A members only section of the forums

[Wingman]

<fun>
A FoMemByMem forum? (Say that ten times fast.)

Hey, it works for Facebook (or so we're programmed to believe) -- selecting visibility of timeline posts (tantamount to forum posts) to Friends (Staff), Friends of Friends (Members), or Public (... public.).

I'd better not start seeing pictures of what everyone ate for lunch every day, though.
</fun>

Actually, I am having difficulty envisioning the types of posts that the poster would want to be hidden from the public... oh wait... I just thought of this one. Ok, so there may be reasons.

[ATC_ROO]

Locked or Unlocked that is......... :beguiled:
I'm not suggesting the whole forums.
The forums as we see and use them at the moment would be unaffected.
But maybe add and extra forum called members, viewable only by members as an option for anybody to post things they don't want to be viewed by non members?

[Travis]

Yes, This goes into the age old question, Do we lock or keep unlocked. It has been voted to stay unlocked, simply because...
Many members and admins wouldn't be here now if it were locked.
A lot of good people don't want to sign up for something they have no idea how the community is ran.

I see both points of view as valid, and right now it doesn't seem to be a problem, at least yet.
This has been discussed many times and always turns to keeping it unlocked.
The forums were going to be locked up a bit better, however due to some technical stuff. It has been set to be relatively unlocked for the time being.

I hope this helps.
And trust me I completely understand where you are coming from.

[ATC_ROO]

Yes I originally thought of the idea as I was putting a how to connect to msflights tutorial on.
And I am a big big fan of making things EASILY accessible to all.

However.....
Anybody serious about joining in with us would take the time to sign up to the forums and look for connection info.
Where as a Troll that comes across the connection info on google, needn't bother signing up and jumps straight in passwordless and unvetted with their F18 departing from a taxiway.

Looking around different FS groups, you won't find many that will give you server connection details without signing up to their website first.

[Travis]

Connection details to what?
We are an open group with a mostly open door policy(except for the troll wall) last I gathered.
Do we have sensitive data or information we don't want know to the public?
Last I heard, this is not how we want to run our severs, however I fully understand if you want your test server to be tested privately. This Information can be posted in staff forums and shared individually for now.

If I am wrong someone else speak up and correct me please.

I don't like this suggestion because it would encourage more splitting in our server. I think between all the sim platforms we try to accommodate we have enough of that right now with that alone. Yes hopefully that will be fixed, But for now its not.

Please try to convince me otherwise Roo. If you have good reasons please share.
If there is a real problem however, please inform right away.

[ATC_ROO]

I suggest a section of the forums that only members can read.
At the moment all of our forums are open to the general public and google searching.

By implementing a members section like we have done with Teamspeak, some posts (for instance connection details to our servers) could be kept for members to view only.