Private Community?

[IGOTASTi]

Hello everyone I wanted to ask a question to see what everyone thought. Some stuff happened over the last few days and I'm really not going into detail other than I'm sick of people stealing ideas, people, and so on. I'm thinking of making IGOTASTi.COM & IGOTAEVO.COM a private community. We have tons of exposure though Facebook and other avenues, and I believe people would join once they hit the forum as curiosity kills the cat. So what I'm asking is do you wanna go to a private community where people can't see what you post unless they join us. I feel we are a great bunch of people here and I feel this is a direction I would like to go. I don't do nothing without a vote or hearing what people have to say. We are a community and that's how we run this place.

Please cast your vote in the poll above. Poll will run for 14 days.

 

[spyder8213]

100% agree

 

[WorldRallyBug]

100% onboard with this.

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[HolyCrapItsFast]

I have mixed feelings about this... There are some advantages to keeping it open. If we go private we lose exposure in google searches and that helps draw people in also. I also think it would hurt our vendors exposure if threads dont come up in google searches. You might find your new memberships go down as a result

If I am a person searching information and I come accross this site and find I can't browes the information here I will simply move on to the next one. But if I find what I'm looking for I will most likely recognize its worth to the community and join the site.

However I am for it if it means protecting our information from malicious intent. I'm voting yes...ish. If you think about it that's kinda why we made the Elite section and the rest of the information we have is really not proprietary. As for the ideas we have for implementing features and options... well it's gonna happen and at least we can say we were the pioneers.

Besides whats stoping spys from joning the site anyway.

 

[Z1107]

After reading Holy's post I feel we should approach this in a step by step manner. Keep a sample of the site open, by sample I mean generic information for noobs, like basic stage 1 info or help section. For members journals and big build information keep that closed. This way we still get the exposure to new people but give the perception to info thieves and trolls that its going to be more work than whats its worth about 70% of those that fall in that category. I dont know what exactly we are trying to protect so I am just giving a broad spectrum opinion.

 

[IGOTASTi]

Holy does have a good point. I'm just seeing what everyone thinks.

 

[STimedic]

I'm just gonna say keep certain proprietary aspects to a private basis. All else....free info. I vote no.

 

[DKDunn04]

I like the idea of having some areas be private, like the Elite forum, but It is a bad idea to make the entire forum private.

 

[Vermont]

Ima have to go with fuji on this one..... While forming a closed community would be nice in some ways (data privatization being one) it would limit the amount of new blood coming in. This in turn lowers the amount of growth and new ideas we have. Over all I would prefer us to be an open and honest community.

After all.... Haters gonna Hate...

 

[BAD STI]

1. This is an online forum, a place where people freely share information.

2. You can only protect so much from privatizing the community. Any one of us could potentially break off and start our own site.

3. People can and will steal our shit. That just means we're doing it right. People that cannot come up with great ideas will continue to emulate the ideas of others in an attempt to be successful. Even patents have an expiration date, and as soon as that is done there is someone copying it. Or the Chinese have a knock of like two days later, either way. Information assurance and information security are major functions of my job. You never will be able to stop all the leaks. Heck, in some ways leaks can be used to our advantage

4. Think about the growth model. Yes, we don't want every nutswinger and teenager to come in here, but more members means more data. More data means that as we stand the test of time we continue to refine and improve.

5. Fuck'm. Seriously. Keep on trucking, we continue to think for ourselves, move on in the same positive direction and improve HOW WE SEE WE SHOULD. Forget they are there and just do what we do.

Back to your regularly scheduled bitchslapping.

I agree with Fuj 100%. Thank you for saving me from typing a long response LOL.

Turning the forum private would kill it. I feel it would be a horrible choice.

 

[bugeye_fever]

^^ I'm in agreement. I like reading about all the cool stuff the guru's are thinking up, if you want to keep it private, might as well put it in the elite forum. I mean, I'm not an elite, much less a paying member(give me a month or so, lol,) but thats probably how it should be.

 

[spyder8213]

I see where Holy is coming from. My vote of yes to private is in a different sense. I think we can use it to bolster members and active users. I've been to forums where you can only see the first few posts as a guest and need to be a member for full access. I don't think we need to build a brick wall around the site for protection of information. My irritation is seeing 8 members online and 70+ guests most of the time.

Some of the other forums I belong to have a "Members Only" area where you can keep certain things private. So that's an idea as well. Maybe we need to know a little more of what is meant by making the site private.

Remember, imitation is the best compliment. One of the car clubs I used to hang out with had a saying, "Often imitated, never duplicated!"

 

[spyder8213]

I meant I see where Fuji was coming from, not Holy.

 

[spyder8213]

Anyone familiar with running a forum or advertising can also agree with me on this, the more actual members we have that are on the forums a few times a week or daily, the more vendors we can approach to support the site, give group buy deals, etc. Our member recruiting is an important part of running/supporting the forums. It's not just the money that's donated every year.

 

[jswansti]

I say keep it open. I love this community and its different than any other forum im on, in a good way.

 

[SamIam]

A LOT of GOOD POINTS!!!

 

[Td_d]

I'm of the same opinion as Fuji and Holy - I think making it private, despite good intentions, would be the kiss of death for future growth of the forum. I also think it would be a poor business model in terms of ensuring the financial sustainability going forward.

Let them copy - as people have said, imitation is the best form of flattery.

 

[Eagleye]

After voting i read everyone's thoughts...typical guy move I guess. Anyway, I voted yes, but think I like the idea of having "members only" sections as someone else mentioned.

 

[IGOTASTi]

Well the community has spoken and I will abide by that. We will not go private.

Thanks everyone for your input in this matter.

 

[John]

I don't think I would have even voted on this....not that it matters because I missed the cutoff anyways.

I'm on the fence and I'll explain both sides.

Going private can push more people to register, and help keep spam down...but at the same time it will KILL the sites page rank in Google. With any site, Google rankings are VERY important. I believe you can set forums to allow spiders to crawl a private forum to keep your page rank....but even then who is going to spend 10 minutes registering just to read something that may or may not help them.....when they could just click on the next link down (nasioc) that would have their answers.