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[blacksmithden]

There are currently 429 users online. 16 members and 413 guests

There's always bots trying to get in, but there's a whole boat load of folks who just come here to see what's being said without really posting much.....half are probably CSIS spooks. HI BOB !! (not RangeBob) LOL.

[awndray]

At the time of writing: "There are currently 481 users online. 9 members and 472 guests"

Dearest GOC owner, are you paying attention? I realize there's an admin and mods here running the show for you. But since you took over the place and some other member announced that big changes were coming...crickets.

Lock this place down, please. No, not a la covid lockdowns. Lock the front door and give the key to members only.

[Dewey Cox]

What difference would it make?
It's not like you have to send in your social insurance number to get a membership here

[Gaidheal]

they say be the forum you want.

maybe we should stop posting until things are restricted?

[awndray]

What difference would it make?
It's not like you have to send in your social insurance number to get a membership here

It's an added layer.

Sure, bots are sophisticated these days, but anything helps. And it's not just the bots. It's the bad actors. Sure it's easy to create a free account and just lurk. Many people do it. But a serious forum admin can monitor IP addresses and activity. Yes, you can use a VPN, but there are other ways to fingerprint.

Better than a mere account creation though, is a system where members in good standing have to vouch for new members. There are options to help clean up the place. Mind you, there more than just a clean-up needed here. But it seems the powers that be are more interested in advertising deals on the competing forum.

Anyway. Food for thought.

[LB303]

OK Awndray and others who want to restrict access, analyze me.
I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think overall my contributions here haven't been detrimental.
I just follow the same rule wherever I go on the wild & woolly web... I don't say anything thru the keyboard that I wouldn't say in person.

Having a front end that requires signup before even browsing a topic of interest is a non-starter for me, I move on.
I suspect many eyeballs have the same opinion, given the glut of information that is always just a keystroke away.
And a vouch system? There are actual gun clubs I won't go near due to that stuffy attitude.
In my world, everyone gets a chance to prove who they are by their actions.
Anything less is a thought-crime scenario. I won't be part of it.

I stumbled across this forum by following a daisy chain of links that started with something posted on the 'other' forum -
It was free to check out, so I became interested. The culture here is on the whole, more agreeable here and so I spend far more time here than the other place. Kudos to the mods for keeping it sane.

[awndray]

You're reading too much into it. Look at the other site. Like it or not, even they do it. Many forums (for all subject matters) do it.

I've said enough.

[Camo tung]

I agree, it's time to lock out our opponents.

[harbl_the_cat]

The reason there's so many guests is because some forums are indexed by Google and people doing a google search often find threads here.

I've actually been creating some threads specifically to test how Google crawls this site and indexes it's content.

Search traffic is essential for the growth of an online community like this - because otherwise the only way to grow is direct share / word of mouth traffic.

One of the reasons I dog on you so much Awndray is because I KNOW a lot of people see your posts based off their search traffic - and a lot of that traffic is from other gun owners doing research.

It doesn't help them when they see a repeated theme of: "Everything is hopeless, we should all just give up" but a lot of your posts come up with common Google searches.

The Google algorithm has text parsing and machine learning algorithms that can specifically target language that convey certain emotions - in your case fear, uncertainty and doubt (the algorithm LOVES that kind of content, because it's easiest to go viral)

Given that we know Google developers are primarily anti-gun - giving them the power of your emotional metadata gives them tremendous power to distribute your posts out of context to an audience that can use your words against you.

Moreover, in the Web 3.0 ecosystem the greatest threat malicious actors have isn't their ability to doxx you or access your private information.

It's to cancel you completely and make it so no one can find you.

Locking down the forum so no body can find it actually serves the anti-gun agenda, not ours.

Given the influx of "guests" we've seen in recent days, I'm confident in saying a lot of those "guests" are gun owners who previously were complacent or ignorant to the goings on of the Liberal government and were taken by surprised by the new laws.

Seeing them gravitate towards this site is a good thing - because it means we can attract more gun owners who potentially can help the cause.

Think about Operation Turf Mark Holland that CGN ran, I think in 2009.

It was because CGN had such a large active user base they were able to fund raise and get on the ground volunteers (grass roots organizing) to get Mark Holland turfed in that election.

Growing GOC would enable us to do something of that nature again.

The problem now is that Trudeau's enablers, handlers, and core support are basically bought for and paid by the Trudeau liberals (and the Federal government).

To counter that, we need more grassroots communities, like GOC, to keep growing and better assert our influence.

[Swingerguy]

I don’t have much to add to this conversation other than my personal experiences, I frequently roam around on other reloading forums if I’m looking for some kind of information about different things. I do so as a guest and if I’m unable to enter a forum without creating an account, I just move on.
That’s how I found this one, I lurked around for quite a while before deciding to join because I enjoyed this site over cgn. I don’t know anything about bots or cyber security I just think we would have fewer members and fewer future members if the front door was locked.

[harbl_the_cat]

I don’t have much to add to this conversation other than my personal experiences, I frequently roam around on other reloading forums if I’m looking for some kind of information about different things. I do so as a guest and if I’m unable to enter a forum without creating an account, I just move on.
That’s how I found this one, I lurked around for quite a while before deciding to join because I enjoyed this site over cgn. I don’t know anything about bots or cyber security I just think we would have fewer members and fewer future members if the front door was locked.

Exactly.

Also not all forums have the same permissions and it looks to me as if some forums have been rendered specifically "PRIVATE" or aren't even visible unless your a member.

The marketplace, giveaways, troubleshoot and fraud report look private.

Off topic, Market place rules are hidden.

[awndray]

I don’t have much to add to this conversation other than my personal experiences, I frequently roam around on other reloading forums if I’m looking for some kind of information about different things. I do so as a guest and if I’m unable to enter a forum without creating an account, I just move on.
That’s how I found this one, I lurked around for quite a while before deciding to join because I enjoyed this site over cgn. I don’t know anything about bots or cyber security I just think we would have fewer members and fewer future members if the front door was locked.

You don't lock down the entire site. Just sections of it. Visit other forums, you'll see what I mean. There are ways to do it without preventing the legitimate folks from getting some of what they're looking for. Some people have argued that advertisers wouldn't bother with a locked down site. I disagree. Look at CGN as a prime example. And again, don't just look at this as a GOC vs CGN. But it's an easy comparison.

You wouldn't get fewer members. Again, look at CGN. People sign up for anything and everything these days, just to see memes, click a like button or display the support emoji of the day. If people want some quality content, they'll sign up.

I'm done.

[Smc]

So a hypothetical forum has public areas, and also has “private” areas that can only be seen by someone that is logged in.

What is preventing a bot or anti-org or government agency from creating 1 or 100 accounts to log in to see these “private” areas?

[harbl_the_cat]

So a hypothetical forum has public areas, and also has “private” areas that can only be seen by someone that is logged in.

GOC already has private forums

What is preventing a bot or anti-org or government agency from creating 1 or 100 accounts to log in to see these “private” areas?

Nothing.

Scraping data isn't hard.

Contextualizing it is one of the hardest things imaginable - that's why social media platforms exist.

[Smc]

Right. My point is, it’s only “private” if you personally vett people. Sucks, but it is what it is.