Error message - Don't have permission

[johnj92131]

For the last day or so I have been getting the following message when I try to go to a different forum:

 

Sorry, there is a problem

You do not have permission to view this content.

Error code: 1F176/3

 

This happens when I am not logged in.

 

Is this a new "feature" to get more people to set up accounts and log in?

[89eliminator]

someone had the same thing on a thread i linked.  they werent a member here so they couldnt see it.  

[Jeep Driver]

Quote

 

Posted 21 hours ago

the "guest" issue is... complicated for sure.  there's no doubt our forum suffers from aspects of what I'm going to call, niche-ness.  We're so focused on one thing that it tends to only attract the diehards for daily conversation.  There is a huge chunk of the traffic that is only here to search for an answer to their problem and then they are gone.  I'm guilty of that for things like my friends/family's rides (I'm sure there are lots of nice people to chat with at the Ford forum, but I don't because there's not much I know about fords so I don't feel I can contribute).   And when there's only a few daily posters, there can definitely be some group-think issues too.  Or we can turn off some members with negativity or if they feel they are being ganged up on about a thing (cutting up a clean MJ for example).   on the plus side there are a lot of problems we don't have that the big forums are struggling with so it's not all tiny-forum doom and gloom.  We've modernized our software and opened up a new forum dedicated to the hardcore topics so hopefully this will spur some excitement and energy and get us on the right path to remain relevant and worthwhile in a world where forums themselves are fading.  

 

 

while we're on this topic, I'm starting a new experiment.  Guest access is now limited to just a couple of the forums.  I also opened up the "problems" forum to guest posting just in case someone is having trouble signing in.  we'll see what happens.  

 

 

[johnj92131]

Just found Pete's comment about the experiment and came here to post the answer I found.  Jeep Driver has posted the quote from Pete:  Yes, it is an experiment.

[Minuit]

Have to say I don't care for it. I for one browse CC on a lot of different public computers that I'm not going to be putting my login credentials into.

 

IMO, hiding the good parts of CC will actually lower registration. I like most of the recent changes around here (I have no opinion on the hardcore tech sub yet) but this one isn't for the better.

[Ωhm]

Is this why when I sign out I lose the most current postings? It's like I jumped back in time 30 minutes upon signing out.

[Pete M]

all has returned to normal.   as I said, it was an experiment just to see what would happen.  

[Jeep Driver]

6 hours ago, Ωhm said:

Is this why when I sign out I lose the most current postings? It's like I jumped back in time 30 minutes upon signing out.

Why do you sign out?

[kryptronic]

On 3/27/2018 at 11:30 AM, Ωhm said:

Is this why when I sign out I lose the most current postings? It's like I jumped back in time 30 minutes upon signing out.

Yes, because upon logging out you become a guest, who doesn't have the same history as the account you just logged out of.

 

On 3/27/2018 at 12:30 PM, Pete M said:

all has returned to normal.   as I said, it was an experiment just to see what would happen.  

 

Thanks for reverting the changes, Pete.  As noted by other members, guest access is a necessity from a usability standpoint, and it's required to maintain search engine visibility.  I'm glad the experiment was short-term, because if this had gotten picked up by Google, there would have been detrimental long-term effects from a search engine / traffic perspective. 

 

Believe it or not, even though guest traffic looks high, it's mostly accurate.  Software like this forum uses routinely doesn't log traffic from known bots, as doing so would give an inflated/pointless representation of user traffic.  The only bots that would show as guests are unknown (not listed yet) or malicious in nature (trolling a target site for exploits).  So I hope that clears that up.