Talk > Rants, Raves, and Praise > [RANT] Forums that make you register/log-in to search

[RANT] Forums that make you register/log-in to search

Yeah that sucks. You may want to try snopes.com instead BTW.

reply to aefstoggaflm
I HATE THAT!
some sites don't even let you view without hoop-jumping.

reply to aefstoggaflm
Alot of them come out of the box like this and the option is never changed, If the option is on, I like most of the forum admins turn it off and add a robots.txt to stop Google from prying at parts of the forum it should not be and plus the Russian spambots love searching for find people to send private messages too.

reply to aefstoggaflm

reply to aefstoggaflm
There used to be a nice site called BugMeNot.com... now they block most sites.
--
PRescott7-2097

reply to aefstoggaflm

Search results

Aah, I used the search function to search.
The "find" function does bring me to a login page.
bugmenot.com does have some logins which I haven't tried if you're interested.

reply to Technogeez

reply to joako

reply to Technogeez

That was posted before it was made clear that the OP didn't in fact use the SEARCH function of the site to do his, er, SEARCH.

reply to aefstoggaflm
Don't forget that, even if a site is password protected, Google is often given a free waiver on this; this may be true for some other search engines, also. Googling with internet site:mythbusters.com probably would have led you where you wanted to go. Even on sites with a decent search function, I often also use Google, because it finds and presents things in a different way.

I forgot to add that Google usually caches stuff, too, so even if the link they give you is still blocked, the cache can be very informative. And sometimes just clicking on the link via Google (instead of accessing it directly) gives you a free pass, too. I do this all of the time with articles in the Wall Street Journal, and it almost always works.

Case in point: go to a current "pay" article on the front page of the WSJ (or use an external link) and you'll get this, which just gives a couple of paragraphs of teaser:

»online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142···llection

Google the headline for that article ("Indian Firm in Early Talks to Buy MGM") and you'll get this, which shows you the whole thing. Note the different "mod" parm, but simply tweaking the URL doesn't work; go have to do a Google search:

»online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142···news_wsj

A year or two ago, when Rupert Murdoch was throwing a hissy fit about how Google and others "steal" from him so he was threatening to block access, it was pointed out that this method still worked and that he was making no apparent attempt to block it. Apparently he was (correctly) afraid to all-out block Google, but I believe he and Google eventually came to some accommodation, where maybe Google pays him a fee for accessing his sites from theirs.

reply to fatness

reply to aefstoggaflm
I've had that happen to me in the past as well, and it P*SSES me off......

Even not searching for something on the site, just reading the forums and such.
This site is the ONLY one I sign into every time I read. Most of the others, I prefer to remain anonymous unless I want to post. Why should I have to register to READ?
--
Mom and Crockett...... I miss you both!

reply to aefstoggaflm
My pet peeve is specialized forums where certain trades and professions hang out, and if you as an outsider come in and ask some basic questions, you get hit with "We won't talk to just anybody in here because we spent many years and mucho dollars becoming "professionals", and we don't just share this info for free" - blah blah, blah blah. But then if they ask basic questions about other subjects (computers or whatever), either in their own forums or elsewhere, they expect free and immediate answers to be forthcoming.

Karma's a real b_tch, though, because as cold and unkind as they are to outsiders, they are often even worse to each other. It's always hilarious to watch so-called "professional" discussions devolve into flame wars, with them calling each other "crooked hacks" in various ways and for various reasons - sometimes with a certain amount of restrained civility, but usually not! The more "respectable" the profession the funnier it is, too.