AS for making members only it would cause some people to join just to look at it out of curiosity and then leave while taking up some names other people who actuaily might stick around want to use.

I dont like the idea. It just adds up, besdies, the off-topic-discussion forum is there for any sorta discussions.

though it doesnt sound so bad either. we can have one section.

If we were to have a "Mature Content" area we might as well set it up with a password where only members with a high enough post count and a recommendation from the staff can enter.

Mature content ftw!

Would there be a way to ensure only members who were old enough could access it, I mean Access to those according to the Birthdate they registered with or some other means to prevent access to those who aren't old enough or mature enough?

member logins probably restrict entry/or viewing efficiently enough.
The postcount requirement seems interesting, to avoid having firstposters barging in there.

"Recommendations" don't sound that... the concept itself is interesting though.
The *reverse* might be more appropriate, to forbid (ban) troublesome people from there.
Both views seem equally interesting (I myself lean toward the earlier like you, like for the betatrustee stuff, that could probably keep the zone "clean" from "troublemakers" in the first place)

EDIT: X2DM? 4 double posts? Is site laggy on your end?

We could have members vote people out rather than having mods or admins do it except in extreme cases.

Yeah, I'm having a problem with my Internet connection again. I'll take care of those right now.

I'll let this poll go until the end of the week. Anyone wishing to voice your opinion on it should do so before the chance is gone. Deadline will be this Saturday night (8-25).

If we made it so that all staff members except admins can do nothing more than edit posts in there and that the staff are not infallible then I would support it.

I think that'd be just permissions changing for a single section at work. But its not quite clear, what purpose could it serve ? Any concerns to share ?

I was using Ngemu's spam forums as a model, in their case the staff had far more power in there than outside due to the infallibility rule and can ban people for whatever reason and there is no way to contend against it which eventuaily turned it somewhat hostile to members, I would suggest making it another OT area with less rules and the staff has less power to increase freedoms in there, of course supermods can edit, close and lock threads but cannot ban people unless the admins are involved.

That place "changed", (remember foomy)
I dont think there would be much to fear on that. GE's way more relaxed than there. Also, abusers would probably get a spanking. The owners would probably not like or tolerate abuse, there or elsewhere.

I think that, in general, it's not a good idea to lock out unregistered lurkers from reading the forum as a whole. It scares away new readers and doesn't do anything to keep out trolls. That said, though, it's definitely a good idea to have a members-only section with post/behavior requirements. (Like the PCSX2 Beta forum -- oh! what mystery! -- but with a decidedly social purpose.) People tend to have more in-depth and honest conversation when they know that only proven members can read. (At least that's been my observation on other forums...)

In most other forums, fullsize attachment viewing prompts with a registration/login screen.

As you might have noticed, navigation and fullsize attachment viewing are pretty much unrestricted here (could change when bandwidth becomes a concern though), so the idea behind the "reg inciting" was to have this pop up somewhere, since it probably wouldnt be too desirable to have attachment viewing restricted, and the board maybe cant pop it up after viewing a certain number of attachments (like, 5 looks like a fine threshold).

Agreed. Not everyone does IRC.