to OwnedCore to help encourage registration.

[eugypt]

if it's not broken why fix it?

I've been lurking unregistered since D3 release, learnt a few nifty tricks from here and decided to give back to the forum. Had I been forced to register things would be different.

Good site traffic -> revenue from ads

[Jinfreakz]

That seems like a good solution having a daily thread limit for each day. However, I do not see any issues at the moment with people leeching too much, it's the same as it has always been. No matter what you do people won't register unless they want to.

In my opinion, guests should be allowed to view no more than 10 threads per day, then register if they want to view more. The amount of leechers on this site is horrid.
As much as I hate seeing "You must register to view this forum post", this forum has so many people on it but only few who post regularly.

[Bon]

I run and manage several sites larger than ownedcore and the answer realy is down to what the site owners want to achieve and have seen different implementions.

Each has its pro's and cons.


.1 Require members to register to see any content:
Can lower your overall pageviews and traffic, however often you will find those who take the time to register are higher quality traffic and after being forced to register are more likely to interact with the community.

2. Limit how many threads you can see per day:
As above, often generates higher quality traffic and reduces outright leeching. Gives people a snippet of whats available to help them decide to register or not. The downside is if the first 5 threads they read are naff, then they might think the rest are also so not register.

3. Experts exchange style "only show a bit"
Take the first few lines of a post and show those only... lets people browse for stuff they like... generates registrations as people need to register to see the whole thing. One of the most effective ways of getting registrations without limited people too much...

4. Free and open to all:
Gives you the best stats in terms of numbers... but is also generally low quality traffic. High leech rate, low interaciton rates.



Personally I like 3 the most... but 2 is often easier to implement.

[HI5]

You can't force anyone to post (especially good content) just because hes registered, and if we force random ppl who have no bigger interests in forum to register we will only get more spam.
And if someone want to contribute he will do it anyways.
+ if you restrict anything to unregistered users you're also restricting it to crawlers (maybe not literally, but they won't scan it anyways if its not 100% accessible by visitors).

We're not low on users and more important - we won't benefit from forcing anyone to become one, unless we make new users pay for membership which we won't because its not a paid site.

Regarding thread tittle - instead of "avoiding lurkers" we will only make the lurkers angry and encourage them to post, and these posts (thousands of them) won't be contributions...

I see no pros here, only cons - it wold be a very bad idea to do something like that.


Edit:
after reading my post I think I sound a bit like a douche - sorry, it wasn't intended, I'm just tired...