I am curious as to whether anything has been decided regarding opening up areas of the message board to posts by non-members? It seems to me that letting non-PDGA members interact with PDGA members about disc golf on this forum will encourage them to join. Posting will encourage them to frequent this site more and be exposed to the PDGA whereas not allowing non-members to post makes it less likely they will frequent this site. I think we should think of non-members as future members-to-be and we should open our board up in order to develop relationships with these people. Also, disc golf enthusiasts on other continents, as well as former PDGA members who have strayed away from our sport will then be enabled to participate here.

Having the top third of the message board (the PDGA Topics area) open only to members, while opening up the bottom two-thirds of our board (the General Disc Golf Topics and General Discussion areas) to non-members seems to me like a good solution.

I am curious what Theo and others think of this idea?

Should the Message Board be Open to posts by non-PDGA members?
Users may choose only one (30 total votes)

Yes
( 5) 16%

Yes, but the top PDGA section should be for members-only
(14) 46%

No
(11) 36%

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when i set the poll up so that you have to vote before you can view the results, i forgot that non-members trying to look at the results can't since they can't vote under the current message board policy...

while i realize polls are just polls, i hope the PDGA officers re-thinks their position on this topic. those of you voting that non-members should not be allowed to participate -- why do you feel that way and do you really think that's the way to help grow our sport :confused:

Rob, this is not a complete answer, nor is it an official one. As a board member, I would like to find a way to allow nonmembers to post but not if it can't be better controlled than before.

Personally, although I agonized over it, I was in favor of eliminating nonmember posting, at least temporarily, because a small number of nonmembers with axes to grind were disrupting many threads with their criticism of the PDGA, as well as with obscenities, personal attacks on each other, and the like.

It just doesn't make sense to let nonmembers destroy the utility of a feature paid for by members.

Now that things are set up this way, we *know* who each poster is, based on their PDGA number. If we end up having real problems with a member's postings, then we also have jurisdiction - as the club they belong to - to do something about it.

There may be a way to let nonmembers post again, in the future, but before I will push for it, it will have to have a really accurate way of accounting for precisely who the people are who are posting, and not permit them to have multiple accounts and dodge and weave around with different identities to keep up the sniping.

And, since this is all done by volunteers, we'll have to find a volunteer who can do that for us. I'm not sure that will happen, though, there are many people who are really glad things are the way they are now.

Plus, as a member benefit, I am sure that it will bring us some memberships we would not have gotten otherwise, with a positive net gain over time.