Anyway, while I consider committing my hard-earned funds to a subscription here, it sure would be useful to have access to the search function. That would give me a better sense of the breadth of information available. It would also prevent me from using my guest powers to start a thread or two that will, to wizened veterans, be obvious retreads of tired ground.
Wouldn’t it help guests see the usefulness of the boards, and thereby increase subscription conversion rates, too? (Unless guests are precluded from searching precisely because there is NO USEFUL INFORMATION TO SEARCH!)
I think now it would be. Before we had the current server, the self-editing feature as well as Private Messaging had been disabled. As such, the only real feature we had to offer as an incentive to subscribe was the ability to search. However, since we how have the two features mentioned it would seem to me to be a good idea to allow Guests to search, since as you point out, the content of the board is the best possible advertising and allowing searching would probably induce more people to subscribe once they’ve had a chance to see what they’re getting.
MHO only, of course, since I in no way represent the board staff or have any more weight with them than any other member in good standing.
I’ve heard two reasons for guests not searching. First, it apparently exhausts the hamsters - excuse me, capybaras, I forgot we upgraded recently - who run the servers, and second, if you let guests search, why would they pay for membership? Guests get the sampler pack of what’s current, members get the full edition.
See? It worked!
It seems to me that the biggest motivation to subscribe is the ability to post for more than 30 days without perpetually orchestrating new screen name, e-mail address, and IP address changes. I could tell pretty quickly that I like this community, and that I will want to participate for more than 30 days.
Maybe I’m off the mark, though; it is possible that the majority of guests / potential subscribers have no interest in posting, but instead want to use the site only as a reference source.
I’m pretty sure they don’t come for the reference source. Not like Google or Wikipedia or anything. All the questions here are fairly unusual, to say the least.
