Well, what are your guy's opinions on what Guests should have?
I feel like nothing is bad, but I don't want them to be able to view anything and everything.
What are your ideas for what guests should have?
Guests should be able to view everything, but have no access to the likes of attachments etc.... Remember "Google, Yahoo etc...." are "Guests". Blocking them from crawling certain parts of your site is not good.
Agreed, but I want to encourage registrations (obviously) - so just letting them "creep" isn't very profitable..
What content do you provide on your forum ?
Technology, and the internet.
Any website that keeps me from viewing the content I'm looking for gets an instant blacklist. I abhor when ExpertSexChange.com appears in my search results (mostly because of their shady let-Googlebot-see-but-not-normal-guests practices) but any site that makes me waste my time registering for something I might visit once or maybe twice is just padding member numbers.
Hmm...
Yea, that's just what I need to figure out xD
The incentive for a user to sign up is based off of what they can see and potentially participate in. If you hide these things, you're losing more than you're gaining. Guests have their value as visitors as well, even if they never register or post.
Valid point, but why register if they have all permissions?
Really, a shoot-and-miss idea.
Well, most permissions, I suppose. They shouldn't be able to:
1) Post
2) Download attachments
3) This could go either way, but: view user profiles
I believe #3 depends on personal preference and how much information is shared in profiles. I hide things like Gamertags, for example.
EDIT: Basically, they should be able to read most content on a forum.