2013: Should the Recruiting section be viewable by guests?

[hhcmatt]

Was mowing the lawn this weekend and was thinking about the pros and cons of not having the Recruiting board viewable by guests.  After thinking about this for a while, I'm a bit on the fence so I wanted to see what everyone else thought.  We are in no way affiliated with the university so any sort of concern with the NCAA would be similar to that of any other Husker recruiting message board.

BTW, this isn't a post about eliminating this section.  Recruiting will continue to be kept in a different forum.

 

Pros

• Athlete/Parents can easily find out that we're talking about their kid by searching
• We're able to show we're excited to see a recruit
• You don't have to sign in to read this information
• Makes this site very easy to find when someone searches for a recruit's name

 

Cons

• Athlete/Parents can easily find out that we're talking about their kid by searching
• Potentially people could trash/say something about a recruit that causes them to not come to Nebraska

 

Not sure what the magic ratio of poll results will be to change this.

We welcome your input on the matter.

[hskr4life]

I mean if they really wanted to read the recruiting thread, they can sign up for a FREE account.  If this was a paid site, it may be a little different.

[a0t0w0]

I'll be going ghost quite often if open to public.  Other than that, I don't see the difference. 

 

I love the way the recruiting board is now.  Not cluttered or overloaded, quality posts/posters. I guess if there's anyway making it public would change that then I would definitely be against it.  BUT I don't see how that could happen.

[a0t0w0]

Another con-

 

If players waste their time checking out the forums they'll easily be able to see the "Recruit this guy because we're obviously getting rid of this player anyway" type posts.

[leonidas]

There's barely anything negative on the recruiting forum and what little there is, it pales in comparison to the positive talk.  A recruit likes to read good things about them.  It took a while for me to first realize there was a recruiting forum because it was hidden until I logged on.  If I'm a recruit and visit this site coupled with visiting huskersonline.com and can't find anything at all about me, I may very well think, "Those other fan bases are right.  Nebraska fans really don't care about basketball."  Why hide the passion that NU fans have?  Why allow a recruit to think, "Hell, they don't even know who I am."  We already fight the perception that NU doesn't care about basketball.  If a recruit visits this site, doesn't see a post about them and doesn't realize there's a recruiting forum, that just reinforces that perception.

[MichHusker]

Leonidas...you changed my mind. Well done

[trickey]

One advantage of members only...it makes people sign up (and perhaps participate) rather than lurking, which I did for quite a while until I realized I needed to join to get the info I wanted about recruits.

[Searching 4 Chester Surles]

There's barely anything negative on the recruiting forum and what little there is, it pales in comparison to the positive talk.  A recruit likes to read good things about them.  It took a while for me to first realize there was a recruiting forum because it was hidden until I logged on.  If I'm a recruit and visit this site coupled with visiting huskersonline.com and can't find anything at all about me, I may very well think, "Those other fan bases are right.  Nebraska fans really don't care about basketball."  Why hide the passion that NU fans have?  Why allow a recruit to think, "Hell, they don't even know who I am."  We already fight the perception that NU doesn't care about basketball.  If a recruit visits this site, doesn't see a post about them and doesn't realize there's a recruiting forum, that just reinforces that perception.

 

Pros

• Athlete/Parents can easily find out that we're talking about their kid by searching
• We're able to show we're excited to see a recruit
• You don't have to sign in to read this information
• Makes this site very easy to find when someone searches for a recruit's name

 

Agreed with all of this. I think having more content appearing in Google/Y!/Bing search results would be a good thing.

[hhcmatt]

We're going to stick with our current policy and we'll talk it over next year