what is this login shit

[Pressure Drop]

its snowing

[Foreign]

Spent about 10 minutes googling and the "show only first post to guests" plug-in is drowning out any reasonable add-ons I can find. I did find some code snippets though, here, that go into the template. I think it can be adapted to check for whether the viewer is registered and, if not, show an advert for the game client:

http://www.itsabhik.com/coding/vbulletin-4-show-advertisement-after-first-post.html

[Jason]

i disabled the limited guest viewing add-on entirely for the time being. i do really like foreign's idea of simply having a "stickied" post at the beginning of every thread for unregistered users. it's far less of an annoyance to the people who just don't feel like logging in (hi pd!), but it still might bring in a few legit new people now and again.

i'm so sucked into skyrim right now that i'm feeling too lazy to look for a good add-on for this functionality. foreign, if you wanna take point on this and find me something i can install and get this thing up and running, it would be most appreciated!

[Nockm]

Just don't completely nerf the site (like what is happening now) or they'll leave.

I agree - but it sounds like forum management think otherwise. If not, why hasn't it been reverted yet ASAP?

[Money]

man why did i link tw forusm up with my fb.. now everytime i change my fb pic it changes my forum avatar to it automatically lmao

[Foreign]

Well if you want to stimulate people to download: why not make a link for it on the main page

That might be too subtle. I doubt that would yield many (if any) hits. People aren't typically going to go cruising around the entire page looking for interesting links to click. The current solution may have been too in-your-face, but if you actually want them to see the ad (that is what this thing is basically), you have to get it in front of them somehow that forces them to scroll/click past it. Just don't completely nerf the site (like what is happening now) or they'll leave.

[Supreme]

Well if you want to stimulate people to download: why not make a link for it on the main page

[M_M God]

Well obviously a lot of the visitors are spambots/webcrawlers and whatever, but a big part of them are just normal people interested in reading topics we talk about on our forums. If they have an interest in game related talk aswell, it might be useful to at least investigate and try to get them to stick around on our forums. So sorry that we're actually trying to do something that can improve our forum and zone population and activity. For old users this is barely a thing they notice, when you load the main forum website you don't see it, you normally are logged in already or log in and then you have nothing to do with the limited guest viewing aswell. So you will only notice it when you are trying to browse our forums when you're not logged in. Stop making a fuss about something that isn't even a big issue and try positive criticism for once PH.

[PH]

So, instead of complaining about it try to actually give some positive input on how to get some of those visitors into our forums and into our games, like Foreign just did? Sometimes we have over 200 guests on our forums but if you can't get them to stick around ever or register it's just a shame really..

have you even bothered to check what the very vast majority (over 95%) of those guests actually are? they're web crawlers, and if you want to risk pissing off established users in order to get bots to sign up then i guess that tells me all i need to know about where this forum is heading

[M_M God]

Well we're open to listen to any suggestions on how to improve the current limited-guest-viewing addon. Or if someone thinks they can type out a user friendly text that will tell people what our forums are about and how to register/download the game..I'm all for it.

[Nockm]

Humble 2c:

I thought it was a bad idea. (I hadn't encountered the login message myself yet, though.)
Then I encountered it, and actually read what it said. Then I thought it was a great idea! (But a bit too harsh perhaps.)

Maybe if it was possible for that message to be more of a 'nag' thing (this message will pop up before every other thread you view until you register!) then it's the best of both worlds. Something along the lines of Foreign's experts-exchange idea, I think that's the kind of constructive criticism we should all be attempting.

The thing is, I'm not sure how many outsiders really view this page at all - I currently assume most guests are registered people who haven't bothered to login yet. If there really is a huge audience guest-not-playing-subspace-yet to tap into, I think this makes sense to do. If not, then there's not point in inconveniencing existing members for no proven potential advantage.

I think it's good that Jason can just try things out; small ideas like this can always be reverted, no big deal. I think red tape slows things down and can kill crucial creative momentum - ok so this idea didn't pan out perfectly, but that means we're ready for the next iteration now instead of still at square one, begging for approval first -- you have to fail many times before you succeed IMO.

[M_M God]

So, instead of complaining about it try to actually give some positive input on how to get some of those visitors into our forums and into our games, like Foreign just did? Sometimes we have over 200 guests on our forums but if you can't get them to stick around ever or register it's just a shame really..

[Mantra-Slider]

I am against this

[Foreign]

I wouldn't call it a "terrible idea". It's just poorly implemented. Maybe we could implement something more like experts-exchange but less annoying. Just make guests scroll past a mock-up "first post" on every thread that has information about the downloading the game/registering whatever.

That way you get face time for the game with people on every page view without really distracting them too much from what they're trying to accomplish. Stick a cool banner or something in there to grab attention and I think you're home.

If you need someone to bang around in your forum code to get that done just get someone with credential info to send me a PM with details so I can block off some time for it.

[Supreme]

honestly i just look at the next link if a forum requires me to register. and mostly I browse a forum for a little while and only register if I have something to say.

#terribleidea