Berk's Forumvine

I'd say that if anything, it could be better to have some sections public. If it's only visible to registered users, it gives a false sense of security since, as you've pointed out, anyone can register. (On that note, anyone can get a secret second account. So even if we think they're banned, they might still be looking.) I'd rather not have a false sense of security.

That said, I'd be in favor of certain sections being off-limits to non-members. After all, we still want more people to join and post. If they can see everything, they're more likely to just read instead of taking that next step to sign up.

So my final answer is give 'em just enough to get them wanting more.

Dragon Island could certainly be public. The Great Hall, not so much. I'm not sure what to say about Outcast Island and Fan Work

Um Idk I think I'd be fine with Dragon Island and Fan Work being public, but maybe not The Great Hall, (since guests wouldn't really need to see that stuff anyway) and not Outcast Island. (Idk some of us talk about our lives on there a bit, and it could be nice to keep it all just HTTYD for guests XD)

anyway there's my two gold peices

Aha!

What I can do is make the forums of Outcast Island visible, but not the topics. This allows people to see the titles, how many views/posts, last post date, etc. but doesn't let guests view the actual topic and the posts. That way people can (for example) see that we play forum games on here and what those games are, but not read the topics until they signup.

So I'd probably have:
The Great Hall hidden until you signup
Dragon Island visible to all
Fan Work visible to all? - not sure on this one, any thoughs?
Outcast Island list of topics visible to all, but topics and posts not until you signup

How does that sound?

Maybe also just make the topics visible in that one? Or perhaps just a few people's art, etc who are ok with it being available publicly?

I can't do individual topics, it would be the entire forum or nothing.

It would be nice to have them fully available, but I can understand why people might not want that. I'll be deciding finally in a few days, so @everyone please do still tell me what you think about all of this.

I'm personally fine with making the whole section publicly visible. I can't speak for anyone else, obviously.

Sounds fine to me

Aaaand done!

For guests, Dragon Island and Fan Work are now completely visible, and the topic names in Outcast Island are also visible (but not the topics/posts themselves).

In a few hours/day or so they should hopefully start to appear on Google and other search engines.