Please discuss what you have in mind to control bots if you open the site.
Do we loose anything such as the ability to keep links to files off search engines any more than now?
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if #script-requests and #scripts require a login to view, search engines would not be able to see it either right now (though I think there are workarounds if you intentionally want to let them see)
I don’t see bots as being an issue. But we should be fine against them with the built in tools in discourse
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Looks like trust level 3 users can also help silence/hide bot posts
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I think we should be more explicit on what our end goal is here. Are trying to get more members for the sake of simply having more members? Are we trying to increase the general amount of interaction on the site e.g. posting, commenting, liking, etc? Or are we just trying to increase the number of scripts?
Each of these objectives could have other solutions that don’t even involve opening the site and might be much less controversial.
I share a similar opinion @defucilis on the 1% rule mentioned here: Hidden script category for higher level users only? - #25 by defucilis
I don’t think that increasing existing user engagement and growing the total user base are mutually exclusive. In fact, growing the user base will probably leading to a larger absolute number of users engaging.
Our current plan to partially open up will not allow search engine indexing of scripts. And for people I’ve spoken to, it’s a reasonable compromise on privacy.
Can people who have concerns restate their reasoning?
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That was a very eloquent post by @defucilis He’s a smart fella.
The position that more visitors can mean more members and that could likely lead to more engagement makes sense to me. It’s possible though that something could be lost by giving up some of the sites exclusivity. For instance, I hate having to make an account just to visit a site, and a lot of times I just won’t bother. Creating an account at RTS was a no-brainer and an easy decision because I wanted scripts and it was the only game in town. Then eroscripts came along. I clicked the link several times after only seeing the login page because I hate creating new accounts. After being frustrated with the layout of RTS and realizing it was on its last legs, I had no reason not to create an account here even without seeing all of the great content and scripters inside. I actually felt better about requiring an account here because I felt like I was being admitted into a place that was safe, friendly, well run, and probably going to be around for a long time. It really said something about the quality of the place inside. I guess kind of like the velvet rope paradox. You want to get in because you can’t get in. Except in this case you just have to make the effort of creating a username and password, and this is the only game in town now anyway.
I came into this discussion without much of a position on this, but I’ve thought about it often especially with regards to my own experience which has only been great! This is why I was asking about what the objective ultimately is because this is essentially a cost/benefit discussion.
Obviously I don’t know if membership is increasing and at what rate, but I’d be curious about this in regards to the discussion. Theoretically the rate of growth on this site would optimally be tied to the rate of interactive toy sales (If anyone actually figures that out, I’m a huge nerd with boners for charts and graphs). Of course the real world doesn’t work like that. It could be possible that increasing eyeballs on the site doesn’t have much of an effect on the growth of membership. If someone doesn’t have an interactive toy then why do they need to see the site? If they do have an interactive toy then where are they getting their scripts?
The concerns I’ve heard with opening the site are quite serious such as content being nuked and a possible increased risk of doxing. Are the risks of this really any greater with having the site open or open with certain safeguards in place? I really have no idea. It would be absolutely horrible though if a member was doxed and it was, for instance, discovered that they were in fact not a highly regarded famous deceased actor. For instance.
The Goal
At the most basic level, we want to grow the community. Aside from the purpose of allowing creators to share scripts (and community members to request them), EroScripts also has lots of other purposes - discussing hardware and modifications, distributing funscript-related software, discussing news and preferences, etc. etc.
It seems a shame that someone searching "how do I play funscripts with my Handy wouldn’t find EroScripts anywhere on Google, despite it being the correct place for them to find the answer to that question.
At the end of the day, EroScripts doesn’t exist to make money - the core goal (as I understand it, I’m actually quite new!) is to create a strong, healthy community. And I think a strong community is a centralized community. What I mean by that is that it’s better if everyone who’s into funscripts is on EroScripts, since it means everything is better for everyone. So actively trying to increase exclusivity and keep EroScripts small will eventually just result in new communities cropping up that don’t do that.
To extend your experience as an example - if there were two communities - one that required sign in, and one that didn’t, would you have tried again to access EroScripts after the second or third time? Or would you have just started lurking over at the more open community and perhaps created an account there when it suited you? Over time, that trend makes one community grow faster than the other, which means the conversations are more vibrant and diverse, there’s more content, etc. etc.
Pros and Cons
Based on what I’m hearing from people it seems that the the balance for opening up the non-scripting areas of the site goes something like
Pros:
- Community gets larger (i.e. more diverse and vibrant)
- Content accessible via SEO, so useful to more people
Cons:
- Risk of bots
- Lurkers
- Increased risk of doxxing
- Increased risk of copyright legal issues
- Loss of exclusivity
Con Rebuttals
In terms of bots: I don’t think that will be a huge problem, since there are many features built into Discourse to deal with that problem.
In terms of lurkers: We have those already. That’s kind of what this thread was originally about. It’s nice that the barrier to entry for a user’s first post is lowered by them already having an account, but I don’t think that the lurking problem will be much worse if people don’t have to create an account
In terms of doxxing: Given that doxxing requires a bunch of time, energy and research, I think that requiring doxxers to create an account before they can access posts isn’t really much of a barrier. I suppose that it’s easier for a doxxer to ‘pick up the scent’ so-to-speak if the site is public, but ultimately if people are really that concerned about keeping their masturbation habits private, then they should be careful about what they post under their pseudonym.
In terms of copyright issues: That’s the primary reason for keeping the scripting sections still locked behind an account requirement. We don’t want those posts coming up on Google, since there are certainly bots that search for copyrighted material and automatically alert copyright holders. Copyrighted material posted elsewhere on the site will probably wound up getting targeted and taken down.
In terms of exclusivity: Everything flows, everything changes. The beautiful online communities today are the steaming salt-piles of tomorrow. At least the script sections are still ‘exclusive’ 
If there are other downsides that I haven’t thought of, I’m super keen to hear them. Tbh when we were discussing this change, it never occurred to me that anyone would have any objections. So I’m super keen to hear from more people and take in some perspectives that I hadn’t considered.
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I don’t think you should be able to DL anything without an account, but you got me on the search. I literally typed that request in and reddit, sexlikereal, and handyfeeling are all on the front page, but no eroscripts. I mean even Liquid’s github is on the front page. Then I saw it…Realtouchscripts. No one should ever be forced to see that before eroscripts…I’m all about making this more searchable.
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Thank you for outlining this so clearly. That was exactly what I was hoping for.
I completely agree with the need for diversifying the community. I mean I don’t bring anything to the table, but yeah with a bigger community the more we’ll the diversify the skill sets and contributions. I also completely agree with the need to keep a centralized community. These are two very important objectives.
You’re right in that I would have lurked the shit out of the more open community until I felt that EroScripts had something special to offer. There would however always be the option to open the community when and if a new challenger appears on the horizon, but maybe opening the community now would prevent that from even happening.
Among the cons that you listed, it’s the nuking of content that seems to be the most valid and worrisome concern. I don’t remember if it was on this site, but I saw that someone posted a script and then begged everyone not to even say her name.
I don’t know what goes into building and running a website. Maybe magic? Or blood sacrifice perhaps? If there was a way for only current members to be able to experience the open version of the site as if they were a guest, that might make members with concerns feel comfortable with the changes. That’s probably way too complicated and way too much work, but perhaps there’s another easier way to achieve the same effect.
I just want to say that being able to discuss big changes like this is just another reason to like this place even more
The site would look exactly as it does now, except the Scripts, Paid Scripts and Script Requests categories just wouldn’t be there, as if they don’t exist. And if you weren’t logged on, there would be a red banner up the top telling you to create an account if you want to see them. It looks like this:
I don’t quite understand what you mean by nuking content - do you mean copyright holders coming in and taking down content? Or do you mean script creators taking down their own content?
(also, as if you don’t bring anything to the table, you’re both making scripts and participating in these kinds of super useful discussions! 
)
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That’s perfect thanks.
Wrong choice of words regarding content, I mean the copyright issues that you mentioned. It gets taken down here and maybe activity here draws attention resulting in content getting taken down on hosting sites.
I all for it to opening the site a bit more. And I think you found a good middle ground there. Users without an account can see some stuff, but not all sections. It gives them an idea what this site is, they can see how friendly the community is and what this is all about. I don’t think, that this will bring more people in and in long term.
The reasoning behind is pretty logically in my opinion.
Open the site a bite more → more users → community grows → more interaction (posts, thread and so on) → more people get into scripting → more content - and the cycle repeats.
What would be cool, if you admins would monitor it, if there is acutally a grow in members, after opening the site. Some kind of “status update”-thread once in a while, would be cool.
Overall I think the positive outweighs the negative.
Only thing, that is kind of worrisome is this topic. I’m not a legal expert by any means. But what would be in danger of legal issues? The script itself can’t be, since the “legal right” is by the creator. There are no videos hosted here, mostly just linked. Only thing might be the mega links, right? Having gifs or thumbnails of a video also shouldn’t be a problem, or do they? I know everything depends on the country. Some are more strict, some not.
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Thanks pal, but I haven’t actually created a script yet. I just started learning the basics and I promise I will upload something silly and ridiculous one day!
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No, i dont agree.
If you want the stuff, the least you can do is sign up an account (which is free) to support the website and the funscript-creators that shares their work.
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If the visitor has no access to scripts, paid scripts, and script request, they would need to create an account. Do you think that would be satisfactory?
That’s right - mega links and links to free streaming sites. But those are 99.9% of the time posted in the categories that would still be locked to non-users so there’d be no change there.
Scripts themselves are derivative works that are protected from copyright claims.
@Rogersson that’s right - that’s why the scripts categories would be hidden to non-users
@Rogersson If you can reply directly to a comment or @ who you are replying to with a quote like this:
It would be easier to understand who you are replying to.
I agree with users needing to have accounts to get to the Script Requests and Free Scripts etc. for the record and it sounds like that is what the plan currently is if I am not mistaken.
Yes, that is how it works. You almost can’t watch anything on instagram or facebook (example) without an account. When people get curious, they start an account.
Why would it be different here?
When people buy their sextoys, they will go to the best sites for scripts.
So what we need is more creators, which will bring a lot of different genres of porn. And then members will come naturally.
Simple marketing.
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Currently, the entire site is 100% hidden to anyone without an account. So unlike Instagram or Facebook and Instagram where you can see a lot of content even without an account, if you access EroScripts without an account, you see nothing but a login screen. So we rely entirely on word-of-mouth to get people curious enough to create an account.
More importantly - Google sees nothing but an empty login screen, so EroScripts doesn’t show up in any Google Search results, meaning that lots of people don’t even know that EroScripts exists at all!
But, also like Facebook and Instagram, we would require people to create an account to actually gain access to scripts. So if you’re just coming in from the open internet and you don’t have an account, the Scripts categories are invisible to you, and you’re unable to benefit from the hard work of the creators in our community.
One of the best ways for us to get more creators on the site is to get more users on the site, which is kind of the goal of this whole endeavor - I’d hope that when people google ‘best site for free funscripts’, EroScripts shows up! Because right now, it doesn’t. 
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Maybe we could offer some scripts without requiring an account as a little tease? Thinking one script per scripter with a link to video with note that many more like these will be avaliable after creating an account.
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