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[johannes]

I am a relative newcomer here so forgive me if this has been discussed in the past but I was wondering if I may be so forward and ask if admin have considered making the board topics visible by members logging in only.
There is so much information leached from forums and images that I believe that some privacy is warranted. Perhaps i am worried unnecessarily?
I am aware of several Antique items that have been copied from the net and photoshopped and then placed for sale on ebay.

Here is one such item worth about $4500-5000. Note that the scammer even superimposed a chip and even a flash to centre. The original is the bottom image

[Marco Gilardetti]

No offense intended, but you're reverse-reasoning IMHO.

Should anyone want their pictures or texts not be copied and used for whatever purpose, he must refrain from loading them on the internet. Whatever is loaded on the internet, it's out for everybody to see and use. That's the very meaning of the internet.

Also, a forum closed to members only would never attract newcomers with its contents and would quickly die or get boring. You wouldn't be here asking your question if you hadn't first seen that this forum was lively and full of interesting material. Isn't it?

[johannes]

Not at all offended in the least Marco and I am very respectful and grateful for your views also.

I will qualify and mention that I have built several IPB forums and about to build another and all of them are subject to membership viewing only.
One Antique related forum has been running since mid 2010 and it has 1705 members and 160,000+ posts. Happy to provide the websites
There are options on forums that allow permission controls. You don't have to make all of it "log in" to view. I personally feel that a curiosity factor would also encourage membership.
Perhaps I am being a little old fashioned but I think it would encourage further "personal" participation. Maybe I am wrong?

[HisMastersVoice]

The Talking Machine Forum shall remain viewable to guests as long as I'm on "the board"

[Marco Gilardetti]

Not at all offended in the least Marco and I am very respectful and grateful for your views also.

Thank you, I appreciate it. I also administer a forum that has + - twice the posts of this one. Recently a bunch of folks began to do a "group translation" of English lyrics into Italian. In few words: a base translation was proposed as first post, then everyone could suggest how to improve the translation of each word or paragraph. These "group translations" turned out to be so good that the folks beyond the task begun considering to publish them on a book. So, in order to avoid the texts being copied, they asked me to lock the translations in a reserved section. All accounts of people that had worked at the translations previously have been granted access by default. All others had simply to ask, should they want to join the translators' group.

In very few weeks all the people that contributed to the first translations lost thier interest in the task and didn't propose changes any further. On the other hand, nobody (and when I say nobody I say *zero*) new asked to be added to the group. So basically the translation work came to a halt very quickly.

By the way whoever was into the group could steal and publish the texts on his own, so I really failed to see where the advantage of locking the section was, but I did it nonetheless upon their request.

I understand that this isn't a general case, but still I think it's quite suggestive of what may happen by locking contents and may contribute to the debate (although the admin has spoken, so such debate will be merely theoretical here ).

Personally, I think it's up to each own's attitude. It is obvious that everything on the internet can be (and as a matter of fact is) duplicated, copied, stored, downloaded, whatever. If one doesn't want anything to be duplicated / redistributed etc., he simply shall not upload it anywhere.

As for me, whatever I write or upload here (as well as on all other fora) I do it intentionally so that others - hopingly even in a far future - may find it useful and read it as a hint or a reference in their texts / repairs / collection hobby.

[johannes]

Obviously admin thinks it is a bad idea too. Thanks for reading my suggestion