Trial of change to Off Topic forum visibility

[DHP]

I tend to just go round my mates' or phone them if I need to have a deep and meaningful. Tend to steer clear of posting personal stuff on the internet (apart from emails to friends) for reasons of security and privacy. Been burned in the past from sharing personal stuff with people who I ultimately didn't know as well as I needed to, so avoid it altogether in the past except with my closest friends who've proven to be reliable.

Personally, I find that it can be easier to talk about things with people I 'know' online than it can face to face. However, if it's anything sensitive, I tend to do it via PM.

With regard to what we're talking about here, I personally don't feel that there is any disadvantage to OT being 'members only' so why not? I wouldn't rely on it staying that way and typing any old thing in the forums, but I've seen it work on other forums, so hopefully it will here.

I respect that other people have different views on this, this is just my humble opinion.

I'm not particularly against it as it doesn't affect me, I'm just not in favour of it either as I don't see the advantages. However, for the sake of those who would be affected positively by it, I say go for it if you're sure.

Well thank you very much - so kind!

Sorry, just read that back and it doesn't come across that great...

[Dorset Girl]

I'm not particularly against it as it doesn't affect me, I'm just not in favour of it either as I don't see the advantages. However, for the sake of those who would be affected positively by it, I say go for it if you're sure.

Well thank you very much - so kind!

Sorry, just read that back and it doesn't come across that great...

It sounded okay to me - you mean that you're not really bothered either way, so if there are people that it would benefit the you're fine with it, is that right?

[ouroboros]

I think the people that would benefit from it are those who use shared computers. Not a problem for me at home, but it is at work. One of the reasons I don't go online there anymore (though actually more in part to the fact that they're often too slow and it blocks me out of everything ).

Logging in stops someone coming across it in your history and reading everything I reckon. Something that did once occur to me when I used my Dad's comp. I think I deleted my history but not sure... (!)

[Dorset Girl]

Stu - I was wondering if this has made difference to the number of people registering in the past few weeks?

[Stu]

Thanks for the gentle reminder DG, analyzing the stats had slipped my mind recently.

I should be able to get some time to look at them over the weekend


Stu
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[Mr Blue Sky]

I think we've had around 40 new members and about 12000 posts since early Jan when this was implemented.

I'd say that's the same or slightly more than the average up until that point, but obviously I don't have the capability to break the stats down accurately like Stu has.

[Stu]

Ok, I've put together some stats about the numbers of newly registered and activated user accounts over the past year and so, to see whether the change of Off Topic visibility has affected things:

Jan 07 = 35
Feb 07 = 27
Mar 07 = 35
Apr 07 = 32
May 07 = 36
Jun 07 = 30
Jul 07 = 27
Aug 07 = 23
Sep 07 = 18
Oct 07 = 20
Nov 07 = 19
Dec 07 = 19
Jan 08 = 13
Feb 08 = 24

I'd say it was still to early to tell cos while Jan was the lowest number for quite a while, it was on a downward slope before that and things seem to have bounced back in Feb soI'll give it a few more months and see how things stand then


Stu
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