Make the forum private?

[FreePaidSurveys]

Just mulling over the idea of making the forum private. Here's what I'm thinking. First, I would go through and delete all users that have never posted a message. I would, of course, give some warning to allow legitimate members to post something. Then I'd go through the user list and filter out suspicious members (porn links for their website, etc..).

Then when a new member decides to sign up, I would have to approve them. I'll have to play around with it a bit, but I'd like to require that they submit some form of information ("I just recently started taking online surveys, blah blah blah") as to why they want to join the forum. I would then read through them and approve them as a member.

The good part would be that I don't think that spammers would go through the trouble just to have their spam deleted anyways. The bad part is this extra step may discourage some legitimate new members.

I'd like to do something as recent "legitimate" posts have decreased. I think this may be due to the high volume of spam posted lately. I think by screening new members I can bring this forum back to what it used to be, survey people helping survey people.

Let me know what you think. Any and all feedback is appreciated.

[jman95]

I voted yes. But as you say though it could also distract new legitamate members from joining. A possibility to remedy that could be something like a point system. Maybe for each post and everything they do on the site they recieve points. With these points they could trade them in for certain incentives. For example another forum I am a member of has something similar where 1 point = $0.0001. You have to have a minimum of 100 points and be a member of the site for a minimum of 6 months to discourage members from signing up, racking up a bunch of points and then cashing in and leaving. I know this isnt much money but it could be an incentive for people to post good legitimate posts about surveys and it would help weed out the spammers etc. I know something like this wouldnt be possible immediately but its just one suggestion, you could exchange points for other things such as advertising for your website as in banner impressions or something like that. Again this is just some suggestions im sure there is more that will come to my mind but this is all I can think of right now.

[rickou812]

I voted no, the reason is, I think you would lose a lot of could be members.
There are a lot of people that are very active readers, but do not like to post. Even though they do not contribute to the forum with posts, they usually do contribute by word of mouth advertising. And may become posters as they become more knowledgeable and comfortable with the community.

I think that there are much better ways to handle the problems.
One would be to make a minimum post requirement to enter some areas.
That would be a n easy fix since you can set this up in the user permissions settings.

I can think of several other options, but I am out of time...I have a ton of surveys to do!!

Richard Cook