I think that guests should be able to view threads/posts to see what kind of content you have on your website, and the can choose if they want to have an account to add their opinion to a thread, or get the extra features of a website, acquired through the use of an account.

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Hiding your boards is a search engine suicide. How would your sub-boards ever get listed (and get visitors, for that matter) if no crawler (a guest user too) can see them?

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Latin Forum

I find registering to view thing very annoying, I don't believe I've ever registered on a forum where it worked that way. I like to be able to look at the forums, see the activity, see what type of posters they have, etc. In general I don't turn off guest posting as I see no need to, if a guest only wants to make a post and not register I don't see why I should stop them. Is it better to have one post made by a guest or a user with one post? I'd take the guest one, one post users are a pet peeve of mine.

My forums are open for guest viewing, since I want to drive some search engine traffic too .

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I was just coming to find answers to this same question! Glad I looked before asking again lol

This has given me a lot to think about! Thanks

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