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Should Forum Search be restricted to registered members only?

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Steve:
In monitoring the board, I see lots of Guests searching the Forum.  I'm a firm believer that the lifeblood of online forums is an active membership that gives as much as it takes.  When I see someone search for an answer to a question they have as a Guest and then vanish into the mists of the Internet, I get a little personally frustrated.

My personal opinion: If you want to partake of fruit of the tree, then help tend the orchard.

In that vein, I have turned off Guest search as a test - but I wanted to get feedback from those of you who ARE members and compare your thoughts with changes in traffic.  Especially if you are active members.

IMPORTANT:  While a guest can not SEARCH the Forum, he/she can still BROWSE the Forum.

The poll will run for 2 weeks and then the results will be posted.

Thanks!

Steve:
Well, a whopping 6 people responded.  LOL  It was 3-2 in favor to keep the search restricted until it tied on the last day of the survey.  I've had the search restricted to just members while the survey was on, and I've actually seen a slight uptick in new members.  So, for now, I'm going to keep browsing the Forum open to guests, but if you want to do a search, you have to join the Forum.

Steve:
As a follow up, making becoming a Member a requirement to search the Forum does seem to be driving our membership numbers up.  Restricting access to searching to Members was turned on in the first few days of April 2019.  Here are the membership numbers for just before and just after.  The # is new Members added that month.

JAN 2019 - 30
FEB 2019 - 20
MAR 2019 - 27
APR 2019 - 44
MAY 2019 - 47 (w/ 2 days left to go in May)

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