Some Gates Not Available To Guest

[Ronno6]

Why is the Benjamin gate only available if I am signed in??
Not available if guest........

[avator]

Why is the Benjamin gate only available if I am signed in??
Not available if guest........

Fixed... thanks for the report.

[ezman604]

Gates are supposed to be for members only. It helps bolster our membership. Why have something out there free and not have any requirement to access it? The info folks share is WELL worth the effort of joining to read it. It's free to join after all.

SAFE & Happy Shooting!!!!
Dave

[Back_Roads]

 And they got me helping out now, I aint cheap, but I'm still easy

[avator]

Thanks DeZ...
That cleared it up for me.

[Matchstickshooter]

  How many people have read this for a bit, gotten a feel for it, before they decided they wanted to be a part of it?
 I started out by finding it in a google search when I was looking something up.
  Kind of like ending up with a new magazine.  After you get comfortable with it you subscribe to it.
 just my 2 cents
   
   
   

[avator]

I found it and signed up...
I figured, how can I make a decision of which forum I want to use as my go to online source for airgun information if I don't have full access to what they have to offer.
I also signed up for the other offerings at the time but the GTA quickly became my drug of choice and has remained as such since.

[Matchstickshooter]

 okay  here's what I'm getting at:

I have no issue with signing in if I want to post something or see someone else's pics.
All well and good.

I just tried this... In my search engine (google or yahoo or whatever) I tried looking up "QB 78 air rifle."
  So lets say for instance I'm a newbie.....

So I'm going down through the list of what the search found.
 Ah Ha  there's one thats not trying to sell me something!
 GTA ....  so I click on that  "you must be a member and sign in"
     
 Guess I'll go elsewhere .....

Look back through the Welcome New Members and see how many ghosted for a while and got a feel of the place and then decided to join.
jmho
     

[airgunaut]

okay  here's what I'm getting at:

I have no issue with signing in if I want to post something or see someone else's pics.
All well and good.

I just tried this... In my search engine (google or yahoo or whatever) I tried looking up "QB 78 air rifle."
  So lets say for instance I'm a newbie.....

So I'm going down through the list of what the search found.
 Ah Ha  there's one thats not trying to sell me something!
 GTA ....  so I click on that  "you must be a member and sign in"
     
 Guess I'll go elsewhere .....

Look back through the Welcome New Members and see how many ghosted for a while and got a feel of the place and then decided to join.
jmho
     

I feel the same way. I joined fairly soon, but only after perusing some topics a little. Same with all other sites I joined, too, as well as satellite radio (heard it in stores before signing up) and in-person activity clubs. Why give your e-mail and other personal info to a site that you might not want to join?

The access can be just a more limited set of visible content than either Nothing or Everything. I knew logging in was required to post and to see photos, but I didn't try searching without signing in.

[Ronno6]

Sign of the times, I s'pose.......
I'm just content without having to receive a text or email giving the 2 step sign-in code.......

[avator]

No skin in the game... I'm auto logged in when I hit the link to the site on my browser because I set my browser up to remember my log in and password.
I really don't know why a registered member would even want to log in as a guest. And like DeZ said... if a guest had all access, what's the motivation to become a member?

[avator]

The key here is... This is a privately owned Forum where we have approved registered members.

[GTA-Airgunner]

Hey there all.

Wanted to chime in here.  Here's my thinking, and this is how we'll move forward.  We can consider changing the dynamic over time, but for now, here's what I'm doing.

The GTA is already more "Gated" then other forums and certainly more than mainstream social media.  The ability to access "free" information is what people are accustomed to these days, and it's where things stand as a whole. If we gate the site only to be visible to "members," we will gain members in the short term, but may lose in the long run to other sites that attract users and traffic the site needs for sponsors to support it.  Additionally, I don't want to create a situation where blocking access to non-members also prevents the site from indexing properly in search engines.  We get 90% (or better) of our traffic and page views from search engine referrals.  While sponsors want to reach the membership, they have all expressed that the membership is a hole that's been "fished out."   When I'm able to show them traffic from outside the core membership, let's them know that the site reach is beyond just the 25K membership.  The numbers we have right now, based on Google Analytics which filters out "non-human" bot traffic, show that we had about 73,000 active visitors over the last 28 days.  Those 73K visitors, 68K which were new, resulted in about 304K page views. 

If I look at the last couple of weeks, I can see a reduction in page views and average time on site compared to previous periods.  We've had more membership requests and members signing up, which is awesome. But if we start dropping page views and people only come to the site to then just leave, then the site becomes less attractive from a business perspective.  I know that you all may not think of it that way, but I have to, as I have a lot invested into the site and still owe a lot of $$ on it.  I want to create something that balances both business and hobbyist needs.

With all that said.. here's the plan.. For now.. we are going back to:

1. the site is OPEN to VIEW all public content minus the images
2. guests that want to see images, start topics, or comment on topics need to register as members
3. members that want to operate as members and not guests, will need to login to their account before they can fully use the site

I'll be talking with the admins and moderators about options we have for gating some content as "members only," which is something I'm open to doing.  If you all have thoughts on that front, DON'T PUT THEM HERE.  I'll start a new thread tomorrow under the Boss's Corner where we can have a dedicated topic on this.

Thank you all for being part of the GTA and for being open to these discussions.

Cheers
Rick

p.s. thank you to all the mods and admins that help keep things running.. there wouldn't be a GTA without you all.. Thank you!

[Hoosier Daddy]

No skin in the game... I'm auto logged in when I hit the link to the site on my browser because I set my browser up to remember my log in and password.
I really don't know why a registered member would even want to log in as a guest. And like DeZ said... if a guest had all access, what's the motivation to become a member?

Ditto. All my devices are set to remember me.
Home Desktop, Work Desktop, Cellular device, Laptop for when I travel, heck even my Tablet... I don't even remember my password.

[avator]

I have so many passwords for various log ins on several sites that I had to make a list of them that I keep in a lockbox with other important documents. Ain't no way I could remember all of them aside from the sites I don't have set to auto log in. Anything involving finances are not set to auto log in.