SMF Development > Applied or Declined Requests

Show a board title but must join to see the content

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timeonthewater:
I know this has been discussed before but I can't find the thread.

I want visitors to be able to see all the boards but must register to access some of them.

Arantor:
View Only Boards is the mod you're looking for.

Note that search engines will only be able to see what guests can see, and I'm not sure it really helps encourage members to join, but maybe it will...

MrPhil:
Didn't I see at some point a mod to display just a "teaser" of a topic's or post's contents (first 100 characters or so) for guests? It doesn't seem to be listed under the keywords I tried. That would help get good search results (and whet reader's appetites) while still requiring registration to see the whole thing.

Kindred:
When I reach a site like that, I leave so fast that I leave flame trails...

In today's climate, when everything is available from multiple sources, I see no point if I have to register to view a site. I get even more pissed off to see "teasers" which then force me to register to read the whole thing.

If you want PARTICIPATING users, rather than just random registrations, then make your site available for reading, require registration for posting -- and have interesting content that makes folks want to participate in the conversations.

MrPhil:
It's becoming common to require paid registration to read site articles. Newspapers like The New York Times are doing that (very annoying), even if they have on-page advertising (which guests would also see). I guess it's a sign of desperation if ads don't generate enough revenue to support the site (or in this case, subsidize the newspaper itself). I just go elsewhere to read news once my monthly free quota is up.

For a site without paid registration (with or without ads), I'm not sure what the point would be to require signup to read everything. I hope you're not planning to harvest email addresses for spamming! There was a topic a few weeks ago about modifying SMF so that guests (including spiders) only see older (>= 1 week old) material, while signed-on members can see everything. Has anyone shown that requiring membership actually increases the eyeball count?

Was the original request actually to restrict viewing to registered members (private content, etc.)? Now that I reread the post, it sounds like that might be what you're looking for. Yes, that could be done by group permissions (non-post-based groups), but it would only make sense to have registration approval by admin. Or do you want to have everything readable by anyone, but selected boards can only be posted to by logged-on members while others can be posted to by guests? I believe that can be done by permissions, too.

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