Hi folks,
We don't have any plans to make the forums private anytime soon. As people have said here, having an open forum is the reason a lot of people have joined. If the forum content was viewable to members only, some of you may never have signed up for an account at all and we'd never ever know you. That's a very important fact.
There is a great community here, with a lot of interesting, often funny, and sometimes thought provoking chat going on, and it would be a great shame to hide it from anyone. It's great that people can follow these conversations and get a good feel for the community before they take the plunge and join in. Some may never join, as chatting openly in a forum is not for everyone, but i bet there are a lot of people who follow these threads and benefit from them in some way or another, even if we never get to know who they are. It would be a great shame to suddenly shut the door on these people by making the forums private.
We understand that some of you discuss very personal and sensitive issues, but if it's going to cause a problem or you're going to worry about it afterwards we really would encourage you to either use email instead (via the 'contact this member' link found on members profiles) or use the option to only show your username (see below) which is found on your 'My Account' page. This will provide you with a high level of anonymity.
Here is how to do that:
1. Make sure you are logged in to the site.
2. Over on the right-hand side under 'My Menu' click the link 'My Account'
3. On the 'My Account' page, scroll down to 'My Preferences' and click the link 'Click here to edit preferences..'
4. On the next page you'll see 'Display Name:' and a drop-down menu next to it containing your real name and your username. Select your username from the menu, and then click the 'Save Changes' button.
Wherever your name appeared on the site, it will now be replaced with your username instead. You may also wish to change your avatar if you use a personal photo that someone could recognise.
We are not saying we will not consider introducing something in the future that will allow private issues to be discussed between members, and we thank you for your suggestions (which are always considered), but at the moment there are a lot of other high priority jobs that need taking care of, and which will help the site generate much needed extra revenue so that it can continue to exist.
Regarding the reason for a login/password system. If we didn't have this, we'd have no way of knowing who posts what in the forum, and no way of knowing who owns which photograph (so photographers wouldn't have their own gallery etc). We also wouldn't be able to send you forum alerts, new comment alerts and other nice things that are all made possible by having a membership/login system. One feature we will hopefully introduce at some stage is the option to remain logged-in, so you won't need to keep typing in your username and password every time you visit the site.
As always, thanks to everyone for all your kind support and for all the wonderful pictures you add to the site. Please be patient and over time we will hopefully be able to introduce many new features that you will all hopefully enjoy.
