Should you have private areas that are ONLY accessible to your members? For instance, most forums are visible to everyone including guests except for the News forum for the site, The Off-topic area, the Debate area and there is a forum where they discuss their personal issues, and a sexuality forum and get support(eating disorders, cutting, etc etc) I was thinking am I potentially closing off good traffic by keeping those areas closed off.....and I wanted to ask you all Do you have members only areas? Why or Why not?
Yes, I have The Pub (off topic) and a 'Private Show' board which is an offshoot of my Big Show board (the main forum). Both are blocked to guests and new members. My members run their own businesses and sometimes they discuss things they wouldn't want their clients to see hence the Private Show. It's also a good spot to dump threads that are getting heated and wouldn't be so good for potential members to see.
Yeah the debate area on my forum is extremely unmoderated(except for no attacks on sexuality, race etc and threat of violence) and when members start arguing , I usually send them there to that forum so i would NOT want guests/new members to see that
