Poll: Should the Flow remain a hidden forum?

COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK REQUESTED!!

The Flow is nearing its first anniversary. It has always been a private, hidden forum. Since someone had to receive an invite to know we existed, I removed the requirement that all memberships be approved.

I am now considering making a major change and allowing the forum to be visible to outsiders. What this would mean...

The Flow would then be listed in the Lefora directory and potential new members will be able to find us in search engines such as Google.

Membership would still be required to post. 
NO Membership would be required to view forum. 
Membership requests will have to approved.

I will post this message as a thread along with a poll in the group.
This is your group too and I would like to know your thoughts and opinions.

Please provide feedback...

Matrix

If you would like to see it opened up with all members requiring approval. Please note what you would like to see as a criteria for joining....

I've posted some personal thoughts here, not neccesarily wanting them floating around in cyberspace.
So if it's open to the public, I'm closing off some of my more personal info.  It won't stop me from posting however.

I like  knowing who is in here and keeping in private. I have lots of personal stuff displayed here too. I trust the  folks in  here and i trust the people they bring in.

I vpte to keep it private for the simple fact that there are some members here that have posting sensitive personal thoughs on here, and would probably like to continue to do so, and not have it known to the possible world. (Like Naphtalia said, actually.)

Now from a personal perspective...
I can say that I am comfortable with the group of people here; most of which I have carried a conversation with at one point in time or another. And although I haven't really shared too many intricately deep things about myself (I think maybe two things) like many others here, I am not exactly ready to share what i do share to all of cyber space either.

I like to keep my real-life circle small; and I like to keep my internet circle as small as possible too.

Well sister matrixone05... I presume that the primary objective you have in mind here is to increase participation in the forum - yes?
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Being unfamiliar with the lefora.com site in general I'm not sure what being locatable in the lefora.com directory means (the forum itself? the individual member profiles?) nor can I really tell what data would be exposed to search engines (full profiles of members? just usernames of posters? just topic titles? full text of individual posts?)
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What you want to do I would think is to enable people to see if the vibe of the forum interests them before making any requests to join.  I would try to lobby the lefora.com site administrators to create some additional options, starting with the option for forum admins to make available for display to any anonymous site visitor the single page summarizing the thread topics and post counts (the summary display that shows if you click on the Forum tab) except without any usernames or profile data.  The anonymous visitor would also have the option to create a lefora.com profile.  Completing a profile would then and only then give a visitor the abilities to view individual posts in the forum (still without usernames though) and request membership to the individual forum (see... now the administrator has something to go by if they don't already know the visitor).  In any case my sense is that usernames of individual posters and member profiles should be available only to members of the forum.
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My sense is that until you have some options like those available to help with intaking new members the forum likely is better off staying off of search engines and private.  In the meantime though maybe the admins of some of the other lefora.com forums might be willing to tell you what listings in the lefora.com directory and/or availability to search engines has brought to their forums if you ask...
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Whew... I'm really runnin off at the keyboard (mouth) tonight huh? LOL

I voted test but after reading the responses.  I agree.  it's pretty close knit here.

There are number of concerns regarding making the Flow public that I have.
1. Trolls, whose demonic given job is to just antagonize and upset people. (Since the flow is predominately Black. Look for your (nothing better to do than to piss off some Black people) white counterparts to chime in with unflattering rhetoric.
2. Hackers?  Maybe. I have seen hackers tear up some sites. As good as LeFora is, I dont know if they are that good.
3. Security.  Yep. Some of the forums have personal messages and nobody wants their "stuff' laid out like that.
4. Spam  ****THAT IS ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH ALL BY ITSELF***
 
There are a number of opportunities however.
1. High traffic means dollars are coming your way. (you have a book, cd, calendar, talk show,  whatever folks can have access to you through the flow.
 
2. Advertising. Which means better upgrades for the site. You know  video, music... stuff like that im sure.
 
3. Globalization  Hey it is what it is.
 
Now personally as an admin, I want it to remain private. Not because of what I share but because of the intimacy that it provides. Its not like a myspace or facebook dynamic where you have all these people who want to be your "friend".  I dont care for messages I get where folks are like "hey, I like your profile, but i dont use the site a whole lot, hit me up on IM at ijustwanttoseeificangetsomemoneyfromyou@yahoo.com (hope that isnt a real IM)  lol

I would prefer to keep the group private.  There are many private moments that have been shared by many and having that visible to everyone is simply not fair.

I'm with everybody here, keeping this group intimate as it is just might be a good thing. Most if not all have been or is still apart of another group. so if we want more members maybe our administrators could go fishing in them groups to bring more into our circle. Like little mis intricate needs to get an invite if she's not already a member

Rome, I changed it some time ago because it got very stagnant. It is open to the public for viewing, however they cannot post. Opening the group has not changed the dynamics of it. I was speaking with Asylum a couple of days ago and told him I anticipate there could be some growth in the group in the next couple of months... 

Intricate is a member... and many of the members don't participate, so to get more input... we need more members. Please feel free to send invites... I'm ok with that.

 

I'm with everybody here, keeping this group intimate as it is just might be a good thing. Most if not all have been or is still apart of another group. so if we want more members maybe our administrators could go fishing in them groups to bring more into our circle. Like little mis intricate needs to get an invite if she's not already a member

-1romierome1