I've often advocated for a password-protected forum, and the only real argument against it seems to have been that having the forums visible to the general public is how we attract new members. If people are now beginning to see the lack of password protection as a disincentive to posting, that rationale fades in importance. As far as the new member issue is concerned, it ought to be enough if we have a guest log-in account that lets people read any forum if they go through the slight effort of logging in.
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