Guest Permissions and Limitations

How much of your forum do you allow unregistered users to experience before they are forced to login? I normally allow them to search and view threads in most forums and user profiles, at least on a forum like this. Depending on the topic of the forum I may disallow them to view the content of topics (but can still see the titles) and member profiles, member list, forum leaders, etc.

 

Generally, I tend to not restrict them when it comes to their viewing abilities. In order to post and/or access the forum's features, they must register - no exceptions whatsoever.

 

Not much limitations at Setsou - BITW, though; no shoutbox.

 

I let them see the whole entire forum. But, I do not let them see any posts. So they are tempted to join

 

Guests can view threads and posts at their leisure, but not profiles. There are a few exceptions, though: we have an exclusive directory that no other site in our niche has, so we allow guests to see just the thread titles of this section. They must register to view the content. Same thing goes for our Wanted and For Sale section.

 

Has anyone ever created and unregistered area for support/anonymous purposes?

 

I've considered doing that, but it's unnecessary in my niche, to be honest. I actually can't really think of a forum that it would be warranted to have such a section.

I've seen it done before, though - I cannot recall where because I'm too tired. :p

 

I've seen a forum like that and I searched, there were a few viagra ads in there but nothing too terrible. The site owner said it did take time to monitor those things.

"Contact us" link works pretty good for guests.

 

I've been letting them read everything, but I've been thinking of hiding the signatures.

 

Turn BBcodes off for them so they get annoying codes like

 

Hiding the signatures isn't a bad idea. I hide most of the postbit information from guests, so as not to confuse or overwhelm them. And because none of it is information that needs to be crawled by SE spiders. Check one of my threads to see how it looks: Lineolated Parakeet Forum - Linnie Forum Community

 

How can the signatures be hidden from guests with the stock vB code?

 

Using template conditionals. E.g.

Code:

<if condition="$show['guest']"> Signature Content Here </if>

See the following:
Vbulletin Conditionals - vBulletin Community Forum
vBulletin Template Conditionals List

 

"SHOWTHREAD"?

 

Postbit or postbit_legacy.

 

Would this work in the Postbit template to not show sigs to guests?

Code:

<if condition!="$show['guest']"> $post[signature] </if>

I put a "!" before the "=" in.


(As scary as it sounds the template system is beginning to make some sense)

 

They can see anything. No posting, chatbox or arcade, though. Just viewing threads, profiles, etc.

 

Oops, I gave you the wrong conditional. :o
Use this one:

Code:

<if condition="$show['member']">

 

Besides 'member' and 'guest' what other conditions would be tested for? Do those 2 cover all conditions?

Member could mean many different user groups in the admincp.



I'm good at some things. but not so good at others. Clearly this type of thing is my weak point.

 

If you are wanting to simply show something (i.e. signatures) to members only, then the conditional I posted is appropriate.

If you browse through the links I referred to earlier, you will find that there are conditionals for usergroups and many other things. For example, "If user is a member of usergroup IDs 1, 2, or 3, then show this". It's a very flexible system and I use conditionals all the time.