Most forums are not available to guests?

[Ne0nx3r0]

Maybe this is on purpose (I tried reading the forum policy, but it was ten pages long -.-), but I wanted to mention that most of your forums can't be read by guests.

This is terribly against SEO (and generally the concept of an open source community), and I think if you allowed guests/spiders/etc to view all, or most of the forums, it might cut down on issues people have.

[davemm]

as far as i am aware, this is intentional, and has always been like this. If people have a genuine interest in the project then they wont mind signing up, will they?

[TheLuda]

Well... forums are at all against SEO. Besides issues will not be cut down. People usually are too lazy to search, thus search spiders will not help to any degree

[Ne0nx3r0]

as far as i am aware, this is intentional, and has always been like this. If people have a genuine interest in the project then they wont mind signing up, will they?

I agree people will sign up if they have an interest, but if they want an answer, being able to Google it is essential. Surely you understand this.

Well... forums are at all against SEO.

Forums are among the most indexed pages on the planet, and how most IT folks find their answers. This is a fundamental concept of web 2.0.

Besides issues will not be cut down. People usually are too lazy to search, thus search spiders will not help to any degree

Ha, I hope your moderators/admins will keep that in mind and remain patient when new users ask something that has been answered a dozen times over.

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I apologize, this was only a suggestion; apparently folks here are well aware of the implications of this forum configuration and have purposely set it up in such a way.

[davemm]

Ha, I hope your moderators/admins will keep that in mind and remain patient when new users ask something that has been answered a dozen times over.

That's what the forum search facility is intended for, people can sign up, then use the search bar at the top, and even do some reading (i know, its a bit old fashioned) and would probably solve 99% of any problems without ever having to post!

[TheLuda]

In general, I think forums are by far the least acceptable answer to providing information. It is a discussion format, and I think for pure information there are far superior solutions. E.g. take a look the Fedora Docs. These are created using Publican.

[Ne0nx3r0]

That's what the forum search facility is intended for, people can sign up, then use the search bar at the top, and even do some reading (i know, its a bit old fashioned) and would probably solve 99% of any problems without ever having to post!

Why make someone signup for a user account before you allow them to search for answers? You don't think they would get tired out from searching online first, and then finally sign up to ask a question? That's not even getting into the potential audience you waste by not drawing their queries this way. I suppose it does help your inactive user count though.

This method seems awfully converse to me, but it is your site.

[TheLuda]

Seriously, I can understand where you're coming from. Try my view. This forum is meant to be a place where people can learn more about advanced C/C++ development in a place where spam and trolling is not welcome.

Opening up these forums would honestly work only under two conditions: more moderators doing very strict moderation, and more people actually willing to write documentation instead of just more people requesting installation support.

If you can tell me how we can keep the forum quality as good as it is with all those friendly, and kind people we have here, even with a few thousand more users, then make a suggestion, give a helping hand, and we can try it.

It's not that I am unwilling to open things up, I just prefer suggestions that come with possible solutions

[Patman128]

TheLuda, I'm not sure I quite understand your position. Opening the forum to guests would reduce the number of users, not increase it.

I think what he means it open it for guests for viewing, not posting. If you do this, than many people who make accounts just to view the installation guide would no longer have to. Either this, or open a new section for guests that contains all guides and important information for compiling, installing and using mangos. At least it would allow people who come here to not just get hit by a registration-wall and leave open the possibility of registering later and getting access to the rest of the forums if they run into any problems.

[VladimirMangos]

I think point in forum is mangos core development targeting. Mangos core not provide complete usable product without scripting and DB. So help to end users not primary goal of forum in result.

If you want help to mangos core development you in any case will need register at forum. From my point forum for get back response from mangos users bug reports or patches and place for discuss this. And this cleary all required registration anyway. Open access just add more spam and increase price for spambot and other garbage posts for get with it into search results at google and etc.

[TheLuda]

Vladimir pretty much nailed it. We have had open forums for a while two years ago, and it was painful... if I try to describe the experience in friendly words.

[Toinan67]

If you see MaNGOS as a "consumer software", MaNGOS forums should be opened to guests

If you see MaNGOS as what it is really, i.e a community project, MaNGOS forums should stay as they are now

More and more people with a minimum knowledge can install and use MaNGOS easily, without giving back a little something to the community.

Having to sign up for having access to the forums is, I think, a good way to involve them a bit more