Okay, so I've only actually belonged to a few boards, and both boards only allowed guests to see the informational areas - that is the rules, the application, advertising section (one didn't even have that actually...) etc. - but not the actual RP sections.

Now, though, I can't decide if I should do the same. Most boards I see let guests freely view the entire board (or at least a good chunk of it if it's not everything). Is it more advantageous to allow guest viewing? Do you think it can impact someone's decision whether to join a board or not?

The Board I'm working on now (not sure if I'm going to launch at all though :/ ) is a harry potter board, so obviously I was thinking about leaving parts of it invisible until players progressed (i.e. actually going to diagon alley for a little before reaching hogwarts, and not seeing hogsmeade until third year).

What do you do (I have a feeling I already know the most common answer to this question though) and would you choose to reveal parts of the board to guests but not all of it so that there is still some progression?

I think it's okay to hide some forums (sections) from guests. On mine, which I haven't launched yet, ugh, so much to do! - guests can't view certain things like the graphics area, obviously not the admin forum (which only admins can see anyway). But it seems that most people prefer to be able to see the game forums before joining, so they can see what kind of rp is going on. I like this too, though often, if I like the plot enough, I'll join without seeing the rp.

However, I might not stay. I'm an elitist snob. I prefer a certain length and ability and a lot of people are like this (not saying we're all elitist snobs, but having standards). They want to see how good or bad the rp is, and if they are comfortable with the level and length of writing, or even just the style of writing that's on the game.

I do like you idea of not being able to see certain forums until year 3, etc. I think it sounds fun, though it will be a lot of hard work as an admin. You'll need to have APC set up probably (account per character) and have to make sure you're organized with you member groups and forum masks. It could take the fun out of being a 2nd year sneaking off campus, but you win some you lose some. Of course, for this to really work, you'll need to keep the game moving forward, so people are actually advancing to the next year.

And then what are you going to do with graduates, allow the character to stay in the game as an "adult" and perhaps set up shop outside of the school? If the player even wants to keep the character after that point.

I really don't agree with stopping guests from seeing the rest of the board. In fact, any board that does stop me from seeing the roleplaying forums puts me off immediately, and nine times out of ten, I won't join. Personally, I think seeing the roleplay forums helps me see not only how active the forums are, but how many members are posting, and I can then read those threads to see what the standard of roleplaying is on that particular board.

If I can't find those things then I don't normally join. In my opinion, sites that stop the members seeing the roleplaying boards are trying to hide something, and that something is probably the fact that they don't have a lot of members, their members don't post, or there roleplaying forums just aren't that good or varied.

But that's my opinion. =]

If I can't see any RP, I don't join the board. No exceptions- I like to know what I'm getting myself into.

If you want to hide other things from guests, like member OOC areas, that's cool and totally understandable to me. A lot of people post introduction threads and similar things that they might not want everyone seeing.

I'm in along with most people here, I don't join RP sites unless I can see the kind of RP they have. It's like stepping into a body of water without knowing how deep it is. I really don't want to sink, and I'd look really foolish for trying to anticipate potential sinking, and end up just knee deep.

I do, however, hide the graphics section and introductions. Some people work very hard on their graphics, and it's not right to allow somebody just idling browsing the site to be able to steal them without any accountability. Likewise, some people reveal personal information in the Introductions, and it's not fair to them to leave that out in the open.

Otherwise, I have my staff forum hidden for obvious reasons. But I leave everything else available.

i usually let guests view all of the boards, except stuff that people could post personal stuff on like an introductions forum, and sometimes i block guests from seeing some of the forums, like photo albums and myspace and stuff. but other than those, they can see everything. well, except the staff forum. xD if i decide to have one.

Not allowing members to see the actual RP area (I don't care too much about graphics areas and such) is the first sign that there's something wrong and the admin is trying to cover it up.

"Hello, this board isn't active, but you won't see that until you join."

Not everyboard is like this, but it's the direct impression I get.

I hide bits and pieces.

- I hide the Dormant forum because I don't want people to think it's a free for all. It's a safe-house for applications for those characters are not being played. If people want to view applications, they can see our accepted forum, which is fully viewable.

- I hide planning forum to protect from drive-by plot leeches--of which I've experienced a few.

- I hide the testing forum for signatures and avatars and things like that, because it's not essential that guests see it.

I am considering hiding a selection of our RPG forums, purely because those are the areas where mature content is likely to take place. Given that there are an abundance of other places for people to view threads, that seems like a good deal to me.

I feel the same way; it creates an automatic feeling of distrust in me, and I find myself more often than not just walking away.

I like boards that are open and inviting, that allow you to see exactly what kind of atmosphere and writing styles you'll be working with.

The only thing hidden is the moderator forum (which is neeever used anyway xD) and the Character Profiles board. The Profiles board is where people post their detailed character info (as opposed to the quick and dirty joining board; we're applicationless) so it's hidden to prevent theft.

Other than that, guests are free to view everything. When I'm a guest, I like to be able to view the RP boards to know what I'm getting into, see if posting styles mesh with mine. :3 So I think hiding RP forums will only hurt a game.

until i realized that people wouldn't join boards that they couldn't fully see, i used to do that but it wasn't because i was hiding anything other than my work. i've had two of my boards stolen from me and given a different name and location so that the owners could say that they didn't steal my ideas.

of course, after thinking about it, both times, this was done by former members of my board and, therefore, i changed the way i looked at it all. after all, in protecting my board, i was killing it.

i guess my point is that it's not always that they're hiding something negative, they're just protecting their board from being ripped off. of course, it's usually the members who do the ripping when they get angry about something and then decide to leave so... what can you do?

muchos gracias for the response everyone - I didn't even realize some of the things mentioned. I know the questions seemed a little silly, but I wanted to grab as many honest opinions on the subject. I've officially redone several permission masks now too :) :green:

I think I had a very similar experience, nadja - at the last board I worked at the players (staff too unfortunately) were fairly inactive, and we weren't getting very many new members, probably because of the fact that the actual rp areas were hidden to guests. sadly the board ended up dying :/

To expand on this, because I'm curious (sorry for thread jacking!):

Would what Rhi-Rhi does turn anyone off? Hiding the accepted applications from guests? To me it seems like a good idea with all the character theft that seems to go on in the rpg world (horrible stuff!).

(don't worry, pathogenomica, hijack away :lol: )

I wouldn't really be turned off by it much. After all, what should a guest want with character applications anyways? The only reason I like being able to see applications is that sometimes I'm not sure what exactly should go in a particular section (sometimes the section title is vague, etc.) or I'm not sure exactly how long they should be, so I sometimes glance at other applications just to get an idea of what the admins are looking for.

I definitely use accepted apps as a way to gauge the level of effort the app would require of me, and what the staff is willing to accept as far as standards.

Rhi-Rhi doesn't hide accepted applications- her board is application-less. After members join they can create profiles for their characters and she has hidden those.



Personally, when a site does use applications, I like to be able to see accepted ones so I can see what kind of process applications go through.

I've never joined an application-less RP, so I'm not sure how I feel about character profiles being hidden. I would prefer to see them, to get a feel for what kind of characters are on the site, but having them hidden wouldn't be an instant turn-off like hiding all RPs would. In fact, with RPs viewable I probably don't really need to see character profiles, now that I think about it.

I actually like to keep the accepted apps, because it helps document the process of actually getting accepted into the RP. If you delete/hide them, it can make people wonder how certain people got accepted in the first place. At least, that's what I think, anyways.

As for the guests thing, I'm immediately put off by sites the limit what can be seen by guests. It leaves you wondering what the crap is happening behind that curtain. Not only that, it encourages you to sign up, realize the site is crap, then abandon it, leaving the administration to gloat "We've got X amount of members! LOL!" Revealing what you have in the RP shows that you don't feel shame for the boards.

The only part of my forum that we block is the creative stuff - so artwork, writing, and poetry by other members. This way, people who aren't members can't see it, and therefore can't steal it and call it their own. Apart from that, we really don't hide anything from guests - their only real restriction is that they can't post anywhere besides the help section, to keep spamming to the absolute minimum.

I don't think it's a bad idea to keep certain forums hidden and tier them, so that once you reach a certain point, you can access new areas and whatnot. In fact, I've always thought that was a sort of neat idea - a pat on the back for getting that far. I, personally, just like to allow my guests the freedom to browse everywhere, to see if they might like what's on the forum before they join.

Ell, I think that you should make all your boards readable and only some postable. That way guests can view your content but you can go with the idea you have. I like how only 3rd years can go to certain areas and such. It would make goals to attain and such.

I personally make my entire board available to guests. I will NEVER join a board that doesn't have it's sections up for viewing. I want to know what I'm getting into. Are there quality posters on this board? I need to be able to read peoples posts to find that out. Plus I want to familiarize myself with the goings on before I join, so with it private that's completely hindered.

I would never, ever join a board at which I could not see the majority of content - OOC areas (to see what the community is like), rp forums (at least some, to know what the skill level is) and so on. I'm not keen on the elitism of closed-off boards, it's too much of a lucky dip. Who knows what you'll get when you sign up?

I like to be able to see threads, applications, and some OOC activity. I can't work off the rules alone... and I don't want to put the effort into a brand new character, if seeing the IC forums would have told me that I wouldn't stay.

I'm not saying I can't understand why people do it -- I can, very much. Plagiarism is a nasty problem, but it seems to me that the majority of plagiarisers are either members of the board anyway, or they take what is viewable to guests. Plots, rules, whatever.

There are some member-only places on Tally. There's the admin-only forum, as most boards will have.. our character profiles used to be hidden, except I changed that... I don't know why they were, just one of those things we realised after a while. XD Some of the OOC forums are member-only, but not many of them. Tally's pretty open for all to see.. we have nothing to hide, so we don't.

There are three forums on my board that guests can't view. The first is the staff board (and only staff can see that), the second is the 'rejected/deleted/abandoned profiles/plot pages' which I keep in case someone wants to come back (and is also only viewable by staff). The third is the personal info board, which lists time zones and contact info, as well as which person plays what character (this board was made at the request of a member).

I would join a board that hid their RP section but I'd dislike it a little because of that, and if I didn't like what I saw when all was revealed I'd leave without telling the admin and without compunction. It's not even like I'm interested - I'm more interested in possibly being interested.

As Little Mouse said, Rhi has application-less so the profiles are a) not commented on by the admins (so there's no gaining an opinion of the admin there) and b) usually not very well filled-out. So it's fairly pointless having them visible. Especially since the roleplaying is so expressive of characters' bios.

I like your idea of not allowing people access to boards if it's not canon (that Hogsmeade idea is awesome). As TheChronicles said, I think having them viewable but not postable until third year (and have it in the description or people'll go crazy!) is a good idea, because then people can at least read them. And perhaps you could have it in the rules that some forums aren't attainable until certain conditions have been met - but if it was canon for some people to sneak into Hogsmeade before they were allowed, they could PM you with a plot idea and ask for permission just once? Something like that...

I know Rhi-Rhi's game are application-less. But to me, most applications are pretty much character profiles. I used application instead of profile, since that's what the majority of rp boards have, or call them, since there is a lack in the number of application-less games. Sorry if I upset anyone. I should have used both profile & application I guess.

And don't most people delete all the admin comments once the application has been accepted? I know I do, and that Panda does. Just seems messy to leave them there.

I don;t understand not allowing guests to see the RP sections. >_< How the hell are people supposed to decide if the writing is any good without making an account? Its pretentious in most cases and pointless. Forcing people to register only means you have sooooooo many more accounts to prune. What's the point? If they were going to steal it then all they have to do it register, if you think you have too many forums then when they join they'll see them anyways....

I would never join a roleplay where IC forums are hidden. I want to be able to gauge the level of activity, writing and alike before deciding whether or not I'll join. With that said, the only forums hidden on my board are accepted applications as some kind of precaution since there are so many rippers around, graphic request forum, and mature forum.

On the boards I manage I only have certain things open for guests to see. However a big reason I do this is that my sites are all rated R or Mature and I don't like the idea of anyone being able to wander through and see things that they might not have been expecting (even though warnings on very graphic threads are posted).

For me, I let guests see all the rules, plots, subplots etc. As well as canons, claims, application templates, and accepted/denied/inactive profiles. Then I usually have a FAQ's section and all the OOC (including advertisements) are guest friendly.

This is just how I do things, and I still will join a site where I can't see the RP sections as long as I can see the profiles. To me profiles can be a good indicator on the quality of writing to expect.

No, Patho, I don't think most people delete admin comments. I've never heard of anyone doing that before, actually. Seems like a lot of work. PMing would be easier.

I used the terms application and profile separately because an application is just that, while a profile isn't applying to a board. It's mainly the fact that a lot are either not finished or insane that sets 'profiles' apart from 'applications', as some people are good at doing them and others suck. So if you looked at them you'd be getting a wonky view of the board's quality.

I don't agree with that, Bandit. Things like godmodding and a lack of cooperation with other members don't come out in applications/profiles. I've seen people who write good profiles and RP atrociously. Some people even steal their profiles from other people, which makes their profile totally worthless as a measure of their ability. (I've had it happen on my board and I didn't know about it until the person it had been stolen from told me.) Profiles can show to a degree an RPer's ability, but it can also be grossly misleading, making showing only profiles a dangerous thing to bet on when joining.

I seem to be in the minority, but I'm trying a "carrot and stick" format. Guests can see OOC forums, but not much else. If they register, they can see the vast majority of the RP forums; if they get accepted, depending on whether they RP as a Pokemon or trainer, they can see even more. The board has hit 250 members and 6k posts less than two months after opening, and the average number of daily new members has jumped to 3-5 instead of 1-2 like it was before this mask system, so I'd say it's working. More people are staying around to actually RP, too, so I feel reasonably comfortable in saying it's not just a "More members! MOAR!" scam. Plus, I mean, it's harder for people to steal my stuff that way. I've had... what, two ripoff sites, plus another five or so that stole a fair number of the rules word for word.

The idea with partial masking, I guess, is that you're more likely to stick around if you went to the trouble of creating an account than if you stayed as a guest. I could be wrong or I could be right; no one here, myself included, can say with absolute certainty one way or another. What people think they want and what they need are often two entirely separate things, you know. :p

As a closing statement, I'd just like to say that claiming that people hide parts of forums "because they're ashamed of the RP," as I've heard from quite a number of people in my admin experience, is incredibly presumptuous, egotistical, and flat out moronic. There are a thousand reasons an admin might hide parts of boards, and to say that you know better than the one who actually DID the act is making a woefully uninformed statement. In the end, it's up to the admin of the site to make the final decision. History will judge him on his decisions, and to attempt to judge now, from a limited viewpoint, is utter folly.

I hadn't really thought about this topic until I saw this board. But the more I do think about it, the more I realize that every time I've gone to a board that has a majority of their stuff hidden, I immediately just close the window.

In my case, I'm a very dedicated rper. When I join a site, I'm in for the long haul. I want to be able to ghost around for a day or two, reading posts, reading profiles, watching the ooc chat. I want to know everything about the rp I'm joining, and that includes all the stuff that some admins hide. I want to see if the people there make nice graphics. I want to see what all the characters are like in rp and outside of rp. I want to see the accepted applications and the denied ones, so when I do join, I have a pretty good reference of what the admins want from me, what they expect.

In short, it seems that hiding stuff from guests not only puts me off, but a lot of other people as well. -shrug-

For OOC and what have you, I really don't care, however if I can't see the bulk of your roleplaying forums (no, one or two isn't enough, as it doesn't give a clear picture), I won't join, no matter how interesting I find the plot.

Similarly, I won't join if I can't view accpeted applications. I like to be well aware of what's expected of me - and get a good idea of what other members have put in - well before I actually join a forum.

Nothing is more off-putting than to be looking for a new RP and end up on board that hides the RP area. Talk about making prospective members feel instantly unwelcome.

I normally would not even give any board like that a second glance. However, I'm a sucker for a well laid-out, professional looking forum. I stumbled on one a while back that was quite impressive but their RP area was hidden (as well as accepted bios). I read through the rules and everything sounded great. So, I went ahead and registered for an account so I could check out the RP area before writing up an app. The professionalism stopped at the RP area - it was filled with one line posts and the member list consisted mainly of Mary Sues.

For mature RPG's I understand it, most 18+ boards that are chat boards are MBA anyways. I agree with hiding the staff section but not to hide any bitching about members. I would be perfectly happy members seeing what we say,as we do not bitch, but we world build and plot there which is the reason its hidden. ;)

That and any WIP forums are hidden at my board/s, the RP sections are not mature rated so there is, in my humble opinion, no reason to hide them. In fact I am proud of the quality TNR produces and many members have joined because of the standard of writing. We also have loads of lurkers which I am proud of too. So, you don't want to participate, then feel free to read our stories. We do not only write for each other, we want others to read about our world and characters and be more cathartic in their involvement. :D

I'm not a fan of boards who hide anything. It irks me that I can't see anything without joining. It feels like a dodge to up member counts.
The only thing which is hidden from guests/nonregistered members at our boards are the "adult(18+)" forums. And before anyone says it, we're on a private server with phpBB, so IF's ban of such material doesn't apply. However, I am a fan of being responsible with such things. If you're under 18 and apply on our boards you will have to lie about your age three times to get accepted and I won't take responsibility for that /hijack ;)

I used to do hidden areas for specific groups, including guests. Mostly, I don't allow guests to see completed apps, plot pages and that's mostly it. I don't like the idea of a guest coming and ripping something off one of my boards. Especially something that one of my members put work into.

On the player aspect. I've made a fair amount of HP boards, and I used to make common rooms only visible to the people who belonged in them, but then I realized that it takes away a lot of the fun for the member themselves, not being able to know what is going on or read funny scenes that happen in a common room other than their own. Now, I just make it so that they can read them, but not post. It seems to make it a bit more fair and more fun for the members too =]

Mostly everything is viewable on the forum I run. Only the two admin can see the staff discussion board and the dorms. I probably will start hiding certain areas of the board just for something fun for the members to have but as an rper I find it rather irritating when you have to log in just to read the rules or to see approved applications.

I can appreciate that admin don't want applications stolen. I worried about that too for a while but to be honest, I doubt people have time to go hunting around RPGS to make sure that their applications arent taken and used elsewhere. It might be naive but at this point, I just do the best I can with the board and support the players and for any one that wants to steal an app? One word: KARMA. A small word for a large concept. LOL. I guess I just hope that people will use their own creativity and imagination instead of hijacking someone elses.

I have thought about hiding the RP section as well as the character profiles forum from quests. But on second thought I realized that revealing them gives browsers insight as to what your game is all about. If you hide it, people may join just to see and if they don't like what they see, they will leave and now you have an inactive user which you have to delete. I don't like doing unnecessary things like that. I want my players to join because they have a genuine interest in the content and the only way they can be interested is if they see your content upon their first visit without hassle.

At the moment, everything on StC is viewable to guests - we don't have a staff area, or an application process. Doesn't mean I won't change things in the future, depending on what's needed, or what my players want.

The only place guests can actually post is in the help section, where they can contact me or ask any questions not answered anywhere else.