Eligibility for TAO?

[~Boudicca~]

I thought to post in TAO you had to have a certain number of posts.  Has that changed?  Just wondering.

[Cynthia Mosher]

Yes, it changed. It was placed in the announcement to allow all members to access and post. 

[Adaline'sMama]

So, can non member see it now too? Is it completely public? I guess I missed the announcement.

[Cynthia Mosher]

No, it is not completely public. If you log out you will see that you cannot see it. If you have less than 50 posts AND have not been registered for at least 6 months you cannot see it either. So it is semi-private - and the guidelines state that what is posted in Sex Talk stays in Sex Talk and is not to be discussed elsewhere, which is what we expect from members who post in the private forums. 

[Adaline'sMama]

Wait, now Im confused. I was asking if TAO is now public, not sex talk.

[Cynthia Mosher]

Oh sorry! TAO is completely public. 

[Adaline'sMama]

Thanks! I had no idea.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by Cynthia Mosher 

Yes, it changed. It was placed in the announcement to allow all members to access and post. 

What announcement? I am a regular poster in TAO and never saw any announcement.

Why was this decision made, if I might ask? I thought the whole "amongst ourselves" was kind of the purpose of that forum: to have a place where the entire www didn't have access.

[Mulvah]

Originally Posted by P.J. 

What announcement? I am a regular poster in TAO and never saw any announcement.

Why was this decision made, if I might ask? I thought the whole "amongst ourselves" was kind of the purpose of that forum: to have a place where the entire www didn't have access.

I never saw anything, either.

I think it's a shame.  Though what we post online is always public, that was an unsearchable forum and I think a lot of people felt comfortable posting more private things there.  

[Drummer's Wife]

Huh, I had no idea! Doesn't bother me, just different. I'm assuming parents as partners is still private?

[Cynthia Mosher]

Sorry for the late reply. 

The change was to open the forum up for more members to use rather than require someone be registered for 6 months and have 50 posts. However, I made the mistake of not keeping the forum restricted to members only when I changed the settings. A big oversight on my part for which I apologize. The settings are now that you must a registered member and logged in to view TAO. It is not crawled by Google or other search engines.

Parents as Partners is private and we have no plans to make it public. It was restricted for very definite privacy reasons due to the nature of the forum so we have no plan to revert it back to being open. If we did decide the forum needs to be public we'd respect the privacy already established there and simply close it and open a new forum. But we have no plans to do that. 

[MadiMamacita]

With all due respect, you might as well go ahead and change the name of the forum now that it is open to anyone who wants to take the 25 seconds to register an account. Especially with all the other changes happening board wide and all the issues we have seen lately with trolls it would be nice to have a place to really talk amongst ourselves.

[Cynthia Mosher]

We are removing the membership of trolls as issues arise and they present themselves.

 

The forum has been called Talk Amongst Ourselves since it was opened back in 1999-2000 and was never private or restricted until this past year when we restricted it to a specific member group. It is still restricted to MDC members so it is "talking amongst ourselves" and visitors cannot read the forum. So I think the name is fine. 

[Adaline'sMama]

Oh, I didnt realize it was still restricted to members. That makes me happier