Make the forum private to our club members

Technical Details

Forum version : #Unspecified
Position : Administrator
Concerned browser(s) : Internet Explorer
Who the problem concerns : Yourself
Forum link : Email removed

Description of problem

How do I as the administrator make my forum private to our club members only. I am totally lost and new to this.
Mike

Dude, let me get your forum link.

So are your club members going to be members of a group?

What exactly do you want hidden from your non-club members?

I only want the forum to be seen to about 200 members and not the public if that is possible.

Thats a easy thing to do but it dose come with some problems you may want to think about.

Pro's

your members are the only ones to see threads or comments.
all posts are kept from anyone that is not a member of your forum.

Cons:
if you do this Google can't map your forum right as it needs to read all your forum to show what your forum is about.

New members would not know what your forum is about and there for you will not get any new members.

My advice is to pick what parts you want to hide and what is not.

making some parts open to members / non members is a good move as they can read your threads before making there mind up if they want to make an account.

Steps to take to hide your forum to non members:

on each forum you will see a set of tools on the right hand side that look like this

Click on the    of the first one you want to hide

Now you will see a new set of settings like this   


at the top of the page you need to set this part to members only   
 



Now save.

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Now you will have to do this to all the forum you want to hide from non members and Don't forget to save each one as you go long

hope that helps you on what you want and i hope you take my advice and only hide some of your forum.

Also you can make the memberlist and profiles private here: AP > Users & Groups > Special Rights

Man Im dumb to all this so how do i get to AP>Users and groups>special rights?

Administration Panel > Users & Groups Tab > Special Rights Section (left side)

And you can find the link to the Administration Panel at the bottom of your forum.

if you don't have the admin page then the link will not show at the bottom of your forum.

Txs gents!
Ive set the restrictions up for members but will this restrict just anyone from joining the forum or can I set it up to restrict the members to who I select or can I preset our club members as forum members before hand?
Or is there a way as administrator to see members wanting to register and me say yes or no to restrict who can become members ?
And is there a way to lock down the forum while i do changes and updates ?

to lock you forum to members we call this the construction page this can be found in the following settings.

please note that we use ACP and this stands for Administration Panel...

ACP  General Tab at the top of your tools   Forum  Configuration  in the middle of the page scroll down and find    Forum in construction : this is always set to NO

you need to change this to YES then the page will change a little you will see a box come up that asks you how long you want the forum to be closed for this is marked for any thing from 1 to 7 days.

add the number you want the forum to be closed for then hit save.

Now only admins and founders can log in on your forum.

if you want to take the forum back off of construction Mode just do the same again but change yes to NO and save

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Now if you want you can set all your new members to be held in a waiting list for only admins to let them on to the forum

What they do is make a new account and then the admin will be told by Email there is a new member.

this member will then get a warning that the admin of this site will activate their account as soon as they can

No to ok the account on to the forum you as the admin need to do the following steps:

ACP     Users & Groups Tab   Users  Inactive Users

... You will see a list of members that have made a new account on your forum you jist have to tick the little box next to each of there names and then click Activate Then your members will be live on your forum.

Tx's again for the assistance and you bet I will try the FAQ forum before I post for help.

is this problem now solved ?
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Please remember for each problem you have or anything you want to ask Please make sure your make a new thread for each problem

Thank you

APE and the Forumotion Team