The raiding in SW:TOR is now well under way. We're modelling our forum set up on the Dead Men Raiding as it seems to have served the WOW community well and there are many similarities between the two games. However there is a question about what content we keep behind closed doors and what we make public. Clearly we need areas where we can discuss sensitive aspects of running a raiding guild away from the general population and we have both a council and Operations leaders forums for that purpose. However I'm wondering what the value of a Star Wars player only forum is i.e. one accessable only to SW:TOR Green bagde Holders only. We're mirroring the 'DMR Members Only' forum in this respect. However looking through the DMR Members Only posts most seem to relate to tips and advice about raiding. As a guild the SW:TOR raiders are finding the general tips , advice and You Tube videos found on other sites very useful and so we wonder why we would want to keep our own tips and advice private and not share it. Also discussing raid progression would appear to be a good advert for the guild. Finally the more we post in private the less conversational traffic we appear to be generating. This might make the Guild seem less active that it actually is and won't encourage non Star Wars guild members to come join us.
So in summary what was the theory behind DMR having a green badge holder only forum and did it fulfil it's purpose? I ask as we're thinking about moving some/much of the currently private posts over to our general Star Wars forum anyway.
Thanks
If we're only repeating stuff which is already mainly found in the public arena so I don't see the problem.
Hell, if a few people search for answers on Google and come across our site it can only be a good thing imo.
(thinking back along way) was it not the forum being swamped by pixie posts ? .... and at the time we were mostly counterstrike.
Ill add tho I kinda find it usefull for a member only section... As an example we put alot of effort into raid tactics and dont always want other guilds to know how we get the kills. Also im sure that if ya don’t play wow ya not that interested in seeing bids on loot ... macro type code... the add-ons we use... raid rosters ... absence ...ect
It also prompts members to make sure to register as they want to see what’s behind the hidden door:flasher:............ well more like they pester me for a badge that I forgot to hand out
Another point to Smilo's post...
A casual forum visitor would not know what a vibrant forum we have if lots of sections are invisible until you register/get a badge etc.
I don't know anything at all about web spiders, but if they can't see tips and advice, it won't show up on google search, so they'll never find the solution to their problem on our forum(?)
edit: just realised that you just said that; I skipped a line in your full width post :P
It comes down to simple rules. Keep private stuff private and let web spiders crawl all over public stuff in the public bit. If we use the public & private bits correctly then they work well imo.
Thanks, makes sense.
Just so you know, I often move WoW threads to the public section when I feel they are not private matters. Likewise I've moved some threads to the private section where I feel the matter is for members only.