I really don't like boards in which you have to creat an account to view what's going on. Like the only public boards they have are: rules, Canon list, plot, and advertisements. I like looking around the board to see what kind of rp skill is there and what type of style people have. I like to familiarize myself with it before I join, and I only sign up if I'm going to join. Anyone else find this annoying?

I'm not overly fond of it, no. I do like to see what sorts of IC areas a forum sports, and what the writers themselves are like. If all you can see are the rules and the basic information necessary to join, I think it's a deterrent to joining. What if it turns out you hate the forum after you join it, or that you expected it to be something more than it is? I would rather see the entire forum beforehand apart from the creative areas and whatnot (those I do feel should be hidden fron guests).

Exactly! Finally, someone who feels the same way I do!

Ugh, I hate it when this happens. I really dislike it when sites don't even let you view the site to view the canon listings, rules, plot line...or anything for that matter.

It is really frustrating. I joined one like that recently, but lost interest rather quickly, due to my dislike in the way the site was run and things too. I would have been able judge before i joined if it didn't require all members to log in.

I find it a mix of annoying and amusing to be honest. Annoying because simply put, I'd like to see if an RP's worth joining before I create an account.

The thing is though, a lot of these places claim to be doing it so no one can copy their stuff, but then you join to take a peek at what's going on and they're pretty invariably inhabited by people who really can't write to save their lives.

Haha. Yeah, you click on and see rules and stuff and messages.
"For copyright reasons you may not see the members role plays and so on and so on."
And so you join thinking, "Well, if they want to protect their members from plagerism they must be nice, caring admins, and surely the members must be pretty great if you have to hide their work!"

So you join, create you account and wait to be accepted and then look around, see a few of these threads and the initial reaction is. Oh dear!

Not all sites are like this, I know... But you get so used to seeing this sites where you can't see and you finally catch on, they are hiding RP's so new members can't see how bad the writing is........

lol.

I have no idea why Admins do that to their boards. There's no such thing as copyrighted material if its an open roleplay board once you join. It doesnt make sense. I completely agree that its only fair that you'd want to check how things flow, besides rules and canons and all that stuff.

What i do on my boards is i just have sections that arent postable as a guest, but everything else is readable. I think its more convenient for everybody. =]

I just skip over those. If I can't see it, I'm not joining it.

I hate when people do that. Like you said, I'd expect they'd want you to see the quality of not just the roleplaying itself, but the actual board. I can understand not being able to post, but viewing I think should be allowed.

On my own board, EVERYTHING is viewable by guests. There's only one that's where guests can actually post, and it's just the Q&A forum.

If I get to a board that does that, I usually skip over them. But if I'm desperate enough, or I'm interested enough in the RP, I'll maybe join as a crap account just to view it.

People who advertise on my site with stuff like that usually get their sites promptly deleted, and I will warn them in their C-Box, if they have one, as to why it was done.

I shouldn't have to jump through hurdles to advertise on a person's site if I didn't set up those hurdles on mine. Common courtesy, dammit.

I have been to SOOO many of those. ONe I went to, had pretty decent graphics and pictures and crap, so I thought 'Why not?' when i created the account...DEAD. Ghost town. Like one person on there besides me...it was such a waste of my time even though it took me 2 minutes lol