How about opening the forums to be publicly viewed?

[CrabbyJo]

I know there is SO much misinformation out there about hermit crab care, and I know that when Im' looking for information, I don't usually want to sign up on every forum I visit to see what they are saying (although I did with the crabs, I was driven!), and I imagine there are a lot of people out there like that.
I think it could be invaluable to open at least the part of the forums having to do with crab care. We'd probably even get more people to sign up as they read our conversations and realize things they need to know about their own crabitats.
I am stressing this because I've realized how few sites there really are that have really good info about crab care, and this is one of them.
What do you think Wai?
Am I just asking you to do a bunch more work?

[Hermie's rule]

Honestly, I agree with what you're saying. I only joined up cause I wanted to read what was written, then I got active and now this is my main forum home.

[pookie_spike09]

same here!! i just wanted to learn more when i got my first crab!!

[Mr.Crab]

It is better if people need to register to look at topics, it will make the forum a bigger comunity, and if they had questions, they would post them.

[CrabbyJo]

Actually, when i was looking for info on crabbing, if I went to a site and had to register to see anything, I'd pass it by and look for easier pickings.
To the contrary, if I found a forum and found them talking about something that was really giving me info, and I wanted to ask questions, I'd then register.
I try to think of how I choose where to settle in as far as forums go when I surf the web for info.
I'm glad Wai made the care forums open, that's great. They don't need to see our other chat forums, but I'd also rather some get some good info here than bad info elsewhere.
This also makes it possible for people to google terms and questions and find this forum and see what they're looking for.

[Wai]

I'll keep the forums open to anyone for the time being. Back then, I restricted it to members only, because our limited bandwidth kept getting gobbled up. Now that we've got a lot more bandwidth, I suppose we can support the demands of the public.