Should "search" be for members only?

[GatorGreg]

I just disabled the search button for folks who are not logged in as a bit of an experiment to see if we get a huge surge in new registrations. Several other forums I frequent do not allow you to search unless you're logged in as a member. Curious to see if the members here think this is a good idea or not.

 

[Stick Figure]

i personally hate sites like that. If i am working on someone elses vehicle and have a question regarding what other owners are doing, and what is working, i find it quite annoying to have to go through the whole registration process to search even the simplest of things. On the other hand when my b-day rolls around and i get 100+ happy b-day wishes from forums of cars i would never even consider owning, it does make me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

 

[G.I.G.]

Nah, I voted no because then you will have people registering for the forum that will never make a post. If someone just has a one-time question and would like to look up a certain subject, I say let them have it. I don't think we're hurting on number of members and people who contribute positively to the forum. If anything, making the search option for members only will bog down the mods with new member requests for people who will never post. Just my opinion.

 

[Arcking]

Is there any way you can tell how much stress unregistered viewers searching puts on the server? If it means better performance for members I'm fine with requiring membership to search. That doesn't mean that people have to be registered to take advantage of the content of the forum though - they can easily use Google to search the content by entering "site:toyota-4runner.org search term"

 

[rook]

..if it 'aint broke, don't fix it

 

[CJ3Flyr]

i personally hate sites like that. If i am working on someone elses vehicle and have a question regarding what other owners are doing, and what is working, i find it quite annoying to have to go through the whole registration process to search even the simplest of things. On the other hand when my b-day rolls around and i get 100+ happy b-day wishes from forums of cars i would never even consider owning, it does make me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

x2 :iagree:

 

[peter78]

i personally hate sites like that. If i am working on someone elses vehicle and have a question regarding what other owners are doing, and what is working, i find it quite annoying to have to go through the whole registration process to search even the simplest of things. On the other hand when my b-day rolls around and i get 100+ happy b-day wishes from forums of cars i would never even consider owning, it does make me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

Yeah, a lot of sites are like that. I like the idea of having a search engine for non-members. Every time I log on, there are a lot more visiters then members.

"Currently Active Users: 169 (35 members and 134 guests)
Most users ever online was 812, 06-20-2009 at 11:52 AM."

Some sites you have to pay, to use the search. My feeling is, are we here to get more members or are we here to help other 4Runner owners or potential owners regardless of membership?

 

[Annoyed]

I'd say leave it open, unless you are trying to drive membership numbers up for some reason.

People are (quite properly) loathsome & distrustful of giving out any information about themselves these days. and I can't see forcing them to register just to read off info from the site.

 

[hulk311]

i personally hate sites like that. If i am working on someone elses vehicle and have a question regarding what other owners are doing, and what is working, i find it quite annoying to have to go through the whole registration process to search even the simplest of things. On the other hand when my b-day rolls around and i get 100+ happy b-day wishes from forums of cars i would never even consider owning, it does make me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

this

 

[peter78]

I logged out and also found that you don't get the "new posts" button. So, no search, no new posts. If a new person comes aboard, they may not find it so appealing.

 

[10majfar]

I'm with the majority here.
I'm new to 4runners so I can relate to the people who spend countless hours searching forums for advice. We have a lot of smart people on this site who know about 4runners, and that is why I joined. But disabling search would just be an annoyance. If you can't search for what you need, you won't really know how helpful this site is and you probably won't join.

 

[GatorGreg]

Thanks for all the feedback/votes. I went ahead just now and turned back on the search feature for visitors/unlogged in members.

I logged out and also found that you don't get the "new posts" button. So, no search, no new posts. If a new person comes aboard, they may not find it so appealing.

Yeah to me that was the most annoying thing during the experiment - I really like the ability to hit "new posts" without bothering to log in and quickly see the day's activity.

 

[t4rBeast]

Please let everybody use the search engine. I would not even bother registering if I wasnt able to browse the server first.

 

[K.C.]

Allow visitors use the search button.

I loved T4R.ORG's old site the best compare to any forum I'm on.

It's cleanly done & easy to use. And you don't need to create an s/n to view things.