Site Forums Now Private

[DRJ]

We ran into some issues with our host. Apparently we are using too much CPU at certain times. I am pretty sure this is due to us getting hit by Yahoo, Google, and other such bots.

I have made a change so that all the forums are private, and you must log in to view the threads. With the exception of the Announcements forum.

To any guests that have not registered, you will no longer be able to view any posts w/o registering. Registering is free and only takes a minute. If you do not receive your activation email, make sure to check your spam filter for an email from admin@vbaexpress.com.

Sorry for any inconvenience, hopefully this will help the site perform better on our server.

[hansup]

Quote:   Originally Posted by: DRJ I have made a change so that all the forums are private, and you must log in to view the threads. With the exception of the Announcements forum.

Is that change permanent?

Hans

[mdmackillop]

Thanks Jake,
On another topic, what is the position with the KB and the Zip files.
Regards
Malcolm

[DRJ]

If this works then it will likely be a permanent solution, at least until we get a dedicated server sometime down the road.

---

I heard from Zack that Suat is having some personal issues. I was able to fix the login issue myself. I have the zip files but I need a script to properly upload them all.

Unfortunately the data is stored in the database instead of in the file structure.

[mdmackillop]

I saw on another forum that the poster would not look at a post here as he had to register first. I would not register with a site just to read the result of a search either. The page which comes up is not very visitor friendly.

There is also nothing on the forum page to indicate this requirement. Clicking on a forum link says that it contains no posts. Can this be updated?

As an alternative, can the method of typing in an obscured code be used to allow access without registration? It seems to be coming quite common as here (Click View Complete Forum button)

[DRJ]

That is just the was vbulletin handles the permissions. I can't, as far as I know, allow it to be bypassed by a special code.

Making the forums private has not hurt the amount of members, posts, threads, or views at all. I was concerned that it might, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

If someone doesn't want to register to get some free assisstance then so be it. That is their choice.

Thanks

[Aussiebear]

I can see both sides of the coin here. When I first started searching the net for VBA assistance, there were many sites which allowed me to view the contents and this help fire my interests. Mind you when brousing I also came across sites which required me to register first.... an I gave them a miss.

We often read within the first post of a new member, statements aledging that they have "lurked" here for some time, before creating a thread. I've no doubt you've looked throught the stats Jake...

[Simon Lloyd]

Quote:   Originally Posted by: DRJ That is just the was vbulletin handles the permissions. I can't, as far as I know, allow it to be bypassed by a special code. Making the forums private has not hurt the amount of members, posts, threads, or views at all. I was concerned that it might, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If someone doesn't want to register to get some free assisstance then so be it. That is their choice. Thanks

I believe Malcolm meant using Captcha or such like. Making the forums private will kill your search engine rankings, i have just moved my site to a VPS, now, i don't have as many members as you but usually have around 50 - 70 guests viewing at any one time, i also allow all bots but have restricted the scripts they can access in my robots.txt, i can sort you out one for the version of VBulletin that you're using if you dont have one then you can add/subtratct scripts or areas as you wish, anyway, i import/export hundreds of posts a day aswell and have not experienced any problems with too much cpu usage or php usage.....maybe they have over sold the server too much

As for the topic of this thread, i'm with Ted, sure make them join to download an attachment but read access should be open.

As a side note, i don't know whether you use cpanel as your management of your account on the server but you could do things like use hotlink protection (this prevents pictures of any kind or files, attachments etc from being directly linked from another site) which will reduce your bandwidth usage, if you are using cpanel looking at the awstats will show you which scripts...etc are hit most often so there are further things you can protect or reduce access to.